She led him up two flights of stairs, to what he assumed was the top floor of the hospital building. They entered a hallway, stopping before a large door, which she pushed open for Stu. "Stay here," she told the Lab Rat. "I'll call you if I need you."

  The Lab Rat was obviously puzzled by her behavior. "Are you sure about this?" he grumbled.

  "Just do as you're told," she said, rather harshly. Then, smiling sweetly, she turned to Stu. "After you."

  "Thanks," he returned, cautiously. He entered the room.

  The Researcher's living quarters turned out to be a spacious, comfortable-looking room, which looked like it might have been office space or some kind of large lobby or waiting room at one point. The room was clean, with plush carpeting and several nice-looking chairs and couches, and there was a wall of windows on the southern wall, which offered a nice panoramic view of a darkened Heart's Glow.

  Another wall was covered with security monitors -- at least two dozen screens, which showed various black-and-white and in-color feeds from cameras both inside and outside the hospital. Most of the camera feeds showed stationary footage from a fixed angle, but others were moving -- this, Stu assumed, was footage coming from drones and robots. From what he could see, she had the whole building -- indeed, most of the city -- pretty well covered. No wonder she had seen them coming.

  "Would you like something to drink?" she asked him.

  "What do you have?"

  "Strawberry spritz. Ice water. Liquor."

  "Liquor?" A part of him was tempted -- he could use a bit of liquid courage -- but he didn't want to get anywhere close to drunk, either, in this situation.

  "I've got a few bottles of wine on hand," she explained, "and some harder stuff, scavenged from around town. It doesn't do anything for me now, but after I've found a cure..." She trailed off.

  "That's what you're working towards? A cure?"

  "What else? What do you want to drink?"

  "Just some water would be nice," he said.

  She frowned at that -- maybe she had hoped to get him drunk -- but she went into another room, anyway, to fetch him a glass. While he waited, he studied the security feeds on the monitors...and to his surprise, he spotted Millie in one of them. The cyborg-girl was on the other side of the hospital, near the rear entrance; she seemed to be making her way up to the makeshift barricades protecting that entrance. The video presented a bird's eye view, evidently from a drone, but it was zoomed in enough that he had no trouble recognizing her.

  What was she doing? Was she trying to get into the hospital?

  The Researcher suddenly arrived with his water. To Stu's dismay, she, too, spotted Millie on the monitor. "What's she doing out there?"

  "Who is she?"

  "Subject No. 016," she said. "An early experiment. I should send a robot after her."

  "What did you do to her?"

  "Nothing much. I was experimenting with some cybernetic outfitting at the time, and I thought she might make a good subject. As I recall, I replaced an eye, and an arm, and made some other little modifications. She got away before I could fit her with a proper grub module."

  "A grub module?" he asked, playing dumb.

  "A device for controlling the infected. I have a whole system set up for it."

  "Ah." He paused, then asked, "What's the point of all this cybernetic stuff? I thought you said you were trying to find a cure for the zombie..." He stopped there, remembering that she didn't like the word zombie. "For the infection," he finished.

  "Well, that's a priority, of course, but my first priority is staying alive long enough to finish my research. I'm infected, you see. An infected patient's internal organs -- heart, liver, lungs -- heal rapidly, but the skin, the skeleton, the nerves, the blood vessels, various extremities...these don't heal. At least, not at a normal human rate. At some point I expect to lose a limb to the infection, and when I do, I want to have an artificial replacement ready to go. Naturally I found it necessary to carry out some experiments in that direction."

  "You're planning on turning yourself into a cyborg?"

  "I hope to find a cure before then."

  Stu's eyes returned to the security monitor. "She's just a kid."

  The Researcher shrugged indifferently. "Sacrifices must be made, sometimes, for science."

  "Yes, but...doing these kinds of experiments on kids, on innocent people..."

  "So a few innocent people are killed. So what? Innocent people are killed all the time, and for no greater purpose. My subjects have the honor, at least, of dying for science."

  "The ends justify the means?"

  "If you want to put it that way," she said airily. "I would have worried about the morality of all this, before the world went to hell. I was a different person then. Now, though..." She shook her head. "I simply can't allow myself to be constrained by these kinds of ethical concerns. I have to find a cure, for myself and for the world."

