'Trashcans seem to be my only means of concealment at this school,' you think.
"First of all, what would trashcans be doing underneath the bleachers, and second of all, what will stop Sarah from going behind them for another layer of privacy?" asks Val. "If I were a ho-bag like Sarah, that's what I'd do."
"We hang some nasty trash on the rim of the bin. That should dissuade her," you say.
"Ya, if she vants to go behind zee garbage, I vill say 'no, zis disgusts me," says Sven.
"Well, it's not like we have a whole dumpster to put under there. How are we all going to hide behind a few bins?" asks Chase.
"Good point. There's probably only concealment for one, maybe two people," says Damien.
"I'll do it," says Val.
"If Sarah really is a fecto and discovers your hall monitor-self hiding behind a trash can, she'll get defensive real quick," you say. "I'll go. I can use a scanner, and I'm packing," you pat Opal.
"Oh, like the resident Kid A hanging behind the trash is any less conspicuous?" says Val sarcastically. "I say we both go back there. I'm even better with a scanner than you, and if there's trouble, together, we'll be the ones making it."
"Why don't Jen and Damien go behind the bin?" teases Chase. "They can just say they were back there for a little Kid A on Kid A actio—"
"Got the idea," you interrupt Chase.
"I can go along with that." Damien shrugs nonchalantly, but you think you detect a certain excitement to his tone.
"It's good to have a cover story if we get discovered," you say.
"Yeah, a pretty realistic one too. Just don't get into your role too much and start smooching instead of scanning," says Chase.
With that decided, Sven leaves, and you move the trash bins around the side and under the bleachers. You position them close to the wall so as to make a sort of fort. You festoon the lip of the bins with garbage to make it look like an active receptacle (as opposed to the prop that it is), as well as unappealing.
As you and Damien prepare to hide, Val lets herself and Chase into the gym supply closet, but not before Chase assures you that they will be listening at the door for any trouble.
It is dark underneath the bleachers, and so you cannot make out Damien very well; however, he appears to be smiling at you. "This is turning out to be a crazy year," he whispers. "Crazy, exciting, and... good."
He takes your hand. He is very warm. You tighten your grip on his. He begins to lean in.
'Oh my God!' you think and your heart begins to pound.
Just then, you hear the gym doors open with a bang.
"Vee have arrived at zee love gyyym!" Sven's unmistakable voice echoes.
"Hey, keep it down," comes a female voice that you presume belongs to Sarah. "This isn't a pep rally."
Damien peeks around the garbage can as you fumble with the scanner to double-check that is ready.
"What the feck?" drawls Sarah. You hear high heels scraping over the metal bleachers. "Are those garbage cans back here?"
"My, you can zee vell in zee dark," says Sven.
"I can do a lot of things well in the dark," she whispers. "But first... Another bullet, please."
"Vat?!" Sven's voice rises incredulously. "Vy do you insult zee Sven witt zees payment demands?"
"Well, vy do you talk about yourself in the third person?" asks Sarah.
"Most think eez adorable. Not you?" says Sven.
"Oh, never mind. Keep your bullet, then. Just come here," she says.
You poke your head around the trashcan and aim your scanner at her. You have a pretty good view of her eyes through the low-light vision of the scanner scope. You take careful aim and then fire.
Nothing!
The scanner reads zero infection.
Well, in that single moment your feelings swung away from fear and excitement to creepy voyeurism.
The dark outline of Sarah embraces the larger mass of Sven.
Sven gasps and breaks away from her. "Oh, zee breath is. Ewww!"
"That's not very nice.." Sarah says as she takes a step toward him. "You smell very good,"
You look at her through the scanner again. Using the magnification, her eyes are unmistakably hungry. But the scanner comes up with "No infection." again.
"Ohhhh," Sarah moans. "I'm not supposed to." she takes in a deep breath. "God, you smell sooo good, though!"
Suddenly, she puts her hands up to her face.
