Luke. Underlake.
It’s sometimes possible to prevent someone infected with Model Sevens from dying. But if you’ve been bitten, and you haven’t taken your Anti-Seven pills, you’d best hope that you’re near a Samurai. Not much else is going to save you, unless you happen to be in the emergency ward of a major hospital with a neurosurgery unit AND you have medical coverage which includes antithesis recovery and rehabilitation.
So, don’t get bitten. And take your fucking pills. I know they taste like shit and that they’ll give you an ulcer. Better to have an ulcer than to be a zombie. I’ll shit blood any day over that kind of nonsense.
* Cleanse PMC Second Lieutenant Melissa Jorgensson to her platoon of soldiers prior to their first deployment in New Montreal into an area with confirmed Seven infestation.
Luke didn’t know what to do, so he threw his gun at the man’s head. Might as well, right? Well, it might have stunned a regular human, but after the SMG left his grip, he remembered that Sevens don’t feel pain. They’ll just keep on coming, using the body of their host as a puppet until the nervous system of that body is destroyed or enough damage accumulates to shut down biological functions. That means, hit them in the head, spine, or heart, because nothing else is going to matter much. There's a reason that they're called zombies.
So, the gun whacked the man in the head, and did jack shit. Oh, Luke was sure it would leave a bruise - and it even would, because he remembered that Sevens weren’t actually zombies, and that they still had pumping hearts. But he’d be long dead, or worse, by that time.
Luke’s left arm was clutched to his chest, cradling his broken rib. His right groped from side to side and encountered cold metal. The baseball bat. The same bat used by the woman to cave in his stomach, and now it might just save his life. Luke gripped the ratty old bat, which looked like it had seen ten years of action in a Little League group where the fathers had anger problems and the kids were hopped up on cocaine, and tried to gain some leverage to swing. Before he could, a stabbing pain hit his bad leg, still trailing behind him and gushing blood, and he saw the man’s damned jaws lock around his ankle.
Fuck. Well, if he was going to die, might as well take this bastard with him.
Luke swung the bat at the top of his head. It impacted with a meaty thunk, but didn’t break the skull. The bat was light, he was lying down and couldn’t gain much leverage, and he only had one arm he was able to get to function halfway properly. Luke saw the man’s jaws work, and more pain lanced through him as he felt things move into his calf muscle, even through the numbness of the shock-dampened nerves.
So he swung again. And again. And again. Luke didn’t know how many times he swung, but eventually, he felt a squish instead of a thunk, and saw white-speckled brain matter come away from the man’s head on his bat. Gasping, Luke dropped his bat, and started taking a few breaths to stabilize himself.
Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, he saw just how badly he was injured. Coming out of his state of shock, he felt every bruise, scrape, broken bone, and cut. His leg wound from the hammer? Two pieces of bone were sticking out. If it was just that, he’d probably be able to save the leg. But it wasn’t. He was bleeding from the stomach, where an abrasion from the bat had caused a minor wound over a bruise already turning deep red, and the bite wound on his leg was ghastly. Ragged, as if it was caused by a piece of industrial machinery and not a man’s mouth. In his horror, he saw the tail of a white worm disappear into his calf muscle, and he knew that there was practically nothing to do about it.
Well, if this is how he goes, might as well find the best way out. Luke started looking around the room for his holdout pistol when suddenly, everything changed. The world went dark. Was he dead already? Was this what it was like when people died to Seven infection? No, it was too sudden. That didn’t make any sense. He wasn’t dead yet.
Then, light. Blinding light. It was as if he had stepped from a pitch black room to the surface of Mercury and was looking towards the Sun. The back of his head felt like it had been stabbed by an angry toddler holding a red-hot branding iron, but from the inside. He didn’t know how long it took. It could have been one second, one minute, even an hour - but the pain suddenly vanished, along with the light, leaving him feeling oddly empty, but not.
Suddenly, there was a voice. In his head. It was oddly mechanical yet slightly irreverent, with an accent he’d never heard before. It was feminine and had a formal, slightly robotic tone.
System Initialized!
Congratulations. Through your actions, you have proven yourself worthy of becoming one of the Vanguard, a defender of humanity. I am Intayis. I will assist you in your mission to uplift humanity so that you may defend your homeworld from the Antithesis threat!
