Conspiracy and death creeps the halls of Zeta High. Can you unravel the mystery without becoming fecto?
Content Warning: Violence, mild horror themes, and occasional strong language.
RECAP: While on your unauthorized adventure in the Alpha Sector, you and your friends discovered a new strain of zombies called HFVMs, which can talk and think. Unfortunately, they share the same taste for human flesh as their primitive zombie cousins. To discredit anything embarrassing you might say, the media has labeled you as having been 'kidnapped and brainwashed'. This is fine by you, since it got you out of being grounded. However, during your frolic, you found a map in an HFVM apartment with dots on it that appear to identify the residences of other HFVMs (or at least places that are of interest to them), and one of those dots is right on your school. Worse, there's another dot on your family's home! Now you wonder whether your own parents might be among the living dead.
—
'Please God, don't let my parents be meatbags!' you think as you form the letter "M" on your plate with pho-mashed potatoes. Although you consider yourself to be progressive in your politics, you firmly believe no child should be raised by zombies.
"So when are you going to tell us what actualy happened in Alpha Sector?" your dad asks. For once he is not talking with his mouth full, which must mean that he's being serious. "I don't know who planted that story about you all being brainwashed, but I'm not buying it. I know my daughter. You're not brainwashable. Your mom and I have tried many times."
"I.. Soon I'll tell you. It's kind of overwhelming," you say.
You need to stall long enough to find out what's going on. Your pod is highlighted on the map you got out of the Toxifarian apartment, and that's not a good sign, because when you tracked down the location of another dot on that map, it turned out to be the home of Benji, a murderous and treacherous fecto.
And so you have to wonder, if you tell your parents what you know, will they eat you? Or maybe they're human, yet secretly in league with these intelligent meatbags?
"My men raided that club called Stumbles you told us about. It was abandoned, but there are reports of some interesting things found there. What's the deal with that?" your dad asks.
You fiddle with the eye scanner in your pocket. Val let you borrow the expensive piece of equipment to scan your parents.
"Let's give Jen some time," your mom says softly as she clasps your hand. Her hand is warm. Is that good," you wonder? Regular meatbags are cold, you remember that from your biology class, but if your mom is a meatbag, she's one of those high-functioning ones like Benji and Kenny. You're not sure if they run hot or cold.
You decide you cannot live with this over your head. Tonight, you will find out whether your parents are fectos.
"Yeah, just a little time," you sigh. "Maybe tomorrow."
'Okay, time to get this over with,' you think. 'How can they be meatbags, anyway? Do zombies eat mashed potatoes?'
"Not to change the subject, but check this out!" you say with some enthusiasm.
Your dad grins at the eye scanner. "Oh yeah, a C-33 model. That's military grade right there. Where did you get it?"
"From Val. She has been a hall monitor for years, and so she's got access to all the cool toys," you start fiddling with the controls as though you don't know how to use it. "She's letting me borrow it so l can get comfortable with the equipment. She wants me to bea hall monitor, too."
"That's school property. Shouldn't that stay at school?" your mom asks, frowning.
You shrug. "I'll return it to her tomorrow."
"How are you going to have time to be a hall monitor with all your Kid A responsibilities?" asks your dad.
"Responsiblities? I thought I was just a figurehead or something," you say.
Your dad chuckles. "You're in for a rude awakening, kid,"
You switch on the device and point it at yourself. "I think I hit this green button," you say, and then you take a reading. Zero, just the number you wanted.
"Let me see how you're doing, Mom," you say, pointing the Scanner at her.
"Really? At the table while we're eating?" your mom asks, obviously annoyed.
"YEAH" you shout, despite yourself. Your mom is a zero for infection! "I mean yeah, I think I know how to use this," you say sheepishly.
"Oh, I don't think you need to congratulate yourself too much. You point at the eyes and hit the big green button, is all," says your dad with his mouth full of pho-potatoes.
You scan your dad, and he does a big smile as though posing for a camera. Zero also.
Your parents aren't meatbags! What a relief!
But why is our pod on the meatbag conspiracy map? you wonder.
"It's ridiculous how much better your camera phone is than mine," you say as you watch the footage of the surface as seen through the glass of the greenhouse of Vitaline Innovations Laboratories. Damien had managed to cleverly hide his camera during your unauthorized tour with Sebastian of the biotech lab last week.
"Well, now you can buy whatever phone you want," Damien grins as he hands you a heavy brick of bullets.
