Natasha would have said that this would never have happened in Russia, but it quite literally had happened to her while she was in Russia. And only two rooms away from my family.
She hoped that they would be alright and that she could get back to them soon. Then they could face this crazy new reality together.
She’d gotten a good feeling about this Alex person even though he was clearly American. He wanted to be in charge and make things go his way, but he still seemed willing to solicit feedback.
She could work with that. After all, she doubted she could survive on her own.
The cubicles looked like they’d been lifted straight out of a movie or tv show, and it made everything seem a bit too unreal for her liking.
She needed to focus, to think, to survive.
Alex reviewed his quests as he looked out at the future zombies flowing by, awaiting the other Initiates.
Group Quest [Prepare]:
Create a base of operations from which you can survive the end of the world.
Outbreak will begin within:
05 hrs 56 min
Individual Quest [Prepare]:
Get at least one ‘friend’ from your false memories to join you in your base of operations.
In this other world, it was just after the lunch hour, and office workers were returning to their desks from the food offered by the breakroom.
It was apparently a cultural holiday of some kind, if not a business one.
His memories said it was celebrating some sort of groundpig seeing its shadow.
Don’t we have something like that? Isn’t that what Groundhog day is?
Either way, no one closed up shop. Everyone went to work, but it was still a time of greater laxness and the enjoyment of company.
And Holiday or not, before dinner, tonight, all of this would be transformed into an undead wasteland.
He had so, so little time.
There had been mention of the time to prepare being shortened, which seemed… odd. He hadn’t really processed it at the time given the massive influx of other information, but couldn’t a System capable of all of this have updated the quest without letting them know?
Of course it could have. That meant that it was purposely letting them know.
He wished that he could figure out why.
That was another thing to think on later. In the moment, he took a minute or so to try to remember some things from his fake life in this fake world.
First, how did he buy things?
Oh, I apparently bought coffee this morning with… a credit card like thing. Okay. I have bank cards too, and I have memories of how much savings I have through those.
The System was thorough to say the least, even having him get a vanilla latte here, as he had when he rarely went to a coffee shop before…
Well, if they can put stuff into my head, I guess they can take stuff out? That was a bit…
No. He didn’t have time to think about it.
Still, that gave him an idea, and he began fiddling, setting up a few things with his fake world phone, thanking the System that it worked as he expected.
He continued his recollections even as he worked. So, where did he live?
Oh, he could walk there in about fifteen minutes.
Did they include where he’d learned how to use a dadao?
Nice! His martial arts studio was actually between his ‘work’ and his ‘home,’ oriented in a bit of an equilateral triangle between the two, though he obviously couldn’t take a straight path there.
Following streets, it would probably be fifteen minutes of walking to the studio and fifteen minutes from there to his ‘home’ even so.
A plan began to form in his head as he continued to try to ‘remember’ various things.
Less than ten minutes after the scenario had started, he and the five others were gathered together.
Alex had led them into a conference room and closed the door, which caused a few of the other people around the office to give them odd looks. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like it would be an actual problem.
“Alright, I know we all have false memories of each other, even if just vaguely. But I think we should still go around and give names and means of combat. I’m Alex, I use a dadao, which is basically a two handed machete.”
“Kaylee, crossbow.” She sounded like she might be Canadian, but he wasn’t sure.
“James, I use throwing knives.” Now that Alex heard more from him, Alex thought James sounded vaguely british? Not like he was actually from England, but maybe a former colony? It probably didn’t matter.
“Yes, knives.” Alex gave him a half-smile, causing the young man to grin back, sheepishly.
“Grant, war-hammer.” Grant sounded like a midwesterner, like those who Alex had lived among for the last decade or so.
“Lenka, traps.” Hers was an eastern european accent, somehow decidedly not Russian, even though Alex would have sworn that he’d not have been able to tell the difference yesterday.
The System telling me what language it’s translating from?
That might be it, but it hardly mattered enough to take their time for now.
“Natasha, spear.” The older Russian lady gave a tight-lipped smile, her eyes filled with resolve.
Alex smiled at each of them.
So, what’s the next item on the agenda?
Grant kept getting distracted by everything.
He’d rarely been to a city this big, even if he hadn’t grown up in the sticks, so the view outside was mesmerizing.
Additionally, he felt like he was the only one considering that they were in another world!!
