Chapter 77

A moment later, they stormed into the corridor, their footsteps echoing off the walls. Coming to an abrupt halt, the survivors froze upon spotting Jake crouched down further ahead. Frank and Isra led the group, the other two trailing behind. Archie and Rick collided with Frank and Isra as the leading duo unexpectedly halted. Maneuvering around them, Archie positioned himself beside Frank on the left while Rick took his place beside Isra on the right. The four of them locked eyes with Jake, who remained crouched farther down the corridor. He stared back at them through his large unblinking eyes.

“What do we do now, boss?” Archie asked nervously.

Before the leader of the group could say something, Jake slowly lifted his hands in the air.

“What is it doing?” Rick asked. “Trying to surrender?”

“I doubt it,” Isra replied, her tone wary.

Jake mimicked writing as if his left hand were a piece of paper and his right hand held a pen. He pantomimed writing and then pretended to read before exhibiting his left hand to the survivors. They peered at his actions with puzzled expressions. While he thought he was being clear, they seemed to struggle to immediately grasp his message. A wave of confusion passed through them as they exchanged uncertain glances.

“What the hell is the freak doing?” Frank grumbled.

“It seems like it’s imitating writing,” Archie guessed.

“But why?” Rick said, his brow furrowed in thought.

“Guys, I think it wants to say something to us,” Isra said. “Since it doesn’t have a mouth, it wants to write something for us.”

The very idea seemed to anger the leader of the group. He spun toward Isra, glaring at the woman.

“It’s impossible, dammit,” he returned sharply. “That thing can’t be that intelligent.”

Isra seemed to be unfazed by his outburst.

“How do you know? Let’s give it something to write with and see if we can communicate with it.”

“Give it something to write with?” Frank scoffed. “Like what?”

“Maybe a marker or something?” Archie offered.

Frank turned abruptly to face Archie, his expression fierce.

“When was the last time you found a marker in this goddamn world?” the leader snapped. “Or any other writing tools, for that matter?”

Archie fell silent, either conceding to Frank’s point or wary of provoking his boss further.

“We could give it a PDA,” Isra suggested, who was the only one who remained unperturbed by Frank’s temper.

“But a PDA doesn’t have a text editor,” Rick mentioned, standing by Isra. “We can’t even manually write entries in our diaries. They appear automatically.”

“Exactly,” Frank said, pleased to find support from at least one of his people. “He’s right. Listen to the guy. For once, he came up with something smart to say.”

Isra countered, “Doesn’t mean we can’t write at all on our devices. We can mark a location and give it a name. So a PDA does let us type something in.”

“The names given to markers are restricted to just a few words, though,” Rick pointed out.

“Doesn’t matter. It could be enough to test the creature’s intelligence. And if it possesses writing abilities, it could group markers together and input a few words into each, forming a complete sentence.”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

She turned and looked at Jake, who was still crouching down farther down the corridor and observing them with his unblinking eyes. He met her gaze and nodded in acknowledgment.

“Frag me,” Archie muttered. “It listens and understands everything we say. It understands every freaking word we say!”

“You can’t know that for sure, you dumbass,” Frank grumbled.

Archie and Rick seemed to be genuinely excited. They wanted to know if Jake was truly intelligent and what it was that he wanted to tell them. Frank’s mood darkened further as he noted his three companions watching him intently, hoping he would go along with their idea. The leader of the group hesitated. It seemed that while he opposed the idea of Jake being intelligent, he desired to uncover the truth, mirroring his companions’ curiosity.

Finally, he conceded.

“Alright,” he said before shifting his gaze to Isra. “Go ahead and hand over your PDA to the freak.”

The woman raised her eyebrows. “Why me?”

A shit-eating grin spread across Frank’s face. “Why not you? After all, it was your idea to give it a PDA, wasn’t it?”

At first, it appeared that Isra might decline. However, her expression shifted to one of determination. With her PDA in one hand and what resembled a submachine gun in the other, she began to walk down the corridor toward Jake.

He didn’t move a muscle, watching the woman slowly walk toward him. He remained perfectly still, doing his best to look non-threatening. Behind the woman, he saw her companions positioning themselves to protect her, ensuring she was not in their line of fire as they aimed their weapons at him. They were prepared to open fire on him if he attacked her. However, he was going to do nothing of the sort.

Isra kept moving slowly down the corridor, getting closer to Jake with each step she took and approaching the elevator entrance along the way. Though her attention remained on him, he silently hoped that she would catch sight of the magically-enhanced platform within the elevator shaft and be intrigued enough to check it out.

Contrary to his hopes, Isra’s progress slowed as she neared him, eventually coming to a stop just a few steps before reaching the entrance to the elevator shaft. She was clearly afraid to get any closer to him.

For a moment, she hesitated, her gaze fixed on him as she pondered her next move. Finally, she spoke, “I’ll place it here, step back, and you’ll have to come and get it. Alright?”

Jake was unsatisfied with the current turn of events. He didn’t want Isra to retreat. Instead, he needed her to approach closer so she could discover the magical platform. Just as she made a move to bend down, he vigorously shook his head, catching her attention once more as she glanced back at him.

“No?” she asked, a look of confusion crossing her face. “What is it that you want, then?”

He extended his hand toward her, implying that she should come closer and place her PDA in his hand. Despite his efforts to appear non-threatening, Isra hesitated, unwilling to approach him due to her lingering fear. She took an unconscious step backward, and Jake noticed three other survivors behind her tensing up, unsure of what was happening or what to expect from him. Jake hoped he hadn’t complicated things further.

Before he could come up with an idea to put Isra at ease, Frank yelled to her, “Is everything alright?”

“Think so,” Isra replied.

“Then why won’t you give the freak the device?” Frank demanded.

“I don’t want to get any closer.”

“Maybe you could toss it over?” Rick suggested.

Isra took a moment to think, then shifted her gaze to Jake, locking eyes with him as she posed the question, “If I toss my PDA to you, will you catch it?”

Seeing that she was unwilling to get any closer, Jake responded with a nod, raising both hands in readiness to receive the device.

“If he breaks your PDA, you’re gonna have to look for another one,” Frank grumbled from a few yards behind her. “It’s gonna be a pain.”

“Try not to break it, alright?” Isra said, her focus still on Jake, who nodded in agreement.

“PDAs are nearly unbreakable, though,” Archie said meekly to no one in particular.

Just as Isra was about to toss the device to him, she paused as a realization dawned on her.

“Wait a sec,” she said. “I probably need to unlock it for you first.”

She pressed her thumb against the screen of the device, then tapped a few more times to complete the necessary actions.

“Alright. Catch.”

She tossed the PDA underhand toward Jake. With impressive agility, he reached out and snatched the device out of the air with one hand, leaving Isra and her companions gasping in surprise. He glanced at them briefly before shifting his focus down to the device now securely held in his hand.

Isra had already opened the map app for him and had even placed a pin on a random location. Attached to the marker was an empty label with a blinking text cursor inside, poised for him to begin inputting information. The lower side of the screen displayed a virtual keyboard, ready for his use.

Jake took a second to think of the message he wanted to write. He then poised his thumbs over the keyboard to start typing the text into the label while the group of survivors waited.