  "Are you close?" Stu asked. "To finding a cure, I mean?"

  "I'm making progress," she said defensively. "Of course I'm making progress. I've been working at it for years. Slaving away in this disgusting little town, digging in zombie brains, rewiring robots...you think I haven't made any progress? You think I'm just wasting my time here?" She was growing increasingly agitated for some reason. "No, no, no. I've been working harder than anyone. I've been fighting, fighting it, every day. I'm in total control of Heart's Glow. And if anyone tries to get in my way..." She was breathing rapidly now, and her entire demeanor had changed; there was a madness in her silver eyes now that he hadn't seen there before. "I...I..."

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  She suddenly stopped, getting control of her breathing. "Excuse me," she said, and she went to a glass cabinet and removed a vial of some kind of purple liquid. She pulled the stopper on it and drank it down in one gulp.

  Unnerved by the change in her personality, Stu studied her carefully. "Are you all right?"

  "Fine," she said, replacing the empty vial in the cabinet. "Perfectly fine."

  "What was that you just drank?"

  "Just a little cocktail I invented. It's called philo. It calms me down. Now, where were we?"

  "You were telling me about how close you were to finding a cure," he said guardedly.

  "Ah, yes. But do we have to talk about work? I'd like to get to know you a little better." She took off her lab coat and tossed it away, and took off her glasses as well, setting them on an table. Then she sat down on one of the couches and patted the seat next to her. "Why don't you come over here and sit with me?"

  She really was a beautiful woman, Stu reflected. She could have been a model. What's more, she was wearing a tight black shirt which flattered her figure, and a short skirt that showed off her long and shapely legs. If he hadn't known she was a zombie -- and he could hardly forget it; his Zombie Radar was a constant buzz in his brain, and that "Level 3 Brainy" designation was still hanging over her head -- he never would have guessed it.

  How far did he really want to take this? How far could he take it? The infection spread through bites and saliva; he wasn't even sure he could safely kiss her without getting infected.

  Not that he wanted to kiss her, of course, no matter how beautiful she was and no matter how tempting it might seem. What he wanted to do was escape the hospital with Lucky and Luna, get to the glider, and hope to hell they could find a few drops of dynamo fluid somewhere between here and there. He didn't think he'd have too much trouble overpowering the Researcher, but the Lab Rat was just outside, and if the big zom-borg heard anything suspicious going on in this room, well, there wasn't anything stopping him from bursting in and ripping Stu to shreds. He had barely survived his fight with the Living Hell back at the Dealership, and the Living Hell had only been a Level 25. It was hard to imagine what a Level 41 might be capable of. Millie had said he was invincible; that might not be too far off.

  The Researcher was obviously interested in him, thanks to the Don Juan skill. Maybe he could do this without violence -- maybe he could talk his way through this, convince her to release Lucky and Luna and to hand over a canister of dynamo fluid. But to do that, he was going to have to get her to drop her defenses. He was going to have to seduce her.

  Stu wasn't exactly a Don Juan himself -- he had had a few girlfriends before Berly, but they had almost always made the first move. He was going to have to take the initiative here.

  Of course the Don Juan skill had already put her under his spell, but he didn't think she would take it very well if he just suddenly started making demands. Better to take this slow.

  So he sat down on the couch, next to her. She crossed her legs in his direction.

  "Tell me about yourself," she said, putting a hand on his knee.

  He forced himself to remain calm, cool, collected, casual. "What do you want to know?"

  "Well, you said you came from another world. Did you mean that literally or figuratively?"

  "Literally."

  "You can't be serious."

  "I was brought here a few weeks ago. I had never even seen an...an infected person before then."

  "You were brought here?"

  "By a couple of men named Virge and Wayman. They forced me through some kind of portal, said they were taking me to see someone called Dr. Snowe."

  "Alistair Snowe?"

  Stu stared. "You know him?"

  "Only by reputation. Snowe was a genius. He helped develop dynamo technology, about thirty years ago, and lots of other things besides. I had heard he lived in Lon Halos."

