On The Other Side Of The World

The sound was deafening as the chopper landed in the field outside of town. One could say that it would raise the dead.... I always thought that was funny until it actually happened. In the movies, people came back due to a virus or radiation or black magic. It was always something that mankind did that destroyed the balance between life and death. There goes humanity again with it's damn science screwing things up.

The truth is that we really don't know what happened. It started with a few people passing out and waking up somewhere else. It was even joked about in the news as the "sleepwalking disease". It stopped being funny when people started falling asleep and then just die. We tried to figure out what was going on when things went from bad to worse. Those that were pronounced dead started coming back to life.

The first case was a woman in her mid-twenties. She died in her sleep. Because of the customs of her people she was not embalmed. I still remember seeing the camera phone video clip on the web. It showed her laying calmly in her casket. People were surrounding her morning her passing. Then a miracle happened. At least that's what they thought at first. Her body started moving, then she opened her eyes. They pulled her out of the casket and started hugging her and praising God that she was alive. She seemed almost confused by the fuss when she suddenly snapped and started attacking everyone. Every time I play back the clip, I can almost see in her eyes the moment she loses it.

She killed three people before cops could put her down. In the investigation that followed, it was found that she actually didn't die but was in some kind of hibernating state. It was the only explanation they could come up with for why she could be declared dead but yet still be able to revive herself. The only reason why this wasn't found out sooner was because most people declared dead where embalmed shortly after and shipped off for burial. Those that weren't were studied but cause of death was never found. In my opinion, cutting someone open to study them pretty much kills them in the process.

The hibernating process itself is still a mystery, but the affects to the body are not. In dissecting the girl, they found that there was brain damage due to lack of oxygen getting to particular areas in the frontal lobe and other parts. They said this would explain her confused state and aggressive behavior. Due to reduced blood flow, other parts of the body also suffered. She would have probably had difficulty walking and other issues. Some how I don't think that slowed her down at all.

In the days and weeks that followed there were investigations, accusations, and side shows. It looked like every nut that could grab a microphone and camera was in on it. I remember getting so sick of it that I actually threw out my OLED tv. I later showed my regret by forking over another 2 grand for a new one.  I never plugged it in to the cable box.

That seemed to be the end of the whole circus until it happened again. and again. and again. This time it didn't take days, only hours. Stories were popping up of whole families being slaughtered by the mom, dad or kids. There was no pattern or reason to it. Personally, I never hung around to see if they found one.  I left the city after the fifth case.

I was on the metro rail on the way to the airport when I met a man. At first he seemed to be just as whacked out as the  rest of the peanut gallery. It wasn't until he showed me a black card that things changed.

He sat down next to me and began the usual roll of it being the end of the world and we should all repent. Then in a more hushed tone he said " Now my child ignore this non-sense for I carry a message from the Lord."  He pulled a black card from his pocket and handed it to me. There was nothing written on it. It was just a flat piece of plastic.
Then it started moving. I watched as it slowly started folding in on itself and taking the shape of an origami wolf.

"What is this!?!" I said in a rush of whispered words.
"That is a wolfrin" he said in a chuckle.
"What!?!"
"Originally they were called wolfkinder, then wolfkin, then wolfrin by someone who doesn't know how to speak english. They are one of many tools at our disposal."
"ahhhhh??"
"We intend on being humanity's salvation for the nightmare that is to come. Are you interested?"
"......???"
"I'll give you time to think it over. I see you have quite a bit on your mind. If you are wondering why you the answer is there, along with instructions on what to do next."

With that he got up as the metro rail stopped at the next station. As I watched, the card unfolded itself and became the black plastic card it was once before. I thought I had seen everything when the front of it lit up and displayed my masters thesis from college.

It was the paper I wrote on using a magnetic scalpel to create nanomachines on a mass scale.  My advisor thought the whole thing was a waste of time both due to need for exact magnetic frequencies needed to make it work and that it would require too precise of  movement to allow for mass production. I counter argued that one could use the fields from the scalpel to encourage self assembly of some of the components. I got a passing grade but barely.

