"Probably?"
"There is always risk Max. I will send in some helpers to prep you, please don't give them any trouble, they are under orders to prep you at any cost, and I want this done today, regardless of any broken bones you might suffer at their hands."
The doctor left the room to be replaced by two very capable looking zombies pushing in a heavy steel gurney. Still using his half sight, he felt these two were at least the equal of Aubrey. 'Where the hell is she, anyway?' Max thought as the two approached and began unstrapping his restraints. Of course he fought anyway.
Chapter 40 — Katie
Katie was standing mauled and naked in the rubble; her fingers were broken, twisted things that resembled wriggling worms more than flanges. She shifted the rocks away from the street, just one zombie in a seemingly endless line, clearing out pieces of broken concrete and the odd corpse or broken bit of office furniture from the collapsed building. Two zombies, their eyes glaring at her in intense hatred, carried a squirming man dressed in cut off shorts and a t-shirt towards her from the end of the line. The two stopped in front of her and held the man steady while Katie tore into him. With each bite she healed, with each swallow her mind came back and she remembered what she was and the details of her fight with the zombie on the roof. She remembered she had been bitten several times by the zombie during the fight before the first shell landed on the roof.
Katie pulled away from the dying man, remembering enough to be disgusted and reject this unlife she had been gifted. 'Eat. Eat and forget.' Came the persistent voice inside her head.
Aubrey. The woman was buried in the rubble that Katie was clearing. The woman wanted Katie, wanted her functional. At first Katie thought it was for revenge, Katie had throat shot the woman and killed her partner Harry too. When Aubrey was finally revealed, a compact, ragged figure, so covered with dust that she resembled the concrete that was found covering her, revenge seemed imminent. The woman had sent Katie to stand inside one of the other downtown buildings, along with hundreds of other zombies. Katie thought maybe she would just end up being another wheel on the cog, forgotten.
But the living kept arriving like clockwork, a child here, someone old enough to be her grandparent there. All for Katie, all a constant reminder that she was not forgotten. The zombies around her were mindless dead, and stared only at the victims hungrily, held in check from ripping them apart only by Aubrey's will. The ones bringing her the food knew, they knew, but could not talk to her, just as Katie herself was compelled to remain silent as they held the victims in place.
Days went by, the feeding continued and Katie grew stronger. As much as the process disgusted her, she had hopes that Aubrey would go too far, that the woman would overfeed Katie and make her strong enough to break free from the bitch's shackles. Eventually Katie tried; she shrugged off the other woman and managed to race almost three steps before Aubrey's will re-asserted itself.
Soon after she was summoned to Aubrey's presence, what she saw along the way was not comforting. There were zombies that were very clearly not right. They looked like the intelligent kind, the fast ones who could talk, however, most were babbling incoherently. One was reciting what sounded like the Gettysburg address while walking into a wall. It would fall over, get back up, say another line from that historical document and walk into the wall again and then it would start over. Others were crying, one was using a piece of glass to cut its wrists to the bone. The wounds healed quickly, but not before spilling a black mess out of his veins, he had been at it a long time, given the size stain on the ground beneath him. Aubrey was not in a conference room, she held court in an empty street, surrounded by other super zombies.
The memories faded out and Katie found herself back in the pizza parlor. 'Now what was that daydream all about?'
"Katie, when did you last eat?" Randy asked her again. She looked around to see him standing beside her.
"Randy! Good to see you…" Katie faltered.
"You're dead Katie, you need to remember. Tell me what happened."
"I…" Katie's world disappeared again, the pizza place fading in and out, with only Randy remaining beside her, a steady beacon, an anchor in the swirling chaos of time, places and memories.
Back on the street in Chicago Aubrey gestured behind Katie at the insane zombies, "I've been experimenting and I think I just about have this down. I need to act now. It's sooner than I would like, but we can't always choose when to do what must be done, wouldn't you agree."
"I shot you."
"Yes, very observant. I survived and you did too, in a fashion. I need you and I will have you. How would you like to kill the man responsible for all of this? Isn't that better than just taking out a couple of his leaders?" Aubrey asked.
Katie shook her head, "You killed Randy. I'll kill you, I swear I will, if it's the last thing I do."
"I've killed a lot of people; it wasn't personal, but you almost got me, it if that is any consolation."
Katie remembered struggling, pitting her will against that of Aubrey, she was like a kitten fighting against and elephant.
"I see we'll have to do this the hard way. Well, that is what I've been practicing for. Now I've learned that what is taken away can never be restored, but I've also been trying some things to work around that problem. You might think I am just shaping you to be a tool that I never think about again, and truth be told if you accomplish what I need, the end would justify the means. However, my tests have proven that I am more of a mechanic than a surgeon. I lack the finesse of wiping out vast swaths of your memory and replacing them with my directions and I need your skills and abilities as intact as I can have them."
"I will kill you." Katie ground out between clenched jaws.
"Yes, yes, we'll get to that later. First things first. You're alive. You never died. You will forget all of this until I tell you otherwise." Aubrey said the words and Katie felt the changes in her head. The woman was inside her head, moving things around. She wasn't removing things, she was putting instruction in Katie's brain of what to remember. Katie screamed, raising her head to glare up at the shattered windows of the office building on one side of the street. That was when she saw Randy.
He looked serene, a link to her past and, thankfully, he was not a zombie. Katie was sure of this. "Shoot me! Kill me Randy! Shoot me!" Katie begged.
Aubrey paused in her work, "Randy?" the woman looked closer into Katie's head, "Ah, your partner. You're lover. Naughty-naughty, you know the rules against what you did! You were a cold, standoffish bitch to him weren't you? Just a friend with benefits?" Aubrey snorted, "Well I think you did a pretty good job of deluding yourself there, didn't you?" She turned back to her work.
Randy stepped out of the building and approached Katie's side, holding out a hand and shaking his head quietly, finger held to his lips, his voice, a bare whisper said, "Don't speak. I don't know everything, but I can keep part of you, for a little while. I can come with you. I can help."
Katie screamed again and yelled, "Yes! Yes!"
Aubrey, misunderstood Katie's outburst, she nodded her approval, "It is better if you just accept it. After this we'll work on hiding yourself from our kind. I think you will be the best pupil yet. I have a whole slew of mission objectives for you, don't worry; we'll get through this."
The memories faded again to the present where Randy's arms encircled her in the restaurant, holding her tightly. She quickly composed herself and tried to pull away. He held onto to her.