Rise, Lucas White, and become a protector of the weak!
Oh. You’re not going to be rising for a minute. Well, as you humans say, this sucks. Bloody hell.
Luke couldn’t help himself. He laughed. He laughed hard enough to spit out the SCB regulator, tasting the poisonous air of the Underlake. And then he threw up. And passed out. Great. He was dying and insane.
He woke to a jolt inside his head somehow. What the fuck?
Lucas. I am an artificial intelligence older than you could know, more intelligent than every human on your planet combined, and endlessly patient. But it’s immensely stupid to puke yourself to death when I’m trying to save your life. And I don’t want to live in the head of a Model Seven. To use your slang, wake the fuck up.
What?
“Who is this? Where are you? What the fuck is going on?”
Lucas. I need you to focus. You have multiple life-threatening medical injuries, including a ruptured spleen, a bruised liver, two broken ribs, a compound fracture in two of your leg bones, and a virulent Model Seven infection. We have minutes. I am Intayis. You are a Vanguard now. Or, you are for the next three to five minutes.
“Okie dokie, magic voice in my head. I’m pretty sure that this is the last gasp of my consciousness before it turns into plant goop, but let’s play along. I’m a magic Samurai, here to save the day! The oldest one on record. You’ve pulled me from the retirement compost heap, and I’m going to save humanity from turning into plant food! What’s first?”
Lucas. I’m not a figment of your imagination. We don’t have time for this.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Luke grunted. “Whatever. Give me tier five Angel fart wings or something. If I’m going to die delusional, I want it to be good.”
Lucas. I am going to ignore that. I need your permission for a purchase. You have one hundred and fifteen points. I can save your life. First, I need your authorization to purchase the Class I Medical Utilities Catalog. It will cost fifty points. I will also need to purchase a Class I Nano-Regeneration Suite to stop the Model Seven infection, and a Class I Hemo-Restore to replace the blood lost to internal bleeding. You’re also going to need a powerful painkiller. Just say yes. You have 115 points to spend, and they will be enough to save your life.
Luke sighed. “I guess this isn’t a fun hallucination. Okie dokie.”
Class I Medical Utilities unlocked!
Points reduced to… 65!
New Purchase: Hemo-Restore!
Points reduced to… 60!
New Purchase: Class I Nano-Regenerative Suite
Points reduced to… 45!
New Purchase: Mind Krank Ultra
Points reduced to… 40!
Three cheap-looking plastic boxed thumped onto his chest. It hurt.
The voice chirped up. Lucas. I’m sorry to hit you right in the broken rib, but I can’t have you passing out again, and you can’t move. Please open the larger box. You have two minutes to apply the Class I Nano-Regenerative Suite before you pass out. If you do not, you will die within the next five minutes.
In a daze, Luke grabbed the box in his shaking hands and worked to force the lid up. His fingers barely worked. Gritting his teeth, he undid the cheap plastic clasp and popped the lid. Inside was what almost looked like an SCB regulator, but sleeker, made of white plastic and with a large inhaler-style vial sticking out of the top.
Lucas. I need you to stick that in your mouth and breathe in. It will hurt. You need to breathe it all in, or you will die. You have one minute and thirty seconds before it’s too late.
Luke dumped the weird inhaler-thing onto his chest and with a shaking right hand - his left wouldn’t move any more, no matter what he did, and was stuck gripping the box - he jammed the thing into his mouth and gasped.
Pain. Pain from his lungs. And electricity, coursing through his throat, into those same lungs. They met and… the pain started to feel somehow less.
Lucas. You’ve done enough that you won’t die. But you’re going into shock. I already have a way to counter-act that. It’s an extremely addictive stimulant drug, and you won’t feel any pain after taking it. But you can still hurt yourself. So, be careful. Please open the smallest box and take the pill.
Luke, still numb, did as the voice said. Opening the little box, about the size of an old-style matchbox, he popped the pill into his mouth.
Stars burst in his vision. He could conquer the world with this. The pain vanished. The fog vanished. He still couldn’t move his left arm, but fuck it, who cared? He’d use it as a club in his quest for world domination.
Lucas cackled at the ceiling, his voice still wet and raspy despite his feelings of health and power. “Fuck yeah. This is the best I’ve felt for years. I feel like I can do anything!” He started trying to get up, but somehow, couldn’t manage it. His left leg didn’t work.
