To Be A Hero

Chapter 56: Who Are You

"Okay, guys. The helicopter's moving out of my camera range, heading for London," Sam announces. "So, well, on the plus side, you're not going to get shot in the immediate future. And on the other plus side, quite a lot of the zombies that were chasing you have wandered off, and the ones from the station have now mostly, well, disintegrated. Not all of them, but quite a lot. Apparently they die when all the waterlogged flesh falls off their bones. So, that's interesting. Not immediately useful, but uh, interesting."

"And on the minus side," Jody says, "our genius science teenager who knows more than anyone else about the zombie virus has got into a chopper with the Minister for Recovery, who turns out to have masterminded the plot to steal your baby, create a double of Runner Five, and turn it into a zombie so she could get into a super secret military lab under Abel. Oh, and her evil henchman is there with Veronica too."

"We will rescue Miss McShell," Janine says. "We will foil the Minister. We have enough information on this data drive to damn her in the eyes of the Ministry and the country. All we need is to get it to Abel."

"Nadia and Milo are going through Veronica's room now to see if they can find any info about where they might have gone," Sam says, "and if you've had enough of a breather, there's a good gap in the zombie horde for you to make your escape."

Janine nods. "Very good, Mr. Yao. Runner Four, Runner Five, with me. We will take this message home."

She pushes a few buttons on the keypad, and it beeps before the steel doors slide open, and we run, heading towards the same door we hacked to get in.

My legs go on autopilot while my mind reels. The Minister, the head of the government in England, was the one who wanted me killed. She did something to Anna to make her agree to taking my place. Anna begged her not to kill me, but she still tried, and when I survived, she killed Anna and turned her into a S-Type zombie.

She's a monster, and now she's kidnapped Veronica.

I don't think she'll kill her. Veronica's mind is too valuable. But she might hurt her if she doesn't comply. Veronica is fifteen. She is fifteen and the Minister might do terrible things to her. She tried to kill me when I was fifteen. So, it's not like age matters to her, at least, not by moral standpoint.

Oh, poor Veronica. Does she know yet? Has the Minister told what she's done, or she still keeping her in the dark? If Veronica doesn't know yet, then she'll do whatever Sigrid wants without compliant. She'll be working for a monster and be none the wiser.

We have to save her.

We reach the exit, and we sprint like our lives depend on it, because it does. Most of the zoms have wondered off, or have disintegrated like Sam said, but those still around quickly notice us, and they start moving towards us. The ones with their jaws wired shut make me cringe. When I thought this was Tom's doing, I found it disturbing, but it felt like it made sense. Tom was insane and he would do anything to hurt Janine.

But now I know it was the Minister, and it feels so much creepier, because while Steve was shady, I did trust Sigrid a little bit. I was wary of the Ministry at first, yes, but I thought I was just being paranoid. So I forced myself to calm down and give them a small bit of my trust, and they used that against us.

But now that I think about it-Abel was under attack, Mullins was under attack, New Canton was under attack... all of these places were attacked during Maxine's delivery. We thought Tom had maybe angered some nearby settlements while wearing one of our uniforms or something, and therefore they attacked us.

But no, this was the Minister that attacked us. She's the one who did this. She must've hired people or even got people who work for her in the Ministry to do it for her. Tom just happened to be there. He does speak about a dead baby, and he did take Sarah, but he said it was the wrong one.