An Infinite Sorrow (9 page)

  Rich stood up and raised his hand.  All the people eating at talking in the cafeteria hushed and looked at him in anticipation.

  "Soldiers of the resistance...yo!!  Waz up!!!"

  Alice gave him a really weird look.  He spotted Liz toward the back of the room, in the same plain grey uniform.  "Men, and women, and women.  We are embarking on an epic journey of stupidity for the future of humanity.  It doesn't really matter what anyone has to say today, just remember, all your bases belong to us.  I'm going to go now.  Heck, I may even get to go on a real date!  May the force be with you..." 

  The room was dead silent.  Eye patch Alice pulled him back into his chair.  "What are you doing?!"

  "Hey, I have not yet begun the stupidity yet.  Someone better come clean about what's going on.  This morning, I was at the movies with my friends.  Then, a haunted hospital.  Then, I woke up here, which is just the tip of the iceberg on the level of weirdness I've been going through this month.  Start talking."   

  "Rich, that was five years ago."

  "What?"

She was serious.  This was actually happening.  He'd woken up from passing out at the movies and being hospitalized to become the leader of the human...teen...resistance...thing.

  Rich retreated into the rack room, his head was spinning.  He'd been pulled out of everything he knew into random worlds of madness.

  Alice followed him into the room, and pulled her shirt off.  "Come on, wake up.  We've got to talk."

  "Ah...Alice..."

  "Oh, come on Rich.  They're just boobs.  You'll live."

  "I know. It's just weird..."

  "We've changed together a million times.  Space is at a minimum down here.  We're on combat alert all the time now."

  Rich still found himself looking at the door.  His feet.  Alice.  The wall.  Alice...

  "Um, why don't you tell me more about future land here?"

   "I still don't believe you can't remember."  She was finished dressing.  "Everything is gone.  It's gone, Rich.  At first we thought maybe it was just the town, or the state.  The army would, could, come, or we could make contact with someone.  It never happened.  Someone would have come by now."

  She put her hand on his cheek.  "Did you conveniently forget about us too?"

  "Us?  You mean..."  Rich could tell she was hurt, but only for half a second.  She covered it.  She had become a hard person over time.  "Never mind, it doesn't really matter.  It doesn't matter.  You want to hear about future world?  We are completely surrounded by horrific things that want to kill us.  Day in, day out, we huddle in this bunker complex, fighting off attacks and struggling to survive."

  Rich didn't like where this was going.  "So, there's no hope of rescue?  No escape?" 

  "You initiated an escape plan.  Last year. And it was a good one, too.  We lost half our people and just barely made it back here alive.  Now, there are more than twice those things outside the complex, and we're running out of supplies.  I..."

  She was almost crying now.  Rich didn't really know what to say.  "Alice..."

  "There's nothing else you can do.  Without you leading us, Rich, we'd all be dead.  I hope you get your head right soon."  She left the room, leaving him alone with his thoughts.          

***** 

  Another guy ran into the cafeteria.  "WORMS!!  WWOOOORRMMS!!!"  Everyone scattered like ants.  There were a few screams.  Liz pulled two TDI Vectors off the wall.  Alice jumped onto a Browning M2 platform which lowered into the room.

  Rich couldn't believe it.  "WHOA!  What's a worm?" 

  Something came stumbling into the room.  It vaguely looked like a man, but the body was swollen.  You could barely see his arms and legs, and the only details in the face were two tiny, black eyes.  The thing made some type of weird chirping sound, jumped on all fours, and slithered toward them. 

  Liz fired two long bursts at it.  The worm-thing exploded all over the room. 

  "AAAAAA!!"  Rich was under one of the tables.  "WHAT THE HECK?" 

  Liz reloaded.  "Alice told you.  This is no joke.  They overran the town, killed everyone.  What's wrong with you anyway?"

  Fifty more of the worm things came slithering into the room.  Everyone was firing, more soldiers ran into the room to join the fight.  Someone threw Rich a gun, and he dropped it.  "I don't know how to use this?!?" 

