To Be A Leader

Chapter 20: Windmills Of Your Mind

"Everything is normal up here, Runner Five," Veronica says with a sigh as she looks at my brain scans. I simply wipe the sweat from my brow as I keep running on the treadmill. "If we can't reproduce what's happening in your brain, we can't do anything."

"We could take another look over the house," Tom suggests, "try to work out what that voice was."

"Yeah, well, we do actually sort of know what she is," Sam says before sighing heavily. "So, about three years after the apocalypse, when Van Ark was still alive, me, Janine and Five went into the main building of a company called Xia-Hifa Biologics to retrieve a vaccine for a virus called Junin2. It would have been totally deadly to, you know, everybody if we hadn't.

"Anyway, the reason it was tricky to get inside is because the place was still being run by a deranged artificial intelligence called A.N.N.I.E. She had like, multiple personalities at war with each other-some nice, and some awful."

"And they all hated me," I mumble under my breath.

"Oh, yes, I think I read about that in one of Janine's files Ian gave me," Veronica says, seeming more interested than fearful. "A.N.N.I.E. sounded interesting! I'd have liked to look more closely at her."

I give the teenager a confused look. How is she not getting that A.N.N.I.E. is dangerous?

"Yeah, well, she got a good, close look at us, and it wasn't fun," He replies. "She tried to kill us in a lot of interesting ways."

I hear the coms door swing open and then slam shut, causing my steps to falter.

"Sam!" Jody shouts. "Sam, sorry. I've just had a very long conversation with Saturnalia District, trying to convince them not to go over to the Ministry."

There's a beat of silence. "They're going over to the Ministry, though, aren't they?"

"Yeah," She says defeatedly. "They want the vaccine. But look, Sam, Saturnalia's said they'd seen something passing by the edge of their territory, heading in your direction. A headless zombie."

Sam groans. "This really is not our day, is it? Alright. Switching cameras and-oh, crap! Yeah. Those indestructible zombies you trapped in the mall. Not so trapped anymore. Heading right for the Center."

"How did they even get out of the tunnels under the White Fingers? How did they get here?"

"I'm guessing they wandered through some secret tunnel before the whole thing collapsed and was swept away," I pant. "Unless they somehow managed to swim back to shore, but I don't know how they could've done that with all the armor they were wearing."

"We can guess how this all happened later," Sam says. "You've got ten minutes tops before they all get here, so you need to either evacuate or find something in this manor that can destroy nearly indestructible zombies."

"This part of the building has adequate zombie protection, I think," Veronica says when I start to slow down. "Five, keep running. We need to try and get some data on what's happening in your head while we have the equipment."

I keep running, but I still open my mouth to protest. "But what about the rest of the house? What about everyone that's here?"

"I'm sure it will be fine." She turns to Kytan. "Have your people lower the shutters to the windows and lock all the doors. If the security systems here are in as good of condition as A.N.N.I.E. seems to be, then everyone should be safe, and after the zombies tire of not getting through, they'll move on."

Kytan looks unsure of this, but he still heads off. I want to argue, but I doubt that would do any good. Veronica is very good at arguing.

I don't know for sure if I'm immune to the zombie virus because there was that zombie shepherdess who got Van Ark's treatments and still turned gray. Plus we have no idea how these zombies differ from regular ones in who they effect. It's obvious something is different since destroying the brain does nothing to stop them.