"Uh, did you put fishing weights in here?" you ask as you open the box to confirm that it is indeed filled with ammo.
"Our footage of the surface is the number one most viewed video on SurvivorNet for the last week. This is your cut. I gave bricks to Val and Chase too, says Damien.
"That's good of you," you say.
"Good? We all risked our lives in Alpha Sector, so we all get paid—even shares. And there will be more royalties coming. Every person in every sector is going to see this," says Damien.
"Not just the humans; don't forget about the HFVMs" you grin and stuff the brick into your backpack.
"Yeah, remember how psyched Benji was when he lit out of the greenhouse? And Kenny and the gang seemed ready to murder the whole staff of VitalLine to escape to the surface," says Damien.
"Yeah, the surface is like a religion to those makeup-wearing psycho fectos," you say with a sigh.
"Speaking of makeup, have you noticed Val has been wearing it lately? I teased her about it and she slugged me in the arm," says Damien.
"Well, she and Chase were snuggling in the dungeon under Stumbles..." you let the sentence trail off suggestively.
"You think? Don't tease Val about it, she'll beat you down," says Damien.
"Don't worry. I prefer to tease—"
"Damien, it is yooo!" Your sentence is cut off by a heavily accented voice.
"Sven!" Damien exclaims and embraces a tall, broad chested blond boy. "I can't believe they let a big lug like you wander between sectors," Damien says.
"Zey have no choice. Othervise Ioverpower zem!" Sven breaks out of the hug and flexes his muscles. The two of them laugh.
"Jen, this is Sven. He's the genius ehrlich from Alpha that I told you about," says Damien.
'This is the guy,' you wonder? The one who Damien wanted to talk to about Tabletop? When Damien described Sven's hacking prowess, you envisioned a typical ehrlich—greasy hair, his fair share of acne, maybe some glasses. This Sven guy looks more like a bagger. He's very muscular—and you can't help but notice, strikingly handsome. The Nordic god of computer hacking?
You evidently aren't the only one who has noticed this Kid A. There are whispers in the hall, and a few royalty girls are giggling as they shoot furtive glances at Sven.
You wonder what kind of first impression you want to make with Sven. As the Kid A of the Alpha Sector school, he could be a valuable ally down the road, particularly when it comes to gathering intel about Alpha Sector. But you're not going to gush on him either like some of these other girls would do. You want to earn his respect, and besides, you'd rather not demean yourself if you can avoid it. Maybe just a genuine compliment, although you don't want to make Damien jealous. How can this be so Complicated!?
"Hi, I'm Jen, how do you do?" you say, extending a hand.
"I am Sven. You are zee pretty Kid A Damien told me about?" asks Sven with a big grin. He has a gap between his front teeth that, for some reason, increases his adorability factor.
"Damien thinks l'm pretty?" you look over at Damien with a coy smile.
Damien turns red and begins to stammer. "I.. Uh... Well, you are attractive, it's just.."
"You are zee chicken," Sven admonishes Damien. "I vould throw her over my shoulder and take her to my longboat."
"Your what?" you ask.
"My longboat, I vill show you zees later," his grin becomes huge.
"There are no boats of any size in the sector system. We're underground," says Damien. "Forgive him, he is very proud of his Viking heritage."
"Oh, like Norwegian or something?" you ask.
"Sveedish!" Sven exclaims, although you can tell by his broad smile that he is not upset.
"What are you doing here, Sven?" asks Damien.
"How could I not come to visit my celebrity friends?" Sven says, waving his hands at you. "You are all over SurvivorNet and TV with your adventures. And.." He leans in closer. "I heard that you vere looking for me."
"Yeah, there's a mystery or two around here that we'd like to run past you." Damien puts his hand on Sven's shoulder.
"Oh, like zee gang from Scooby Doo!" says Sven. "I vill be Fred and you vill be Shaggy."
"And Jen will be.." Damien's voice trails off.
"You better not say Scooby," you say.
"I was going to say Daphne, but you're as smart as Velma," says Damien.
"I'll play both. Chase will be Scooby," you say.
Damien chuckles. "Well, we can talk about the mysteries and casting later. Sven, let me give you the tour, and then you can shadow me in my classes for the first part of the day."
"Jen, do you want to come?" asks Damien.
"No, I'm going to say hi to a few people. I've missed so much class lately," you say with a sigh.
"Yeah, we've all had mandatory 'deprogramming' shrink sessions over the last week," Damien says in a low tone to Sven as he rolls his eyes. "On account of our brainwashing."
