Only The Dead Don't Die | Book 4 | Finding Home Popovich, A.D. (any book recommendations txt) 📖

The tension twisting his solar plexus warned the shit was about to hit the fan. He was damn sure of it. Probably another rebel attack. The Resistance had amped up their efforts. He wasn’t worried about a horde attack in the heart of Last State. Enforcers quickly neutralized the occasional Infected Incidents within the inner Zones. Which usually started with a victim of an untimely heart attack or stroke who unwittingly infected everyone within lunging range. Hey, shit happens.

Just like the botched hit on his life. Cutting deeper into his pride, Zac finally accepted that his hard-earned Elite contacts were worthless. He had gone from an honorary Elite to a dangerous dissident. Overnight. And the optics weren’t looking good for him anytime in the near future. He should have known better than to tangle with the Elites. They always won.

To further complicate his escape, the ABC Zones had recently upgraded to 6G, which meant state-of-the-art facial recognition. Thanks to a computer nerd contact, he had recently added a pair of Phantom glasses to his bag of tricks. The special lenses faked-out the constantly learning face-mapping A.I. by bouncing the camera’s infrared lights back to the source, creating a glare—not a face.

The drawback to using the glasses, the glare stuck out like Rudolph’s blaring red nose if a technician happened to be monitoring the surveillance cameras. Fortunately for him, Last State relied more on A.I. than on human techs.

How did it get this far? People had lost their privacy, freedoms, and rights in the wake of technology. More like the dawn of transhumanism. Which just happened to coincide with the pandemic. A coincidence? He didn’t have time to dwell on the downfall of America. He had to get out of that hotel. Pronto. Hell, he had to get out of Last State. With Scarlett!

Unable to avoid the array of surveillance cameras, he explored the housekeeping corridors dressed in the gray maintenance coveralls he had boosted from the laundry room. His peculiar “safe passage” ability highlighted the kitchen’s emergency door exit as the only safe option. It led to the loading dock. He would just have to hotwire a vehicle before security tagged him.

His spider senses kicked in. Aw, this isn’t a drill. An intense knowing forewarned X-strains were staging an attack on the heart of Last State. Bolstering his machismo, Zac harnessed his manifestation powers. Act like you belong.

He made it to the kitchen—a flurry of activity with cooks in white aprons scrambling about in the breakfast rush. He stopped at a circuit breaker and casually opened the panel. To get an idea of the camera’s scope, he peered over the breaker’s door panel, observing. Sure enough, when he switched to soft-focus mode, which he likened to listening with one’s eyes, the path to the kitchen’s emergency door exit glowed in his mind’s eye. Beyond that, a bitmap image of a delivery truck appeared. Bingo!

A waiter slammed through the swinging doors with a tray of steak and eggs, strawberries, and buttery toast. He dropped the tray next to the chef.

“Err, now what? The eggs aren’t yellow enough?” the haggard chef huffed. “These Elites are a bunch of—”

“No!” the waiter shrieked. Suddenly everyone turned to the waiter. “Security’s evacuating the dining room. They ordered everyone to their rooms.” The waiter stood there, bug-eyed, lost in obvious fear. “Infecteds”—he trembled—“stormed the ABC Zones.”

“What about us?” an employee shouted.

“Yeah, what are we supposed to do?” someone else cried out.

“I’ll ring management.” The chef grabbed the MeDevice from his apron.

Someone clicked on the widescreen TV mounted to the wall. Last State was notorious for livestreaming cits caught in the acts of disobedience. Hence, the minute-to-minute digital dossiers they maintained on each citizen. The RedDead Alert banner scrolled across the top of the screen and ordered citizens to shelter in place. Zac was blown away by the hundreds of people running from an atrocious army of marching zombs.

“Where is that?” someone shouted.

“A-zone,” another voice shouted back.

Zac recognized the top of the Capitol building in the background. “Son of a bitch.” His intuition had been right. How the hell did X-strains make it into the most secured location of Last State? Then it clicked. So, that’s what they were doing, herding citizens from A-Zone to Zhetto, where they’d be caught between the Zoat zombs and X-strains. Clever. All the more reason to get out of there.

A security guard barged through the swinging doors. “People, listen up. That new virulent strain is here. Get to the breakroom and barricade inside. Before they flip the switch! After that, all doors will be locked from the mainframe.”

“Thanks for the lowdown, Manny,” the chef shouted above the panic. People ran for the elevator and stairwell.

“The Elevator’s not working!” Zac overheard while he tried the emergency door amongst the chaos. He prayed damn hard security was occupied monitoring the Elites and hordes, not the help.

“Aw, shit!” The emergency door didn’t budge. He had missed his chance by seconds. Maybe not. The red pull-down fire alarm next to the circuit panel caught his attention. Would the building’s mainframe computer automatically unlock the emergency exits during a fire? After all, it was a smart building, built with the latest technology. He was about to find out.

Before he went for broke, he swiped a doggie bag from the stainless-steel counter and stuffed it into the electrician bag. He didn’t care what it was. Calories were needed, pronto. He activated the fire alarm. His well-trained hearing registered the faint click of the locking mechanism under the commotion. He tried the door. Unlocked. There is a God!

The chef stared at him in disbelief. “Sir! You can’t go out there during a lockdown!”

“Lock the door behind me. And no matter what—no matter how much screaming you hear, do not open this door!” Zac slammed