How do you kill what’s already dead?

They had created a rota. Each day, one person would patrol the base with the rifle, and make sure that they were safe. The other would do the basic chores, like cooking and cleaning… though this wasn’t that difficult since they had found an extension to the appliances cupboard filled with cleaning bots, so the job was now to just make sure they were doing their jobs and not taking a dip in the pool.

Kana took the duty of patrol for the first day, mainly because she wanted to explore, and because she didn’t trust Hajime with a firearm since the only bullet he had fired went skywards.

It was crazy how big the place was. Hajime had told her of the rooms he knew of but she bet he had just gotten so content with the ones he had found he didn’t really care to look for more rooms… had they been infested with rot they’d have been fucked.

She enjoyed this though. This feeling of freedom, of peace. The quiet security of the base and the feel of the cooling breeze outside. Through the looking glass, all she saw was grass, trees, decayed cities in the distance and the glimmer of the ocean. Would it be safe there? She wondered, remembering the times she spent with her family at the beach, a memory that filled her with nostalgia and glee, but also great sadness.

Upon re-entering the base, she made a shocking discovery. Hajime had started making their meals, effortlessly managing an entire kitchen on his own, completely in his element. The smell alone was enough to draw out waterfalls from her mouth, she couldn’t wait to taste it!

Finally done, he took off the headband like an anime protagonist and placed the plates in front of them.

“Voilà!”

It was a towering burger, with a heaped mountain of fries at the side drizzled with a peach coloured sauce. It took her breath away.

“What IS this?” She asked, as if she was looking upon some godly creation.

“I call it, the star burger!” He announced proudly. He was expecting some sort of mean comment, but strangely she was speechless. “Uh, it’s a 6oz vegan burger, with barbecued jackfruit, vegan cheese, kimchi spiced onion and a Korean style vegan sauce on a plant based brioche bun.”

He looked for her approval, but she clearly didn’t hear a word he just said, instead she looked at him, asking for his approval to take a bite. He nodded with a confused look, and she gladly proceeded

She slammed her fist against the wooden table hard enough to make it bounce.

“… is there, something wrong?” He asked nervously.

She lifted her head, with tears running down her face and he was taken aback by her look of pure bliss.

“Nirvana.” She reached to the heavens.

I let her continue, taking my own portion to the side and enjoying the first bite.

“It’s so juicy… how did you do this?”

The praise totally didn’t stroke my ego, no not at all. “Everything is grown here. The wheat, the beans, jackfruit, it’s just about putting it together.”

“Oh yeah, that sounds real easy” she responded sarcastically, or at least that’s what I heard, honestly talking while eating is vile…

“When you live on your own for a full year, you learn to get creative… that and I wanted to be a chef.” I scratched my cheek “Y’know, before the collapse.”

She turned to me so fast I thought she’d broke her neck. “A chef? I would’ve wagered you’d have been a NEET.”

Arrow to heart, mega pain, need a seat. “Gee, thanks.”

She finished the main event and moved onto the fries. The first bite, she had to air out her tongue, think she forgot how hot they were. But each one from then, she smiled, placed her hand on her cheek and reached for the next.

It’s a sight you don’t see often anymore, happiness…

“To think you had plans like that…” she muttered.

“What about you? Any goals for the future?”

She took a second to try and remember. “I remember fishing with my dad. We would wake up really early, go get some bait and just sit on his boat for a few hours waiting. I was still young so I’d fall asleep again, but right as we had a bite, he’d wake me up. Reeling them in was difficult, but it’s amazing how thrilling it is. We’d fill a bucket, and he’d go to his store to put them on display. I felt like I was a part of keeping our family running.

I think, if we do fix this world, and get rid of the rot. I want to reopen my dad’s store. Fish the stock and sell them off. Maybe then he could rest easy.”

Her story was calming, the two of us held pained smiles.

“By the way…” she called to me before I could leave. The tension rising

“We got seconds?” She held up her clean plate, looking at me like a starved puppy. We didn’t have seconds, she cried again.

*-*-*

The dishes were cleaned, Kana checked her rifle for faults, no issues other than the ammo.

“We’re down to a box left for the rifle, should get us another 15 rounds but they won’t last. Of course, we don’t have any for the pistol either.”

“You think this place has a hidden weapons locker?” I jokingly asked.

“If it does then it’s well hidden. I’ve checked every room in this place, all we’ve found recently is the storage and cleaning cupboards, even then we had to throw out a lot of stuff.”

“We’d be screwed if we ran into a horde. Lucky we have this place at least.”

Seems she wanted to say something, something I wouldn’t want to hear.

“Hajime, this place is amazing, but it won’t last forever. We need to start planning how to beat the rot.”

