Zombies 4

It Can't Be

Wyatt and Addison had rushed back to Z-Tech with the flash drive, but unfortunately the building was shut down for the night.

Wyatt growled in frustration as he pounded on the door. "How can they just leave when there's a crisis involving an entire population of people!?"

"They are people too." Addison reminded him. "They need to sleep and eat. Some of them probably have families too."

Wyatt sighed. "I know, and you're right, but now we have answers that could lead to fixing this mess and no one is here to help us."

"We'll get the information to them and fix this." Addison reassured him. "Just not tonight. We'll have to come back first thing in the morning."

"Morning? It could be too late by morning!" Wyatt ranted. "None have them have been without Z-bands for that long. What if they go full Zombie and we can't bring them back? We can't wait that long!"

Addison grabbed his shoulders and held him firmly until he calmed down enough to look her in the eyes. "Wyatt, I'm scared too. I want to end this just as much as you do, but there is nothing we can do right now."

Wyatt grabbed the flash drive from Addison's hand. "Well you can go home, I'm staying here until someone shows up. I hope Z-Tech starts its day early."

Addison sighed. "I'm not leaving you here alone. If you want to stay, fine. We'll sleep in the car and I'll text mom and dad to let them know. We'll be here when the first person arrives in the morning."

"Alright." Wyatt agreed as the two made their way back to the car.

Time skip brought to you by Coach's Froyo Cart

Despite the protest of their parents, Wyatt and Addison spent the night in her car parked outside of Z-Tech. It had been a long night but the two had finally managed to get to sleep.

Headlights flashed in Addison's window and she blinked rapidly as her eyes adjusted to the darkness blanketing the parking lot. As her vision focused, she noticed a car parked a few spaces down and a figure emerging from within. It wasn't until the figure stepped under one of the street lamps that she recognized who it was.

Dr. Andrews.

Addison shook Wyatt's shoulder as she watched the doctor head for the building. "Wake up, wake up!"

"What?" Wyatt asked groggily, sitting up.

"Dr. Andrews just arrived. Come on." Addison explained, already opening her car door.

Wyatt's eyes shot open and he scrambled out of the car behind her as the two ran after the doctor.

"Dr. Andrews! Dr. Andrews! Please wait!"

Dr. Andrews turned around and stared at the two teens in disbelief as they approached him. "Addison? Wyatt? It's 4am, what are you both doing here?"

"We have something you need to see." Addison explained, holding up the flash drive. "It should help us fix this whole mess."

Dr. Andrews eyes widened as he unlocked the door and ushered them inside. "Come along then, we have no time to waist."

The three of them hurried to Dr. Andrews' office. He set up his computer and Addison handed him the fashdrive. "Pull up the data you were analyzing yesterday and then run the program on the drive."

Dr. Andrews nodded and began typing away on his lap top. They watched as the seemingly normal data changed and sections became highlighted in red.

"The problem was here the whole time, it was just hidden by a Trojan horse." Dr. Andrews replied in amazement. "How did you both figure it out?"

"We didn't." Wyatt admitted. "My girlfriend Eliza did. She used the Software cleaning program she developed to remove the Trojan horse from the data. Revealing the true problem."

"Well I must say that your girlfriend is very talented." Dr. Andrews smiled. "But what is the encryption key?"

"We don't know." Addison sighed. "Eliza said that we should tell you to track the corrupted data back to its source and that once we find the culprit, they can give it to us."

"Ah, it must be a complex encryption. They're very difficult to crack using even advanced code cracking software." Dr. Andrews replied, typing away on his computer. "But like your friend suggested I can track what computer the encryption key was created on as long as it is a computer that was used in this building.

"Good." Wyatt nodded. "The faster we fix this the better."

"Agreed." Dr. Andrews nodded. "Many Zombies are beginning to struggle. This needs to be fixed quickly."

"How do you know that?" Addison asked.

"I drove by Zombie Town this morning." Dr. Andrews admitted. "I could here the moaning and groaning from inside my car. Things are getting worse."

Addison and Wyatt shared a worried look. They had feared that going over night without operational Z-bands might have consequences. Now all they could hope was that they could fix everything before it got any worse.

A 'ding' sound came from Dr. Andrews laptop and they gathered around to see what the trace had found.

"Well, what does it say?" Wyatt asked.

Dr. Andrews scrolled through the report the trace had given him. "It seems the source is a loaner laptop given to one of our interns. It gave me the computer ID number so I can look up who has that particular laptop."

"I didn't know Z-Tech had an internship program." Addison admitted.

Dr. Andrews smiled. "Yes, we take medical students and computer science students. Our facility has a variety of departments so it's a great place for college students to observe different areas to discover what they are most interested in."

"That sounds wonderful." Addison smiled. "This place is really something."

"That it is." Dr. Andrews smiled. "Now let's see, here is the laptop in question and it was loaned out to a medical intern by the name of...."

"No way. It can't be." Addison replied, shaking her head. "This has to be a mistake."

Wyatt peered over her shoulder and his eyes widened. "Woah."

Dr. Andrews looked between the two. "I take it you both know Bucky Buchanan?"

Author's Note

The end is drawing near and so is Halloween. Have a good one guys!

              -Meloetta246