Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm



Liu Wei ran his finger along the matte black motorcycle where the silver light shone through the seams. It was surprising how bright the silver light was, but also how much it looked like the afterimage of a blade as it made a killing strike. "You didn't answer us," he reminded the bike and sighed as a piece of his soul seemed to have returned to him.

He still seemed to be missing something, but he was… complete. With Li Dai Lu beside him, his brothers at his back, and now this… motorcycle, things seemed to be falling into place.

"How did you do that?!?" demanded the woman that was still in the cage. Rolling his eyes, Liu Wei left the bike and headed toward where the voices were coming from.

"A bit more light, please, and thank you," he called out and the darkness was scared away by the bright light.  Looking down, he saw a man and woman in white lab coats laying on the ground. Both of their legs appeared to be broken and there was blood coming from their heads.

He didn't know if they were responsible for the drag marks, but one of them probably owned the espresso that led them here. "For two people in a cage, you really are quite opinionated," he mocked as he crouched down to their level. Reaching up, his eyes never leaving theirs, he unlocked the door and pulled it open. "There, I've let you out."

There was a bit of a sadistic smile on his face as he stood up and took a step back, giving them more room to be able to leave.

"You need to help us!" choked the woman as she tried to drag her body towards the opening using only her arms.

"That is where you are mistaken. I don't need to do anything," rebuked Liu Wei as he stood there with his arms crossed. Liu Yu Zeng, now interested in what was going on in the corner, went over to stand beside his brother.

"You have to help us! You can't just leave us here!" shouted the man, but unlike the woman, he didn't even bother to move. "You don't know what they have done!"

"And just who are they?" asked Chen Zi Han as he too approached the cage. Standing on the other side of Liu Wei, he pulled out his gun and let it hang down.

"The bikes," stammered the woman as she looked between the three men, not understanding why they weren't helping them.

"The bikes are hardly able to do anything without an owner," smiled Liu Wei even though every fiber of his being knew that wasn't exactly true.

"They can. We programmed a consciousness into them so that they could respond to commands," admitted the man as he pulled himself against the bars so he could sit up.

"You gave them an AI program?" asked Liu Wei impressed.

"No, we gave them the ability to respond to commands, not to be able to think for themselves," sobbed the woman as she lay at the guys' feet in exhaustion. She was too weak to go any further.

"I am assuming that unless Rip put you in here, your attempt to give them only enough intelligence to follow orders didn't work as well as you thought it would," smiled Liu Yu Zeng as he looked at his nails.

"Rip?" asked the man confused.

"Rip… the tall giant with blond hair and an accent?" explained Chen Zi Han.

"You mean experiment A321?" clarified the woman. "There is no way he could do anything. He is too stupid. Mind you, he is the only experiment of his group that was considered to be a success."

"What do you mean?" asked Li Dai Lu as she and Wang Chao walked over to the others. "Isn't this a research and development facility? Why would you have humans in here?"

"I wouldn't call A321 a human," snipped the man, and Li Dai Lu raised an eyebrow. "Are you talking about Rip?"

"Rip? Where did that name come from?" asked the man. "And since this is an R&D facility, we were tasked along with a few other facilities to revert those with an adverse reaction to the H9S5B2M6 retrovirus back to humans."

Wang Chao and the others took a moment to understand all the information that the researcher just said. "The H9S5B2M6 retrovirus, is that the technical term for the vaccine that everyone got back in October?" asked Li Dai Lu, her eyes wide.

When the scientist nodded his head, the men heard her take in a deep breath. "And the adverse reaction you are talking about?"

"The giant heads, the multiple teeth, all of the characteristics that had a physical transformation to the human subjects. Approximately 75% of the test population took on uncharacteristic appearances that the military didn't approve of. Although they wanted supersoldiers on the inside, they still needed them to look human on the outside."

"So, just for those of us that don't have a science degree," said Liu Yu Zeng as he stared at the man. "You consider the zombies to be an adverse reaction to the H9S5B2M6 retrovirus."

"Zombies? That seems to be a bit much," scoffed the man. "But if that is the colloquial term you want to apply then yes, the government wanted a 'cure' to change those that became a 'zombie' so that they could look more human. Unfortunately, over 20 facilities were not able to procure the desired results. The only successful attempt is A321, if you call him human looking I guess."

"That's not true," interjected the woman as she looked at her colleague. "Almost all of the individuals that were given R3V39S returned to their original appearance, but they developed unexpected… mental conditions. They were killed off and their bodies disposed of."

"Mental conditions? Like what?" asked Wang Chao feeling off-centered.

"Unexpected aggression, the desire for flesh, that sort of thing. We also believe that they might not experience pain as several underwent self-mutilation. Most can be explained as a result of an increase in the hormone testosterone, however, even the female subjects experienced these effects so we had to rule out a hormonal issue," said the woman.

Chen Zi Han looked at Li Dai Lu and the other men around him. "So, you guys created Reavers?"