"Are you crying?" asks Sven.
"So hard to resist!" she wails.
"Oh, eez very flattering,"says Sven.
Just then, Sarah leaps on Sven.
"Slower! Slower!" Sven shouts as he falls to the floor under the slim but frantic girl. He is pushing her face away.
"Sarah!" you yell. "I think the Viking said 'NO,"
A startled Sarah raises her mascara smudged face and stares at you a moment before leaping up to her feet and charging at you with amazing speed. You have your crowbar leaning against the garbage can ready to go, but she's so fast!
She sails through the air at you head first like a Barbie panther. You're able to sidestep her charge, and she only nicks your cheek with her long, pink nails.
Sarah hits the ground and rolls back up to her feet. She pivots and prepares to spring again. By now, everyone is here, swinging crowbars, but Sarah is fast and has managed to dodge the worst of it. Rather than counterattack them, she seems bent on getting you.
You figure there's no time to get out your gun, and besides, this is supposed to be a private fight, and so you'd rather not be popping off firearms. As for the crowbar, this girl is dangerous, and you'd rather not get into a slugfest with her.
"I'm gonna have me some tasty Kid A meat!" she cries. You jump behind the trash bins as she charges. With the can between you, she can't get at you immediately. You lean back as she swipes at you with her nails. She looks like she's about to jump over the cans when Damien grabs her by the hair and yanks her back. She turns and attacks. However, she's no match for your three crowbar-wielding friends. By the time you and Sven join in, Sarah is a beaten mess on the floor.
Sarah's head is partly caved in; nevertheless, she gives you a smile of bloody, broken teeth. "Your time is coming, Jen Valentine... The plan is set. There is nothing you can..." her voice trails off as she exhales a final ragged breath.
"Just great, another dead end," says Chase.
"Another dead fecto," says Val. "Not such a bad day, l'd say."
You lean down over Sarah. You see a small, transparent, flat disk on her cheek.
"A contact," you say, pointing. 'It must have fallen out,' you think. You take your scanner and rescan her one eye.
"This contact must have been blocking the scanner," you say as you gently pick up the lens between two fingers.
"Zee scanners are not sposed to be blocked by contacts," says Sven.
"Maybe it's custom made, like by some HFVM disguise kit factory," says Chase.
"Zey should have included some breath mints in zee kit," says Sven.
"Now what?" asks Damien.
"Now, you leave and let me do my job as hall monitor. I'll clean this up. Go to class. Then go home. Tomorrow, we plan our next move," says Val.
Since Val is the only one among you using an authoritative tone, you all accept her plan. Before class, you make a stop at the restroom. You clean the spatter off your face and skin, but getting the specks of blood off your clothes is more difficult. Eventually, you give up. You'll just say you had 'bagger training' if anyone asks.
Finally, you go home and take a shower, a long shower. A really long shower. Ration-wise, you're going to take a good three days worth.
You let the stress melt away as the hot water pours over you.
Once dressed, you see your mom sitting by herself in her bedroom. Still in her lab coat, her shoulders are slumped, and her face is in her hands.
Looks like you're not the only one who has had a long day.
You go over and begin massaging her back.
"Thanks, honey," she sighs.
As you work the knots in her shoulders, you chitchat about her day at work, how the new lab tech isn't working out, how her boss doesn't listen to her, how the coffee machine continues to make progressively worse brew each day. Through all this, however, your mind works over your own problems and questions.
'Typical teenager, always thinking about yourself,' one of your mom's favorite lines pops into your head.
Still.. You're getting sick and tired of almost dying day-in and day-out without much in the ways of answers as to why. Why is there a red dot over your house on the Toxifarian map? Why are kids getting turned into HFVMs at your school? What is Project Tabletop really? And. Who is that young woman that let you out of the dungeon at Stumbles, the one who told you to say hi to your mom for her? What's up with arn HFVM, even a seemingly friendly one, saying something like that?