She was right, I spent a full year here wasting time, but we can’t afford that any longer, there were people dying everyday that we sat on our hands.

“Right. I still think we need to use the Solipsys system to contact Dr Kozioł in the past, maybe if we explain the situation he can help us find a cure.”

“That’s fine, but it might be difficult getting to him, even more so making him believe it all.”

Pawel lived in Tokyo, so getting to him wasn’t an issue, getting past his security was another thing. He was beloved by everyone and their aunt, but every billionaire has their enemies, even if they don’t know it. Kozioł was no exception, apparently once he was held at gunpoint by a gang in England, all for the sake of taking his thousand pound watch. His private security team was hired after that, and he’s had no incidents like that since.

Not exactly the wisest move, running up to him screaming “I need an antidote!”, sounded like a one way trip to the afterlife… or a punch from Kana in this case.

Needless to say though, this was our best chance…

“Couldn’t we just go back to before he made Solipsys? Surely we’d be able to get to him easier then, right?”

“One, we don’t even know if he’d be in the country then, if he was back in Poland you’d be screwed. Two, he’d be even more cynical.”

My body was so certain I had a clever response I raised my finger… but my brain revealed there was no quip…

“Our best shot is to just go in and try different angles.”

*-*-*

In I went, back to the past. Though we did argue who should’ve gone in, I won the war. Well, won at janken anyway. At least this time I didn’t wake up with my hand in my pants. Instead, I was in a hotel room I was struggling to remember…

…

“The shower’s on?”

Oh!

…

Oh. This was the place… where she… oh no… “well I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to see it again…” Ah the mind of a teenager again

The shower turned off, she didn’t dry off last time. Why was I so nervous? I’d seen it before. Every second was an hour, my heart was so loud I bet she heard…

My eyes were trained on the door handle… just a second more…

“Hajime!”

Holy fuck I wasn’t expecting that, almost shot through the ceiling!

“Wha-sorry what’s up?”

“What’s up?! Why are you just sat there? Get moving!”

“But…” just one more second!

“But nothing, move your ass”.

Reluctantly, I disobeyed my hormones, disobeyed my manhood. Goodbye memories. I was out the door like a walker was chasing me… “god damn it.”

*-*-*

We’d chosen to jump to a few weeks before the rot was created. Kozioł was a traveler, so there was no guarantee he’d be in the country, but waiting a few days in the system would only take a few minutes in real time, like some sort of weird hyperbolic time chamber.

Unfortunately for us, the doctor’s schedule wasn’t really public information, all I could gather from his socials was that he was indeed in Japan. If I remember correctly, he did an interview a few years back, talking about his houses. He had about 7 in Japan, you’d find them in: Tokyo, Aomori, Kyoto, Osaka, Sapporo, Yokohama and Hiroshima.

Over the following week (in real time might I add), we tried each one, starting with the closest in Tokyo.

We finally found him in Aomori, but each time we tried to get in I was spotted and thrown out, one time getting to speak with him, but all he did was drink his whiskey and laugh. Each time we restarted it was pain, especially when I rushed into the bathroom of the hotel and saw heaven, Kana didn’t find the humour in it and sucker punched me in the nose.

This time was different though. One of his waiters was late to their shift. After apologising profusely to his unconscious self, I took his uniform and made a beeline for his office. His food in hand, I was a real spy right now, maybe I was a little too confident.

But so far, I’d gotten into his chambers without anyone knowing, he was on the balcony watching the rain react to his smoke. He definitely heard me come in but I guess rich guys don’t pay much attention.

“Leave it on the table.”

Surely he’ll turn around, right? Surely I can’t just lock his door and take my time… oh well.

…

It didn’t lock

…

“Oh dear, now that is a blunder.”

*-*-*

“Let go of me!”

“Ah, there goes my smoke break…” he flicked the end to the ground, ignoring me as I suspect he did with everyone else.

His guards had come through and had me on the ground completely immobile. As it turned out, that lock was broken, and here I was assuming this asshole’s house would be top of the line. But none of that mattered right now anyway, if I couldn’t get through to him I’d have to start all over again.

“Dr Kozioł I NEED to speak to you! The world is going to end!”

He chuckled and ordered his guard to stop, his condescending grin stared at me.

“It will? That’s lame, how’s it happen?”

“You did it.”

“Me?” Looking at his guard one by one as they try to hide their laughter. “What did I do?”

“After Solipsys you created rot walkers. They kill everything they touch, they swarmed the cities of the world, ripping people and animals alike to shreds, consuming what they could.”

“…zombies? Really? That’s the best you can come up with? Take the clown downstairs, get him a goodie bag.”