He took a deep breath to calm down, introducing himself when it was his turn.
The older guy didn’t look the best. Maybe he’d been homeless before all this went down, because his clothes had not seemed to fit well in the conference room, though that seemed to have been fixed by the System in this scenario.
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Grant, himself, was wearing a button-up shirt and slacks.
Oh, if the guys could see him now…
Beyond the otherworldly nature of their situation—and the frankly insane fact that he was going to fight wa- zombies—his eyes kept drifting toward the lovely woman who’d introduced herself as Kaylee.
If it had been the day before, he’d have asked to buy her a beer… or a coffee, depending on where they’d met.
She looked like she could easily put him in his place and kick him out if he acted improper, and that was just fine with him. He’d just be on his best behavior.
But… zombies.
Yeah, Grant. Focus up, man. No one dates a dead man. Besides, maybe she hates books or something. Yeah. She might be a book hater. No amount of pretty makes up for the trouble brought on by stupid.
He really hoped she wasn’t stupid.
Kaylee was freaking out but on the inside.
She’d been… a little drunk when this whole thing started.
She vaguely remembered choosing zombies and a crossbow because of the book she’d been failing to read at the bar.
The book that she’d left to hold her spot when she’d gone to the washroom.
The washroom that she’d been ABDUCTED FROM—
Calm down, Kaylee. Breathe slowly. This is just like when the guys on a jobsite got funny ideas.
While this was not, in fact, like that at all, the sentiment still helped.
The older guy had taken a bit of the lead, and that made her feel bad. She probably should have stepped up.
Still she knew his type, he wouldn’t let things fall to the wayside. Even so, there was an interesting reticence that seemed to linger behind his eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was her increased stats, or if this guy was really easy to read, but he seemingly hated leading. If she had to guess, she’d say that he hated the spot-light.
She loved the spotlight, which is why she always strove to seize the reins where appropriate… and when she wasn’t freaking out.
Focus on something else, Kaylee.
There was a fine looking man who kept glancing her way, even before she kept her cool long enough to introduce herself. He had the look of a guy who was working up the courage to ask her for a drink.
If it had been the day before, she’d probably even have said yes.
But… zombies.
Besides he’s probably just a brainless tv junkie… a muscular tv junkie… WHO refuses to read the instructions or ask for directions. Yeah. That’s probably it.
She’d have to make sure he wasn’t a hot idiot before she accepted his invitation for a drink.
Wait… what? No. Zombie apocalypse. Focus, Kaylee.
Alex could tell that the group was on the edge of coming unhinged.
They were in a strange place, and the System suppression seemed to be utterly gone.
If someone didn’t do something, there would be a riot.
If someone didn’t.
Right.
He nodded once before speaking up again, “Alright. So, we have to set up a base and prepare for an apocalypse that—I would bet—is already starting at least somewhere within the city.”
That caused some eyes to widen, but Natasha simply nodded. “That is what I thought. If we will be rewarded for surviving to the six hour mark, then we need to have hurdles to overcome before then. The easiest thing to do would be flee the city in some manner, but I would bet that we’ll be blocked from doing that in one way or another.”
Alex nodded and smiled, “So, any ideas from your fake memories on where we could hole up?”
Kaylee spoke softly but with some confidence, “We could take over the top of one of these buildings. Then, once the disaster strikes, we just have to clear our way down, instead of fighting things coming from all directions.”
“That could work.” Alex nodded encouragingly. “Other thoughts? The floors open.”
Grant shook his head slowly. “I’d like to be elsewhere. These buildings would be death traps in the event of a fire, without first responders and an operational grid to power the fire suppression systems.” When that got him odd looks, he shrugged. “I worked demolition for a small-time contractor, and I always found fire fascinating.”
Kaylee deflated a little. “I didn’t think of that.”
Grant smiled encouragingly. “It was a fine idea, miss, I just think that we can do better.”
James cleared his throat. “I apparently went to a school just about a mile and a half from here”
Alex frowned. “Which direction?”
James told him.
“Huh. My apartment is that way. Go on.”
“Well, the gymnasium was recently closed up. All entrances locked tight save one for ongoing maintenance until it can be torn down.”
“Is it safe?” That was Lenka. Alex felt his tension ease a bit as more of the group began speaking up.
