Z 2136 (Z 2134 Series Book 3)
Read Z 2136 (Z 2134 Series Book 3) Online
Authors: Sean Platt,David W. Wright
Z 2136
Z 2136
Sean Platt and David Wright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 Sean Platt and David Wright
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North, Seattle
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E-ISBN: 9781477874790
To our readers. Thank you for joining us on the journey.
Z 2134
Former City Watcher Jonah Lovecraft, a secret member of the rebel Underground, was framed for murdering his wife. Although he didn’t remember committing the crime, his 17-year-old daughter, Anastasia (Ana), witnessed it, and her testimony sealed his fate. He was thrown into The Darwin Games, The State’s televised reality game show in which prisoners are pitted against one another and zombies. The prize: freedom in the paradisiacal City 7.
When Jonah, against all odds, won The Games, he soon found out that City 7 was a lie. Instead of being delivered to a new life of freedom, he was dumped in a shack in the zombie-infested Barrens, the no-man’s-land outside the walled cities. He was left to die.
Jonah was soon rescued by some children but quickly found himself imprisoned yet again, this time by a man named Egan, who had lost his own family and held Jonah responsible. Jonah managed to win his freedom from Egan, but before he was allowed to leave, Jonah was told that The State had implanted two chips in him years before: an identity chip, which he had known about, and a mind-control chip, which he hadn’t.
In the process of flushing out the chips, Jonah learned that he had, in fact, murdered his wife.
Ana, with the help of Liam Harrow, an old friend who was also in The Underground, discovered that her father Jonah had been set up by forces within City 6. When Ana was found consorting with members of The Underground to uncover her father’s betrayer, she was also thrown into The Games.
Ana’s younger brother, Adam, was forced into a State-run orphanage. Jonah’s old boss, Keller, who’d lost his son years earlier when an Underground rebel bombed a parade, helped Adam navigate between friends and bullies, told him to fight back against the bullies, and even gave him a weapon with which to fight. However, when Adam inadvertently killed one of his tormentors, Adam was arrested and hauled out of the orphanage by City Watchers.
Liam wound up in The Games with Ana. He had, in fact, gotten himself arrested intentionally, with the purpose of entering The Games to protect her. Ana made her way through several challenges and was forced to kill or be killed. In the midst of The Games, the announcer informed Ana via a video that Liam had been a double agent, working for both City Watch and The Underground. She realized that Liam was the one who had outed her father and exposed his rebel activities.
Ana and Liam were eventually saved by Duncan, her father’s old friend and a member of The Underground. He helped them escape into tunnels beneath The Barrens.
Ana confronted Liam and he admitted that he had in fact betrayed her father, but it was only to save his girlfriend, Chelle, who was living in a hidden village—the same village where Duncan was leading them with the promise of freedom.
When they arrived at the village, they found it burned down, its citizens slaughtered, and heads, including Chelle’s, mounted on spikes outside what had been the village’s main gate.
Z 2135
A tired and starving Jonah Lovecraft wandered The Barrens in search of his daughter, Ana, months after events of
Z 2134
. He met a soldier named Katrina who told him that Ana was living in freedom from The State’s tyranny in Hydrangea, one of many secret underground camps in The Barrens. Suspicious, but without any other options, he went with her to Hydrangea.
There Jonah met a man known as Sutherland, who in fact was a former cult leader named Dennis Weaver. Weaver had supposedly died in The Darwin Games.
Sutherland told Jonah that Ana had not yet arrived in Hydrangea, but that he had already sent a courier to get her; if Jonah would wait, he would be reunited with his daughter. However, Sutherland needed a favor first—Jonah must go into City 6 and bring an old friend of Jonah’s, Dr. Liza Goelle, back to Hydrangea with him. Goelle, it appeared, was part of Sutherland’s plan to help the camps strike back at The State and bring freedom to The Cities.
Jonah reluctantly agreed, though Sutherland gave him no details of his plan.
Meanwhile Ana, Liam, and Jonah’s old friend Duncan had found refuge in a village called Paradise, where they’d lived in the months following the events of
Z 2134
. They received word that Sutherland wanted Ana to come to Hydrangea, where her father was waiting for her. They would leave the next day.
Duncan, however, was hiding a secret—he had been bitten some time before and was taking drugs to fight off the zombie infection. Dr. Liza Goelle had been providing him with a serum to stave off the virus as she searched for a cure.