“They aren’t zombies! Stop! Doing this won’t bring your father back!”

He stopped again, and I could see the shock on his face when he turned again. That shock turned to anger, an anger that smacked me right in the face.

“Don’t ever mention my old man. You have that much of a hard on for me, you stalked me?”

“He died of cancer didn’t he?” Before he could hit me again I continued “you’re looking into a cure. You’d love to say he’s the reason you’re so interested in it, but it’s more than that, isn’t it?”

He didn’t respond. My head lifted, I was so confident I had him.

“You have it too, don’t you.”

I could see every emotion in his eyes, confusion and fear, anger with a hint of excitement.

“How do you know that?” He muttered. “I haven’t even told my family.”

“I read your file. You see, when you made the first walker, and it escaped the cage, you survived. Your security took the fall and you ran. But you died a few days later in a safe zone, the doctor named a tumour as the cause.”

It was the first time he was stuck trying to find a one liner. Another cigarette was lit and he awkwardly sat back down. I wasn’t surprised he looked sick, being told you’re the reason billions of people are dead must take it’s toll, and now he knew I wasn’t joking. He took another inhale, this time much deeper, to calm him.

“Okay, I’m listening”. He spoke calmly.

“I need a way to kill the rot walkers. We can get rid of individual ones pretty quickly but I want to wipe them out.”

“Hmm” he grabbed a drink from his drawer and relaxed in his chair, taking a sip. “Yeah, not happening.”

“Oi!”

“I’m being serious. Let me run this back to you, you’re saying I made these… cancer demon, zombie, thingies”

“Rot walkers” I reminded him, irritated he didn’t remember.

“Right.” He shrugged so he could get a laugh from his guards. “They’re walking cancer cells on crack that can burn through other cells like acid… I’m paraphrasing of course but, are you a professional moron or just part time?”

“Enough with the stupid jokes!”

“To beat them, you need to know how to cure cancer. If I knew how to do that we wouldn’t be having this conversation! You want my advice? Get yourself a nice cozy place, and watch it burn. I’m sorry but I can’t help you.”

This rich asshole gimmick was grating. It was like he was happy letting us go through the pain and trauma. All chilled out in his chair sipping his cold beer and watching the sunset. My blood boiled.

“So that’s it? The greatest mind of our generations is just gonna sit around and pretend it’s not happening?”

“Actually, it's the greatest mind of all time thank you, I have a trophy over there if you’d like to see it” he reached behind him for it, there was nothing there, probably thrown away somewhere.

“That’s not going to cut it.” I left my seat, completely done with the discussion. “I can’t believe I looked up to you as a kid. I didn’t believe the reporters but maybe I should have. You are just a selfish prick, content to put millions of people through hell just so you can live the good life. Well, don’t you worry, I’ll clean up your mess. Enjoy the end of times.”

Looking back on it I still don’t know why I got so angry at a simulation of the real person… but it took everything I had to not punch him. Instead I chose to start thinking of a plan b, where else could I look? I thought

“Kid.” He called out. “For the record, I never clean up my own messes.”

I don’t know if he was reflecting, but I could see a sadness in his eyes. “I know it’s tough to hear but there’s only one way I could see you winning. And that’s with a nuke. Radiotherapy is used at the moment to treat cancer, and you said whatever would kill a normal person would kill them… but that’s a real bad idea.”

“Figured as much.”

“In terms of treating cancer, your best methods are radiotherapy and chemotherapy. My advice, try and make mustard gas.”

“Mustard gas?”

He clicked to one of his guard, they left the room, “I’ll have the ingredients list handed to you. The first chemotherapy was mustard gas. It damages cells, but targets rapidly growing ones, I’d assume if these rot walkers were dripping cell tissue they’d have to rapidly reproduce so that they didn’t just fall apart.

“If what you say comes to pass, go to my bunker. From the sounds of that report I didn’t reach it. It has a lab fitted with what you’ll need, but god knows what’s happened to it in your time. Get there, make the gas, get some masks and boom goes the dynamite!”

“I need something to wipe them ALL out”

“And I’m telling you it’s impossible. Kid, the only chance you got of fixing this, is to run, hide, and take out the few you come across. If you get lucky, there’ll be someone like me in a lab that finds the answer… though if I can’t find it, you got no chance.”

It was the only time he looked me in the eye.

“If it makes you feel any better I’ll send a copy of my research to your system, maybe you can see something I can’t… doubt it though.”

“You can do that?!”

He looked at me condescendingly, as if to remind me who made Solipsys. I dropped my question.

*-*-*

Little did we know that one such other scientist existed, but right now, he was busy being rot food. But his turn was different than any others recorded. It was the formation of our worst fears.

A mutation.