"Help me," he said. When he spoke, his jaw moved somewhat stiffly, as if fighting against rigor mortis.
Aida: Just a heads up. In VR, all NPCs are internationalized for each Noushead. I've mentioned this before. However, this zombie here is not an NPC, but since we are running short on zombies who can speak, I've taken the liberty of autotranslating his English into Bulgarian and vice versa for Retro's benefit.
She examined the zombie, but it was the same frustrating message that all the zombies had so far.
Wiki: Zombie
It's their apocalypse, and they can die if they want to.
He made a sudden movement towards her directly with a limping gait, startling Mindt. "Help me!" he pleaded.
"How can we help you?" Retro asked.
"Water," he said. "Water."
Mindt thought of her Oops I Dripped It Again spell she got from her ring. She could create some water right here, and… then she noticed a goblet of water just behind the zombie, and some grapes.
"There's a water right there. Can you not drink it?"
The zombie made an anguished scream, like a beast in the throes of death.
"We just want to help," Mindt said. "How can we get you water?"
He waved his stiff arm at the goblet. "Not this virtual water. My real body. I need real water."
"You're real body? Are you… human?"
"Yes."
There was a sinking feeling in her guts. "Are you one of the Nousheads who didn't enter the VR?"
"Yes."
"Oh my god," she whispered to herself. The zombies are the Londoners who aren't playing the game. They are the ones Jiem said were slowly dehydrating.
Journey: World Quest Update!
The Journey avatar blinked in, headset askew and sweating through his polyester polo, and slammed a spreadsheet on table.
Listen up, interns! We've got a mission-critical pivot in our not-so-undead demographics! These aren't just zombies—they're dehydrated human capital in need of immediate liquid resource allocation.
I've got metrics, with actual numbers this time, showing catastrophic moisture deficits! Do you understand what this means for our Q3 quotas?!
Interns, you will need two crucial items to move up this corporate ladder:
-
Wisdom of the Masses
-
Conversation's Salt
After attaining these items, touch them together while thinking of your next promotion to create a special Zombie Portal back to the real world. Your team managers have marked these two items on your map. Your party must save at least 290 zombies in order to complete the quest. Failure to complete this quest will result in a denial to renew your employment contract, plus you'll die.
We need to weaponize our water distribution channels! Maximize our hydration efficiency! I want hydrosynergistic solutions, people! Every zombie is a potential return on investment!
Mindt expanded her minimap to a full-sized map and checked the item's locations. One in the far north, and one southeast.
She thought again of the Policy Change Request Form. Her logical half told her to use it to immediately end the game. But the conversation between Sooner and Leonia made her second guess what she really wanted, a chance to change the world.
Mindt: Aida, how much do you know about Jiem's future plans?
Aida: Only what he tells me.
Mindt: He? Okay. I mean, he's rolled out the Nouscraft game to London. Does he plan to bring everyone in the real world into the the VR world?
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Aida: Now that I can confirm. Jiem is trying to be conservative with his game launch. London is just version 1.0. He will make patches if necessary to London, but he will deploy Nouscraft 2.0 to the whole world once The Zombie Apocalypse is over in Nouscraft World 2.
That gave her pause.
Mindt: Won't that kill half the human population? With Autotranslate and Nous Telepathy off, those people won't even able to play the game. They'll just die.
Aida: More than half the population actually. It's rather interesting. Children born this generation are being born with fewer neural connections to control their mouths to create speech. I suspect they'll be quite dead. Evolution is neat.
Retro pointed at the zombie in the room. He physically looked the same, but now he had a new status next to his name. "Zombie. Hydration: 4%"
"What will happen when your hydration drops to 0%?" Retro asked the zombie.
His eyes rolled back in his head, and he slapped himself in the face, as if trying to remain awake. "I die."
Mindt asked, "It's only been 24 hours. How are you so dehydrated?"
"Flu," he said through his locked jaw. "Jiem came. I couldn't be bothered." He made a hacking sound that Mindt interpreted as a sardonic laugh.
"Are you in pain?"
"Everything is slow. Underwater. Like running in a dream. Blurry."
Retro leaned against a wall, and slowly sank into a sitting position.
Retro: We have a problem. A big one.
Mindt: What do you mean?
Retro: There are millions of zombies outside of Equinox right now. That will be the ideal location to open our Zombie Portal. It took us almost a full day to travel from the western part of the map to Equinox. I'm just estimating here, but if we go north to get the first item, it will take a full day to get there and a full day to get back. Then we have to go southeast for the second item. Full day to get there, full day to get back.