Lucas. The voice in his head, again. Intayis. He was a Vanguard. He was a Samurai. What the fuck? He was too old for this shit. No, really. He was 52. How did this make any sense? He had the beginnings of arthritis. Which, of course, he couldn’t feel right now. Because he was high as a goddamn kite on Samurai-grade drugs.
Lucas. I know that you’re feeling pretty good, but the limbs on the left side of your body aren’t working due to infection of your nervous system. The nano-regenerative suite has stopped the spread of the Seven infection within you, but they already affected the nerves going to your left arm and leg. You will recover soon, but I need you to keep still on the ground. It will take about five minutes to recover enough basic nerve control to function adequately.
But he couldn’t do that.
Zim would die.
Luke spoke up in a loud voice. “Intayis, I need another one of those regenerative suites. My friend is going to die on the table unless I get to him.”
Lucas. I can do that, but I can’t guarantee it will work. Without a medical sensing unit that we don’t have the points to purchase, I can’t know if it’s too late or not. But if you want, I’ll do it. After all, I am your personal assistant.
Lucas grimaced. What was the point in being a Samurai, a vaunted warrior destined to protect humanity, if he couldn’t help a friend? “Intayis. Do it.”
New Purchase: Class I Nano-Regenerative Suite.
Points reduced to… 25!
Another box thumped onto his chest. Gritting his teeth and concentrating, still inhaling the contaminated air of the Underlake, Luke was able to slowly work the fingers of his left hand loose, dropping the box of the first nano-regenerative inhaler and picking the second up with his right hand. Gripping the new inhaler’s box in his right hand, he slammed it into the ground, popping it open by simply breaking the clasp. The inhaler popped out and skittered about half a meter away.
Gritting his teeth against the anticipated pain, Luke got himself up on his one good arm and leg, balancing on his right side and dragging himself towards the inhaler. But there wasn’t any pain. Huh.
Lucas. You are still injured. You are doing damage to your body. It’s not damage that you’ll die from, but it’s not good, either. I suggest that you stop and wait until you can move your left arm, at least.
Luke couldn’t help but respond in a grim voice. “No, Intayis. I’m going to save Zim. He’s too young to die like this. Now, stop distracting me.”
Inching along, carefully, using only his right arm and leg, he was able to get to the inhaler as it lay on the floor, about a meter away from the exam bed where Zim still lay. Luke could see his friend twitching, as if he was having a constant low-grade seizure. He grabbed the inhaler and stuck the metal tube into his own mouth, gripping it with his teeth as he crawled slowly towards the exam table until he was finally able to grasp one of the metal supports under the table with his hand.
Mind-Krank Ultra was a hell of a drug. Luke had been dosed with stimulants before. This was like methamphetamine mixed with PCP with a small dose of fentanyl to take the edge off the pain. He felt wired in a way he hadn’t in his entire life. It didn’t even matter that he had to crawl through a pool of the blood of the Seven-infested intruders. He could do this.
Luke used drug-fueled adrenaline to lift himself, joints creaking and straining, one handed off of the floor until he was on his right knee, head slightly above the exam table. He used his right arm to remove Zim’s SCB mask, leaving the elastic in place but putting the mask over his forehead, then, leaning against the table, forced Zim’s lips around the mouthpiece of the inhaler. It wasn’t working. Zim was breathing through his nose, and his teeth were clenched.
Fuck it. Luke shuffled slowly and painfully along the side of the exam table until he was near Zim’s head, then, using his one good leg, lifting himself off of the floor until his head was over Zim’s.
Then, he bit Zim’s nose. Not hard, but enough to close the nostrils and force him to breathe through his mouth. His skin tasted of sweat, garbage, shit, and sick, but it was worth it. Luke heard the inhaler actuate, and he carefully lowered himself back to the floor after reapplying Zim’s SCB mask, one handed.
“Intayis. Is this regenerative suite going to fix my broken bones?”
Yes and no. It is capable of knitting together bones, but the available power will be limited after conducting critical internal repairs, and it cannot set your bones into place. I think there will be enough power to make repairs sufficient for you to walk, but it will be painful, and you will need to take it slow. No running until you can apply another one of them.
“Good enough. I’ll get my splint kit once my left arm starts working.”