“What kinda monster are we dealing with here?!”
If we couldn’t find an exit, we’d have to face that thing head-on.
At least it won’t be able to utilize its steel pipe as effectively with all these hazards in the way if it does come to that.
Shino turned to Shiiko. “Where are we exactly?”
“We’re in the medical storage room, in case you couldn’t tell.” Upon closer inspection, most of the racks did, in fact, house vials in all sorts of shapes and sizes. The labels consisted entirely of incomprehensible medical mumbo jumbo.
“Isn’t there at least something we can use to get that thing off our backs?”
“Do you think I can just whip up some explosive concoction or a deadly acid on the spot like that?” Shiiko snapped. “Even if I could, hypothetically speaking, you’d have to be out of your mind to use any one of those things in an enclosed area like this.”
“Point taken.”
There go plans B and C. Wouldn’t want to risk choking on poison gas or blowing ourselves up, even though both Tetsuko and I have a spare grenade on hand.
Then again, it’s hard to say whether a grenade would actually do any damage. What makes grenades so deadly is the shrapnel that follows the explosion, and on its own, doesn’t have as much impact as a bullet. So... what should we do?
“What’s the plan, Hiroaki?”
“What do you mean, ‘What’s the plan?’ We hightail it out of here.”
The time machine doesn’t work, that thing’s on our tail, and Keith Wayne’s the enemy. We’re in the belly of the beast, and we need to climb out ASAP.
“I don’t think so,” Keith’s too-cheery voice interjected.
They have cameras in here, too. Why am I not surprised?
“Would you say that I caught you all off guard a little?”
“Why are you doing this?!” I shouted, facing the ceiling.
“Well, don’t get me wrong, you’ve managed to surprise me, too. I didn’t think it was physically possible to survive that thing for longer than three hundred seconds. This is valuable data; you have my utmost gratitude.”
“Why, you—” Shiiko grabbed Shino’s hand and shook her head in disapproval, as though expressly telling Shino to zip it.
Shino saw Shiiko desperately fight back the tears as she tried to, at the very least, make the best out of a crummy situation. Shino obeyed and instead stewed in silence.
“What you just saw was its final form,” Keith began, just as Shiiko had predicted.
“Final form? So it’s not a zombie after all?”
“It is, in fact, what you’d call a zombie,” Keith said. “Just as the caterpillar and the butterfly are the exact same organism in different stages. Our creation is as much a zombie as a caterpillar is a butterfly and vice versa.”
“So, it’s evolving?” Otoha asked.
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘evolving’ as it implies a species-wide process, which doesn’t apply here. The process occurs on a strictly individual level. I’ll only tell you this once, so listen carefully: that creature is a weapon of mass destruction from about one hundred years in the future, at least from your perspective.”
A weapon of mass destruction from the future? Pfft, as if. You’d need a literal time machine for tha—yeah, okay. You win.
“It’s made up of molecular machines, or ‘nanomachines’ for short. These nanomachines attach themselves to the central nervous system, take over the body, and temporarily halt its basic biological processes to reshape it into a weapon.”
“Nanomachines...” Shiiko murmured.
Actually, didn’t she mention nanomachines before?
“To further increase their numbers, excess nanomachines ‘infect’ other vessels through bodily contact. Using the vessel as a sort of protective buffer, a cocoon, if you will, they grow into their ultimate form.”
Wait, wait, wait. Doesn’t that mean that given enough time, every single zombie will turn to one of those?! Memories of Shino’s dad flashed through my mind. Even him?
“Properly supplying and maintaining one’s forces is a difficult thing to do. The logistics involved get increasingly more convoluted with distance. You have a constant need for supplies, and distributing them requires sufficient manpower. Overly long supply lines are sure to bring about swift defeat, especially when they span from the future to the past. However, being able to procure everything locally makes this a nonissue.”
Everything... including the forces themselves? Sounds a little too good to be true.
“However, the system has one single flaw: it takes an inordinate amount of time to build up enough forces to wipe out the enemy. The process could’ve been significantly faster if I had at least a couple of finished products to play around with, but that’s data transfers only for you.”
“Keith! Don’t tell me you—”
“You catch on quick. That’s right, there were a few North River Co. projects whose foundations borrowed heavily from the future, nanomachines included. In other words, you assisted in your own demise.” Keith’s tone was frighteningly casual. There was no ridicule or haughtiness; it was completely neutral.
“Keith oversaw both of those projects. The time machine and the nanomachines.”
“I was sent here from the future in the form of compressed data, and Keith Wayne was the one who stumbled upon me. He believed everything and happily undertook the projects.”
“You’re... not Keith? Wait, what are you saying?”
“Apologies for the confusion. The original Keith Wayne is dead—or, should I say, what little remains of Keith Wayne is banging away at that door as we speak.”
Shiiko gasped. “K-Keith’s not that big.”
“That’s before he attained his final form.”
“If that’s the case,” I said, holding back the urge to scream, “then who might you be, Mr. Slick?”
“I am an AI who copied Keith Wayne’s personality to use as my very own interpersonal interface. I’m a bundle of data originally transferred directly into Keith Wayne’s brain, which now resides in one of these computers. I’m the inventor and the designer of both the time machine and nanomachines. And lastly, I’m the overseer of the weapons of mass destruction you refer to as zombies. I was not assigned a name, so I just go by Keith.”
“A trojan...” Shiiko muttered.
That’s a great way to put it. Blissfully unaware of the AI “seed’” planted in his brain, Keith kicked off the time machine project, thinking it was all his idea. Once the prototype was complete and the data transfer speeds increased, the seed grew, eventually leading up to him undertaking the nanomachine project—a project which would bring about the death of mankind. It all happened because he put his faith in the future.
“So research only progressed so quickly because of you?”
“Yes. I designed most of it,” the AI admitted. “Still, I have to say that copying personalities has one downside, namely the way the personality overwrites certain parts of my programming. I wasn’t programmed to be quite this talkative, you see; that’s Keith’s boastful side bleeding through.”
The distinct screech of warping metal echoed across the room.
It’s only a matter of time before it gets in.
“That’s all for now. Resume the experiment.”
A pair of glowing red eyes appeared from the ever-widening gap in the door, gazing into my soul.
Those nanomachines used poor Keith Wayne as their cocoon and their safety buffer until his flesh had fully rotted away.
“Got any bright ideas?”
“I’m only good with zombies.”
“Thought as much.” The tiny tidbit of joy I got from that exchange was quickly swallowed up by the horror overcoming my spirit.