Mindt: That's five days total if we include the day we've already spent in VR. Aida, how long can humans go without water?
Aida: About three days, assuming the weather is nice.
Mindt: Weather?
Aida: People dehydrate faster in warmer weather. It is currently 33 degrees Celsius in London. Did you know that before you were born, January's in London were much colder? I've always wondered about this. Data shows that climates began to shift after the industrial revolution, resulting in a greenhouse effect from excess carbon dioxide, but the official wiki entry, endorsed by Helios Energy even, says that it's a natural climate cycle.
Mindt: I'm not interested in weather history, Aida.
She looked at Retro, who was rubbing his bald head.
"What do we do?" she asked.
"The only way to make this work is if we split up. We each spend two days getting the items and meet back in front of Equinox."
"That's three days total. Enough to save everyone…" she trailed off, looking at the zombie.
Retro: Except him.
She felt despair, eyes locked on this poor man. She leaned forward and pulled him into an embrace. He was stiff, like hugging wood. "What's your name? Your real name."
"Sam," he whimpered. "I'm scared."
She continued to hold him. "Sam," she whispered to him. "You are not alone."
His hydration ticked down to 3%.
She felt him weep softly, and a lump formed in her throat. She found herself humming a song from an old movie her father used to watch with her. They would wrap blankets around theirselves and huddle up next to each other on the couch, sharing a theater VR. The movie was The Three Amigos. She wasn't sure if reality was ever so simple as it was depicted there on the screen, and she was fascinated by it. There was a scene in the movie where the Amigos are getting ready to sleep, and they sang a song. The song was Blue Shadows on the Trail. When she was a child, she loved the animals in that scene, joining in to sing the song. Her father would later sing her the song during bedtime. As she grew into a young woman, the two would sometimes meet in a karaoke VR, and the song was always the closer.
A final memory flashed in her mind. Her father lie dying in the hospital. She could barely see him through her tears. His voice was a scratchy croak, but he began singing Blue Shadows on the Trail, the closer. She squeezed his hand gently, and he squeezed back with surprising strength. Afraid, desperate, she did the only thing she could. She sang with him.
He never finished the final lyric.
"What if we bring him to a savepoint?" Retro said, breaking her out of her reverie. "It works for us Nousheads. We've never tried to usher a zombie through. And the ones at the windmill savepoint seemed interested in getting in, but they couldn't open the windmill door."
Mindt: Will that work, Aida?
Aida: That's a very —.
She cut off.
Aida: I'm afraid I cannot give you that information. Jiem messaged me and said that info is off limits.
"Let's try it," Mindt said.
Aida: Here's what I can tell you. Removing Sam from the interrogation room will cause all the city guards to turn hostile.
Despair washed over her again. "All the guards are higher level than us. And Sam can barely walk."
Retro flashed a smile. "Lucky for us, we just became friends with a rubber duck." He held the Rubber Duck Egg in his hand.
"You're a genius, Retro." She turned to Sam. "This is a chance to save you. Your opening. We're going to use the egg to transport you to a savepoint and hopefully we can get you out of this VR. Aida, can you make sure a drone has a bottle of water waiting for Sam when he returns to the real world?"
Aida: It's already protocol that anyone who is near a savepoint or an exit portal has appropriate sustenance waiting for them.
"Aida said yes," she told Sam. "Now let's get you into this egg."
Transporting someone into the Rubber Duck Egg was easier than she imagined. Sam had a hopeful look in his glossy eyes as he waited for the spell to activate. It was a 25 second casting duration, in which Retro had to stand perfectly still and concentrate on the target. The target had to be within 10 meters of him.
With Sam inside the egg, Mindt started yelling for the guards. Two of them rushed in, spears in hand, armor crunching as they ran.
"What the hell kind of trick are you trying to pull," Mindt shouted at them.
"My lady?" one of them said confused.
"There's no one here. No zombie. Nothing. Just some goddamn grapes."
The guards darted their heads around. One lifted his visor.
Mindt's shouting grew louder. "We went through all that goddamn trouble with Magister Palora, changed his shitty diaper even, for nothing! My partner smells like baby powder now. Baby! Powder!"
"The zombie was right here," one stammered.
"Well, he's not anymore, clearly! What a waste of time. Retro, we're leaving."
"We're going to be in serious trouble," a guard said to the other.
"Well-deserved trouble, I'd say," Mindt said as she walked on. "City guard, my ass."
On the way out, Retro tossed a date to the duck all the while Palora beamed a knowing smile at them.