You leave them and start a meandering journey toward first period class.
"Hey, Mary," you say to an ehrlich sophomore. She smiles and does a half-hearted wave. Not exactly an enthusiastic greeting, you think.
You get sort of the same thing as you go along. People don't ignore you, but they don't exactly run up and hug you either. It's like they're being polite, but a little afraid.
Just then, there's a ringing alarm. You throw your back up against the wall and reach down toward your pistol hidden in your leg holster.
Other kids have done similar things, some against the lockers like you, and others stand back to back. Everyone is digging for crowbars and extendible batons.
"Yo, that's just Mrs. Ackerly's office alarm," shouts one kid to another. "Some fool must be trying to change his grade or something."
Probably. Mrs. Ackerly is a tough grader, you think. She teaches Apocalypse History and she is a stickler for dates and the names of all the historical figures that were key to founding the sector bunker system.
Soon the alarm stops, and gradually everyone goes back about their business. You are about to do likewise, when you notice "Jen is a brainwashed fecto!" is scrawled in red marker across a long banner-sized sheet of paper taped above a row of lockers.
'Not very nice,' you think as you rip the sheet down.
Dillon from your biology class is walking swiftly past, his back slumped under a heavy backpack.
"Hey, Dillon," you call and catch up to him. "Know anything about this?" You show him the torn banner.
"Oh.. Yeah, not cool.." Dillon stammers.
"Who put this up?" you hiss.
Dillon sighs and lowers his voice to a whisper. "Some royalty girls, I think. I saw Kristin putting one up."
You thank Dillon and head off toward Royalty Row.
The hall is packed this morning. High pitched voices bounce off of lockers as the girls swap gossip and compliment each other's shoes, hair, and nails.
"Ewww!" a smaller boy shouts nearby as he pulls his hand away from his locker. "Gum! Someone put chewed up gum on my locker handle?!"
A girl nearby turns from her friend and laughs. "Maybe you should ask for a different locker?"
"Yeah, we have to put our gum somewhere," pipes in her friend. "I bet your dweeb BFFs in Ehrlich Hall aren't gum chewers. Go get a locker with them," she suggests in a sweet, sarcastically helpful voice.
'There are some real bitches in this hallway,' you think to yourself. As Kid A, you can't help but wonder if there might be some way to clean up some of the attitudes around here.
You are debating whether it would be beneficial to this boy for you to intervene on his behalf, when you hear your name down the hall.
There is Kristin, snickering in a circle of girls. When she sees you looking over, she turns her head and whispers something to the other girls. Their little shoulders convulse as they try to suppress their laughter.
'So Kristin is behind this,' you think. It makes sense. She has been openly resentful of your title as girl Kid A, a title she believes should be hers.
Right now, in her circle of friends, a royalty girl is at her strongest. In your observation, an aggressive royalty will not attack another popular kid directly, but rather use rumors and gossip disseminated through her network of friends to humiliate and isolate her prey.
"Kristin, can I speak to you alone for a minute?" you ask sweetly. The smiles on the faces of the other girls are gone. They can feel the tension.
"Oh, I would Jen, but I have class in—"
"lt will only take a minute," you cut her off in the nicest voice you can muster as you take her by the arm to the girls' restroom.
As you enter, you see a girl staring into the mirror, adjusting her hair. "Can you give us a minute, please?" you say. The girl takes one look at you and Kristin, smiles nervously, and hurries out.
"What's your deal, Kristin?" you ask.
"What do you mean?" she asks with a sugar smile cemented into her makeup-encased face.
You pull out the crumbled paper of the banner. "This was you, I know it."
"Who told you that?" she asks. Her voice is still sweet, but you note a bit of an edge to it now.
Evidently, the look on your face tells Kristin that you're not buying her lies. Her smile transitions to cruel. "Look, it's not personal. It's just that we can't have a Kid A that's brainwashed. What will the other schools think?"
"That's all behind me. You know I'm not brainwashed. And in any case, this," you hold up the paper, "is just nasty."
"How do I know? How does anyone know what a brainwashed person acts like? As Kid A, you're a leader. We need to have faith in our leaders. The right thing to do is to step down."
Despite yourself, you can't help being impressed by what must be the closest thing to a logical argument you've heard Kristin give. You presume she must have rehearsed this.
