“Maybe I’m stronger willed than you,” Rage smirks.
“I doubt it,” I sniff. “He can control reviveds, the same way the mutants can, and I think he must be able to do that with revitalizeds too.”
“No,” Dr. Oystein says. “Reviveds obey orders instinctively. They are placid among themselves–they never fight with one another–and they will follow the leadership of any undead creature who directs them. We could train ourselves to command them in that fashion, except I think it would be an abuse of our power.
“This is different. It must be something he set up in the past. You told me that you had crossed paths with Owl Man before the zombie rising, that he knew some of your most intimate secrets.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, remembering the day he visited my flat, how my dad was afraid of him, how he knew about my nightmares.
“I still do not know why he is interested in you,” Dr. Oystein says, “but he was obviously keeping an eye on you before you were turned. He must have hypnotized you at some point.”
“Seriously?” I gape.
“It is not as difficult as it sounds. He could have done it through third parties, your teachers for instance, instructed them to use key words or phrases in a deliberate way, at specific times, so that you would respond to certain commands later.”
“I don’t think any of my teachers were that bright,” I say dubiously.
“Then it might have been a doctor, a nurse, anyone. It is a worrying Achilles heel, but it is a personal defect. He was not able to pull that trick on Rage because he had not established control over him prior to their meeting.”
“Whatever,” I shrug. “I still think he’ll let the others go in exchange for Dan-Dan. I don’t know what sort of a thing they have going, but he nearly shat a brick when Dan-Dan threatened to withdraw his support.”
“What if he refuses to sanction the swap?” Carl asks.
“Then we use force,” I growl. “We hit them hard, free the prisoners, give those hooded horrors hell.”
“Amen to that!” Carl cries sarcastically.
“You don’t want to do anything about it?” I shout at him.
“Of course I do,” he says. “I just don’t think it’s as easy as you’re making out. We don’t know how many of them there are, or what sort of weaponry they might be packing. We can’t just storm in, knock them about and trot back home victoriously.”
“You did it when you rescued me from the HMS Belfast,” I remind him.
“That was different. Barnes gave us the inside scoop, told us how many guards were onboard, helped us distract them. We knew what we were getting into. This time we don’t.”
“But we know they’re in Battersea Power Station,” Shane says. “That’s a massive place. They can’t have covered every angle, no matter how careful they’ve been. If they won’t release all the prisoners, we can scout it out, find a weak spot, then hit them when they least expect it.”
“No,” Dr. Oystein says before I can respond. “We…” He pauses. Master Zhang is returning. The doc waits until he’s comfortably seated again, then continues. “We cannot take any action against these people at the moment.”
“Why not?” I thunder. “You raided the HMS Belfast to help me. Are you saying the people of New Kirkham aren’t as important as I was?”
“This is more complicated,” he sighs. “We are now dealing with an element that we must be wary of. We cannot wade in as we could anywhere else.”
“Why the hell not?” I shout, losing my temper.
Dr. Oystein runs a hand through his thin, brown, graying hair. “To answer that question,” he says glumly, “I will have to share secrets with you which I have so far withheld from my Angels.” He checks with Master Zhang again–our mentor gives no indication of what he might be thinking–then makes up his mind. “Yes, it is time.”
“Time for what?” I groan, hating the intrigue. But the doc stuns me into silence with his next softly delivered line.
“It is time,” he whispers, “to tell you about Owl Man and the terrible link that we share.”
THIRTEEN
“His real name, if it matters, is Tom White,” Dr. Oystein says. “For some reason he never liked that. He felt it was too ordinary. He used to make up exotic-sounding names for himself. His favorite was Zachary.”
“He calls his dog Sakarias, which is similar,” I note.
“He has a dog?” Dr. Oystein asks, and I tell him about the mutant sheepdog. “How strange. He experimented on animals in the past, but I thought he had moved on from that. Perhaps he simply felt the need for a pet. God knows, he is a lonely soul.
“Anyway, Tom White was recommended to me by a contact in Cambridge. I was told he was an extraordinary young scientist with similar interests to my own. An interview was arranged. Apart from the oddity of him insisting I refer to him as Zachary, we got along splendidly. He was bright, warm, amusing. He was clearly a genius, so I would have invited him to join my team regardless of his personality, but I also felt that we could become friends…”
They became very close friends in the end. Dr. Oystein describes their work together, the tests they conducted, the breakthroughs they made in their quest to counteract the zombie gene. Zachary became Dr. Oystein’s most trusted and valuable assistant. He helped the doctor develop the vaccine that allowed me and the other Angels to revitalize.
“I had been working on it for a long time without making much progress,” Dr. Oystein says. “With Zachary’s help, I made huge strides within a few years.”
Zachary was never happy with the finished, unstable vaccine. He kept trying to refine it, to rid it of its destructive elements, so that it could be given to every living human.
“Of course I was disturbed by its instability as well,” Dr. Oystein says. “But I was more of a realist than Zachary.” He pauses. “Or perhaps I was simply more inhuman.”
