Chapter Thirty Three

As far as my eyes could see, there were only blackened rolling hills and lumps of rubble. It was impossible to tell what the rubble had been—the remains of vehicles, buildings, or human bodies.

"What kind of bombs did they use?" Crazy asked, the awe in his voice making it clear this level of destruction wasn't normal.

Doc watched the Geiger gauge on his belt as we flew across the river and shook his head when everyone glanced his way. He called out over the wind, "No blips. Whatever they used didn't leave any radiation behind."

"Keep an eye on it," White ordered. "Spread out and see what you can find, but keep line of sight."

The mission we'd been assigned had been to scout the city, searching for leftover buildings we needed to knock down and check the roads to see if they'd cooled enough for the trailers to drive over them.

We aimed for downtown, knowing the older and denser areas had more potential for buildings to have survived the bombardment. When we reached the coordinates where it'd been, however, it'd been completely flattened. All that remained was the same flat black slag covering everything as far as our eyes could see.

Crazy, who was driving the hoverbike I rode, lowered close enough to the ground for me to poke it with the tip of my rifle. It clanged against the surface as if I'd struck cold steel.

"I repeat," Crazy muttered. "What the fuck did they use?"

"Overwatch to Crazy. That's classified. Focus on the roads. Are they cool enough for travel? Over."

"Crazy to Overwatch. We can't even tell where the roads are. It looks like they paved over the entire fucking city. Over."

"Overwatch to White. Crazy isn't making sense. Report. Over."

We all looked over to White, who had set her bike to hover a hundred feet overhead and used a pair of binoculars to scope out the distant surroundings.

"White to Overwatch. Crazy's description is accurate. From our position, we're seeing a black expanse for miles in every direction. It looks like they poured magma over the city, but thermal shows zero heat. Geiger shows nominal radiation. Over."

"Sleepy to Overwatch. I just had Happy take an air sample and we're showing nothing except clean air. Whatever they used didn't leave any fumes behind. I can't be certain without digging below the surface, but it looks like whatever reaction caused this seems to have gone inert. Over."

I noticed a crevice in the ground surface and tapped Crazy's shoulder to point it out. He drove over and it instantly became clear we wouldn't be using any of the roads, because they didn't exist anymore. They'd melted and caved in, filling the underground sewers with more slag.

I reported what we'd found and Overwatch remained silent. White ordered us to position ourselves in a straight line formation at a five hundred yard interval and sweep forward across the city's remains.

Within minutes, it was clear there would be nothing for us to find. Memphis—and all the zombies that'd been there—had been erased.

"And here I thought the atomic bomb was the scariest thing humans possessed," Hanson commented. "I can understand why we could push for nuclear disarmament for so long, considering we were hiding this kind of thing up our sleeves."

"One thing is for sure," I replied, staring down at the blackened ground. "I don't feel responsible anymore."

In front of me, Crazy snickered. "What, did you think the President would authorize this kind of military strike on the say-so of an eighteen year old?"

"Nope, which is why I know I didn't cause this. What I said to the President must have just confirmed something he already knew. Maybe he held off because he thought the outcry would be too much, but my reaction told him doing something was better than doing nothing—at least in the eyes of the average citizen."

"Heads up," White called out. It was easy to tell what caught her attention. We were coming up on the edge of the city where the black slag ended and the ground had been painted black by normal fire and ash. Smoke rose from charred tree stumps and we occasionally ran across the gutted remains of vehicles and houses.

After half a mile, it appeared the fire had burned itself out. The ground transitioned into normal green grass and we encountered our first zombie of the day. It walked forward at a slow, shuffling pace with four others scattered behind it.

We ignored them and turned back. White had us split up to search the perimeter of the burned area to see if any of the undead had made it inside yet. She, like all of us, wanted to know what their reaction would be when they encountered the burned areas.

After a few minutes, Crazy and I caught up with a runner chasing a bunny across the ash field. I shouldered my rifle in preparation of dropping it, but Crazy held up a hand to tell me to wait. We followed it, hovering over its head as the bunny continued to evade all the way to where the slag started.

The bunny ran onto the slag. The zombie stopped at the border as if it'd hit an invisible wall.

"Grumpy to White. We have something interesting happening here. Over."

"White to Grumpy. Give me some good news. Over."

"Grumpy to White. We found a runner chasing a rabbit across the ashed border—"

"I said, give me some good news."

"I was getting to that. When the zombie reached the slag, it stopped. Over."

"Overwatch to Grumpy. Please repeat. Over."

"Grumpy to Overwatch. The zombie stopped like it hit a wall. We're watching it and it's not moving. Wait—it's turning around." Crazy and I watched as the zombie turned around and shuffled back in the direction it'd come from like the rabbit no longer existed.

"Well, what do you know?" Crazy barked out a laugh. "Crazy to Overwatch. Whatever the slag is made from, the zombie doesn't look like it wants to cross onto it, even for the sake of food. The damn rabbit got away. Over."

"Look at the path it's taking," I said, pointing out the way the zombie was walking down the visible path it'd left in the ash. "Grumpy to Overwatch. I think we have confirmation zombies are leaving trails and following them. After the runner turned around, it's retracing its steps through the ash, including all the zig-zags it made while trying to catch the rabbit. Over."

