After spending 40 minutes driving around abandoned vehicles and more of those white eyed silent people, the group finally arrived at the entrance of the college campus.
As more time passed, Salem and the passengers in the car noticed that the initially agitated 'Silents', as aptly named by Skye, were all slowing down as if they were tired.
As the car was getting closer to the campus there were fewer Silents running about and chasing people.
In fact by the time the group had arrived at their destination, all the Silents in sight were all standing still. They had their eyes closed and had their heads drooping almost as if they were sleeping whilst standing.
***
Salem and the others looked around the campus entrance where Sara had said that she would meet up with them, despite looking from the car windows for a good 10 minutes the group could not spot the petite blonde girl.
"Let's get out and look around she should be around here somewhere" Salem suggested.
Salem, Alice and Skye had decided to go out and look around whilst leaving Claire and Amy inside the car.
This was done for a few reasons:
1. Claire had no idea how Sara looked
2. In case Sara turned up at the entrance whilst the group wasn't there
3. To ensure the safety of Amy, in case anything happened inside
Salem and Alice are very proficient at fighting, Alice more so, whilst Skye had also undergone Alice's fitness course similar to Salem so she could pull her weight in a fight.
After getting out of the car, the group went to the boot and grabbed a few health potions in case of emergencies as well as each taking a police baton that Alice had brought with her in her bag.
Salem then walked towards one of the immobile Silents as he could not contain his curiosity and started to observe them. What he found out through this shocked him and he quickly relayed the information to the other two girls behind him, who were ready with batons in case the Silent jumped at him.
"It's not breathing" Salem stated frankly
"What do you mean he's not breathing Salem?" Alice questioned
Salem ignored Alice's question and moved to another nearby Silent and also checked.
"This one is also not breathing" He said in a robotic tone
"Salem calm down your doing IT again" Skye said to Salem
What Skye was referring to was that when Salem starts getting nervous or starts panicking his brain goes into 'Zero Mode' as he named it, where he blocks out all emotion and starts processing information objectively.
The pros and cons of this defence mechanism are a few:
pro:
- He can efficiently carry out tasks in high pressure situations
- He can compute and comprehend things a lot faster and can come up with solutions easily
con:
-He loses all emotions and appears extremely inhuman
-He removes human inhibitors such as the feeling of pain so he does not notice when he injures himself or others
This 'Zero Mode' has led Salem to have many breakthroughs in his research but at the same time has also caused many conflicts with loved ones as when zeroed Salem speaks objectively about people and their situations causing many a heartbreak and emotional scar for his family. As there are a lot of things in relationships (be they be romantic or platonic) that should never be said out loud for risk of breakages and tears.
'Health potion' was conceived by Salem after he had spent a entire 48 hours in Zero Mode as he tried to combine several initial stage chemicals together to get the desired effect he wanted. 'Health potion' was designed to be a cure all in the sense that any external and internal injuries such as cuts, sprains, burns and poisoning would be cured through the ingestion of one solution.
However initially Salem had only managed to make several different solutions that did the individual cures but not all of them, for example, he created a 'Burn heal' which was an external salve that could heal third degree burns within a month.
He also created 'Antidote all' a solution that could neutralise 70% of all known poisons
Through the use of Zero Mode Salem conceptualised 'Health potion' and through combining the existing two solutions as well as adding the healing effect for internal and external injuries also created it.
This was when Salem though that Zero Mode was a blessing.
A time when Salem felt that Zero Mode was a curse was during his father's funeral.
Abraham Flint was the Head of the Flint Clan; a family that owned Flintech the global leaders in technology and media. He also happened to be the loving husband of Samantha Sinclair and a doting father to his three adorable children.
When Salem was 20, something happened that shocked both him, his family and the world. Abraham Flint was assassinated.
The shooter was caught and through questioning it was found out that the hit was made by a rival family to the Flint's, the Parih Clan. This information preceded an a week-long war where the Flint and Sinclair Clan decimated every single member of the Parih clan and had only spared the children due to Layla Flint, Abraham's sister and the new head of the Flint Clan's, and Samantha Sinclair's orders.
At the funeral of Abraham Flint, that took place on the ashes of the Parih Clan's estate, all members of the Flint and Sinclair Clans were present. Due to the high stress situation Salem accidentally slipped into "Zero Mode" and he started to analyse his father's death.
During the analysis, Salem stated that it was 50% probable that the Parih Clan had ordered the hit, after reading through all the evidence he had previously seen in the week that followed his father's death. This was taken by loud harrumphs from the audience, the family were all aware of Salem's "Zero Mode" and had relied on it a few times for pharmaceutical issues by the Sinclair's and technology issues by the Flint's.
Salem then stated that there was a 50% chance that the assassination was carried out by Layla Flint, his aunt. The zeroed Salem then provided a valid reasoning for the percentages.
This news naturally caused a massive argument to break out. The heir of the Sinclair Clan and by blood the heir of the Flint Clan had just accused the head of the Flint Clan of murdering their predecessor.
That day a major flaw of the Zero Mode was revealed. It did not take emotion into consideration.
The zeroed Salem had argued that Layla wanted to be head of the clan and that was a major motive for her to kill her brother, had the zeroed Salem taken into consideration the fact that Layla loved Abraham more than anything in the world, then it would have never made such an outrageous claim. "Zero Mode" did not factor in the love of a sister for her only brother.
Salem's words caused a fracture to form in the relationship of the two Clan's as Layla was deeply hurt that day due to Salem's allegations. Naturally this hurt slowly grew and created distance between the two allied Clan's that were joined by blood.
After that day Salem had sworn to his family that he would never use Zero Mode when he was in the presence of others unless in emergencies as the words he says as the heir of a all powerful Clan carry a heavy weight and should never be spoken casually.
***
"Sorry couldn't help it, as I said earlier they are not breathing almost as if they are dead but of course we know they are alive" Salem replied to Skye snapping out of Zero Mode.
"Let's just find Sara as quickly as we can and leave this place guys, if all of these sick people come out of their daze and try and attack us we will he in deep shit" Alice said as she started heading towards the Earth Sciences building where Sara should be, considering that she was a Geology major.