  She had actually heard of him! It was just his luck, that the first person he came across who actually knew something about Dr. Snowe also happened to be a zombie scientist, from whom he desperately wanted to escape.

  "But why did these men want to bring you to Dr. Snowe?" she asked. "Were they interested in your unique...physiology, perhaps?"

  "Perhaps," he allowed. His eyes had strayed to the array of monitors again. One of them, he suddenly realized, was pointing right at the cage which held Lucky and Luna. Both of them were watching the other man in the cage, the sleeping man, with some trepidation. He was likely to wake up and attack them at any moment.

  He needed to hurry this up.

  He turned to the Researcher, looking deep into her eyes. "You're very beautiful," he told her.

  She smiled. "You think so?"

  "And brilliant, too. You've accomplished so much here, in such a short time."

  "I'm glad you see it that way." She started snuggling up to him; once again, he forced himself to remain cool and casual, taking care not to let his revulsion show. In spite of everything, she was, after all, a zombie. "I'm finding you rather fascinating as well," she added. "Will you stay with me?"

  "Stay with you?"

  "I didn't think I needed companionship here. But I realize now..." She was very close to him, her face mere inches away from his. "Will you stay with me, here in Heart's Glow? Help me carry out my research?" She looked up at him, her eyelashes fluttering, as though she were some kind of innocent schoolgirl asking for a favor.

  The Don Juan skill really was working; she was practically throwing herself at him. "You've changed your mind about experimenting on me?"

  "Not exactly," she said, giving him a salacious grin. "In fact I have a few experiments I'm just itching to try." And she leaned in for a kiss.

  Stu pushed her back. "All right," he told her. "I'll stay with you, in Heart's Glow. But there's something I want in return."

  "And what would that be?"

  He gestured to the array of security monitors. "You've got a couple of my friends locked up downstairs. I'd like you to release them."

  She frowned. "Friends?"

  "I'd really appreciate it if you let them go."

  She drew back from him, the disapproval plain on her face. "I'd rather not. Good test subjects are hard to come by."

  "So you won't do it?" He stood up. "In that case..."

  "No!" She jumped to her feet as well, grabbing his arm. "It's just a couple of kids, after all. If you really want me to let them go..."

  "I do." And to make himself seem more sincere, he put an arm around her waist and pulled her close. "Let them go, and I'll be yours forever." It was a cheesy, over-the-top line, and it felt strange saying it to this woman he barely knew, but the Don Juan skill must have been amplifying his attractiveness beyond all reason, because she practically melted in his arms when he said it.

  "I'll release them right now," she said. She reached into her pocket and removed something that looked like a remote control, and pressed a single red button on it, holding it down while aiming it at the door.

  The Lab Rat rushed in immediately. "Mistress?"

  "I'd like you to go to the second floor and release the two new subjects."

  He scowled at the order. "Are you sure?"

  "Of course I'm sure!"

  "Forgive me, Mistress," he rumbled, "but you've behaving rather strangely this evening. Are you all right? This man...has he done something to you?"

  "There's nothing wrong with me, or with him. Now do as you're told, or I'll--"

  Before she could finish the sentence, Stu snatched the remote out of her hands. She looked at him in shock, and the Lab Rat, enraged, instantly rushed forward, but Stu aimed the remote at him, while holding down the button. "Stop!" he shouted.

  To his relief -- he wasn't sure if he was using this thing properly -- the giant stopped dead in his tracks. He glared at Stu with his red, unblinking eyes.

  "What are you doing?" the Researcher demanded. "I thought we were--"

  He ignored her, addressing the Lab Rat instead. "Hold her," he told him.

  Reluctantly, his teeth grinding away, the robo-zombie did as he was told, walking up to the Researcher and holding her by the shoulders. "Stay there," Stu instructed him. "Don't leave this room, and don't let her leave the room either."

  "You won't get away with this," the Lab Rat grumbled. The Researcher, for her part, looked more hurt than angry. The little heart symbol was still hovering over her head; for a moment Stu actually felt a little guilty for betraying her like this.

  He glanced at the monitor, the one showing Lucky and Luna. "Hang tight," he whispered. "I'm on my way."