InsaneJournal

Portfolio - Ground Zero
This one probably requires a little bit of explanation - we had a unit in Writer's Craft that was entirely focused on Environmental Literature. I hate Environmental Literature. At the end of it, we were expected to write a short story that involved a real environmental issue. Out of spite, and due to the fact that I am primarily a fantasy writer and have no idea how to write a story set in the real world (or at least, the real real world), I ended up with a story that used as many different real-life environmental issues as I could to justify one that was decidedly un-real. Despite the stress the unit caused me, I'm actually quite proud of this story, ridiculous though it gets at points.

The characters are stolen out of my NaNo of two years ago. The following also contains violence and moderate gore, and may be upsetting if you don't like that sort of thing.

Lowell slumped against the armored door, breathing heavily. He could still hear the faint scrapes and groans from outside, but they were thankfully muffled by the thick steel, reduced to a dull murmur that he could almost force himself to ignore.

He fumbled for his communicator, dropping it once when his shaking hands refused to get a proper grip on it. "Vera," he said. "I'm in."

A moment of heart-rending silence, and then the comm squawked back to life. "Excellent," came Vera's voice. "Hold tight, Lowell, we've still got a few things to wrap up on this end."

"Right," he mumbled.

He slipped the comm back into his belt and allowed himself to slide the rest of the way down to the floor. So that was it. He was inside, and now all there was to do was sit there, and wait for instructions, and listen.

The scratching from outside was becoming more persistent. Lowell leaned his head back against the cool metal of the door. If someone had told him two months ago that one day he'd be breaking into a military complex, running about like some sort of spy, hiding from.... But then, he could barely remember what his life had been like two months ago. He thought he might have had a normal job of some sort, he could just about picture himself sitting behind a desk wearing a nice suit and flipping through paperwork, but it all felt fuzzy, distant, like a dream he'd had once and not quite forgotten.

He hung onto it, though, as a last fervent anchor to sanity. Whatever happened, whatever he went through, he could at least know that there was hope for a better life someday. It hadn't always been like this.

It hadn't always been like this!

Global warming had started it, of course, like it had started so many other things. The planet heating up, the icecaps melting, forests dying, species disappearing - despite all the industrial mishaps of the twentieth century, it was only inevitable that people started taking action, if only out of selfish self-preservation. Coal and oil power was discontinued worldwide, save for a few pockets in the Middle East and Africa that stubbornly clung to the old ways; alternative energy sources were declared a priority, with nuclear power being elevated to top concern as the quickest and most efficient source on the market.

And there had been so many advances in nuclear technology, the scientists said. Factory leakage had been eliminated, meltdowns rendered a thing of the past. There was no point in rejecting such a potent and efficient source of power over a few old-fashioned superstitions.

And, for the most part, they had been right. The new plants worked like a dream. Almost limitless power, with no environmental side effects, cheap and easy to generate, and for a few years the world managed to live off of it in peace and prosperity, amazed by its sudden good fortune.

And then... and then....

The comm buzzed, jolting him out of his reverie. "Lowell," came the familiar voice. "Lowell, you there?"

He pulled it out again, pressed down the talk button. "Yeah. I'm here."

"Well, we got it. Full blueprints are uploaded. There's a ways to go still, I'll talk you through it. You ready, hotshot?"

Lowell swallowed, and levered himself back onto his feet.

"No," he said. "Which way?"

An appreciative chuckle from the comm. "Attaboy. There should be a hallway marked with a 'B' to your left. Follow it down...."

In retrospect, he thought, as he followed Vera's crackling voice through the maze of halls and stairs and passages and rooms, it hadn't been anyone's fault. The systems had certainly been designed flawlessly, foolproof against whatever anyone on Earth could throw at them. Unfortunately, the designers had failed to consider anything not on Earth.

You could hardly blame them for that. For the past several decades, mankind had been so focused on purely Earthly concerns that it was not surprising they forgot to consider the whole universe of troubles just outside the atmosphere. On top of that, the comet in question had been calculated to be more than ninety-nine percent likely to pass Earth by an ample margin. But that leftover fraction of a percent came to pass, and the comet impacted, and of all the places in the world, it chose to come down dead-center on the biggest nuclear power station in America.

They insisted afterwards that it was not the impact alone that caused such a violent reaction, that the comet must have been carrying some previously unknown type of volatile substance in order to cause what it did. No one would ever know for sure; the initial explosion wiped out everything within a half-mile radius, and even if a fragment had remained, the residual fallout would have mutated it beyond recognition. All that could be known for sure was that the reactor had detonated; that the area was reduced to a dead zone for miles beyond the central blast; that the comet had caused the worst nuclear disaster in the history of the world.

