Beyond the Barrier: Zombie Town One-shots

A Helping Hack

(Once again, I was writing too late last night and ended up having to finish and upload today. I might give up on the fixed update schedule

This is the shortest story in the collection~ I posted this headcanon on Tumblr not too long ago and people seemed to like it so here it is in fic form. There's a bit of me projecting in here, I was in the same position a couple of years ago. Also the wording of things later on in this is just my personal way of seeing autism so I understand if you see it a different way. Anyway, here is a young Bonzo starting to figure himself out)

He'd only started to understand it recently – understand himself. Understand why he didn't understand so much. Only a couple of years ago, in fact.

He would stumble over his words, stutter, miss out words completely at times and just clam up, unable to say anything when he tried to speak in English, even though his mind was racing at a thousand miles an hour with ideas and questions. He used Zombie-tongue more often once he realised it didn't take so much thought. Or as many words. And eventually that was all he'd use, until his parents were getting sick of it. They insisted he shouldn't need to rely on the old language, that he was just making things complicated. He rarely spoke at all around them.

He missed things sometimes. Offhand jokes, the tiniest change in someone's expression. Whether or not zombies were even interested in what he was saying. He just didn't catch it. His parents told him he was being inconsiderate. He was being rude. But that only made him more confused.

Sometimes sounds were too loud. Sometimes loud was exactly what he needed.

He reacted so badly to fire, so much worse than any other zombie.

He didn't look other zombies in the eye if he could help it. Or he faked it.

He got so fixated on things.

When he was twelve years old, Bonzo got tired of questioning all of it. He needed answers. And the most obvious answer, as far as he could tell, was that there was something wrong with his Z-band. The Z-bands were supposed to reactivate a zombie's brain – help them think and move and speak. Help them function.

He definitely wasn't feral. He wasn't attacking anyone or craving flesh and brains. He knew he was capable of speaking English, if he just had the time and freedom to think about it, even if it turned out to be just a few words. He moved well enough. It seemed like his band was working, but it might not have been fully operational. It could be some kind of bug or coding error, he didn't really know enough about electronics to be able to pin down exactly what the problem was. But it had to be something along those lines.

How could he find out? Getting it professionally checked would mean going to the containment facility, and Bonzo refused to even consider that option. He was unsettled just going there to get his batteries replaced twice a year, to say the least. And the patrol officers and so-called "doctors" there were so rough with him. Bringing it up to his parents would no doubt land him there in the end.

Thankfully, there was another possibility. Eliza knew a thing or two about tech. She'd even hacked into her own Z-band not too long ago and got it to run video games that were restricted for zombies. Hacking Bonzo's band just to see what was wrong couldn't be so hard for her.

"Hack it?"

"Za."

"Let me take a look at it first," Eliza held out her hand and Bonzo gave her his left wrist. She examined the band front to back then tapped the screen, swiping through settings and status information until she accidently hit a wrong button. Bonzo yelped and pulled his hand away as the band shocked him, "Sorry! ...I can't see anything wrong with it."

"Greh hack-ga." So hack it.

He was so determined, Eliza had to give in because he certainly wouldn't. She reached into her backpack for her computer.

"OK. Just this once. Give me a few minutes to find it in the database. You know your code...?"

- BEYOND THE BARRIER -

She'd been scanning through files and stats for what seemed like hours with Bonzo watching over her shoulder, although he had no idea what anything on the computer screen meant, but Eliza couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. She sighed and sat back.

"Nothing."

Bonzo's gaze shifted from the computer to her. He frowned, looking confused and slightly worried. "Zonzig?"

"Everything checks out. It's not your Z-band."

He sat for a moment, thinking. Eventually, Bonzo closed his eyes and lay down on the ground beside Eliza, his hands coming up to his face.

"Greh, goreez ag zozig...?"

Then what's wrong with me...?

He looked close to tears and Eliza felt her heart drop.

"... This is really getting to you, huh?" she asked softly and he nodded, "Are your mom and dad still on your back about this? You know, they've gotta come around sooner or later. You don't need an explanation now."

"Quag," I want one, "Gra'zon agru garzedd durg." They won't change their minds.

"... Maybe we can find something..." Eliza returned to her computer, closing down the Z-band window and opening the internet. Bonzo immediately sat up and shuffled closer. With Eliza prompting him, he explained to her every problem he could think of. Still, she didn't find much.

"Wait," she said, looking at him, "What if it's not a zombie thing?"

She deleted "zombie" from the search terms and this time she didn't ignore the obviously-human-focused results. Bonzo leaned forward, directing her to different pages, reading each one intently and with every one, he was getting more and more interested, more excited, even.

"Autism?"

"Za..." he muttered, not taking his eyes off the screen, "Magra." Maybe.

Eliza cocked her head, letting Bonzo take the computer, "I don't think we have a word for that..."

"Zon," Bonzo shook his head, "... Bragan? Garzedd bragan?"

"Like 'problem', or...?"

He shook his head again. He knew the English word but he couldn't quite say it. Eliza took a guess.

"Disability?"

"Za."

She looked over the page he was reading, "I mean, I guess that's kinda what it is."

Bonzo was only vaguely listening, completely engrossed.

He had a lot to learn.