The Loss (Zombie Ocean Book 4) Page 5

  A fresh shopping list of randomly generated purchases pops up at the side of the screen. Years ago, Cerulean and I spent hours doing this together. We'd walk and talk through the twinges, sharing snippets of our lives when we were able. It was thanks to him I had the strength to leave my New York apartment, and thanks to him I got back into drawing zombies, and thanks to him I had the balls to invite Lara for dinner.

  "How are you, Amo?" he asks as I draw level, words above his head that are part of a pre-designed script from years ago, that I last read hunkered down in Sir Clowdesley at the time, Lara's old coffee shop on 23rd Street in Manhattan, where I'd hoped to find her. He'd prepared a big info dump for me, about how I had probably caused the zombie apocalypse but I shouldn't feel bad about it.

  That script's still in there somewhere. I could call it up but I don't want to. This is the Cerulean I need to see.

  "Pretty damn bad, man," I type. "You're dead."

  He has basic AI, just like the personal assistant Io in my phone, so he can reply.

  "Dead?"

  "Yeah. It's my fault."

  We walk. The diviner has us heading for a plastic child's ray gun.

  "How is it your fault?"

  "I let Julio go," I type. "I let the gun turret go. I let you go. I've been screwing up since the start."

  We round a corner.

  "That sounds tough," he says.

  "Yeah it's pretty damn tough. It sucks."

  "Life sucks," he answers, "and then you die."

  We come down the side of the warehouse past the print-on-demand machines, where the sound of them milling paper becomes a steady grumble. Blucy's there, her bright mop of blue hair glowing under the work lamps, and she waves as we go by.

  "Hi, Amo," say the words in her bubble.

  Cerulean and I collect the ray gun together. A single point rolls up on the side of my screen like a cashier's dial. Next up is a set of model train tracks.

  "You suffered," I type, which gets me crying again. "I couldn't protect you."

  "I don't need protection," the parrot says. "I'm safe here. All the zombies are turned off."

  I chuckle through my tears. It's true; I turned all the Deepcraft threats off as part of my twinge-avoidance. No thrills, no spills, no zombie kills.

  "Well they're turned on out here. There's a demon running across America toward us. There's a bunker full of people who want us dead. What can I do about that?"

  "It's safe here, Amo," he insists. "The threats are off."

  This is the limitation of talking to an AI. It doesn't really respond, not to anything more than key words and basic structures, and it never will again because in truth, the real Cerulean is dead.

  "I love you, man," I type, and the words pop up over my head in a comical bubble. My eyes mist over. "I'm sorry for what happened. I'm really, really sorry."

  I click to unsync diviners before he can say anything else, dropping the tether between us and stopping my avatar. The parrot keeps on walking.

  "Bye, Amo," he says over his shoulder. "Come visit us again soon."

  I boot out and come up gasping for air in the hot cupboard. The computer is baking on my lap and I slide it to the side, pulling off the goggles and ear buds. My best friend is dead and it's my fault. I killed Cerulean as surely as if I'd pulled the trigger myself.

  Now I'm supposed to give a PowerPoint presentation to my people in less than an hour.

  Dammit. I grind my knuckles into my weepy eyes. I need to get a grip, though I don't know what to get a grip on. The knives are still spiraling overhead, of death and betrayal and the full weight of all my mistakes. I always thought I was building a civilized world, but perhaps I've just fated everyone I love to death. I can't trust my own judgment at all.

  I should call Lara, but no love and support can cut through this. She hasn't done the things I've done; she never walked right up to the edge and threw herself over like I did, like Cerulean did, like Anna did too. But I can't put this on Anna, I can't put this anywhere, I just have to try and suck it down to get through.

  I look up at the knives and steel myself. I won't be any use to anyone until I figure this out, so let the bastards fall.

  PAST

  4. 10 YEARS EARLIER

  Without Google searching was hard.

