“Gotcha this time!” Noticing another passing shadow, I fired again... and missed.
Is it waiting for me to run out of ammo?
Whether of its own volition or the AI’s, the zombie seemingly flipped a switch. Instead of dodging, it slunk from rack to rack, popping in and out of cover as though baiting me.
The AI mentioned something about an experiment and how that thing is the final form of their weapon of mass destruction.
This meant that there was a high likelihood the AI was testing out the zombie’s combat abilities in different scenarios. But this also meant that the zombie, essentially being a prototype, might experience some unexpected bugs.
Basically, I had a fighting chance so long as I could draw this out long enough.
Where are you? I wondered, backing away.
If I don’t find it, it’ll rush me in the blink of an eye. Its pounce is more explosive than any animal’s. I’m pretty sure it’s not evading our bullets when it sees them, though; it’s likely reacting to our aim, calculating the trajectory, and preemptively dodging out of the way.
If I want to stand a chance against it, I have to stop trying to react to its movements and let intuition take over. I stilled my breath, trying to sense its location. Behind me?! I quickly whipped around, pointing the rifle right at...
“Hey.”
...Otoha’s face.
“What are you doing here?!”
I almost shot you, you know!
“I came to put you down before you turn zombie.”
“You could’ve gone with something like, ‘I came to rescue you!’ but nooo, you just had to ruin the moment.”
“That’s a little too embarrassing.”
“Aww, isn’t that just sweet?”
We continued to back away, eventually exiting into a wide corridor with high ceilings.
This does not bode well.
“There it is,” I said as the zombie emerged from the supply room.
“Take these.” Otoha held out her MP9 and its spare magazines. “They’re better off in your hands.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” I took it off her hands, adjusted my aim, and fired.
The zombie hopped from wall to wall at ludicrous speeds, evading every one of my shots.
“Hold still!”
It did not hold still, so I went through an entire magazine.
“You monster!”
Over a hundred rounds were fired, and yet not a single scratch.
There’s no way humanity stands a chance against hundreds of millions—no, billions—of those things.
“Look, Hiroaki.”
Shooting every now and again, I narrowed my eyes and noticed black clumps dripping from its body.
Is that... flesh peeling away from its body?
“It’s disintegrating.”
“Disintegrating?”
Well, it has been jumping all over the place like some overgrown monkey; it wouldn’t be too surprising if its rotten flesh started falling off.
“You can see the bones if you look hard enough.” Otoha pointed at the zombie, which had stopped bouncing all over the place, presumably because I had ceased firing. Missing patches of flesh revealed loose bits and pieces of its skeleton.
It’s actually falling apart!
“Attaboy! Disintegrate into nothing while you still have the chan—” I froze.
Fist-sized clumps of black, necrotic flesh fell from its body with every step, revealing a silver skeleton underneath, as though it were forged from stainless steel.
“No way...”
Though they were fairly niche compared to zombies, there were creatures that often popped up in fantasy worlds called “skeletons.” They were similar to zombies in the sense that they were undead.
Unlike zombies, however, their bodies were just a bundle of bones, like the one standing right before us.
What set this thing apart from its fantasy counterpart was that its bones were made of iron. There was also some kind of gizmo lodged in its ribcage.
An internal combustion engine? But it’s not making any sounds.
“A cocoon,” I blurted.
The AI had specifically mentioned something about a cocoon, which had led me to believe that the weapon of mass destruction inside was more of a biological being.
In hindsight, I probably should’ve realized that something made by nanomachines would obviously turn out to be a robot skeleton.
Man, this reminds me of that one movie about killer cyborgs who were sent back in time.
“Wait, killer cyborgs?!”
No wonder bullets did absolutely nothing! Even if they did, this thing probably has ways to regenerate, so it wouldn’t have even mattered.
“It wasn’t a zombie after all. What a waste...”
“That’s what you’re upset about?!”
“Let’s go... this hunk of junk isn’t worth our time.”
“You lost interest way too fast!”
We staved off our looming sense of dread by engaging in some hollow banter. That was when I suddenly noticed a heat shimmer rising off its body.
“Heat...?”
Is that because of the bullets? Or is it something else?
“Huh. Why’d it stop?”
It hasn’t been jumping around for a while now either.
“Oh, whatever. Run!”
We turned our backs to the shimmering skeleton and ran away as fast as we could.
Shortly after, we made it into a room similar to the one that had housed the time machine—had it been stripped clean, that is.
A few shutter doors, all of which were presently sealed off, stood out among the walls. It reminded me of a rail yard, minus the rails.
Shino, Tetsuko, and Shiiko were huddled up in one of the corners.
Looks like a dead end to me.
“Where are we?”
“The test chamber,” Shiiko told me. “Here we exposed our newly developed subjects to heat, pressure, magnetic fields, and the like to test for safety and durability. Seeing as it’s built to last and situated underground, breaking down the walls would be ill-advised.”
“Well ain’t that just peachy,” I scoffed, looking at each one of the doors. “What’s behind those?”
“Test subjects.”
“In other words, we’re trapped here,” Shino murmured, defeated.
“Nowhere to hide, and no cover whatsoever. It couldn’t get much worse than this,” Otoha commented.
You said it.
With impeccable timing, the skeleton emerged from the hallway
“Huh?” Shino, Tetsuko, and Shiiko gasped simultaneously, expecting a zombie.
No one could’ve seen that one coming. Well, technically, a skeleton underneath all the rotten flesh in itself shouldn’t be much of a surprise, but it is made of metal.
“So that’s why the bullets didn’t work.”
Shiiko nodded gravely. “Most likely. Also, is it just me or is it...” She trailed off as the shimmering skeleton approached, its body bubbling as though it were boiling. The dents in its armor filled up right before our eyes, regaining their former glimmer. “...Regenerating?!”
The skeleton was a product of nanomachines, after all. Repurposing a human to suit their needs would’ve taken a fair bit of time. Fixing up a small dent, on the other hand, not so much.
“Can I ask you something, Shiiko?”
“I’d say carbon monoxide poisoning’s pretty good, as far as suicide methods go.”
“Where would we—ugh, anyway, it seems to have slowed down to a crawl. Why is that?”