They Call Me Daring

Chapter 32

"The disease was obviously engineered in a lab." I said, pacing across the floor, mindless of obstacles- I simply shoved the desks out of my way until I was walking laps around the building restless. "It had to have been. Nothing natural could do something like that."
"It's pretty far-fetched, Liam." The Doc rubbed his bloodshot eyes.
"Of course it is! If it weren't, it wouldn't have caused this much chaos." I exclaimed. I was the your average ADHD teenager hyped up on six mugs of coffee after a sleepless night. I was practically bouncing off walls. "No, I'm positive. Somebody, somewhere, they created it. Engineered it in a lab, probably was a bio-warfare experiment."
I turned to the Doc, and stopped pacing, speaking with deadly certainty. "I'll bet they planned to use it on enemy countries, a last resort. It would be incredibly simple," I said, with realization. "Isolate the country in question, first of all. Then release the disease on them. The virus would take over in a matter of weeks. It would invade people's brains, and act as a... a biological delete button, per say." I bit my lip, nodding to myself. "It would erase everything they were, and ever had been. Personality, memories, motor skills, everything."
"Liam, I don't think-"
"Hold on," I held up my hand to silence the Doc. "I'm on a roll. Just let me finish.
"It erased people themselves, in essence. But their work wasn't done there... No, after that, the pathogen came to work and finished the job... not killing them, but rewiring their brains completely. They took away any human feelings- remorse, sympathy, pain... love." I looked out the window. "And replaced them with some predatory hunger..."
"Now why would somebody do that?" The Doc shook his head. "I understand your thought process, Liam. But why would someone want to create an army of virtually unstoppable, limitless demons?"
"Maybe they didn't mean for it to be that way." I said softly. "Maybe.. Maybe they meant to turn them into mindless, easily controlled drones. Think about it... an army of freakishly athletic, remorseless, easily-controlled bodies that would do your bidding without question. And," I added on another thought. "It would, to coin a phrase, kill two birds with one stone. They would be annihilating the enemy... as well as birthing an army to defend against others." I whistled softly. "A weapon like that... the entire world would fear you... You would be the most powerful country of all."
My words filled the air.
"But if they created the virus to make an army... why do the creatures rot on their own feet? I can hardly believe that was purposeful."
"No, it wasn't." I nodded in agreement. "Because the virus wasn't finished yet."
"So you're saying..."
"I'm saying that somebody, somewhere, was developing a terrible weapon. And, somehow, most likely by complete mistake, they let it out. And the world fell within a year." I took a deep breath.
The room was silent for a long time. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the Doc spoke. "I think there's some truth to that, Liam. I don't know how... but it all fits together. Except-"
"Except?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Except that you said this would be the key to curing you... and killing the zombies."
"It is." I said, like it was obvious.
The Doc blinked. "Evidently it's not apparent to me."
"Don't you see?" I said. "We just need to isolate and identify the pathogen, and find a cure. A chemical that will kill the virus, and make people immune to it. An antibiotic."
"You say that like it's easy." Doc muttered, stretching.
"I brought back samples of, you know, brains." I said. "Now that you know what you're looking for... do you think you can find it?"
Silence. The Doc looked at me with bloodshot, tired eyes, magnified by the thick lenses of his glasses and the scruffiness of his hair. He nodded.
"Only I think you've already found the cure." He said.
"I what?" I raised an eyebrow.
"You've basically said it yourself." He said. "I was up all night thinking it through... and I realized you discovered the cure without even meaning to."
"By all means, educate me." I threw up my hands.
"You said you only feel yourself going over when adrenaline is high... and that made me think; what about when your adrenaline is low?"
"That doesn't explain anything." I said flatly.
"It explains everything!" He cried. "Why your eyes are green again and your hair is turning brown! It's because you've figured out how to avoid incidents and keep your head."
"Yeah, I know that. But how does that explain why I'm changing back?"
"Because you're learning to avoid rushes of energy." He said, and I began to see where he was going.
"So... I think I see what you mean."
"I mean that the pathogen has to feed off of something. Something with enough power to wipe out a human mind and replace it with something else... something that could hold that much data... it would have to have a source of energy..."
"And what's more energetic than energy itself." I finished for him.
"Precisely. You're learning to shorten the outbursts of adrenaline and make them fewer and further between. In essence, you're starving the virus."
I nodded, letting the idea roll through my head, tasting it. "Yeah... and that would explain why once you've gone over completely there's no coming back."
"It would?" The Doc frowned.
"Yes!" I explained. "When I go into... well, I don't know what to call it, but when I'm not me, it's like a constant surge of adrenaline. 24/7. If you go long enough without breaking out of that, the virus will feed off of all that energy and as it grows stronger, eventually erase your mind until you don't exist anymore! And after that... there's no coming back!"
"Liam... that's actually genius." He frowned.
"You look surprised." I said, offended.
"It even explains why I thought there was a connection between the duration of the transformation and heart rates!" The Doc exclaimed excitedly. "Except I had it backwards!" He rubbed his nose. "People with lower heart rates are athletes, generally speaking. That means they would experience more adrenaline rushes than your average person."
"Which means the virus would grow stronger faster and erase them sooner!" We exclaimed at the same time, then stared at each other in awe at what we'd just said. Ten years of uncertainty and fear... and here, we'd suddenly some up with an explanation for it all in a matter of days.
"You realize we just solved the puzzle of the decade." The Doc said slowly, and I nodded, grinning.
"Yup. But that's just a theory, technically speaking."
"Time to put it to the test."
"Exactly." I agreed. "If we can come up with some... some anti-adrenaline chemical, and make that into a gas bomb and spread it everywhere... the virus would starve, which is essentially the zombies brains itself... and, theoretically... they should drop dead."
"And the best part of it," The Doc said, grinning. "Is that I have just the thing."