Homes destroyed, acres of land rendered totally unusable, countless lives lost - and yet even that they might have recovered from, if it hadn't been for the unfortunate placement of the nanite research facility...

Vera's voice directed him past a room filled with monitors, all long-dead from disuse, and he cast his mind back to those first few weeks, when it all started to go wrong. First there had been the reports of the explosion itself, the news anchors wide-eyed and pale-faced in shock; then there had been the strange rumors, the whispered stories of something very, very wrong; then there had been guarded admissions, haggard-looking officials saying that perhaps the tales had some merit, although of course they could not confirm anything themselves, and everyone should just stay calm; then there were the revolutionary newscasts, the widespread panic and terror, the evacuations and chaos as everyone tried to get away at once.

A door loomed up ahead of him, massive and impassable.

"Right," said Vera. "You're almost there, buddy, you're doing great."

Lowell looked at the door apprehensively. Its design looked familiar, and on the edge of his hearing he thought he could just make out a low rumble of sound, that muffled medley of groans and scrapes and screeches that had become a constant background over the past few days.

"Vera," he said. "Is this...?"

"Yeah." She sounded apologetic, as well as he could make out through the dehumanizing hiss of the comm. "You're going to have to pass through an unsecured zone to get there. I'm sorry, I tried to steer you around it, but there's simply no other way."

"No, it's... it's all right. I'm fine."

Lowell felt for the holster at his hip, still such a strange and uncomfortable weight even after carrying it for so many weeks. Two months ago, he'd never... But this was a different time now. Different circumstances. You had to adapt to survive, and adapt he had.

"Once you're through here, it's only a few hundred feet to the central control. You can make it, Lowell. We believe in you." A pause, a crackle of static. "And for god's sake don't engage any more than you have to. Your only objective is to get through."

Lowell took out the gun, checked the magazine, rubbed his palm nervously across the barrel. "I know," he said.

"So just sit tight, then. The door's on an electronic lock, it'll just take me a minute to hack into."

The comm went quiet. Nanites, Lowell thought distantly, trying not to listen to the faint drone of activity from behind the door. Nanotechnology had been around for years, of course, rarely used for anything more complicated than improving textile quality and making better sunscreens, but what with the science's long and rich history in fiction it was inevitable someone try for a more dramatic use eventually. The research facility had been working on medical nanites when the disaster occurred, tiny machines that could interact directly with cells. They were making wonderful progress, the last press releases had said. Physically, the nanites were perfect; all that remained was to refine the programming.

The facility was located just outside the main blast radius. The explosion had destroyed a good chunk of it from shockwaves alone, ripping open the main laboratory and exposing the experimental nanites to the boiling clouds of radioactivity. Somehow—no one really knew how, even the official reports were only conjecture and guesswork—the nanites had reacted to the fallout, become airborne, their already spotty programming going haywire. They began to seek out patients, trying desperately to do the one thing they remembered how to: heal.

The door hummed. "It's open," said Vera. "Whenever you're ready, Lowell."

"Right."

"See you on the other side, then."

Dead bodies were fascinating to the nanites, for some reason. They swarmed to them in huge numbers, entered the veins easily, found their way to the central nervous system. Somehow they figured out a way to restart the electrical impulses in the brain - revive it, in a sense.

Lowell tugged at the door, gradually pulled it open. Religious groups had spoken of souls, more practical individuals of the irreversibility of entropy, but what everyone could agree on was that all the nanites' patients came back... wrong.

The first zombie attacked before he was halfway through, stretching out its rotten arms with an unearthly shriek as it shuffled forwards, and he barely had time to cock his pistol and shoot before it was upon him. It dropped to the ground, its brain and the nanites inside destroyed, but the second had noticed him by then, as had the rest of its fellows. They lurched towards him, but Lowell was already off, sprinting through a clearer patch towards the distant door.

Don't think, just aim - don't think, just aim - They were all around him, scratching at his clothes, trying to bite him, howling in frustration as he wrenched away. He emptied the first clip getting rid of a clump that had appeared in his path and fumbled for another, nearly dropping it in his haste. Another zombie suddenly loomed up before him - he shot at it wildly, missing it twice before finally dropping it, and he cursed the waste of bullets. Don't think, just aim! The door was getting closer, but there was still an impossible number of zombies between it and him, and they were becoming more and more agitated by the sound of his gun.

