Fracking Apocalypse - a ZNation 10K/Tommy Fanfiction

S8E01: Part 1

"The trace of the vaccine that we take from 10K's blood is only the start." He said louder as he stood from his chair and threw his napkin on the table, "We still need to keep testing what we have with Gene 47 to reactivate his immunity to zombies. That's how it becomes marketable to humans. Restarting the heart only helps Talkers and freshly turned Z's and that market will go down once we make everyone else immune."

"Easier said than done." Kurian muttered.

Murphy stood at another desk looking at what was left of Sun Mei's brain. Somewhere in it was the information on how Gene 47 actively fought the zombie virus, 10K's blend immunity would only repress the infection, Gene 47 would teach the body how to defend against it. Only together would he get the cure, and looking at Sun's brain with chucks missing from it he knew it was only a matter of time.

And now that time had come. He'd had Wesson and some Talkers who used to buy lithium from the Black Market put out word that something even bigger was in the works. Now he'd only been checking and rechecking to make sure he hadn't made any mistakes. Remembering Kurian's last failure in Mexico he knew he didn't want to repeat that. Wesson had brought in some starving Talkers who were willing to be guinea pigs – experiments Murphy didn't let Kurian in on – he injected them, kept them in Limbo for observation and after the past couple months of no negative side effects he let them go knowing they'd spread the word to the right people in the underground.

Of course there were still the others to be concerned about. Warren had been stopping by unannounced every few months since he'd attacked 10K. He wasn't stupid, he knew even after their initial chat about it she'd still be suspicious about him and his research. Warren knew he'd attempted to screw them over more than once and she clearly didn't want it to happen again. And it wasn't like her instincts were wrong, if she ever found out he was planning to sell to the Black Market instead of just strutting into Altura with the announcement and passing out shots in the quarantine line. . . he shuddered, he didn't even want to think about the whooping she'd give him.

Luckily, he already had a buyer who wanted to meet today and if things went well he'd have enough ammo by the end of their transaction to buy guards for Limbo. The blends were great but if he'd learned anything in Spokane it was they weren't fighters and it took a lot of his concentration to get them to overcome their 'flight' instinct and make them stand their ground. And even then, Spokane had still fallen to Warren. No, this time he needed real guards, former mercenaries maybe, but definitely people who weren't afraid to walk into heavy fire and shoot back.

"When is that meeting with the buyers?" Kurian asked and Murphy left the microscopes and headed to the table where his lastest meal was getting stagnant.

"Not til late this afternoon." He said picking up his fork.

"And it's not here is it?"

He slammed his utensils down, "Do I look like an idiot to you?"

Kurian's eyes ran up and down his figure no doubt taking in his black leather and fading red skin and he quirked an eyebrow. Ever since Murphy had been having daily meals of Sun Mei's brain it seemed that the vaccine in her brain tissue was doing something to him that had been. . . unexpected. His red skin had been fading and now only looked like a bad sunburn, it had been peeling too, leaving even lighter patches of skin behind. It wasn't quite like when he'd had this same issue in Spokane, it was more like when he'd been losing hair and teeth at the start of everything – back when Garnett and Cassandra were still alive. His hair had changed too, it wasn't growing in as black anymore, but thankfully it wasn't the pure white like last time either. It was his usual brown and as it had grown out it left the tips of his hair black and his beard too, which he'd grown out again instead of the gotee he used to favor.