Ben, his eyes wide and intense, like white bowls, watched the Victoria and Albert Museum from the cover of the trees across the road. He was a scrawny man, thin and wasted, but not skeletal. Muscles, taut and ready, strained against his skin, like scarabs trying to escape a cadaver. There was a rifle slung across his back. It was a bulky thing, made from hard white plastics and silver metals. It was not like the rifles from before the Message. This was new tech. This was something from the People.
The watcher wrinkled his nose; the faint whiff of scorched wood still wafted from the crucified angel affixed to the tree trunk just a few metres away from him. The smell only occasionally rose above the stench of decay and Ben made regular sweeps of an aftershave bottle beneath his nose.
The apocalypse had suited him. He had more freedoms, more powers, more of everything. He was respected in this world. But the smell. The smell drove him crazy.
The sound of a jetpack jerked his head to the sky. There they were. Tash and her pet angel. The big guy carried her, the whine of his engines the telltale sound of desperation.
'You can't hide forever,' he said to the flying pair. He took a mobile from his pocket, pointed it at the two of them and took a picture just before they disappeared behind the buildings of the V and A. He scrolled through a short list of contacts until the name Kyle appeared on the screen. His thumb dabbed on the name, opening the message screen. He attached the photo and wrote the message: found her
He pressed send.
***
'Hi,' said Tash to Gregor. Her voice was light and friendly, echoing slightly to the high glass ceiling. 'Gregor, right? Chief bio-mech of the Mariners?'
The old bio-mech was alone in the rotunda. He grunted a reply.
Tash still held the bulging carrier bags and Vine loomed behind her, carrying her rucksack. Hook walked with her, smiling at her whenever he could and Jared trailed after them, watching and listening.
'Wow,' said Tash as she approached the desk and Gregor's work stations. Her eyes were wide with wonder. 'Vine said you had some cool stuff but this is unbelievable.' She placed the carrier bags next to the desk with a heave of clinking noises, and stepped through the gap into Gregor's work area. The man frowned his annoyance at her but she either ignored him or was just too excited to notice. 'Is that an infra-red retro-reflective camera?'
Gregor nodded, the scowl still firmly on his face.
'2D or 3D?' Tash asked.
'Both,' said Gregor.
'Wow! And is that a Kistler Piezoelectric 3D Force Platform?'
Gregor nodded, his frown slipping as Tash's enthusiasm began to worm into him. 'You worked with the Lynxes?'
'Uh-huh,' Tash nodded and then dashed to more of Gregor's exotic pieces of equipment. 'A 3D accelerometer? Isokinetiv Dynamometer with integrated PC? Force distribution instrumentation for measuring impact? Applied VR simulator?'
All the questions were rushed in an excited gabble and Gregor nodded to every one of them, his frown turning closer and closer to a smile with every affirmative.
'And of course a big pile of laptops!' she patted the tack of portable computers. 'And a running machine. Wow, it's huge! I bet Vine could have a jog on that beast.'
YOU ARE READING
Stella the Zombie Killer
TerrorStella is three years into the apocalypse and there are too many zombies to kill. Three years since the crash; three years since she was the Cynosure, champion of the Games and the most famous person in the world; three years of living with Hook and...