  "Are you kidding me?  Fight!"  One of the creatures slithered up over the table and swallowed his head.  It started violently throwing his body back and forth, as some sort of acid was eating through the table.  Rich ran. 

  In the background, the screaming started.  Liz turned to yell something at him as a huge horn ripped through her chest.  A giant worm dropped onto the platform Alice was on.  He couldn't see what happened to her.  Within a few minutes, everyone was dead or missing, and he was alone. 

  He crept through the dark halls, toward the only light he could spot.  Weird, rustling sounds which made his skin crawl echoed in the halls behind him.  Stan stepped into the hall in front of him, dressed in a nice suit.  "Well, there goes primary group two.  Took them long enough..."  He stepped into the light.  Rich followed.  "Come on!  I can't do this anymore.  What does this all mean?" 

  The source of the light was an elevator.  Stan motioned for him to step in.  "Come on, then.  You want to know the truth?  Here we go."

  "How do I know this is real?  That I can trust you?"

  "None of this is real.  At all.  And don't ever trust anyone, especially me." 

  Rich still hesitated.  Stan hit some buttons on a console.  "Well, come on then.  They're getting ready to clear this level out." 

  Behind Rich, everything was on fire.  He jumped into the clean, white interior of the elevator just as the doors closed.  Stan grinned.  "Having fun?" 

  "No, I'm not having fun!  This has been the worst few months of my life! I must be insane.  You promised me answers. I'm here to collect.  Plain and simple." 

  "Trust me, friend, there is nothing plain or simple about the whole thing.  What I'm about to show you is the whole truth, for once.  Accept it, and try not to freak out too bad." 

  As the elevator gained altitude, Rich could see that the sides of it were transparent.  He could see outside.  The valley stretched off into the distance, seemingly without end.  It was filled with lush vegetation.  He didn't see any people, but there were some clusters of what looked like huts.  Trails of smoke.  What looked like some ruined buildings scattered about.  The sky was the brightest blue, and the sun rained light over everything.  From what Rich could see, they were in some type of gigantic citadel jutting out of a mountain.  Stan seemed to be soaking the view in as well.  "Welcome, my friend.  Welcome to the Freehold." 

  "The what?" 

  "Rich, your life hasn't been going crazy for months, or even a few years that you've forgotten.  More like a hundred and sixty." 

  "What?"

  "A hundred and sixty seven years.  The Freehold’s been here for far longer, but you are by far our greatest test run." 

  "I'm...I'm seventeen."

  "Yeah...about that..."

  A knife shot right into his neck as the elevator doors opened.  Laser pointers targeted Rich's chest as soldiers in full combat gear swarmed down the clean white hall toward him.  Stan was dead.  "Geez, guys!  He was just about to explain the whole thing." 

Chapter 5

  White room.  Coffee.  Newspaper.  Guys in black and white suits.  The only difference was Rich could actually read the headline, "The Dead Walk, 2014."  Out the window, he had a pretty good view of the valley he had seen earlier.  Agent Branson had a seat at the table.  "This must all seem very confusing to you, Richard." 

  "This is actually the least confused I've felt in a while.  This is all real, isn't it?" 

  "If by ‘real’ you mean not a simulation, not a planted memory, then yes.  Real is a relative term nowadays." 

  "Why did you kill Stan?" 

  "The director broke protocol.  It's ok. His next clone should be waking up about now." 

  "Am...am I some kind of clone?" 

  Branson sort of half smiled to himself, and slumped into the chair.  He picked up the cup of coffee and took a sip.  "I'm going to tell you a story."

  "A story?"

  "Yep.  Genesis, chapter one: Our version.  About five hundred years ago, in 2014, a very nasty virus called Mers Con X spread to every major city around the globe, infecting most of the population.  Within a month, almost everyone was either dead or their brains had been turned to mush.  They were walking around, half dead, killing the 1% who had managed to survive."

  "So, the zombie apocalypse?  An actual zombie apocalypse?"  