  I didn't have a lot of time to dedicate to it ten years back, what with a new world to build and a country's worth of isolated survivors to unite. First up on the docket was more cairns, essentially dropping big signposts for New LA in America's major cities, but I couldn't get to that until either Cerulean and Anna came back from their month-long exile in San Francisco, or I found a way to trust Julio. I'd been putting off tackling Julio for a week, while he recuperated from the beating Cerulean administered.

  Julio, ah, what a dick. What kind of man threatens little girls?

  "Perverts," Lara said one night, lying on the Chinese Theater rooftop awning and looking out over the ocean, about a week after Cerulean left on his exile. White blobs on the waves were either breakers coming in or zombie heads marching out into the deep. "Maybe you should have let Cerulean beat him to death."

  I frowned at her as she took another pull on her Bud. "That's not what you said at the time. You were horrified at all the blood, if I remember rightly."

  She sighed. "That was before playing nursemaid and prison guard to him all the time. The guy is an ass. This silent warrior shtick he has, acting like he's so threatening, staring at me while he's sucking down baby food through a straw, it's BS."

  I leaned back and sucked in the hot, salty air. It was true, Julio presented a problem. Every day Cynthia went off to plow her golf course fields off Federation Drive, Masako and Jake sometimes went with her and sometimes did plumbing or painted arrows on the Chinese Theater road approach, and Lara and I were left to take turns watching over Julio.

  We couldn't chain him up because that would just fuel any resentments he held. We had to rehabilitate him, which was infinitely harder.

  "He's about ready to pop," Lara said, crunching on potato chips between sips. "Get up, go get himself a gun."

  She was right. It was time. I had hoped to spend an afternoon in another public library with Lara, maybe this time the Mark Twain library on the other side of Inglewood, but that was probably wishful thinking. For all my skill at hanging off buildings and painting giant Fs, printing up comic books and setting up Nespresso machines, I was having hardly any luck figuring out the microfiche newspaper readers.

  "Yeah," I said, "tomorrow."

  Julio didn't make it easy.

  He lay on his bed on the first floor of the Ritz Carleton, studiously avoiding looking at me. I knew he could talk because I'd heard him mouthing off at the DVD Lara had put on for him. He didn't really need to eat smoothies through a straw, but then maybe this was him sulking.

  I sat by his side. "We have to talk."

  He watched his DVD. I turned it off.

  "You're full of shit, Julio, you know that," I said. That got his attention. At once he was ready to fight.

  "You say you've killed people because one of them tried to steal your radio, but have you not ever considered that was just another zombie? You made the group circle round Chicago for a day looking for other survivors to whack, but found nobody. Isn't that right?"

  He still wasn't looking at me but I felt the burn coming off his eyes. My approach was calculated, but everything's a risk. Lara was standing outside the room with a Taser primed just in case.

  "Drop the machismo for a second," I said. "Level with me. I know what you want, and I want this community to provide it for you, but you can't get it by creeping on Anna. I don't think you want to get it that way either, because you're not a pedophile, right?"

  His eyes flickered to mine sharply then away.

  "No, I didn't think so. You're frustrated, the apocalypse is not everything you'd hoped for, I get that; I was never the most popular kid at parties either. This Mayor thing, I fell into it. Call it luck. But
it comes with responsibilities, and that includes you. You don't like it, whatever, but if you want some kind of life and a chance to prove you're not a creep, I suggest you listen up."

  He didn't look, but he was definitely listening.

  "I want you to come to Maine with me. In New England. A special run."

  Now he did look at me, and I could see his mind whirring. Maine? Time alone with Amo, a chance to change his luck? I had other ideas. He didn't know about Cerulean's gun turret then, as we'd told nobody else. This was the secret meant to bring him in to the circle of trust.

  So I told him.

  "There's a gun turret there, four big guns on a metal pole on a concrete block in the middle of nowhere. Cerulean found it, shooting zombies on automatic. It even shot a hippy called Matthew, but for some reason it didn't shoot Cerulean."

  It had bothered me since I'd first heard it, and I let that frustration show through. Let Julio be the one to figure it out, that'd do him good, so I pressed on blindly.

