“I wanted the strongest of us to live. I wanted to rebuild the world, to start fresh, but I still needed people. So I worked out a way to have the strongest of us all survive,” she explained, looking at me as if I were simple. “Free of disease, free of alcoholism and affinity to drugs, free of the darkness that creeps up and makes us so evil.”
“So you created the virus,” I said, feeling anger rising in my throat, “to rid the Earth of the so-called weak ones. But the Awakened? What was the point of those?”
“That, I must admit, was a stroke of genius, on my part.” She smiled widely at me. I stared at her, my face hard, refusing to show her any form of emotion. I was angry, furious and terrified at the woman standing in front of me. “We stole the bodies, because we wanted to study them to see the effects of the virus, but we didn’t need so many. We had been working on these chips for so long, and it suddenly clicked together. It took a while, but we managed to use the chips to reverse the effects of death. We had our own built-in army.”
She stood up and walked back to the window overlooking the labs. Her hands were folded behind her back as she surveyed the scene below. “Of course, they turned out a little differently than we had expected. The unfortunate look of them, well, they ended up looking quite scary. I’m not quite sure what caused the blue tint to their skin pigment, but frankly, it wasn’t that important.” She shrugged her shoulders elegantly.
I stood up as well, my fists clenched. I could be across the desk and have her down on the ground in less than two seconds. I wanted to. “You’re not making any sense, Dr. Cylon…”
“Razi,” she cut in. She smiled over her shoulder endearingly, as if smiling at her daughter. I felt the fire of anger in my stomach and had to resist the urge to punch her.
“Razi, fine,” I said, dismissively. “Fine, you had an army at your disposal. But why release them? Releasing them caused even more people to die, especially after they dropped bombs on the major cities. I thought you wanted to rebuild the world with the survivors.”
“Oh, I did. I do.” She turned away from the window and came over to me, her dark eyes meeting mine. “But I wanted the strong, the strongest of the survivors. I wanted those who could survive no matter the conditions. Those who would survive the outbreak of the SK-521s, sorry, the Awakened, would be the strongest. The bombs were unfortunate but that was outside my control.” She sighed, a sorrowful look on her face. I had never seen such a forced expression.
“I want to create a utopia with the smartest, strongest people that are left in the world. The people who want to live are the ones that I need to create it. I’ve created a virus, awakened millions of dead people and perfected an army. Sekhmet, the warrior goddess of the Egyptian pharaohs, would be so proud. I am fighting for the world. I am healing it.”
She looked at me appraisingly. “You are one of those, Zoey, one of the survivors. I am so proud of you. I am so excited that you are here to become part of this new world.”
I swallowed hard. I wanted nothing to do with this new world that she had planned. She was playing God, taking nature into her own hands and I wanted no part in it.
“What do you think?” Razi asked, spreading her arms wide, as if to show off the encompassing nature of her facility. “Are you ready to join my utopia?”
“I want to see Ash,” I said immediately. “Now.”
She sighed, looking at me with disappointment. She was quiet for a long time, and I was sure she was going to refuse me. “I see,” she finally spoke. “Very well. I will take you to him.”
We left her office behind and continued through a winding maze of hallways, elevators and even a few flights of stairs. We kept going lower and lower, the air around us becoming thicker and colder. I could see white puffs of breath escaping my lips, and I wrapped my arms tight around me as I followed her.
“Where is he? Ash? Where did you put him?” I asked, looking at the doors we were passing. They were strong, steel, with a small window at the top. They looked like prison doors and I knew, deep in my gut, that Ash was behind one of these doors.
I was right. She stopped in front of one of them and pressed her thumb to the pad. The door sprung open, and she stepped aside, letting me walk in.
Ash was on a chair, not unlike the one that I had just been occupying earlier. His own room was so different though, so dark in contrast to my lighter room, and there was no one in here, just the steady beep of his heart on the monitor. He was completely out, but looked unhurt.
I spun around, facing Razi. “Why is he here? Why isn’t he upstairs, with me?”
“He’s sick,” she said simply. I looked at her, horrified. “Nothing serious. We think bronchitis, perhaps strep throat. He was trying to hide it from you, but we noticed it right away. He will heal but…” She sighed again, looking disappointed. “He is not strong, not like you. He really serves me no purpose.”