"White to 363, regroup at my position. You guys need to see this. Over."

"Take it down," Crazy told me. I shouldered my rifle, flicked the safety, and shot the zombie we'd followed, making sure to aim for its head. The X-50 had a lot more power than the assault rifle I'd been using. When the zombie dropped to the ground, its head fell separately.

I flipped the safety back on and trusted my rifle to its sling, grabbing on to the bars along my seat as Crazy turned us in the direction White had gone. We found her parked a few yards from the slag border, staring down at something in the ash with Doc. We lowered our own bike a good distance away to keep the hoverbike's fans from kicking ash on top of whatever they were inspecting. A good amount went flying anyway, covering both Grady and me.

The ash was thick and soft under out feet and we walked slowly since we didn't know what hazards might be hiding underneath. Both Grady and I froze and reached for our weapons when we saw what White and Doc were looking at.

A burned body was stretched out like it'd been trying to crawl away as fire engulfed it. White pointed her rifle toward the slag and I had to blink a few times before I could understand what I was looking at. A pair of legs were embedded in the slag's puffy ridge, sticking out like it'd been trying to walk to safety when its feet began melting into the ground.

"So?" Crazy asked. "What's the big deal? The zombie got stuck and ripped itself in half to get free. It tried to crawl away and the fire got it anyway."

"Take a closer look," Doc said tonelessly.

Crazy and I both rolled our eyes, but we stepped closer to the legs in search of whatever Doc expected us to find. I noticed it first. The ripped off section above the legs were still wet with blood. I glanced over at the torso—dry as a bone and charred to a crisp.

"What the hell?" I asked. "How does that half get burned and this half not?"

"That's what I'd like to know," White replied. We all looked up as Sleepy and Hanson arrived to join us.

"Holy shit," Hanson gasped when he saw the legs. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Does this stuff remind you of anything?" Crazy asked, tapping the slag with his rifle.

We all looked at it in consideration, but it was Sleepy who answered, "If there was some way to make spray foam insulation melt buildings and turn into steel afterward, I'd say yes."

"You think the bombs flooded the area with a chemical like that?" I asked.

"It would explain why this guy was melted from the bottom up," Hanson commented. "The stuff must spread out like lava."

"I could see this kind of thing being used in a lot of applications," Sleepy replied with a shrug. "Aerospace, construction—it's better than cement and provides all the strength of metal. You could inject it in areas where sinkholes are forming under roads and give it a solid steel foundation. Spray some of it in areas there are landslides and you'll basically be covering it in a hard shell—the ground underneath won't be going anywhere. And from the way it eats through whatever it touches while it's active, it'd be a damn good way to cover up chemical spills and leave a safe foundation for people to build on afterward."

"In other words, they really did pave over the entire city," Crazy summarized in disbelief.

"That's what I'm thinking," Sleepy said.

"That's great and all, but what exactly is it?" I asked. "And, more importantly, what about it made the zombie turn and walk the other way?"

No one had any answers.

"Does anyone else find this questionable?" Hanson asked.

"How so?" White asked.

"How likely is it the bombs sent by command just so happens to be exactly what we need to counter zombies?"

"You're thinking too much," White replied. "There might not be a lot of us on the front lines, but don't underestimate how many people are supporting us from safe shores. Literally every American asset is focused on countering and controlling the zombie threat. It'd be more surprising if there were no results at all."

"I'm a little pissed they didn't warn us about their true goal, but I understand why," Sleepy added. "If it'd turned out to be a failure, they wouldn't have wanted anyone to know. Think how it would hurt morale. In the long run, it's better for us to think they were just testing a new kind of missile."

"I don't think it was a missile in the traditional sense," Doc commented. "The effects were too wondrous. I'm ninety-nine percent certain it's a terraforming tool some aerospace company was developing for colonization of other planets. It not only laid a foundation for future building, but it also completely sterilized and reinforced the area. The anti-zombie affect could have been an unexpected bonus."

"It's not a terraforming tool," Crazy said in a monotone voice.

"You don't think so?" I asked.

Crazy shook his head. "The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. If it's a terraforming tool, wouldn't a purely metallic foundation cause problems for the people living there? Imagine what will happen during a lightening storm."

I thought about it and shuddered. "Good point."

"Maybe it was originally supposed to be a superconductor," I offered. "Or an energy collector."

"Whatever it is, it's not a good thing they're using it," Crazy said. "We have no way of knowing what the long term environmental effects will be. Maybe I've been affected by listening to all of Doc's conspiracy theories, but this seems a lot bigger than just building an anti-zombie fence."

"Enough," White called out. "Don't start making suppositions based on incomplete information. Let's focus on the mission in front of us."

"What is there to focus on?" Sleepy asked in a sarcastic tone. "The city is flattened and there isn't a zombie in sight."

"We'll finish the perimeter sweep we started," White replied firmly. "When we reach the Southernmost tip of the slag, we'll redirect to the neighboring town. We need to see how far the fire spread and continue clearing out any survivors—"

"Overwatch to 363. All units RTB. Repeat. All units RTB. Over."

"White to Overwatch. Did something happen? Over."

"Overwatch to White. New orders came down. I'll debrief everyone when you arrive. Over."