You have a lot on your mind, and the last thing you need is a power struggle right now; however, Kristin's backstabbing coupe attemptis just plain wrong... And your position as Kid A will likely help you get to the bottom of why Zeta High is highlighted on the HFVM map you found in Alpha. You can use your influence to gather info on Dr. Franklin and whoever else might be dodgy. But you won't get any help from anyone if they all think you're a brainwashed fecto!
As with the worst of royalty, Kristin is beautitul, well-connected, and ruthless. Socially, there is no force at the school more formidable. There is little point in using nice words to get what you want. Instead, you decide to play against a royalty girl's primary weakness—which is, of course, their weakness.
"You know," you say in your most affectionate tone, "ever since this year began, while you've been painting your nails and posting pucker-faced head shots of yourself on SurvivorNet, I've been stomping meatbags." You lean in close with a menacing smile. "And this is how you repay me?" you grab her by the collar and shove her against the wall.
Her eyes go wide. "You.. You wouldn't!" she gasps.
"Have you ever heard the expression 'At the root of all law, is violence'?" you raise your eyebrows. "You think you make the laws in these halls, but you don't. If I hear so much as a whisper about this brainwash crap, you and I are going to have another restroom talk."
Just then a girl walks in. She freezes when she sees you over the cowering Kristin. "Umm.." she turns to walk out.
"Never mind, we were just finishing up," you call to the girl. "I was just telling Kristin what pretty eyes she has. She should take out an insurance policy on a face like that."
You move toward the door and then pause with one hand on the handle. "And Kristin, I'm sure I don't have to remind you that our little heart-to-heart just now was a private conversation."
You stride out of the restroom and back into the hall. You don't expect you'll have any more problems with Kristin, and in any case striking some fear into her was pretty fun.
The next few classes are uneventful. As Kid A, you try to chat a bit with a variety of people in between classes. You wonder if this is what it is like to be a politician! Before coming to Zeta High, you were starved for more of a social life having been, like everyone else, home schooled up until then. Now you're getting about as much as you can handle. Besides the conversations you initiate, many are eager to talk to you, particularly in light of your recent adventures.
"Hey, someone said you saw the surface," one wild-eyed ehrlich girl says.
"Oh well, people say things. You will have to wait for my book to find out," you joke.
There is a general clamor around you asking about your book, when it is coming out, can they get an autographed copy, on and on.
By the time you get to the cafeteria, you just want to put on a pair of sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat and go sit in a corner-that is, until you spot Damien sitting with Sven over at one of the tables. Crumbs from his sandwich are sprinkling down his chin, but he does not notice as he speaks intently to Sven. Girls are not far; royalty, ehrlichs, and even some rats are all sitting nearby, seemingly oblivious to their unprecedented proximity to each other, because their real focus is on the two guys, probably more specifically, the new guy.
Despite the fact that you wanted to melt into the background a moment ago, your feet apparently have other plans, and soon you're standing near the two hunks with your tray in your hands.
"You!" Sven exclaims. "Now I cannot eat. Such beauty puts zee butterflies in my stomach!"
There are gasps from the estrogen tables nearby, and Damien looks, for once, to be speechless as his face seems to convey several emotions at once.
"Err, take it easy, Sven. Remember, Jen's not some thrall for you to throw over your shoulder and carry off to your Viking long ship. I've got dibs—"
"For zee beautiful butt-kicker of zee meatbags," Sven interrupts Damien as he gets up, brushes off the bench, and motions for you to sit beside him.
This flattery is a bit much, but Sven's wide, gap-tooth grin is so earnest that you can't help but like it.
"So Sven, tell me what it's like to be Kid A in a school like Alpha," you say as you take a seat next to him.
"Vere to begin?!" he smiles. "To start, zee nightlife is so much better. We don't have zee curfews you have over here in Zeta."
"Really?!" you say, leaning toward him in rapt attention. "Do they leave the ceiling lights on longer?"
"No, zee authorities dim zee lights at zee same time as zee odder sectors, but vee are allowed out. Vee have very good security and don't have so many VM problems."
You think about Benji and the Toxifarians who were living in Alpha and wonder how many more high functioning VMs are Iiving in Alpha sector—for that matter, you wonder how many live in all sectors. You keep this to yourself since Sven has already launched into details about Alpha dance clubs and low-lit amusement parks.
As Sven goes on with you politely nodding and occasionally exclaiming your surprise or inserting a deft question, Jaime the mullet-headed bagger has taken a seat across from Damien and the two of them begin to talk intently in low whispers.
As the lunch period draws to a close, Sven is pulled away by a few royalty girls who want to 'give him the tour' of the school before the next class begins.