Still he fought his way through, firing bullet after bullet into decaying zombie skulls, weaving and dodging through the undead crowd, until he was only moments away from the door and for a moment he thought that maybe this was it, he was going to make it after all, it was going to be okay —

A skeletal hand grabbed him by the ankle and he fell, the gun flying out of his hand and disappearing into the horde. His forehead cracked painfully against the floor, and spots flashed in front of his eyes - for one horrible moment he thought he was going to black out, but another hand grabbed his wrist and he yelled, twisted around and tried to wrench himself away. The hands felt impossibly strong, and the other zombies were reaching for him too, ragged fingernails pulling at his shirt, teeth bared in horrific grimaces of triumph.

With a desperate lunge he managed to extricate himself, an ugly tearing sound coming from behind him as the first zombie's hand parted from its wrist. The door was nearby, he was almost there, he was there—he wrenched it open, dove inside, slammed it shut behind him.

He grabbed the comm - thank god, it hadn't fallen, he still had it - and jabbed the talk button down. "Vera! Vera, I'm in, tell me what to look for!"

"Something that doesn't belong!" Lowell wondered if Vera could hear the zombies' growls from the comm, or if she was just responding to his urgency - she sounded almost as panicked as he was. "The beacon was moved here by the military just before the place was evacuated, it'll be the only thing that doesn't look like came with the room."

Lowell looked wildly around. Most of the room was taken up by massive consoles and displays built into the walls or bolted to the floor, but in the far corner - yes! - a freestanding box, one that didn't match the other devices.

"Found it!" He dashed over, found the first thing that resembled an on-switch, and pressed it.

There was an ear-splitting whine that quickly faded, a moment of silence — and then a series of thuds and groans as the zombies began a full-out assault on the door.

"And then the EMP?" he said into the comm, heart hammering, thinking this is it, this is finally it, it's almost over.... "I can see the controls from here, they're just — "

"No! Leave it for a moment. We've only got one shot with the EMP. The beacon will call the nanites back towards the base, but it'll take a few minutes to get all the zombies within the area of effect. I'm tracking them on the radar, I'll tell you when it's time."

Another thump and a worrying crack from the door. Lowell cast an anxious glance at it. "I don't think I have a few minutes, Vera. I think the zombies really want to get at that beacon."

"If we leave even a few nanites untouched, this will all be for nothing. We've got to — "

"I know! I know. We've got to get them all so they can't rebuild themselves." Another crack, the zombies' groans becoming more and more agitated. "But Vera, they're breaking in. They're going to smash through the door and I don't have my gun and I don't know how I can — "

"I'm sorry, Lowell! There's nothing I can do! Just — just hold them off as long as you can!"

The comm went dead. With a muttered curse, Lowell shoved it back in his belt and looked for something he could use as a barricade.

There was nothing. Everything was bolted down somehow, except for the beacon, and that was too valuable to risk. He swore again and clutched at his temples. Think, Lowell! There has to be something —

With a loud smash, a zombie arm finally forced its way through the door. Lowell sprinted back and tried to shove it back out, but the zombie only scratched at his wrist and shrieked, and the door was weakening faster now. The hole it had made was causing cracks all through the material, the hinges were starting to fail. It wouldn't last much longer.

Lowell changed tack, braced a foot against the door and pulled at the arm instead of pushing it. The zombie was an older one, with less holding it together, and the arm came free with a sickening crack. At least he had a weapon now, however makeshift.

The door creaked inward as the zombies continued their assault. He pressed himself against it, doing his best to hold it closed and swinging the arm at any stray limbs that tried to widen the hole. But he couldn't hold out for much longer, he knew that, not with an entire horde doing its best to force its way in, and there was still no word from Vera, no way to tell for himself when it was the right time.

Finally, the door caved in. Lowell scampered backwards, towards the EMP console, swinging the arm like a club and trying to keep the zombies from flanking him, but there were so many of them, all trying to force their way through the doorway at once, and there was simply no way, for every skeleton hand he swatted away two more grabbed hold of him, and soon he'd lost the club as well and they were all around him, and there was nothing left to do —

The comm came to life with a burst of static. "Lowell!" came Vera's voice. "Lowell, they're in! Activate it now!"

The console! Where was it? It had been behind him, perhaps, but he could barely tell which direction was which anymore. He flung out an arm, felt a button, pressed it as hard as he could —

He felt his skin tingle as the electromagnetic pulse swept through him. The comm shorted out in a shower of sparks; all around him, the zombies collapsed to the floor, a low buzz filling the room as the nanites in their heads shuddered and died. The lights flickered out, and were replaced by a dull red glow as emergency power was re-routed through the circuits.

Shaking, Lowell slumped against the console, his heart pounding in relief. The comm was useless now; he'd have to find his own way out, but he'd known that before he came. All that mattered was that they'd won. The nanites had been shut down. The zombies were gone. They were finally safe again.

He straightened, picked his way through the deactivated bodies, and began to retrace his steps back to the outside.