Chemistry saves the day

The armless zombie under the leg of its acidic kinsman stopped its last twitches. Its neck was completely melted through, and its head, no longer attached to a body, rolled to the side. The acidic zombie's eyes gleamed with green in the darkness of the abandoned storehouse. As if it understood that its prey had nowhere to escape, it didn't hurry to attack.

"Damn!" Ellin tightened his grip on his sword. "Well, at least we don't need to break our heads choosing between all the options. This guy is going to do it for us!"

This time, Eve ignored him. Her mind buzzed with thoughts. The last time she and Ellin fought the acidic zombie, it wiped the floor with them. Even just a few missed swings from it made new holes in her clothes, and she knew that if they fought for longer, the new holes would be in her skin. She also needed to be careful and avoid losing her new katana… And that was without mentioning its superior strength and speed. The only advantage Eve and Ellin had over it were numbers.

To Eve's dismay, before she had time to formulate any brilliant ideas, the zombie decided it spent enough time on menacing staring. It crouched and run towards her, flying over the meters that separated them in three huge steps. In a blink of an eye it was already there, at arm's length from Eve and reaching towards her with its acid claws.

Her nanite core kicked in, controlling her actions with no inputs from the brain. She automatically raised her katana in defence. The slash made the acid zombie retreat momentarily, before it did the same thing as last time and grabbed the blade with its hands. Eve swore under her nose.

On his side, Ellin went to attack too. He swung his water whip at the zombie's hands, at the same time running up with his sword above his head. "Hold on!"

This time, the zombie only let got of Eve's katana with one hand. It smacked Ellin's whip away like an annoying fly and reached out towards Eve's neck. With the first notes of panic awakening in her heart, Eve tried to wrench her katana free, but just like Ellin had told her earlier, the zombie's grip was tighter than a bear trap. She was put before a choice—to let go of katana or to say goodbye to her life.

The swing of Ellin's sword, aimed at the zombie's neck, forced it to use its free hand to intercept the attack. Now it was holding both Eve and Ellin's weapons with its hands, both of which were dripping with acid that threatened to break the blades sooner or later. The situation turned into a stalemate, but not the one that was favourable for the human side of the conflict.

Ellin threw a helpless glance at Eve and raised his left hand. A water whip was swiftly reforming in it, but it was nothing but a desperate attempt in resistance from Ellin's side. Both he and Eve knew how much that water could hurt the acid zombie.

Suddenly, an idea struck Eve. "Ellin! Can you control other liquids besides water?"

Ellin froze in a beginning of a swing. "Only dirty water, maybe!"

Ellin frowned, but it was within the range of her predictions. "Put some water on the acid, now!"

"Got it!" Ellin nodded and let go of his whip. It immediately dissipated into a formless steam of water, but in the next second, that water gathered into two big uneven spheres, each of which gathered near one of the acid zombie's hands. The sizzling of acid on metal immediately changed its tone; the water gathered by Ellin went into small bubbles. A fraction of a second later the zombie let go of the swords as if burned, but under Ellin's control, the water spheres followed its hands. The water in them didn't stop boiling.

"Warning! Host is suffering minor thermal damage! Immediate retreat from the source of damage is advised!" the zombie said. It was holding its hands on a distance as if it didn't know what to do with them.

"Eve, what's going on?" Ellin asked. To his credit, despite his obvious confusion, he didn't let his control over the water slip.

Eve's lips curved into a small smile. She didn't pause; as soon as her katana was free again, she charged towards the acid zombie. "Explainings later! Keep it up!"

She threw aside all her defence, concentrating only on relentless attacks. It was a risky bet—if the zombie wanted to, it could've reached her with ease. But instead of doing that, or even blocking, it kept dodging, still keeping its palms on a distance. On his side, Ellin stood still and obediently put all his attention on not letting the zombie shrug away the water spheres.

Another jump away from the katana's blade made the zombie crash into a pile of crates with a loud thud. The crate tower creaked and wobbled, but Eve ignored that in a rush of adrenaline. Even now, the zombie didn't raise its hands to block. The tables have turned—now Eve had trapped them instead of the other way around.

In her last attack, Eve put all her strength. Her sword slashed through the air, the zombie's neck, and finally got stuck in the crates behind it. The zombie's body and its head fell on the ground. With a last flicker of green, its eyes stopped glowing. Eve breathed heavily, unable to take her gaze from them.

"Eve, get away from there! I think this pile of crates is going to fall!" Ellin's shout snapped her out of her reverie.

Eve wrenched her katana out of the crate and kicked the zombie's severed head to the side, before moving away herself. It was just in time. As soon as she run up to Ellin, the tower of crates behind her let out a last sorrowful creak and fell with a thunderous noise. Some crates, rotted over the years, broke open from the impact and the shards of broken dishes and china spilled onto the ground.

"We won, Eve! We won!" Ellin jumped up to Eve with a grin and swirled her around in a hug. "We are amazing! You are amazing!"

"Let go of me!" Eve pushed him away with a free hand. Despite herself, though, she was smiling as well. "Better get these zombies' cores."

"Sure, sure." Ellin sheathed his sword and get down to the severed heads. Then something made him pause. "So, can you explain what was wrong with the acid zombie this time, Eve?"

Eve nodded, still smiling. The anticipation of finally getting her hands on a nanite core was putting her in an increasingly good mood. "Acid usually has violent reactions with water. It was only a hunch of mine—the chemistry is a completely unfamiliar profile to me. As for what happened later, I suspect the zombie was too stupid to make a connection between acid, water and his hands getting boiled. I'm going to learn all the exact details of it very soon..."

"Wow, I didn't know that. All these low-level zombies sure are dumb, though I heard that some high-level ones are as smart as humans! So, you said you knew nano-robotics—were you a scientist in the past or something?" Ellin looked at Eve's direction with curiosity. "Do you have a PhD? Should I call you 'Doctor Eve'?"

"Doctor Ziffer, if you want to go this way." Eve snorted. "Let's get these cores and find a place to rest for a while."

With the help of a survival knife, Ellin quickly carved a couple of small crystal-like cores out of zombies' dried brains and cleaned them with their clothes. Soon enough after that, he and Eve returned to their yesterday's dwelling—the otaku's apartment. In the bright light of the day, Eve examined the cores better.

One that came from level-two zombie was of semitransparent grey colour. The one that came from level-three zombie was as green as its eyes and also semitransparent, but more opaque and a bit bigger. If not for the feeling that told Eve that she should put them into her mouth despite their origin, she could've thought that they were just common rocks.

"How do we split them? You should take the level three one, and I will take the level two one… Maybe we will both upgrade to next levels this way," Ellin said. "Or, we can sell it for credits on the base. They are worth quite a lot!"

It wasn't the worst idea, but Eve shook her head. "We both will have them. I have a way. But first, I need to sleep."