  "We're not going to tell the others about it. Not Masako or Jake or even Cerulean, since he's banished, at least until he gets back. I'll tell Lara, but that's the way I am. To the rest we'll say it's a cairn run along a different route. In truth it'll be just you and me, going to investigate."

  Now I had his attention, fixed like a deer in the headlights. I could see his curiosity vying with the macho glare under his heavy brows. Guns on poles were right up his alley, and in the end his curiosity won out. "Investigate for what?" he asked roughly.

  "I'm thinking there's an underground bunker there," I said, words I would come to regret. "People who knew the zombies were coming and prepared. I need to find out if they mean us harm. It'll be dangerous."

  He was looking at me in earnest now, trying to read what my game was. Was I in the market to 'off' him, take him out of sight and slip a big knife between his ribs, or was this something else? Was this in fact the position of respect and value he'd been hungering for?

  "Why me?" he asked, his voice croaky from disuse.

  "Three reasons," I said. "All bullshit aside. One, we need to trust you. After the Anna stuff, all the weird behavior like mounting zombie heads to the fender of your car, I need to trust you and you need to trust me. Put yourself in my position. You're security-conscious, would you let a guy like you out around women and children, especially with a serious grudge now against Cerulean? Would you feel safe going to sleep with this guy prowling around at night?"

  He stared at me.

  "That make you angry?" I asked. "Or do you appreciate the honesty?"

  "What are two and three?" he croaked.

  "Two," I went on, "you're into security, like I said. Too much, maybe, in my view, but I need contrary voices. You could argue I'm too soft. I want a harder voice to help steer me in this decision."

  This puffed him up visibly. I'd hoped it would, and the case was strengthened by the fact that it was true. I could rely on Cerulean for hard choices, but he didn't have Julio's instinctive paranoia. I needed to harness it.

  "And three, you need a fresh start. Away from here, from Cynthia and Jake. We go away, we come back together and you're remade. You're not staring, creepy Julio any more. You're valued and respected. A little of whatever shine I have rubs off on you. Deal?"

  He stared at me. It was a lot of hard truth laid on the line in one go, but there was plenty of carrot mixed in with the stick. His heavy brows worked.

  "When do we go?" he asked.

  "Soon. Inside a week. I need to research more, get the supplies together, the cairn, then we go. I figure three days out, non-stop driving, a day or so to investigate, take whatever action is appropriate, then three days back. A week, all in. What do you say?"

  He shuffled up in his bed, raising his eyes above the level of mine. "You never talk to me like this again," he said. "We have a deal."

  I smiled. "I can't promise that, Julio. What I can promise is this. If we respect each other? If we both act in the interests of this place, New Los Angeles, what cause would I have to talk like this? There are no secrets to be ashamed of, if we're living right. The old Julio's a different man. The new guy is a pillar. What would I say?"

  He stared at me, eyes burning with intense inner demons. Probably I should have shot him there in the bed, but I hoped. I hoped too much.

  "Deal," he said.

  We shook, like men.

  "I'll prep the vehicle," he said. "Weapons. Route. Communications."

  "Vehicle," I counter. "I'll set the route and we each prep our own weapons. Communications is an excellent idea though, what do you suggest?"

  He considered. "Two-way radios, they work on high frequencies. Truckers use them. Three thousand miles will be stretching the range, but it should work for most of the way."

  I nodded, accepting this bit of wisdom. Perhaps he'd read it in a magazine somewhere, or researched up while he was going solo in and around Chicago, or maybe it was actually part of his previous life. I couldn't accept he was ex-military of any kind. Perhaps a mall cop?

  "What were you before the apocalypse, Julio?"

  "I don't answer that question," he said. "Part of the deal."

  I shrugged.

  "You're free to get up then," I said. "Start preparations. Like I said, I think it'll be inside a week."

  I left.

  Lara didn't like it. She didn't like being left in charge with the possibility that more Julios might come. She didn't like me off alone with him, trusting him while I slept. I felt the exact same way and told her so.

