Un-Life in a Parking Lot

Gareth stood stock still as he desperately tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Another survivor, another person, right here? Was this real? Did he trip and hit his head and this was all a dream? It was unlikely that the man on the other side of the window knew just how momentous of an event this was for Gareth. He had been lacking human contact for a year now, all alone with only his Pokemon in this godforsaken world overrun by the undead.

But as the man moved in a way very much unlike the aforementioned nonliving denizens of the earth, the young man couldn't deny that he was real. A real person. He had Pokemon with him too. They were following him as he- he was entering the store. Gareth shook a little as he waited for the man to arrive. What should he say? What should he do? He hadn't expected to meet another living being so suddenly. As weird as it sounded, Gareth had fully expected to be searching far and wide for signs of human life until he would one day stumble upon a hidden community, upon a place that he could call home. He didn't expect it to happen in rundown shop which had just been cleared of zombies.

The man spoke and held out his hand. It took Gareth a second to compose himself, but he took the offered limb in his own right hand and shook it, weakly at first, but then more firmly.

"Gareth Arakin. Nice- nice to meet you. You're the first living human I've seen since this whole mess started too." He had stumbled a little over his words, unsure and still somewhat shocked as he was, but he was slowly gaining more confidence. He was unsure what the man meant by harm though, Gareth didn't expect to be attacked by the living. Only the dead were dangerous. Right? Yes, it couldn't be any other way, Gareth assured himself.

"We... we should talk. About ourselves maybe. This place is safe from the zombies, we- we won't be interrupted here I think. There might be supplies too, behind a door at the back. But let's talk first, we can sort out anything else afterwards." Gareth took a deep breath. This stumbling over words was getting a little annoying, so he took a moment to calm himself.

Oh! He remembered something he had forgotten. He waved over to his two Pokemon, pointing out the Braixen first and then the Joltik. "These are Arcane and Aureolin. Arc and Reo for short. What should I call your friends?" Gareth was really trying to be a good conversationalist, but he was basically just speaking from the top of his head. He hoped he hadn't said anything wrong or weird yet.

"Right," Gareth starts, he did suggest it so it was only fair that he should start. "Basically I was thinking that we should team up. I think two people have a much greater chance of surviving than one person alone. I figured you wouldn't want to live with a stranger though so let me introduce myself." Gareth pauses for a moment.

"You already know my name, but I'm 22 years old, and I'm a botanist by profession. I grow berries and herbs in a portable grower and with the help of Pokemon, like my Tropius. I've, well, I've spent ages looking for other survivors, for some kind of community, but it dawned on me when I saw you, that a community won't be found, it will have to be made. And I was thinking that the two of us could be the start. I'm sure there must be other survivors out there, looking for other people just like I have been. If you're up to it, I'd like it if we could look for them together."

There is a determined gleam in Gareth's eyes that hasn't been there since the world had been overrun by zombies. As he waits for a response however, the certainty that had showed in his words began to retreat from him. "I, well, I can understand if that's asking for too much," he says, rubbing the back of his neck a little.

"No, teaming up at this point is a no-brainer" Richard replied. "I would have offered if you hadn't mentioned it. There is safety in numbers, and safety is a grand luxury around here."

Richard looks down at the floor pensively, cupping his chin in his hand as he perused his memories. The actual time since the disaster struck hadn't actually been all that long, but it already felt like a lifetime away.

"I was employed in the government." he began. "It wasn't terribly impressive, a white-collar managerial job in a comparatively unimportant section. But working in a government position, information trickles down. You could say I was prepared for the disaster to strike. No one believed me, of course. They never do. They just called me a tinfoil hat-wearer and told me to let it go."

Richard's hand, absentmindedly exploring the countertop he was sitting on, came to rest on a slip of paper, a business card of some kind, and he picked it up, flipping the card between his fingers as he talked.

"I've been training myself in several useful skills. For starters, I've shielded my mind from outside forces." Richard taps the side of his head for emphasis, before gesturing towards the two corpses. "There are nasty things out there, nastier than these simple undead, things that can take over your mind from miles away without even looking at you. But I also learned some more hands-on skills. I'm good at making and setting traps." he looks around at the piles of various junk strewn across the room, and did a little mental calculation.
"I bet I could have this entire room rigged in half an hour, if we needed it."

"And finally, I even have a safehouse of a sort set up. Before I ended up here, I has a sort of a fortification in the marshlands outside of the city limits, about five klicks out, and I would come here into the city to find supplies when my stock ran low. It's a modified root cellar from before the wetland restoration project, and I've camouflaged it and rigged the swamp around it with snares. It's not big by any means, but if we need a safe place to retreat, we can go there."

Richard hesitated, then looked towards the floor, a little shamefaced.

"At least, that's what I would be saying, but I had a momentary lapse in memory recently, no doubt done by one of the bigger nasties prowling the city laying a psionic attack on my mental bastions. As a result, I'm in unfamiliar territory, and don't know the way back to my swamp. If I had a map of the area, I bet I could navigate back there, but I have yet to find one."

"Of course, that's mostly moot, at this point. Any other survivors would undoubtedly still be here, in the city, hidden in some sheltered nook or staying on the move, like we are. If we want to find them, we can't go running off back to my swamp."

