Zombie Road: The Second Omnibus | Books 4-6 | Jessie+Scarlet Simpson, A. (pride and prejudice read txt) 📖

“Nanobots?” he finally asked. “For real?”

“Yes.” Stevens said excitedly. “Highly technical, very innovative. Not my field of science, of course, incredibly difficult to achieve. They are fascinating, the original virus is filled with them, that’s why it’s so virulent. I’ve been analyzing these capsules all morning. They must have extremely advanced laboratories to design them.”

“So they can give her the other ones, the ones to fight against the spread.” Jessie said, almost in desperation. “They just made a mistake. We have to get back.”

“No mistake.” Stevens said and waved his hands at his equipment. “With just a basic electron microscope, I determined in a matter of moments what was happening. Whoever gave her these particular pills is either incredibly stupid or he was trying to eliminate her.”

“Let’s go.” Jessie said and moved away from the door. “We’ve got to get back.”

“There’s no time for that.” Doctor Stevens said. “Didn’t you hear anything I said? It’s accelerated. She has hours before the change is complete, not days. Look at her.”

Jessie did and saw she was covered in a sheen of sweat, one eye was nearly completely black and the other was starting to cloud. The shining emerald was changing to dull forest green.

“And you’ve known this for how long?” Jessie said, cold anger settling over him.

“We came here to do something important.” Scarlet said, placing a hand on Jessies arm to stop him.

He had murder in his eyes.

She pulled out the bottle of Trucker Speed, looked directly at him and she was calm. “You promised we would finish this.”

She chugged the last of it down, the dredges in the bottom nearly thick as syrup as Jessies mind screamed and tried to refuse what was happening. Tried to push it away and ignore it and not think about it and make it not be true.

The door burst open as two men kicked it in and leveled guns at them, yelling for them to raise their hands. Scarlet dropped the bottle, rolled off her stool faster than the eye could follow. Jessie’s hands dipped and came up spitting lead as he dove behind a counter. Dum dum bullets plowed through their heads and fingers spasmed against the triggers. Their death was nearly instant, the door bounced off the wall and back against the falling bodies. The Gatorade bottle smashed to the floor as the two crumpled at awkward angles. Most of their faces had been blown through the backs of their skulls and decorated the wall above the still seated guard. Stevens cried out in pain and slumped to the ground, his hand pressed against a fast widening red spot on his shoulder. The door bounced off its stop again and glided to a halt against a twitching foot. Only a few seconds had passed.

“More will be coming.” Scarlet said. “Gunshots echo, they heard those all the way to the casino.”

“It’s on, then.” Jessie said and hunkered down by the doctor.

Stevens was breathing hard but the worst of it was over. The bullet had passed clean through.

“I’ll be all right.” he said between gasps. “Get me a clean towel.”

Scarlet crouched beside Jessie and stared at him, her face dark with streaks of poison and her eyes darker with anger.

“You could have done good with your skills but you chose not to.” she said

Stevens looked up at them, the two on their haunches looking like angry avenging angels come for a reckoning.

“What’s good? What’s bad?” he asked, regaining some of his composure. “Who’s to say my serums didn’t save lives? Look what it’s done for you.”

He pointed a bloody finger at Jessie. “You’ve done good and it’s because of me.”

“It was despite of you.” Jessie said. “I’ve been listening to you all morning and realize that you don’t care about what you’ve done and what you continue to do. You’ve known for seven or eight hours you couldn’t help her but you kept us here so you could play God and run your tests. You robbed us of time, doctor. Time we’ll never get back.”

Stevens looked between the two of them, tried to find sympathy for his throbbing shoulder.

“But I was helping you.” he nearly wailed. “I was trying to help you.”

“No, you weren’t.” Scarlet said. “You were helping yourself to our blood for your research. You were already plotting how you could get to the Tower.”

“People like you are what killed the world.” Jessie said.

His voice was clear, his anger cold and deep.

“People like you didn’t care who they worked for as long as they got what they wanted.” Scarlet said. “You chose the easy path. You stood by and did nothing while evil men took over. You could have done so much good, Doctor Stevens. The Movement started out as something good but it went bad because you helped it go bad.”

Stevens looked from one to the other and shook his head. Why were they turning against him? Why were they acting like he was a bad guy? He hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Get me a towel.” he ordered. “You know nothing of science. What’s a few lives lost if we can find the answers? It’s all for the greater good. You’re not so innocent, you were here in the beginning and you helped start all of this.”

“And now I’m finishing it.” she said and stood, ignoring his demands.

Jessie moved to the cage in the corner and pulled the curtains back. Inside was a petite, freshly turned woman with electrodes sticking out of her head. It was hard to tell how old she was from the heavy pancake makeup that made her look like a geisha girl or an actress from a kabuki theater. She wore only a silk kimono that had come untied and hung open. Her mouth had a sunken look that couldn’t be completely hidden with the whiteface and painted lips. All of her teeth had been removed. There were leather restraints hanging from the bars and a gynecologist chair in one