Zachary wanted to wait until they had perfected the vaccine before they tested it on living subjects. Dr. Oystein ignored his assistant’s wishes and pushed ahead with the program. He had no idea when the zombie virus would break out and sweep the globe. He only knew that time was against them and he was determined to fight back with whatever tools they had at their disposal, every step of the way.
The pair of friends argued fiercely about it. Dr. Oystein knew that thousands of lives would be wasted, and to him that was an acceptable loss. He would grieve for every person that was sacrificed, but he was prepared to accept the grief and the guilt.
“It weighed heavier on Zachary’s mind,” the doc sighs. “He went along with my instructions reluctantly, but in retrospect I think he should have stepped aside. It hit him hard and changed him. I was too caught up in our studies to notice. By the time I realized that something had radically altered in him, it was too late.”
The vaccine wasn’t their sole hope of defeating the zombie hordes. It was their Holy Grail–if they had been able to fine-tune it, they could have vaccinated the entire population and stopped the zombie apocalypse before it could start–but not their only weapon. So, while they pressed on with refining the vaccine, they also focused on how they would cope if the era of the living dead came to pass.
They worked hard on a virus, that would attack the brains of the undead, one that could spread as swiftly as the zombie gene would. A virus designed to drop every reanimated corpse in its tracks. It would be the ultimate in chemical warfare, a way of wiping out their enemies in one fell swoop.
“It’s a pity you didn’t get anywhere with that,” Carl says. “We could end this here and now if you had.”
“It would kill us too,” Shane notes.
Carl shrugs. “We’ve all got to go sometime.”
Dr. Oystein says nothing. He shares another troubled look with Master Zhang, who nods slightly and says, “They succeeded. The virus exists.”
There’s a shocked silence. We stare at Master Zhang, then at Dr. Oystein.
“I do not understand,” Ashtat frowns.
br />
“You’re saying you have a virus that can kill every zombie?” I bark.
“Yes,” Dr. Oystein says. “I call it Clements-13, after the woman my brother was married to, and her year of birth.” He smiles. “Strange that I cannot remember my own birthday, but I have never forgotten hers or my wife’s.
“Clements-13 is a dark red liquid. It is so potent that one vial is all we would need to release. Within a couple of weeks, it would have cloned itself endlessly and spread to every last corner of the world, penetrating even the most otherwise impenetrable of bunkers. The war would be over. The living would be victorious. Every zombie would be dead.”
“Then what the hell are we doing sitting here talking about it?” I roar, leaping to my feet. “Get me the damn vial. I’ll smash it open and end this thing today.”
“We cannot do that,” Dr. Oystein whispers.
“Why?” I shout. “Because we’d die too? I don’t care. If it means saving what’s left of mankind, I’ll take the fall. Let them stick up a statue in our honor, or forget about us entirely. What does it matter?”
“Whoa,” Shane says. “Let’s not be hasty here.”
“Can it, you coward,” I snap, then hold out my hand to Dr. Oystein, clicking my fingers as if summoning a dog.
“Show respect or I will admonish you,” Zhang growls.
“You can shut up too,” I retort. “I can’t believe the pair of you have let us go through all this… let the survivors suffer for all these months… when you can stop the madness by breaking open one little vial.”
“You do us proud, B,” Dr. Oystein smiles. “I am delighted that you are willing to sacrifice yourself for the lives of others.”
“I wouldn’t have been a year or two ago,” I huff. “But life hasn’t been a barrel of laughs since I revitalized.” I frown and slowly sit down again. “But you told us you didn’t care about yourself either. You said you’d happily pass the reins of power back to the living if you got the better of Mr. Dowling, that it would be a relief to roll over and die for real.”
“Yes.” Dr. Oystein looks down at his hands and his voice drops. “To be honest, I long for the end. To pass from this realm, to know the blessedness of eternal sleep, to be embraced by our maker… it is what I yearn for more than anything else.”
“Then what’s stopping you from unleashing Clements-13?” I ask quietly, but part of me has already figured out the answer.
“There is another virus,” the doc croaks. “It can wipe out the living as swiftly as Clements-13 can destroy the undead. But the keeper of that vial is neither human nor zombie. My nemesis… our most feared foe… Mr. Dowling has it.”
FOURTEEN
There’s a long, horrified silence. Then Dr. Oystein continues.
“I do not claim to understand the state of Zachary’s mind. I got to know him well before our paths diverged, and I have studied him at length from afar since. But I cannot say with certainty what he wants from this life or why he acts as he does. I have only my theories…”
In his last few years as the doctor’s assistant, Zachary mentioned Dr. Oystein’s longevity a couple of times. He spoke of all the good that he could do with those centuries at his disposal, the different fields he could branch out into. He said it was a shame that Dr. Oystein would be killed by the virus if they were successful in cultivating it. He suggested they work on a form of the virus that might spare revitalizeds while annihilating reviveds.
Dr. Oystein had no interest in surviving the zombie apocalypse. In his view the world could only be truly safe if it was rid of every last member of the undead. Zachary nodded solemnly when that was put to him, admitted the doc was right and seemed to leave the matter there.
“Science always demands a price,” Dr. Oystein says, wearily massaging his forehead. “Before we could develop a virus that might work on the undead, we had to find one that would work on the living. It was the only way we could move forward.”
