"Are we going to do it?" Donny looked at the crumpled up note in his hand.

"What if that note is right? What if she's up to something?" Karen asked.

"I never trusted any of them from the beginning." Will said, turning to look at Donny. "But you wanted to help people, right? We could also use the water."

"So we'll be killing two birds with one stone." Donny mused.

Three. Will corrected internally.

This was a good chance to make use of the free workforce to hunt for Parasites before the world started catching on and learning their true value. Everything would be mostly monopolized by the government and the larger companies in the future. With all those zeroes gathered in one place, one or two Parasites were bound to show up.

"Then we'll need to pay a visit to Gerald." Karen said as Will turned on the ignition and drove away from the mall.

They returned to Karen's neighbourhood and arrived at Gerald's house a little later. Although he was surprised to see them again, especially Karen—who he had thought was gone for good, he was immediately ecstatic to find out that they wanted to go through with his plan. After going through a few details, they made plans to meet up again, and Will left them with a two-way radio to keep in contact.

----------------------------------------

Two days later, two vehicles arrived at the mall's parking lot. Will, Donny, and Karen exited from one of them while Gerald and his group exited the other one. There they found the people from the mall preparing their own vehicles.

"What's going on? Aren't we having the meeting?" Donny asked.

"The people from Nirvana insisted on holding the meeting at their location." Jerry said. "They guarantee that it's the safest place for it."

Anne seemed to be unhappy with the arrangement. In the end, Jerry and Jacques were coming along with their people, while Anne sent a group with a man named Noah in charge.

Jerry's group led and cleared the way, and very soon Will and Donny had an idea of where Nirvana was. They turned onto a wide street and caught sight of a wall down the street.

The last time Will had been here, it had been a fence, but now it had been reinforced with corrugated metal panels, creating a wall. Guards stood on top the wall, looking over the street with rifles. When they spotted the convoy, they signaled for the gate to be opened.

Once inside, someone directed them towards the police station.

"I guess we found a skip for the high-level area, and we're going straight to the boss." Donny said.

"What?" Karen asked.

"Nothing, just talking to myself."

As they drove through Nirvana—which had taken up at least an entire city block, they spotted many people going about their business, like everything was normal. Some people were working at a construction site, some were fixing things up, a large group of people were working at a park which had been converted into a farm.

"It feels so surreal." Karen said as she took in the entire scene. "Like nothing had ever happened here."

"People are surprisingly resilient when they want to be." Will said.

They soon arrived at a familiar police station, there were already several vehicles in the parking lot and many of them were in bad condition—covered in blood, scratches, dents, cracked windshields, and busted windows.

A group that was all armed up and wearing bulletproof vests were already waiting there to meet them when they arrived.

"What the..." Karen uttered when she spotted a giant man who was around 2.5 meters tall—about the same size that Matthew had been.

"Yeah..." Donny also stared at the man.

But Will's attention had been captured by another man. This man had curly blonde hair with a stubble and piercing green eyes. Will felt that this man looked very familiar.

They exited the vehicles and another man stepped forward to greet their entire group.

"Welcome to Nirvana. My name is Vance, and I'll be taking you all to the conference room for the meeting. As we believe in the right to protect yourselves, you can all keep your weapons with you. But keep in mind that we also have the right to protect ourselves as well." As he said that, his entire group cocked their weapons in a show a force.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Overcompensate much?" Karen muttered.

Will had been keeping his eye on the familiar looking man and caught it when he flicked his gaze over to Karen the moment she spoke, even though she had been whispering.

"I wonder if they do this with everyone?" Donny whispered back.

Vance led them into the police station that was no longer barricaded, and they immediately heard barking as soon as they entered the lobby.

"Can someone shut that damn dog up." Vance growled in annoyance.

"You're keeping pets?" Jerry asked.

"It's a zombie we caught." Vance explained. "I'm not a fan of keeping one of those things here, and it's a drain on our resources, but this one is a bit stronger and smarter than the rest, and one of the eggheads wants to study it."

"Oh, we had a bit of a problem with a dog ourselves until recently. Maybe it's the same one?" Jacques spoke in interest.

"You want to take a look?" Vance asked.

"Sure."

Vance looked around for someone to pass the job onto when the familiar man stepped forward. "I'll take them."

"Alright." Vance nodded. "Norman will take you for a look."