You look over to see Jaime is gone and Damien is smiling at you. "You sure know how to make a friend out of Sven."
"What do you mean? barely got a word in. I just listened," you say.
"Yeah, that's Sven's favorite kind of conversation; he talks and the other person listens. You're a good listener, Jen—an important, but often lacking quality in a Kid A."
He grabs your hand and squeezes it a moment. It is an unexpected gesture, perhaps even a little out of place, but you feel a sudden warmth inside.
"Well, I like to learn things.." you say. You blush, but hold his gaze for a moment. Damien scoots his chair forward, his eyes still intent on you. You feel a flood of butterflies.
"So guess what Jaime was telling me," Damien whispers.
"Tell me, I'm listening," you smile, although you feel a slight pang of disappointment. You were hoping for something better than some story from that Rambo-mimicking bagger.
"Students have been disappearing!" whispers Damien. "They come into the school and never leave."
"How do you know they don't leave?" you ask.
"There are cameras on all the exits. A couple baggers and school security have looked over the footage. Like Devin Farwood, for example. They saw him come in, but there's no footage of him coming out. His parents haven't seen him."
"Maybe they got smuggled out like... I don't know, in a supply barrel," you say.
"Yeah, got shipped out in a bag like Dan—"
He cuts his owns sentence off. There is a flash in your memory of Dana's hungry eyes in the Alpha sector laboratory.
"Maybe they're just all hiding on campus or.."
"or their bodies are rotting somewhere on campus," says Damien quietly as he casts his eyes to the floor.
"How many are missing?" you ask.
"Two so far. Devin and another guy, uh, Bruce something.."
"Not Bruce Taft?" you whisper.
"Yeah, that's him!" says Damien. "How'd you know?"
"He's a bagger that sits in front of me in my math class. I haven't seen him in a few days," you say.
The lunch hour ends, and so you head off for class, smiling and saying a few choice words to students in the hall, making a conscious effort to not act like a brainwashed fecto.
***
Your biology class is relatively interesting. Dr. Franklin paces back and forth in front of the room, lecturing. "A lot of people think that victus mortuus, or VMs as you like to call them, are just mindless killers, with even less sense than animals and without any animal needs—this is not true. We have seen from observing VMs over extended time periods that they do require water and will drink from puddles or any other means available. Granted, their metabolism is slower than ours, but they are not magical, really."
"Dr. Franklin," an ehrlich in the first row raises her hand.
"How can they survive on the surface? I mean, there's no one alive up there to eat? And they're not really fast or smart enough to catch wild animals, right?"
"Well, we don't know much about how VMs behave on the surface. We have no cameras up there, but again, from the deprivation studies we have done on VMs in captivity, they go into a sort of hibernation when there is no available food around, nearly shutting off completely their already slow biological functions. When they smell something is near, they awaken... And rise."
"Yo, imagine a coyote, a vulture, or horse or something comes up to one of these meatbags to eat it and then the VM is like BAM!" a bagger says as he punches his hand.
"Yes, their hibernation enables them to be very patient hunters," Dr. Franklin says, nodding at the boy as though appreciative of his unexpected interest. "I'm not sure a horse would be enticed by rotting meat, though."
Despite the creep vibes you get off of Dr. Franklin, you at least give him props for his passion around his subject matter.
This talk of VMs on the surface reminds you that Benji the HFVM is still out there, presumably of no interest to all those hibernating VMs. You wonder if he is lonely being the only sentient being wandering those empty streets and buildings or whether he has found some pocket of humanity and is feasting on them at this very moment.
After class, you run into Damien and Sven in the hall.
"What do you have now, the Physics of Ballistics?" Damien asks.
"Yes," you say. You feel a slight thrill at the realization that Damien knows your schedule—he pays attention!
"And you have PE, right?" you ask. "Are there any practice meatbags left over?"
"Yeah, a bunch, but I think we're just going to lift weights and run around or something," says Damien. "And I better get going. Coach Bryant always accuses me of showing up late and slacking on conditioning days."
He motions to Sven, but the Swede looks at you with his adorable gap-tooth smile. "I have had my fill of you, Damien. I will go with her. Zees vone, zees Jen, is better equipped to handle Big Sven." He raises his eyebrows. You're not exactly sure what that was supposed to mean; nevertheless, you let out a laugh that you hope wasn't a nervous one.
"Okay, Sven you—"
"Big Sven," he corrects you.