To Be A Champion

Chapter 29: She's Somebody's Daughter

"Let me get this straight," Sam says slowly, brows furrowing as he tries to think all of this through. "We came to Dearg to find out why the labs here wanted red fungus and so we could cure Janine-"

"And so we could learn more about Project Feive," Nicole adds, ignoring the glare he sends us.

"So, you and Callista could learn more about Project Feive," He corrects, and I do my best to hide my frown at the cattiness in his voice. "We go here to find out all this, only to find out the labs are under lockdown with us trapped inside because everyone here is infected with red fungus."

I swallow against the lump in my throat. "Are you sure you're infected, Frances? The fungus usually turns people into a V-Type zom within a few minutes. And you said-"

I don't get to ask what she meant when she said Catherine was a special case because Janine is quickly talking over me, much to my annoyance.

"Yes, Miss Dempsey. In our experience, the red fungus creates, as Five stated, a V-Type, which is an extremely dangerous form of zombie."

"Not here," She replies quickly. "Not yet, anyway. Everyone here has traces of fungus in our blood from the water supply, but it's spreading in our systems very slowly. We don't know why.

"Catherine's the only one with nearly no fungus in her blood, although we've seen other oddities in her bloodstream. It's something similar to the fungus, but not quite. We think it might be slowing the spread further, but we can't exactly use it to create a vaccine because we don't know how it works.

"Plus, until you confirmed it, we all thought she'd gone insane. She kept talking about needing new bodies. We give her food and water, but she's been locked in containment for a few months now."

Janine hums. "Runner Five has told me nothing of this Catherine, but she and this Project Feive will have to be a discussion for another time. Based on what you've stated, it could be that the red fungus found here is a variant of the one inside mainland V-Types."

"We've been trying to keep ours from spreading beyond this base." Her voice catches in her throat as if she might be holding back tears. "I'm so sorry that we failed."

Suddenly, the door flies open, and a man in a lab coat steps into the room. He looks to be in his late twenties, with dark blonde hair and sea-green eyes that go wide when he sees us.

"What? Who in God's name are you?" His eyes settle on me, and he becomes even more panicked. "Oh, God. She's got out." He starts to grab a walkie-talkie from his back pocket, but I quickly reach out my hands.

"I'm not Catherine!" I shout, and my accent makes him pause. Still, he narrows his eyes at me.

"Then who are you?"

"Calm down, Casper," Frances scolds, and the man now known to be Casper lifts his eyes up towards the ceiling where the speakers are. "I let them in. Everyone, meet Casper Braam. He's one of the grad assistants here."

Casper stiffens, looking at all of us with anger and distress. "You let them in? We agreed, Frances! We can't risk further contamination! You're too soft!"

"It's too late!" She argues. "We failed. The fungus is out of the base. These people want to help fight it."

He points at me, looking as if I have two heads. "And her? Why does she look like Catherine?"

"She was a part of the Feive Project."

He lets out a breath of air. "She was telling the truth then."

"Afraid so. Anyway, I'm taking them to the computer core. They're friends of my sister. Friends of Alice."

That actually gets him to calm down. "Oh, you're from Abel."