It's him. Will confirmed the man's identity the moment he heard his name.

Will felt tempted to reach for his pistol but held himself back. This man—Norman Donovan, was unknown now but in the future he would become one of Canada's most wanted. That was because he would unleash chemical weapons in a small town in order to take all the Parasites and gather enough bodies to feed a Metamorphosis Pod for his evolution.

Will, Donny, and Karen followed along as Norman took a few men and led a small group into another room. They were led to a prison cell, and inside was a dog that had been completely buckled up in multiple restraints. The moment the dog spotted them, it began to flail and twist around, barking even more viciously.

"We had to use a couple of the restraints because it kept breaking out of them." Norman explained.

"I think this is the same dog that had been messing with us for a while." Jacques said, unsure but downplaying how much the dog had actually terrorized them.

"Yeah, it is." Jason confirmed.

"Looks like we have to offer you our thanks." Jacques nodded at Norman. "How did you catch it anyway?"

"Although, it's a little more cunning than the other zombies, it's still not as smart as an actual dog. All we had to do was set a trap."

Two of the men that had followed Jacques grew red in embarrassment.

That's because it's barely regained use of its faculties. Will thought. If it had a couple more weeks as a Category 1, although it wouldn't have recovered its memories, it would have regained full use of its faculties.

"So you have someone studying it?" Will asked. "Have you discovered anything?"

"Would you like to trade knowledge?" Norman posed.

"That was one of our goals of this meeting, actually." Jacques added.

"It would be better to do so when the other communities arrive." Norman turned to leave but Will stopped him.

"I'm also studying these things as well." Will said. "Do you mind if I take a sample?"

"Are you a biology student or something?" Norman turned around to look at Will and Jacques also looked at him in interest.

"You could say something like that."

After taking a moment to consider, Norman agreed. "Sure thing. If you find anything out, I'd like to hear about it."

"Of course." Will lied. "I need to get my tools though."

Will retrieved his kit from the jeep and returned shortly after.

The door to the cell was opened and he took out a syringe, filling it up with enough tranquilizer to knock out an elephant. They had to have multiple men hold the dog still to keep it from squirming while Will found a spot that was soft enough that the syringe could pierce.

The moment Will injected it with the tranquilizer, the dog began to struggling even more wildly, snapping the needle.

"Uh!" One of the men that was holding onto the dog's left foreleg was sent hurling into the wall.

Soon the dog's barking and struggling stopped, and it was knocked out.

Will scanned the dog with his visions but couldn't see the Parasite. His best bet was his infrared vision but the dog appeared in different shades of red, orange, and yellow. Therefore, he brought out a stethoscope and listened for any irregular sounds. Will soon found something in the upper foreleg near the joint, but continued to thoroughly inspect the dog to put on an act.

He brought out a temperature gun, taking notes, and another syringe to take a blood sample to completely sell his show. When he started taking samples of the dog's hair, saliva, and nail clippings, some of the people who were watching finally started to lose interest—Donny was also adding to the distraction by asking questions about the police station.

"Do you get justice boners living in a police station?"

"What the hell is this kid talking about?" A couple of them laughed.

Will chose that moment to unbuckle some of the restraints near the foreleg.

"What are you doing?" Norman questioned. He and Jacques were still watching intently.

"I need a tissue sample."

"Why do you need to take off the restraints for that?"

Will gave an excuse he had already prepared. "I also want some samples of its muscles, and it seems to be most dense around here."

"Okay." Norman nodded.

Will brought out a scalpel and made a small incision where he thought the Parasite was located. He had to put in a bit of strength to break the skin. He didn't find anything but on his second incision, he saw a speck of black.

Inwardly celebrating, he cut a bit off of the area around the speck of black in order to hide it. Once he cut out the piece of flesh with the speck of black inside, he stored it into a test tube he had prepared.

He safely placed the test tube away and re-buckled the restraints.

"You're not gonna take a urine sample too?" Norman grinned.

"I'd rather not..." Will declined as Jacques laughed and gave him a friendly slap on the back.

"You were so thorough, I thought you were gonna take more, if you know what I mean." Norman wiggled his eyebrows at Will suggestively.

Will let out a cough as he excused himself, and finally let out a smile once he returned to the car and safely tucked his kit away.

He finally found a Parasite that he could use, and it was a useful B-rank combat Parasite too.

That was because the Parasite he found was a dog flea.