When there's a lull in the conversation and your mom seems relaxed, you decide to pop the question.
"So, Mom," you say nonchalantly. "Who is Jeannie Stark?"
Her back stiffens immediately, perhaps undoing all your hard work.
She stands up and faces you, her breath smelling of the pho-tomato sauce from tonight's spaghetti dinner. "Where did you hear that name?" she asks with a slight tremor in her voice.
"The woman.. She was a meatba— I mean a VM—only she had a mind," you stumble over your words. "There were others, they imprisoned us. But she let us go. Before we left, she told me to say 'hi' to you, to say hi to my mom."
"That woman, her name, everything about her is classified" your mom says.
"Feck your classified, mom! They were going to kill us! I want some answers! I deserve to know!" you yell.
She grabs you by the shoulders and gives youa violent shake. "This is bigger than you and me, Jen. This isn't about what anyone deserves! This is about survival!"
In all your life, your mom has never been physical toward you. You can see the rage in her eyes. Is she wearing contacts? Could she be infected, after all?
You break free and step back. You then stride toward the door, but your mom moves over and blocks your exit. She is breathing hard and the tendons in her neck are standing out.
"Mom, please let me pass," you say.
"No, you're staying here," she says.
You're not sure what has gotten into her. Perhaps it would be prudent to have Opal out and ready.
You put up your hands. "Fine, I won't go. Let's talk. Let's talk about all the crazy fecking things that have been going on around here."
And then you finally crack. As tears run down your face, you vomit up all the secrets you've been keeping since the beginning of the school year-your investigation of Project Tabletop, how Damien's ex-girlfriend Dana's body was sent by Dr. Franklin to that lab in Alpha Sector, how you impersonated zombie rock stars and stumbled on a secret society of conscious, thinking zombies, how you found the surface, how there's HEVMs now roaming the halls of your school.. And finally, that there's a red dot above your very house on the map you got from the Toxifarians. You pull out the part of the map you had ripped out and show it to her. "You see?! Here we are. Do you know what was at the location of the last red dot in Alpha sector?"
You don't give your mom time to guess. "Benji, the Saturday morning cartoon clown, only he's a fecking psycho meatbag that talks and can act like normal people. So do you see why I was worried about you and dad?"
"Your language is getting atrocious," your mom scolds.
"Well, Mom, this is getting fecking frustrating!" you explode. "People are dying!"
Your mom takes your hand, leads you to the chair, and then she starts massaging you. She gently prompts you to start from the beginning and tell her everything. Deciding to trust her, or at least acknowledging that if your own mom betrays your trust, then you were doomed anyway, you go ahead and spll it all again-only this time, in a more coherent manner.
When you finally finish, your mom is silent for a while, and then she speaks softly, almost in a whisper. "Well, let me start with HFVMs. I know about them. You see... I helped create them."
"Um... Please explain," you say.
"As you know, above anything else, we want to find a cure for the VM virus," she begins carefully. "Well, instead of destroying the virus, maybe instead we could use the virus. You know how VMs don't attack other VMs, right?"
You nod.
"One line of thinking was to become infected on purpose, only instead of getting infected by the normal VM virus, use a genetically modified version—one that leaves your humanity intact," she says.
"Create high functioning VMs! But the ones I met, they were all bloodthirsty monsters. I wouldn't call them human," you say.
"Yes.. about that," your mom lowers her eyes. "We were unable to create a viral strain that did not include that hunger, that VM rage. The coding associated with that hunger is quite interwoven with other essential coding."
"So you create these HFVMs and then set them free into the sector system?" you ask.
"No, certainly not, not on purpose. You mentioned Jeannie Stark.." She takes a deep breath before continuing. "Jeannie Stark was one of the early test subjects. She had lost her family to the virus and had volunteered to be infected. She wanted to help find a cure. As it turns out, she did better than the rest. She did not seem to have the same aggression and hunger for human flesh that the others did. I became close to her..." your mom pauses. "It was a mistake... I thought I could trust her. I thought I had found a cure."