“My memories say so. It was only going to be replaced to be bigger and better, not because it was falling apart or anything.”
Alex nodded slowly. “Aside from the single entrance, are there other features?”
“Bathroom’s are on a high point in the city waste system. There are massive water tanks on the roof to give pressure to the school. It shouldn’t be hard to find the maintenance access to turn off the mains before they leave the building. I recall that there are several choke points inside the building when entering through the one working entrance.”
“It sounds ideal, like the System set it up for us.”
Grant grunted. “Could be. There’s likely no better option.” He looked at James. “You seem to know a lot about water systems.”
James shrugged in reply. “I was studying to be a civil engineer in college. I interned with my city municipal services for several summers too.”
That seemed to satisfy Grant.
They talked through another couple of options which seemed reasonable. In fact, it seemed that each of them had memory of some place that could work well. Even so, none were quite as appealing as the old gym.
“Alright, then. We’ll go with the gym unless there are objections.” Alex said, receiving a round of nodding heads and no hesitation. “Now, I have a side quest to save some of my ‘friends’ from this world, and my fake martial arts studio is between here and the school, my apartment is too.”
The others frowned, before eyes widened all around.
Apparently, everyone’s places of residence were between where they were and the school.
The school was toward the center of the city, but it was still awfully convenient.
Lenka cleared her throat. “There’s a hardware store on the way, and my side quest is to get supplies from there.”
They quickly talked through tasks, including other side-quests, and it didn’t take long for them to break into groups.
They also decided to stop talking about this world as if it were fake. They would simply treat the fake memories as real for the time being.
Natasha was going to go with Alex, Grant with Lenka, and Kaylee with James.
James and Kaylee were going to get to the gym and get inside as quickly as possible. They would establish that there was, indeed, only one way in. They were also going to try to get some supplies from the shop classrooms on campus if they could without causing a ruckus, but that was a far lower priority.
Lenka and Grant were going to go get anything and everything they could from the hardware store and get to the school as soon afterward as possible to start finalizing the security of the gym.
Alex and Natasha were going to his martial arts studio, and the grocery stores along the way to get supplies and maybe some other people to help them.
As they were about to go their separate ways, Alex had a realization and stopped them to say two last things, “I don’t have time to explain, but I am immune to this particular zombie plague. If one of you gets bit, let me know immediately, and my blood might be able to be used to cure you.”
He’d been considering that, and he figured it was about a fifty-fifty shot of working. He’d rather they have hope and tell him than try to hide it and get them all killed in classic apocalypse movie fashion.
Everyone obviously had a ton of questions, but they seemed to accept the need to ask them later. Because of that, Alex was able to move straight to his second item, “The gym and so many of our destinations lining up like this does seem a bit too planned out. We haven’t been messed over by the System yet, but this seems like too much of a gimme. Watch out for the hook in this bait. It’s possible that there are already infected near some of our homes, or in the gym , or something like that. Be watchful, be wary.”
Grant and Kaylee paled, but everyone nodded nonetheless.
“Let’s go.”
They all had phones for this world, and they made sure to have each other’s contact info. As they left the meeting, they created a group text, and immediately shared locations with one another through the mapping apps.
Thankfully, this world didn’t seem to have competing platforms that rendered such things needlessly complicated… or they all just had the same platform, but regardless, it went incredibly smoothly.
Alex hesitated mentally, even as he kept moving. He was in this situation because he had wanted to save people.
Even the System seemed to acknowledge that with his private quest.
He pushed his hesitation aside and opened his work email, composing a message to everyone he had the contact info for within the building.
It should have been simple, and it ended up being short, but he still included more details than he’d initially planned: ‘Something crazy is happening in the city. From my sources, it’s an honest to goodness zombie apocalypse, sweeping through our city today. Laugh right now if you want, but please remember this warning when things start going sideways. If you want safety, come to…’
He supplied the address to the gym, along with directions to the door that they knew to still be functional. He scheduled the email to be sent in five minutes, when he’d hopefully be off this main floor. Toward the same end, his group departed without saying anything to any of their coworkers directly.
They didn’t want to get mired in awkward social situations with these folks.
As a last minute thought, he copied the information—excluding the info about the gym—and sent it, immediately, to a few contact emails at local news stations.
They’d probably never see it, but maybe it would save a few people.
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