Could their interest in me be because they got it to work? I guess I will find out. A scroll bar was on the side of the display. I used my finger to move it down to the end of my paper. At the bottom was instructions to go to the number 9 stop and present the card to woman in a grey coat, she will lead me from there.



Part 2

The lady in gray was waiting for me as I got off the train. She didn’t even bother with me showing her the card. With one clean jerk she grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the platform. “Hurry up.” She as we worked our way through the crowd in the station building. I followed quickly as I could so I wouldn’t be dragged by her.

“ What about the card?” I responded as we cut through the crowd

“I know who you are, so why worry about it.”

She had a death grip on my arm as we headed towards a service doorway just off from the ticket stalls that led to outside the station. She opened it with one hand and pulled me into the hallway. As the fire door closed behind me, I wondered if I was going to end up on a missing persons list.

We followed a concrete hallway that felt like it was snaking around the building itself. The only light was coming from strips of florescent lights that were hung by chains from the ceiling. As trains passed by on the tracks they would rock back and forward. 

Several turns and a set of steps later, we reached a solid metal door. The blue paint was flaking off revealing rust spots underneath. She grabbed the handle and opened it with a clunk. She let go and went into the dark hallway on the other side.

As I got into the hallway, the door behind me closed with the same ominous clunk. The hallway itself was so tight that I couldn’t even raise my hands beyond my waist. I tried to figure out what to do next when a smoke started filling the air. It smelled like a cross between old gym socks and raw sewage. As it filled the air, I tried to hold my breath but ended up nearly gagging instead.

I could barely contain my lunch when an over head fan kicked in and the smoke was pulled away. A buzzer sounded and the door on the far side opened up. I nearly knocked over the woman as I raced towards the fresh air.

I don’t know what surprised me more the fact that I nearly knocked her over or what was on the other side when I caught my breath. For the first few minutes, all I could see was my own shoes as I tried to breath normally again.

I noticed that the woman had already taken off her coat and was putting on a lab coat. Her shoulder not only rotated but also shifted up and down , as if the joint itself was repositioning itself.

I didn’t have time to comment because Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body double was walking up to me.

“I see you decided to join us.” He said with the same accent. I couldn’t help but wondering if he did parties.

“I didn’t have much of a choice.” I said as I looked over to the woman. She had the look of almost a mousy lab tech in the coat despite wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

“Yeah, you did. You could have gone onto the airport.” She said looking back at me.  She had mild look of contempt on her face.

“ Ok….. So what is going on?” I said as I looked back that the Arnold clone. “What does me or my work have anything to do with this?”

“Your work has nothing to do with this.” She responded back. “We just wanted you.”

“Sorry she’s right. Do you remember why you where kicked out of ROTC in college?”

“Yeah. I was kicked for going AWOL with government property. We borrowed a 50 cal. rifle to settle a bet on who could hit the green Camero in the Peterson Junkyard.” “It was a dumb thing I regret to this day, even if I won the bet.”

“Right. That target was over 2,100 yards or 1.19 miles away. In your record up to that point you were being trained for competition shooting and were noted for your extreme marksman ship.” He said.

“Sooo you need my shooting abilities? Why me, I bet you could find U.S. Marines who would be a better fit.”

“We could, however you also have a better chance of understanding the tech that we use.” He said.

“In short, your learning curve wouldn’t be as bad as a bullet sponge.” She said as she looked at Arnold.

He narrowed his eyes as he looked at her and then looked back at me.

“Hold up, before we go any further, what’s with all of this and what the hell is going on?” I said as I looked around. The space could have been confused with a warehouse that has been converted to an open air lab. There were tables in neat rows like school desks facing the door and going all the way back to the end of the space. There also several chambers mixed in with the rows and some that replaced more than one row entirely.  The whole thing had the feel of a mass produced mad scientist’s lab. Other techs and what looked like solders were walking about in between the rows and chambers carrying on various projects.

