Age of Z: A Tale of Survival (18 page)

Casey hesitated a moment, but then a slow, tentative smirk slipped on to his face. “Maybe you're right,” he admitted after a moment. “It's only been a month, but all the people I've met have managed to do some pretty incredible things, without powers at all...”

“I think he's talking about you,” Alexa hissed to Blake in a loud stage whisper.

“Not you
too
, LS, I haven't been so flattered since, I don't know when,” Blake joked, with faked high-pitched embarrassment.

“He's talking about both of you idiots,” Lewis said dryly. “God only knows why.” They grinned, and Casey actually snorted in amusement, which was as good as a bark of laughter from him.

Blake turned back to the screens a moment later, falling serious once again. “There's more stuff in here too,” he explained. “All the information in your head? Alexa was right, it was downloaded straight to your brain... using this.”

He pulled up an image of the apparatus Alexa had seen in the earlier photo. “It's some kind of interface system. They were force-feeding you an education once your physical developments were completed. That's how all that imagery and knowledge got into your head, even though you'd never left the facility before.”

Casey frowned. “They were in my head?” He did not look comfortable with the thought.

“To teach you,” Blake said. “And it extends farther than you might think. There's the information downloads, and language, but it also extends to physical abilities as well. Alexa said you came out fighting–you had hand-eye coordination, and you were able to clearly communicate. Those are fine motor skills that take a lot of practice for babies to figure out. The fact that you could do it at all implies they were conditioning you physically as well.”

“That's not all,” Lewis added. “If the process extends that far there could be inherent sleeper triggers buried in your head that you don't even know about.”

“Lewis!” Alexa snapped, giving him a dark look.

“I'm being realistic about this,” the archer shot back, not looking in the least bit sorry. “Even regular humans are susceptible to suggestion with things like hypnotism. We can't forget you were intended for use as a weapon, even if your life went in a different direction. There's no way ordinary scientists would be able to stand a chance against you if you decided to rebel. They'd have most likely slipped something into your head to control you.”

Casey looked angry at the prospect, although he seemed more furious at the Gentech scientists than at Lewis. At least he wasn't shooting the messenger. Instead he growled softly, “How am I supposed to know?”

Blake sighed. “Simple answer? We can't. All I can offer is some basic advise: if you do have conditioning, it'll most likely be triggered in an auditory fashion. It'd have to be something uncommon enough to not come up in regular conversation, either, and probably it'll have significance to the project or the people that commissioned it to begin with.”

Blake offered a smile. “Stay calm, LS, it's probably not as bad as you think. Even if you do have some programming in your head, look around you–I really doubt anybody around cares about that stuff anymore. Whoever started the project is probably long dead.”

Casey looked grim, but nodded after a moment. Then he frowned. “But if they were... directly downloading all these things into my head... why can't I remember any of them? And why did they stop? I didn't know anything was even happening until Alexa took me out of Gentech and I saw it for myself. And I didn't recognize anything related to Gentech at all.” He looked frustrated.

“Ah. Now that doesn't have an official answer, but I think I have a theory about it,” Blake said, tapping at the computer again. “There's a brief mention in the last file here about a dangerous contagion sweeping the globe, and it's dated when the outbreak started. My guess is they're referring to Z-day, but they didn't sound too concerned about it–at first. And then they learned the GALFs were susceptible to whatever it is that transforms sentient creatures into dead heads.”

He frowned. “Humans are infected by a bite or a transfer of fluids, but that requires direct contact. It sounds like the GALFs were more sensitive to the infection and could catch it easier. Something about genetic engineering from scratch and not a clone base, it doesn't specify. Gentech decided their living weapons were a little too susceptible and terminated the project. The experiments were...
euthanized
... with a failsafe trigger built into their genetic coding.”

Blake looked disgusted as he explained, and Casey's angry snarl and the way he cracked his knuckles barely hid the uncomfortable look in his eyes. Alexa didn't blame them; she felt her stomach twist with horror.

That would explain why all of the monsters she'd seen looked like they'd simply collapsed without so much as a fight–they had. They'd been pretty terrifying monstrosities, but if Blake was right and they were truly sentient creatures... that was mass murder on a grand scale, for creatures that could very well have been just like Casey, made as weapons without being given a choice in the matter.

“That's pretty sick,” Lewis said out loud, shaking his head as he voiced their thoughts. “If these people were willing to go that far, who knows what else they were getting up to?” He frowned. “But that doesn't explain the correlation between Casey and his missing memories. He obviously wasn't part of the termination trigger, so that wouldn't have had any effect on him.”

“No, he wasn't, and before you ask, no, there's no mention of a failsafe trigger in him either,” Blake said, cutting Alexa off before she could speak. “But it probably did affect the download of information into his head at the time.”

“It's possible,” Lewis said after a moment, with a slow nod. “The drive is dated post Z-day–it's even possible that they were attempting to alter your education and memories for the outbreak, so you could be activated against them.”

Alexa frowned. “But why would they just... stop... in the middle of a download?

“Blake and Lewis were guessing last night that they left in a hurry,” Casey said slowly. “That they panicked, and that they wouldn't have left me behind if they'd had more time to prepare for leaving. If they had to activate the failsafe remotely while trying to escape...”

Blake nodded. “It's probably what happened,” he agreed. “The outbreak hit very suddenly–caused widespread panic and mass evacuations with little to no warning. The scientists likely activated the GALF failsafe as a last-ditch effort to keep their genetics projects safe when trying to escape. That leaves you in suspended animation for three years without being woken, letting the apocalypse pass you by without even knowing about it.”