  "Well, brain-eating virus apocalypse, but who cares?  Why split hairs anymore?  Bad things happened.  Two months after that, a helicopter running on fumes crashed in this valley, where, because of the nonexistent population, there were no undead.  There was also no food, shelter, or supplies.  So, the crew and the few survivors who happened to stumble into the area from time to time had a very hard existence, for many years.  Eventually, they realized that they didn't have enough people in the community for it to last past a generation or two.  What remained of some of the old world governments found their way here after a time, and pooled all their remaining resources into what they saw as the only solution."  Branson pointed to himself and then to Rich. 

  "I don't get it." 

  "It's not a matter of you being some type of clone Rich.  We all are.  Every living human that remains is a clone of one of the survivors that made it to the Freehold.  After the government finished the first few rounds of the cloning process, they had the workforce to build this citadel and set up effective defenses against the dead things and mutants out there in the old world.  We've found that some really nasty things have evolved over time out there.  The remaining settlers were wiped out by a resurgence of a particularly nasty strain of bubonic plague.  We were produced immune to most communicable disease, so now everyone alive is a clone of someone who once was." 

  Rich was still letting it all sink in.  "So, why all the manipulation?  The memory implants, the scenarios, everything.  You were doing some type of tests?" 

  "Selective breeding.  Old world social research.  Combat division campaign scenarios.  At this point, we have virtually unlimited manpower and resources, so we study and test everything.  It was always the wish of the original settlers that we build ourselves up enough to begin retaking the old world, and the senior council believes that we are finally ready to begin phase two of achieving that goal. Phase one, of course, being the tests." 

  Rich still had so many questions, but Branson got up to leave.  "Look, I know this is an impossible situation.  I can even imagine what you're waiting to ask me.  We're about to go on lockdown.  You'll see me again in a few hours, so try to get some rest." 

  Soldiers escorted Rich up some stairs to a decent-sized study.  They locked the door behind him.  The place was very interesting.  It lacked the sterile, bleached lab feeling of other parts of the citadel.  It was older, earthier.  The rooms were filled with bookshelves.  There was even a computer.

  Though he was exhausted, he had a hard time resting.  Rich forced himself to calm down, and sat in one of the reading chairs scattered around the space.  He closed his eyes, and focused in on the hum of one of the cooling units.  There was no other sound.  He was alone at last. 

  Stubbornly, sleep refused to come. 
Everything I've ever believed is a lie.  Have I been alive for a day or two hundred years?  Do they want me to fight?  Why was I created? 

  Rich held up a book: 
Common History of the People of the Freehold
.  He flipped through a few pages, wishing he had more time to read it.  The beginning seemed to focus on what the author knew of the old world.  Based on Rich's experiences, a lot of that information was wrong. But who knew how many of his false memories were accurate?

  For a while, the people living in and building the citadel had seemed to be preparing themselves for rescue.  After the first century, after the plague had wiped everyone out, the focus of the community seemed to shift to reclaiming the lands outside the valley.  Eventually, they just seemed to accept that the Freehold was their home. 

  Rich looked around the study a bit more then collapsed back into his chair, grateful for the short time of quiet and safety.  These thoughts dominated his mind's eye until, mercifully, he drifted off into the unknown halls of slumber. 

  He dreamed that everyone was dead.  Him, Liz, Alice, Stan, his parents.  Branson was there too.  It was his first day of school again.  Liz was busy eating Principal Drake.  Some kids ran screaming from Alice, who was laughing manically while chasing them in her car.  His mom waved, holding up his dad’s head, which grinned at him. 

  In the dream, he wanted to run.  His legs were frozen in place as he realized he was dead too.  So hungry.  Branson was loading him into a casket.  "See buddy, this is what it's all about.  Time to dig."  Big shovelfuls of dirt slammed onto the lid as the air started running out.  Rich pounded his dead hands into the coffin lid as the flesh stripped off of them.  "BURIED FOREVER!!  ROTTING IN THE GROUND FOREVER!!!"