You look over your shoulder to see your mom's eyes start to well up. You stand up and hug her. "Please tell me, Mom," you whisper.
"We allowed her out of the lab, with an armed escort, just to see how she would behave in normal society. She tricked us. She had been faking. She found a chance and she escaped. All these HFVMs you see—these ones you speak of, Benji, Kenny, the Toxifarians, and the rest—they are all originally from her."
"Wow.. that... that sucks. And yet Jeannie let me and my friends free. Why?" you ask.
Your mom shrugs. "Jeannie was a good person, once. And deep down there's still a remnant of that person left. Still, she could not overcome the virus, the demon inside her."
"She wanted me to tell Dad to wipe her kind out, kill them all. She did not want them to inherit the earth," you say.
Your mom nods. "Inherit the earth, yes. It is the intention of some of them. They are fast, strong, and immortal. They think of themselves as the rightful rulers of this world."
"I thought the worst thing I could imagine was a cunning zombie, but worse than that is a cunning zombie with a grand mission," you say.
"And I can shed some light on what you saw Dr. Franklin doing." She shakes her head and lowers her voice more. You must be so very careful with this information. It is unethical for me to tell you... I don't know what they would do to me if they found out I said anything..."
"What, Mom?" you ask pleadingly.
"Dr. Franklin is an agent for my lab, a secret agent, but not like James Bond. His primary job is to acquire candidates for study. He ships off bodies that have been freshly slain by VMs for analysis. l'd rather not get into the technical details, but suffice to say that it's important for our research to find candidates that are about to turn or who have recently turned."
"Seriously?! Are there other creepy secret agents like this?" you ask.
"Sprinkled throughout the sector system, yes. There are outbreaks everywhere, and it's important to have an agent on-hand to, shall we say, make use of the unfortunate events as they occur," she says.
"Mom! That's wrong! What would their families think if they found out their kids' bodies were being used like this, that they were being allowed to become meatbags for study?" you ask.
"They woudn't like it, which is exactly why it's a secret, a secret I trust you will keep," she says. "And," she adds "how is this any different than the VMs your school uses at your games, the ones that you destroy for sport?"
"Those are from Delta Sector, that sector's completely fecto. They don't have family, not living ones, anyway," you say. "But.. Yeah, it's kinda sick, I admit."
"Well, at least we're trying to use these bodies for some real good, not just entertainment," she says.
"Okay," you put up your hand. "For the moment, I'll set aside the fact that Dr. Franklin is a secret fecto delivery man, but the deal is that there's more to him than that, something worse. He must be working for the HFVMs, he's a... double agent."
Your mom asks you why, and you tell her about how it was Dr. Franklin that hooked you up with Toxifarian because he was buddies with them and introduced you to the whole HFVM underground.
"It's probably just a coincidence," your mom says. "He can't be an HFVM himself. Faculty are always being checked. He likely didn't know that Toxifarian was infected.. Still," she taps her finger against her head thoughtfully. "As a sector system agent, Dr. Franklin has access to sensitive information. In the unlikely event he was working for someone, then that could be very dangerous."
"Tell Dad to have Zeta militia kick down his door and find out," you say.
"Remember, he's a secret agent! What would that uncover? Parents can't know their kids are being shipped off for experiments!" she says. "I'll think about it. Maybe your dad can set up an investigation, something covert. But his team has a lot on their plate. It could be a while, especially on such flimsy circumstantial evidence."
"You know, I could try to keep an eye on him," you say. "As Kid A, I can ask for some favors. Nothing dangerous, just a few extra eyes on him."
Your mom chuckles. "My good and brave little girl. Always ready to help." She gives you a hug. "I'd tell you to stay out of it, but I know l'd be wasting my breath. Just be safe, Okay?" She squeezes you tighter. "And maybe you should talk to your mother more often," she adds in a whisper.