The doc immersed himself in his research, developing deadly viruses in controlled environments, experimenting on live subjects supplied to him by the armies and political parties that he was in league with.
“We struck a Faustian pact,” he mutters. “I needed the human guinea pigs and technical resources which they could supply. In return I offered them the promise of chemical weapons and, even more tempting than that, prolonged life.”
Dr. Oystein knew from an early stage that the zombie gene could exist in a variety of states. He had created the reviveds and was working on revitalizeds. But there were mutant strains too, weird permutations of the gene that gave birth to creatures caught between the worlds of the living and the dead.
“I had no interest in the more twisted strains,” he says. “But there was a man who was obsessed with them—Mr. Dowling.”
The doc doesn’t know much about Mr. Dowling’s background, how he became aware of the work that had been initiated by the Nazis. But, as mad as he was in other ways, his scientific genius rivaled that of Dr. Oystein. He was as brilliant in his laboratory as he was insane outside of it, working in opposition to the doc and his assistants, concocting his own wild versions of the undead gene.
“He toyed with his subjects,” Dr. Oystein tells us. “The mutants and the inhuman baby that B saw were the results of his tinkering. There might be others that we are not aware of.”
Dr. Oystein developed a virus that would swiftly purge the earth of its human inhabitants if released. It was a nasty but ingenious little number. It would leave all the other creatures unharmed, only wiping out humanity and maybe some genetically close simians, like chimpanzees and gorillas. The virus in its purest form was a milky white liquid. It had a long chemical description, but the doc christened it Schlesinger-10, after his wife and her year of birth.
He kept Schlesinger-10 under lock and key. Only four other people had access to it. He trusted each of them implicitly. They were family as far as he was concerned. Zachary was one of the four.
The doc thinks that Zachary became fixated on cheating death. He might have been nobly motivated to begin with–live longer in order to help mankind–but things got warped inside his head somewhere along the way.
The virus was a threat to his plans. When Dr. Oystein produced Schlesinger-10, Zachary knew it was only a matter of time before it was adapted to work on zombies. When that happened, the doctor would safely dispose of his samples of Schlesinger-10, then unleash the zombie-destroying virus when the war between the living and the undead began.
“Putting the pieces together after the fact,” the doc goes on, “I realized that Zachary must have initiated contact with Mr. Dowling around that time. Or perhaps Mr. Dowling approached him. Either way, they struck a deal and Mr. Dowling injected Zachary with a unique mutant strain. It allows Zachary to live normally for most intents and purposes, with a heartbeat and functioning internal organs, yet to age slowly. From what I have seen, he does not age as slowly as us, so I do not think he will live as long, but he has extended his lifespan by several centuries at least.”
“Is the injection why his eyes are so large?” I ask.
Dr. Oystein nods. “They were big before, but nowhere near as owl-like as they are now. The potbelly was another side effect. I have no idea why he should have ballooned out in that fashion. I think it took Zachary by surprise too. He was always rather proud of his slim physique.”
Once Zachary had been injected–or perhaps the injection came later, the doc isn’t sure–he set about stealing Schlesinger-10 and killing all of those who could replicate it. It was a swift, vicious coup. He sneaked Mr. Dowling’s mutants into the laboratory where Schlesinger-10 was stored. Other mutants targeted Dr. Oystein and the three colleagues of his who had worked directly on the virus.
“The mutants killed my assistants,” the doc moans, the horror of the loss still reflected in his expression all these years later. “I should have been executed too. They caught me by surprise. Zachary had granted them access to my living quarters,
where I was normally alone.”
“So what happened?” I ask when the doc doesn’t continue. “Did you find your inner warrior and give them the licking of a lifetime?”
“Tea,” Master Zhang answers quietly. “He was saved by my fondness for tea.”
The doc felt weary that night. Zhang spotted him on his way to his room. He looked as if he was about to keel over with exhaustion. Zhang offered to make tea for him. He thought the process of brewing and sipping tea would help him relax.
Dr. Oystein almost never invited anyone back to his room, which was what Zachary had been relying on. But the doc appreciated the offer of company that night, and let Zhang come with his pot and cups.
“I was more than the doctor’s assailants had bargained for,” Zhang says. “They came prepared for a man of peace. I was an unexpected added ingredient.”
Zhang fought like a tiger–the doc’s description–and disabled the six mutants who had been assigned the task of killing Zachary’s primary target. The pair raced to the lab and sounded the alarm, but their foes had already struck and retreated. And Zachary had taken the vial of Schlesinger-10 with him, along with all of the notes relating to it.
“The paperwork was nothing,” Dr. Oystein sniffs. “I was able to reproduce the virus within weeks. But he gave the sample which he had taken to Mr. Dowling, and that changed everything.”
“Why didn’t the clown use it straight away, before you developed the zombie-killing version?” I frown.
“I’m not sure,” the doc says. “Perhaps he wanted to conduct more experiments on the living before he disposed of them. Once the virus is released, there can be no going back. Anybody would be wary of opening such a Pandora’s box, even one as mentally unhinged as Mr. Dowling.”