Without access to Goelle and her drugs, Duncan planned to leave on his own. He felt it was only a matter of time before he turned. The night before Ana and Liam intended to go to Hydrangea, Duncan lost his battle. At dinner, he turned into a zombie and attacked Ana, biting her arm.
Duncan was killed, and Ana was saved, but she was excommunicated by Oli, the leader of Paradise, due to a strict rule barring the infected from entering the camps.
She and Liam headed off to Hydrangea.
After nearly being killed by bandits in The Outback, Ana’s condition worsened. She begged Liam to kill her. Liam refused and nearly lost her during a long, horrible night. When she woke, however, she was better, somehow having survived the infection.
They eventually found their way to Hydrangea.
After Jonah brought Dr. Goelle to Hydrangea, Sutherland told her that she would work on a cure alongside the zombie-cyborg Doctor Oswald, who had managed to survive a zombie infection by cutting off parts of his own body and replacing them with robotics.
With Ana not yet arrived, Sutherland asked one more favor of Jonah—to go into City 1, the ruling City of The State, and deliver a package.
Jonah didn’t want anything to do with the plan, but Sutherland persisted, saying that it would help their cause to bring freedom to the people. He then told Jonah how he wanted to bring down The State. Katrina told Jonah how she also wanted revenge against Jack Geralt, the One True Leader, who had once kept her as a child sex slave, horribly abused her, and left her for dead. Katrina and Sutherland convinced Jonah that Ana would be far safer, and allowed to stay in Hydrangea if she wanted, if he helped their cause.
Jonah agreed to deliver the package.
It wasn’t until Jonah arrived in City 1 that he realized that he was not just delivering a package. He was met by a 200-year-old man named Denton Sinclair, who told Jonah how he was one of the survivors of The Old Nation. Along with Geralt and others, Sinclair had released the zombie virus in the 1980s to destroy humanity. They saved only a few thousand of the country’s best and brightest and put them into underground cities that would later rise up and become The State.
Sinclair said he wanted to right past wrongs and bring down the corrupt powers of City 1. He demanded that Jonah release the zombie virus—which was in Jonah’s package—aboard a City 1 train. When Jonah refused, Sinclair called Sutherland, who informed Jonah that he had no choice if he ever wanted to see Ana again.
Jonah reluctantly agreed to carry out the terrorist plot.
He unleashed the virus on the train and then fought past the zombies as well as The City Watchers and their orbs, which tried to catch him. He managed to escape, only to be discovered by more City Watch orbs and taken into custody.
Meanwhile, Jonah’s son, Adam Lovecraft, had become a City Watch cadet, taken under the wing of none other than City Watch Chief Keller, his father’s former boss.
When Ana’s old friend, Michael, told Adam that Keller was an evil man, Adam realized that Michael had joined The Underground.
Keller asked Adam to help him root out Underground rebels, and Adam considered snitching on Michael. However, when Michael presented evidence that The State had lied about Ana and Liam and that they were still alive, Adam reconsidered his loyalties.
Michael convinced Adam to help The Underground get Keller alone so they could get some answers from him. Michael promised that Keller wouldn’t get hurt and that they would film the interrogation and use it to discredit The State once and for all.
Adam reluctantly agreed.
When he arrived at Keller’s, the Chief showed him a video of his father unleashing the virus on City 1. Keller revealed that Adam’s father was now an enemy of The State.
When Adam and The Underground attempted to interrogate Keller, things went horribly wrong, and Keller managed to kill everyone but Adam. He then took the boy into custody.
Back in Hydrangea, Ana was given a place to stay because Oswald and Goelle intended to use Ana’s blood to create a cure for the zombie virus.
However, Sutherland had other plans, which included killing Goelle.
Oswald then went to Liam and Ana’s room to warn them that Sutherland had killed Dr. Goelle and that they had to plan their escape, but they would have to wait because if they tried to leave right away, Sutherland would kill them all.
Later, during dinner, Katrina stormed into the dining hall to tell them to follow her to another room where something was happening on television.
Keller was being named Provisional Leader. He then revealed that he had two traitors with him on stage: Jonah Lovecraft and his son, Adam.
Keller then shot Jonah dead. Ana watched and dropped to her knees horrified.
And now, the conclusion of the Z series.
