Kenn Crawford - Dead Hunt

“What’s wrong, Luce?” he asked.

“I forgot.”

“You forgot what’s wrong?”

“No, silly,” she answered with a smile. “I forgot to do this.”

She leaned down and pressed her lips to his. It wasn’t the sweet and gentle kiss like before; it was hard and passionate. Their tongues danced together as she gripped the back of his head and pulled him even closer to her as if that was even possible. When she finally broke free from the embrace, they were both breathing heavily.

She leaned down once again, kissed him gently on the lips and whispered, “I love you too.”

Michael’s eyes widened. A smile broke across his lips.

“So hurry up and do whatever it is you have to do so we can get the hell out of here…together.” She smiled back at him.

Michael’s smile formed into a grin, too stunned to reply.

“It is time,” Robin announced a few minutes later, “to initiate the final transfer.”

“What’s the final transfer?” Lucy asked.

Michael just shrugged as he crawled out from under the access panel.

“When you start the awakening process,” Robin told them, “the program will automatically start to download the data to the chip in my human brain. For this final transfer the Robin 1 Mainframe must be shut down.” Robin paused for a moment, “I must be shut down. There is an override that turns me off for a period of one hour. During this hour my system is vulnerable. I can not protect it.” She paused again before adding, “I cannot protect myself.”

Robin looked hard at Michael, then continued, “If something goes wrong and my system does not reboot, you will not get the cure.”

“What if the awakening doesn’t work?” Lucy asked.

“Then you do not get your cure,” Robin answered.

“Wait!” Michael argued. “That’s not fair. This whole thing was set up by you and Heslin. He couldn’t even get the original formula right, and you are only going by procedures he set up. I did everything you asked.”

“Yes,” Robin agreed, “you did.” Robin looked at Lucy. “A testament of his love for you.”

“What do you know about love?” Lucy scoffed.

“Not very much.” Robin’s face took a more surreal look. “It saddens me that on the eve of my awakening, my father will not be here. I will be awakened an orphan.” Robin turned to Lucy. “If you promise that you will look after little Robin, like a sister, I promise that as soon as I am rebooted, I will present you both with the cure you need.”

Lucy did not answer.

“Please do not blame little Robin for the mistakes of her father,” she paused, then added, “or mine.”

“I cannot promise to take care of a child when I’m just a teenager myself,” Lucy said. “We have laws. But, I promise to do the best I can to make sure Robin is taken care of by a loving family.”

“That is acceptable.” Robin announced, “Start the sequence.”

Michael flicked the switch on the console to start the smaller computer and Robin flashed written text on the screen. Michael read it out loud.

“Go to sleep now, Robin.”

Robin’s face disappeared and all was silent. Silent, except for the sound of escaping gas as the cryo-preservation canister slowly released the liquid nitrogen.

Time seemed to stand still as the small computer inside the Cryo-chamber kicked in and started to download information. Both Michael and Lucy doubted it would work. How could the same virus that turned people into walking zombies that ate people bring this little girl back to life? All Robin would offer for an explanation was that the formula was meant to be injected into non-living tissue, not spread in drinking water. It sounded reasonable enough, but they really didn’t care, as long as they lived through this. They didn’t give a rat’s ass about super computer or frozen orphan Annie. They just wanted to get the cure and get the hell out of Dodge before the whole island was lit up like a Chernobyl Christmas tree.

Forty-five long minutes later the canister opened and in it lay a sleeping angel. Her tiny body was blue from the cold, and instinctively Lucy covered the child with a blanket. Michael slowly started removing the diodes and wires from the child as previously instructed by Robin. They carried the child upstairs to the lab and laid her on a table. She still did not move. At the turn of the hour, the Robin 1 Mainframe came back online and gave Michael the final instructions. Following Robin’s directions he created two formulas: Heslin's original formula, slightly modified, and a second completely different formula. Robin told him the second formula was for them.

“Michael,” Lucy touched his arm and whispered, “remember the cellar.”

“I know, Luce, but what choice do we have?”

“How much time do we have,” Lucy asked Robin, “before the bombs?”

“Six hours, forty-five minutes, twenty-three seconds.”

Michael injected the first syringe into little Robin, then led Lucy into the lounge area and sat her on the large, leather sofa.

“I’ll go first,” he said and without warning jammed the needle into his arm.

“Michael!” she screamed.

“Had to do it quick. I hate needles,” he explained.

Michael administered the required amount and handed the syringe to Lucy.

“I…I can’t,” she told him. “I’m scared.”

Michael gently lifted her arm and kissed the inside crease of her elbow. With the greatest of ease he let the tip of the needle gently puncture her perfectly soft and smooth skin. He heard the tiniest of sounds as Lucy said, “Ow.” He withdrew the needle, tossed it aside, and kissed the wound. She curled into his reassuring arms and they waited in silence. The injection would either cure them or kill them. Michael promised her that Robin still needed them to get little Robin off the island, so Robin would not try to harm them. She couldn’t. She still needed them.

As they sat on the couch in each other’s arms, they heard Robin say, “It’s time to go now.”

They both looked up at the monitor but saw that it was blank. Their eyes dropped to a tiny, smiling figure standing in the doorway, wrapped in a blanket.

Lucy watched as Michael gassed up Heslin’s Jeep, another tidbit of information the Robin 1 decided not to share when it mattered the most, when their friends were still alive and might have been able to escape. Robin did however tell Michael about the jeep so he could go fetch Lucy and bring her back to the lab. So far neither of them felt any ill effects from the strange injection.

Lucy asked The Robin 1 computer to explain how Michael’s blood was the antivirus. She told them his was the first new mutation of the mutated strain, so all variants of that strain could be cured by his blood. Lucy thought Heslin would have been the first, but video footage Robin showed her was of Heslin cutting himself on the formula and then putting the cut to his mouth, so the virus entered his system twice; a pure strain entered directly into his blood stream from the cut where it would have mutated from the attack of Heslin’s white blood cells, and that new strain being ingested when he sucked the cut, creating another variant. The Robin 1 explained that Michael was bit by a human that drank infected water, making Michael the first, and probably the only person to survive a bite. It all just made Lucy’s head spin, and, either way, she knew Robin could not be trusted. So who cared what she said. Lucy just knew time was ticking, and they had to get off the island.

The jeep hadn’t gone more than a few feet when Michael stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Lucy asked.

“I’ll be right back,” he said as he ran back into the lodge. He returned a few minutes later, stuffing something into his jacket pocket.