  "I'm not worried about you," I said. "You have Cynthia. She's a crack shot and won't take any bullshit. You stay together, and if a day comes when I don't check in then you'll know to expect Julio. Comms was his idea."

  She frowned. "That doesn't help you any. What if he turns on you?"

  "Then we fight. I'm not useless in a fight, you've seen that. And rather it happens out there than in here, where there'll be you and Anna and others around. If I expect others to trust him with their lives, I have to trust mine first. It's this or kill him right now, honey."

  She didn't like it, but there was nothing to like. Trust had to be earned.

  I dug into research. I learned about high frequency radio and how to wield a knife in close quarters. I learned about management and motivation techniques from the army, tucked into a corner of Mark Twain library while the others were off doing house prep and setting up a kitchen and installing medical equipment.

  I figured out how to use microfiche readers, finally, with a low wattage transformer supplying power, and soon enough I was peering through the lenses and scrolling through national papers from the weeks, months and years before the apocalypse.

  It didn't take too long after that to find what I was looking for. With Google it would have been easier; just type in a few search keywords like 'Maine', 'bunker', 'earthworks' and I would have come upon Lars Mecklarin's grand plan within seconds.

  As it was, I found him first in a copy of the New York Times dated January 23rd 2018, five months before the world ended. I was scrolling through newspapers rapidly then, each one magnified from the miniature print on the microfiche storage rolls. I cast my dry and weary eyes over endless streams of news: terrorism in the Middle East, crime rates falling, opinion pieces about the upcoming Senate and House elections in November, showbiz gossip, the Oscars, like a human Google scanning for anything relevant when at last I saw the headline.

  MECKLARIN'S MARS3000 IN MAINE?

  I dug in, and everything became as clear as mud.

  Lars Mecklarin was a hotshot psychologist, author of the bestselling 'Life on Mars' self-help book that grew out of his extensive, intensive research on humans in confined conditions, essentially his MARS300 and MARS500 missions.

  I knew something about these already; he'd been doing them for years, setting up underground 'biospheres' into which he put colonist-like volunteers, who would then have to live in the stressful, cramped and deprived conditions future voy
agers to and colonists on Mars would have to undergo.

  MARS300, for 300 days enclosed, had been held in a secret location later revealed to be North Dakota. MARS 500 was in a fantastic underground city cobbled together from old Cold War bunkers underneath the suburbs of Washington. In that one he'd upped his colonist count significantly, from just twenty people to a hundred. MARS3000 was far more hush hush than either of these forbears, but it was rumored up to 3000 people would be confined for nearly ten years, 3000 days, in a specially designed mega-bunker that some sources said was located in the mountains of Maine.

  I rocked back in my seat.

  The article didn't have a date for the experiment to begin, but theorized around the summer of 2018, right around the time of the apocalypse. Was it possible they were there now, under the hill in Maine, somehow accidentally riding out the zombie infection?

  The bunker would have to be deep. I had no idea how deep, but deeper than any regular basement. Lots of people had been in their basements when the apocalypse first struck, but it hadn't saved them. Also, why in the hell was there a gun turret guarding the bunker?

  This puzzled me terribly. It didn't make sense. Even the star power of this Lars Mecklarin wouldn't allow him to set up a gun to shoot any trespassers. It was true that secrecy was important to him, as the article explained, to avoid mishaps such as befell earlier efforts like Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona. In that case, inhabitants of the previous Biosphere 1 experiment had breached the glass perimeter wall of Biosphere 2, believing the inhabitants were unfairly trapped and were being exploited. That breach had led to the entire experiment, which had been aiming for perfectly recycled sustainability of oxygen, water, carbon dioxide and so on to be completely compromised, as the internal atmosphere was vented and swapped for the air outside.

  Damn, I thought.

  I went straight to the nearest bookstore, out on Santa Monica Boulevard in the bright sun, smashed my way in, and found a whole section of Mecklarin's book 'Life on Mars' on display. The cover was a take on the American Gothic painting by Grant Wood, but with the homesteader background replaced with the domes and Habitation modules of a Mars colony.