“Do you want the long version or the short version?” He said as he looked from me to her.

“Which ever.”


“The short version is that this is an operation set up to slow down and stop the coming of the holocaust of human lives due to a zombie horde.” She responded.

“What?”

“Look, the whole coming back from the dead thing is not what it seems. It’s not a plague or any other kind of Hollywood gimic. It’s a glitch in the human genome that gets activated under a particular kind of stress. Humans originally had three responses to stress; fight, flight or play dead. The zombie thing is the play dead option. There is a virus that is currently floating around that is acting like the common cold. For all we know it might be a variant on it. When a person gets sick by it, it causes the right kind of stress to cause this to happen.”

“When the trait is kicked in , the body goes into a hibernation mode and slows down all body function to a crawl. This might have been in response to a possible animal attack or something else. Who knows.  As a person plays dead not enough blood flow reaches all the vital areas, including the brain, and causes permanent damage. When they wake up they are confused, and still in a stressed state. Unfortunately due to the brain damage, they go into fight mode and stay there.”

“These days only one in five still have it as an active trait. Those who don’t, just get sick and get better.” She said

“What about the sleep walkers?”

“The virus hadn’t mutated enough to cause the full affect of that kind of stress.” She said.

“Ok what about all of this?” I said as I waved my hand around.

“ You might as well handle this, I have work to do.” She said to him as she walked away.

“Is she always like this?” I asked him.

“Usually…. Follow me.” He said with as we walked in the opposite direction.

Part 3

"This operation was originally designed for another purpose. It was the first effort for military applications of cybernetic technologies. We were suppose to go from R&D to production before this crisis hit.

Officially every person here is a government contractor. It gave the military the option of cutting ties  when needed but still fund it through other means."

" Considering Senator Robert's tirade over cybernetics last year I'm not surprised." I said as I followed him around the room.

"Exactly. General Wright foresaw this as being an issue when the operation started years ago. Senator Robert's comments are nothing new. He and a few others feel that such actions are blasphemous attempts by man to corrupt God's design. Ironically, Senator Robert has followers in the far left who feel that any advance technology will led to the path of humanities' destruction.  This current crisis has drawn their attentions away due to their need to help their fellow man....."

"You mean to help themselves and accidentally help others in the process."

"Of course. If we win, they will be back to their old ways. Ironically, the very technology they condemn will be the one that saves them. Which brings me to you." he said as we stopped by a holding tank that looked like it was currently missing it's labrat.

"What about me?" I said as I looked from him to the holding tank he was standing next to.

"We have a policy here. Once you are allowed in, your not allowed back out except under two conditions. One is that your are drugged, reconditioned and placed back at your point of origin. You'll wake up considering this a bizarre dream and go about your life. The other is you go through the process and join one of our squads." he said as he looked at me grimly.

"What about the fact that only one and five change? Isn't their someway you can test for that?" I was starting to feel like this is a one way trip.

"We can, however we still don't know all of the triggers for the condition. If the virus was to mutate again, it's not possible to safely assume what the bodies response would be."

"......"

"The chamber you came through is a precaution, it detects any carriers and kills any viral particles that might be on a person. However, even with this measure we can not risk a breech. The only solutions we have are quarantine in this facility or injection of nano-machines that actively hunt for the virus.

Before you agree to the process you should know this. Anyone injected with the nano-machines have only a 10 year life span after the process. The machines completely replace the human immune system and in the process wear the body down to the point of complete failure. A body replacement is possible however most candidates suffer from a severe disassociation of reality for the rest of their operating lives."

"....." I think I'm going to be sick.

"Now the question is after you go through the procedure how will you spend your next ten years? You could become a field researcher and help to find a cure or you could join us and help eliminate the immediate threat." 

to be continued.....