"My original theory was that nanites were being distributed into the water table." Richard began, his enthusiasm growing the further he explained. "These nanites were initially supposed to enter the bloodstream and boost immunity, shorten injury recovery times, and otherwise monitor and protect their occupants, while simultaneously sending information back to the government offices. Three years ago, a promising young student, who's name was Raoul Qamari, thought up of the idea and built a prototype of the nanite in question, one that could be injected into the human bloodstream. The government caught wind of this, and attempted to further develop these nanites, with Qamari as the head of the development team. Due to the controversial nature of essentially putting robots into people, not to mention the troubles they'd already had getting citizens vaccinated, the government opted for putting them into the water. Unfortunately, testing on lab Rattata revealed that the nanites had unpredictable effects in both immune response and cellular metabolism, and oftentimes would leave most specimens in a similar, although not identical, state to the zombified humans we are plagued with today. After a full year of research with no solution, they closed up shop and moved to new things, putting their nanite research into archive."

Richard got up off his seat, after much fidgeting, and begans to pace around. He was now in full lecture mode, now, and his hands swept and danced as he punctuated his speech with gestures. "And that's the way it stays until perhaps four or five months ago. Enter Deep Dream. Deep Dream is an underground bioterrorist organization, which most people know as nothing more than an affluent gang with more ego than actual influence. They infiltrated our information archives in a surprise maneuver, taking with them the research notes about the nanite plans, among other things."

Richard finishes pacing, turning back to Gareth, spreading his arms wide. "But, at that point, things go dark. Deep Dream did a good job at covering their tail, and there's only limited information I could gather from that point. I know that, recently, either Deep Dream, or another organization that either worked for Deep Dream or had the notes sold to them by Deep Dream, made threats against multiple government offices, with with very cryptic and alarming statements. I also know that, at the same point where Deep Dream stops appearing in records, Raoul Qamari also stops appearing. But, beyond that, I have nothing further. I'm assuming that they went ahead with their threats, which undoubtedly involved a modified version of these nanites, and most likely lost control of their incident, leading to the widespread 'infection' we're seeing. Or it was their plan to cause a disaster of this scale, although I can't see anyone gaining benefit out of it."

"Unfortunately, this information's foundation has been shaken, now that I've explored the city somewhat. There are bigger, nastier, and significantly smarter things out there than just zombified living beings, and no amount of nanites makes beasts like that appear overnight. Either Deep Dream has pulled something really, really big, or there's some crucial piece of information I've yet to find..." 

Richard puts his hand on his chin thoughtfully. "I suppose that's my second goal. Figuring out how things happened. Finding Deep Dream. If they're still around, that is. If I can figure that out... there might be a way to fix things."

He looks back, out the grimy window, more out of reflex of watching his back than anything else, before turning back to Gareth. "That's what I know. Take from it whatever you will. In the meantime, have you already searched this building? I'm looking for food and supplies, as I'm running low, and have a full team of Pokemon to feed, and if you haven't already scoured the place, then I'd like to get started on that."

Richard
When you turn to survey the parking lot, during your lecture, you don’t spot anything immediately alarming. You don’t remember the ornament on one of the cars nearby, but you had come from a different angle. You can’t be expected to remember every last little detail in this wasteland, right?

Still, when you tried to focus on the odd half-ball shape, you couldn’t quite suppress a shiver.

---

Gareth
In the midst of Richard’s lecture on the origin of this infernal plague, you feel what you can only describe as a tickle in your mind. Maybe something he said reminded you of something you’d heard somewhere before?

He was right, though, there were more important things to think about than that, at least right now. You might not be out in the open, but after all that talk about things more dangerous than your average zombie…

---

A quick look at the doors reveal that both are, unfortunately, locked. It would probably make a lot of noise, blasting through them, but you could, if you wanted to. Or maybe there’s a key nearby? Or at least a more graceful way of getting through… There’s bound to be something useful, in such a large building, and since these doors don’t look damaged, it stands to reason they probably weren’t raided!

"Ah, let me help you," Gareth said as he watched Richard search for a key. As he made his way around the place, looking on and under counters and such, something niggled at his mind. Something Richard had said earlier resounded within his brain, not quite calling up any memories or such, but still leaving him with a strange feeling of having forgotten something.

Feeling like they would have more luck in this search with more eyes, four pairs were better than two after all, Gareth calls to his Pokémon. "Arcane, Aureolin. Help us look for anything key shaped please."

"Well done, Arcane!" Gareth exclaims. He gives the fox Pokemon a pet on the head, scratching softly through her fur just the way she liked it. The Pokemon yipped in happiness as she handed him the key.

"Richard, we found it," he tells the other man, just in case the man was still distracted by building... whatever it was he was building. It looked dangerous, which was probably a good thing considering all the zombies.

Gareth walked towards the door and with minimal fiddling inserted the key into the keyhole and turned it.

Gareth frowned as his Pokemon suddenly look downwards. "Huh," he says. "What's wrong, guys?" He wasn't a Pokemon whisperer, but maybe they could get him to understand what was wrong. With their reactions, he was now a little hesitant to enter the room, but the idea of finding valuable or eatable loot beyond is too tempting. The Pokemon didn't seem to have an issue with him opening the door though, so hopefully whatever had them worried wasn't laying in wait in there.

"Come on, let's see what's in there," Gareth told his Pokemon. He entered the room with his partners by his side. "Arcane, can you give us a little light with your flames?" The Pokemon gave a yip of assent and with a whooshing sound, lit up the tip of the stick she carried with flame.

"Thanks, Arcane," the botanist said, petting the Pokemon's head a little. The Braixen grinned, enjoying the gesture. With the little amount of light he was given, Gareth could now peer around the room properly as he walked slowly.