There was silence for a very long time as Casey stared at the screens, processing everything Blake had uncovered. The others remained silent, giving him a chance to come to grips with his own origins. But finally, after a very long moment, Casey asked slowly, “Is that everything?”

“Everything on this drive,” Blake confirmed quietly. “If there's more, I don't have access to it. Not here. I'm sorry.”

“No. Don't be.” Casey sounded tired, and his expression was a little strained, like he was overwhelmed with all the things he'd learned about himself so fast.

A moment later he stood tall, shoulders back, and said with some measure of confidence, “You helped a lot. All of you. I would never have figured any of this out without your help, but... now I know. Where I came from. Why I was made. Why I was abandoned and why this isn't the world I was intended for.”

Alexa gave him a pained look. “LS, don't be like that–”

“No, you don't understand.” Casey glanced over at her, and Alexa was surprised to see the faintest trace of a confident smirk, one that grew as he spoke. “I've been wondering about all this stuff ever since I woke up, just wanting answers. It's all I could focus on. But now I've got them, so I can finally stop focusing on them and move forward, like you said–maybe this isn't the world I was made for, but I can still make a place for myself in it.”

Alexa's grin was practically blinding, and even Lewis offered a smirk of his own. Blake cackled and said almost gleefully, “That's the human part of you talking, you know!”

“I figured.” Casey didn't look particularly upset by this.

As Alexa watched her little makeshift family happily welcoming their newest member fully into the fold, she decided it wasn't so bad, either, being related to a clone. Things could be weirder, after all, right?

Chapter 10

They spent the next week as personal guests of Blake at New Avalon.

Waiting around so long made Alexa more than a little fidgety, she had to admit. Ever since the outbreak she'd always been constantly on the move, traveling from one place to another following leads on her family. Being forced to stay put for any length of time always drove her a little crazy.

But Blake had a point–it was beyond stupid to head out into the zombie-infested wilderness with serious storms heading their way. So as frustrating as it was to be stuck on the island for a week, Alexa stayed without complaining–too much.

Besides, it wasn't as though she was sitting around and twiddling her thumbs. New Avalon was a hub of civilization, which meant there was always something to do there, and plenty of people to interact with.

She spent a lot of time down on the grounds, wandering through the makeshift streets, and talking to various travelers and civilians. Casey didn't like heading out to the crowds nearly as much as her.

It felt sort of weird, to not have her shadow wandering around after her, after over a month of traveling with company. Casey didn't seem to know what to do when Alexa hung out 'downtown' for the day, either–but this was hardly surprising, since Alexa had pretty much always been around for what was, in essence, Casey's entire life–all one month of it.

Chronologically speaking he was only about three. So Alexa supposed a little separation anxiety was pretty normal. As was the anti-social behavior, which Alexa was starting to think was more attributed to being locked in a pod his whole life, and less the early stages of zom paranoia.

So while Alexa headed down to the crowds and the heart of what passed for civilization, Casey tended to stay behind at the generator complex where it was quieter and less intense. Blake, at least, could be trusted to keep an eye out for him while making it look completely natural.

Blake had a knack for working with people subtly and skillfully while still making them feel comfortable, and within the first day had already figured out a number of ways to make Casey feel like part of the family, without becoming overbearing and invasive about it. He'd gotten Casey involved in a few tasks for repairing the generator and even let him read through the tiny collection of books he'd managed to save over the years.

Not that Alexa let him get away with hanging out at Blake's place the entire time they were there. Admittedly, a vast portion of their time was spent hiding indoors, because the thunderstorms that ripped through the New England area were fierce, with booming thunder, daylight-bright flashes of lightning, violent winds and sheets of rain so thick you could barely see more than a few feet in front of you.

You had no choice but to stay indoors, then; everybody did, and it was the only time the grounds were cleared of people, when everyone retreated indoors to the dorms. In between the storms wasn't all that better, with gray skies and dreary drizzling rain, and when people did come out they were crabby from being locked up so long.

But in the rare moments, when it was brighter and sunnier and the people crawled out of the dark and popped up on the grounds like they'd never left, Alexa would sometimes drag Casey out with her, just to try and get him a little more used to people.

She picked her targets carefully; throwing Casey into the midst of argumentative tradesmen, aggressive teenagers trying to prove a point, or a gaggle of giggling girls was sure to invite trouble. But there were other places on the island to slowly break the clone into socialization.

Once she took him down to the small animal pens adjacent to the greenhouse. The location was fenced off carefully and posted with guards, so that the civilians couldn't harm the much-needed animals or get it into their head to steal one. But Lewis had equipped them with passes for their duration on the island and it was easy to get in.

Casey's fascination with animals outside the walls of New Avalon extended to the more docile ones inside, enough that he actually willingly engaged in conversation with the few animal handlers as they dutifully answered his questions.

He helped with feeding some of the animals once given instructions, gently stroked a rat-catching tomcat feigning disinterest in him when it came up to investigate, and bemusedly rescued Alexa from a rooster that crowed angrily and attacked when they got too close to it's harem of hens.

“Only thing those are good for is eating,” Alexa muttered, safely away from the nasty bird.

“They're not so bad,” Casey said, watching the rooster as it finally gave up on trying to peck him to death and strutted off importantly.

“Says you,” Alexa muttered. “And I'll bet your DNA donor was a farmer too, you animal-hugger.”

Casey was just enough of a jerk to smirk at her.

Working off the theory that Casey was less likely to react badly to small things like chickens, Alexa decided to take him down to visit the New Avalon 'orphanage' during another lull in the weather. It wasn't really much of an orphanage; if anything, it was more like a community thing set aside in a part of the hotel, where all the abandoned kids on the island that couldn't look out for themselves were put.