For a moment, nothing but chaos filled David's brain. Amy was screaming, Tim was cursing, and the mechanical voice on the radio repeated numbers with a cheeriness that verged on insanity. Tim spun the radio dials, and the voice stopped, and that alone was a blessing. Gradually, Amy's screams dissolved into hiccupping sobs, and David felt he could breathe again.
"You okay, kid?" Tim asked, looking over at Amy. Amy nodded, tears running down her face. David wished he could hug the girl, but he couldn't, not really. They were close, but not that close. Had he been Amy's cousin, or her older brother, he'd have done it, but as it was, David just let her cry.
David leaned over Tim's shoulders as the other man tried tuning the radio again.
"Look, I don't need you breathing down my neck like that," Tim sounded uncomfortable, "So why don't you go try to find your friends? The woman and the little boy,I mean. I am almost completely sure that the snow won't do you any harm. The girl will be fine here, now that she's left off screaming."
David looked over doubtfully at Amy. Her face was red, splotchy, and more than a little damp, but she nodded. Her voice thick, she said, "Somebody's got to find Jenna and Oliver."
David nodded, and, pushing the door open, stepped out into the oddly warm snow.
As a boy, David had read plenty of novels where a person had disappeared. Sometimes that person was kidnapped; other times, they had a committed a crime, and were on the run from the law. Either way, they disappeared into the wilderness, and the other characters in the story had to figure out where the missing person had gone. Always, one intrepid character turned out to be a brilliant tracker. The tracker would have no trouble finding the missing person. There would be scuff marks on a path, a broken twig in the woods, and little scraps of fabric caught on everything. David could find none of these. In fact, in the middle of a snow storm, he couldn't see so much as a single footprint to tell him where Oliver and Jenna might have gone.
Not that David was certain he could have found them even if there was evidence. He was starting to feel, well, rather odd. His head felt heavy with a muzziness he associated with extreme exhaustion, or a bout of the flu. Just a moment ago he had felt fine, but now he couldn't think straight. He knew he was looking for Jenna, and for Oliver, but he wasn't entirely sure why he was looking for them. His brain couldn't stay on topic quite long enough to knit together his ravelled thoughts, and link each idea to the next. He stumbled on through the snow.
~*~
Amy was done with crying, at least for now. She was a little embarrassed about the whole thing - after all, she wasn't a little kid any more. The one saving grace was that Tim, who was boring in the same way that most of Amy's teachers had been boring, didn't seem to care what Amy was doing, so long as she was quiet. Right now, Tim was having a conversation with someone from that other group of scientists he had mentioned.
"No, no, I completely understand, it's still experimental," Tim was saying.
Amy sniffled a little, rubbing the back of her hand against her nose. She rubbed her slimy hand on the back of her leg, and stood up. She was already bored. As Tim continued his conversation, Amy's eyes roamed over the various tables around the room. On the table furthest from where she was standing was a familiar-looking flattish plastic box. Amy's eyes lit up when she realised that the box was, in fact, a laptop computer.
Amy looked over her shoulder, silently. Tim was still deep in conversation with his scientist colleagues. He didn't even look up as Amy crossed the room, quiet in her rubber-soled shoes. Her fingers felt good as they pulled open the laptop lid. Maybe this thing had some music on it! That would be pretty cool, all things considered.
The computer booted up quickly, and soon Amy found herself staring the desktop. She assumed this was Tim's computer. He was one of those people who saves documents, links, and shortcuts all over the desktop, with no apparent organization, and for a long time, Amy just looked at it. Finally, she found something that looked interesting - the film-reel icon that represented a video. Her fingers skimmed across the trackpad, and she double-clicked on the icon. The video began to play.
It was a shaky,hand-held image of some parkland. It seemed bucolic, and very pleasant. Amy left-clicked on the icon and checked the file properties, her eyes narrowing in on the date the file was created. According to that date, the film was taken just last week - but there were no zombies in sight. Not a one. At the end, a set of co-ordinates flashed up on the screen.
"Tim?" Amy asked.
"I'm still talking on the radio, kid. Look, Al, can you wait a sec? That girl I told you about -"
There was a muffled reply from the distant Al. Tim turned to Amy. "Make it quick, kid."
"What is this place?" she asked, pointing to the co-ordinates still up on the screen.
~*~
His head spinning, David let himself into the little wooden shed that stood all alone some distance from the other buildings. There was something important about this small building, David knew, but he couldn't quite remember what. Something . . .something disturbing, but controlled. Something intriguing. He nearly jumped of his skin when he heard something shuffling in the darkness just in front of him. His hands scrabbled along the wall for a switch, and he hit it, flooding the room with light. Thank goodness Tim and his scientifically-inclined friends had gotten the electricity up and running on this part of the island.
The light filled the interior of the small space, and David remembered at once what it was that he was supposed to remember. Most of the room was a cage, and its single inhabitant stared out at David, blinking at the sudden brightness. Then, before David could react, it threw itself at the bars, snarling.
It took a moment for David's slow brain to make him jump back defensively. Something was wrong here - something was very wrong. Dully, he stared at the creature, which raged, just out of reach on the other side of the bars. The last time he had been here - yes, the last time David had been here, the creature had been calm. It had seemed intelligent. Now it was . . . David searched for the word. Scary. No, that was not quite right, was it? It would do. Scary. He backed out of the room, back into the snow. He had only taken two steps, however, when he slammed right into something.
"Ow!" A female voice complained.
"J-Jenna?" David asked doubtfully.
"It's - it's me." her voice sounded as bewildered as David felt. "Me and Ollie."
"Oh, good," David said, his own voice sounding strange and inane in his ears> "Can we go back, now?"
~*~
"It's a commune," Tim was explaining, "a zombie-free commune, I might add."
"Is it controlled by the army, then? Like where we were before?" Amy asked, anxiously.
"Nah. Not according to the radio. The people take care of things themselves. It sounds kind of nice, but we've got our test subject here. It's better to keep him away from people," Tim explained
Amy nodded seriously. "Do they allow new people?"
"Sure." Tim blinked. "I guess so."
"In that case - "
Amy was interrupted by the door opening. David, Jenna, and Oliver all stumbled in.
"David! Jenna! Can we go to this place? It's so cool! It's called - " Amy looked to Tim for an answer.
"Uckfield," He supplied, looking faintly amused.
"Uckfield," Amy continued. "It's safe and there are no zombies!"
David looked up at her wearily. He muttered something incomprehensible.
"Are you okay, David?" Amy asked, suddenly concerned.
"Uckfield," David said. "Sure."
Then he collapsed onto the floor.
Note: As always, prompts can be found at the external link. I did have some technical difficulties getting the video prompt to work for me, so a big thank you to @Jobbee1234 for describing the video to me (I never did manage to get it to actually play). Of all the aspects of the prompt, I found the song "More Human than Human" to be most inspiring - Wikipedia tells me the song is based on "Blade Runner". The common theme between the two - the idea of not knowing what you are or what you might become - played a big role in this chapter. And of course, we must ask, do androids dream of electric sheep? I think perhaps they do - but they think the sheep are wooly and alive.