Four: A Problem

Emmeline stared at the torn-up field around her, trying to catch any visual clues in the soil. There wasn't much. For all intents and purposes, it looked like dirt. She unbuttoned her black coat absentmindedly, recalling that most human beings didn't wear jackets in Modesto during the summer.

She didn't really care. Her mind was elsewhere.

Why didn't I just say 'I won't'?

She kneeled down in the dirt, getting a closer look. A piece of hair fell out of her tightly wound bun, into her eyes, as she inspected one particular clump of soil. There was something weird about it. Every once in a while, it seemed to flicker a strange orange color, but Emmeline wasn't sure if that was just in her imagination.

She had to find something here. She really wanted to believe Katie Brownstone – Emmeline believed her back when she said she'd sighted a gigantic robot probe, in the middle of that dark night when nothing made sense.

Emmeline picked up a piece of this weird dirt, blue eyes narrowed, focused.

If this piece of dirt kills me…

It flickered orange.

Emmeline immediately dropped it, digging into her cargo pants pocket, looking for – there it was, a vial. Putting on a rubber glove, Emmeline dropped a piece of dirt into the vial before sealing it up with an airtight plug. She shoved it back into her pants pocket, kneeling even closer to the dirt.

There was something weird going on here, she just knew it. Dusting aside some of the tilled dirt, she began to noticed little holes, boring down into the earth.

As she leaned towards them, a purple tentacle shot out at her head, sticking to it.

Emmeline shrieked, immediately drawing a pistol out from inside her coat and blasting the tentacle wide open. It exploded, showering rotting skin and other disgusting viscera on the Commander. She ducked downward, not moving for a few seconds, before picking up a piece of the tentacle's skin, singed by gunfire.

Oh HELL no.

Emmeline quickly procured another vial, dropping the skin flake in it. She noticed that, after a few seconds, it flickered orange, just like the dirt. It only confirmed her theory.

The media was saying "zombies". Katie Brownstone had said "zombies". Emmeline McCleur reasoned that both of them were right… in a way.

But they weren't your normal garden-variety zombies.

Striding away from the field and towards the abandoned gas station on the other side of the road, Emmeline disposed of her rubber glove and pulled out a cell phone, pushing one button a little harder than necessary.

"…Hey. It's me. …I'm all right, dear. …You know I… Please, we'll talk about that… this is… Listen!" She paused. "Tell General Monger to call me. This… this thing is bad." Another pause. "Yes, of course, tell him too. …I… this is important, Kevin!" She sighed. "…I love you too. But dear -?" Pause. "…Okay. Yes. I'll be back soon."

She hung up, smiling stupidly, a diamond on her ring finger catching the light. Ah, her fiancé… But then she remembered – oh yeah.

Alien zombie infestation.

The color drained from Emmeline's face.

x - x

"Zombies."

Link had been staring at the wall for the past hour, just like Susan, the Doctor, and BOB. Butterfly-saurus had wandered back into his enclosure, too confused by Monger's words to contribute.

"…This is worse than I thought," Dr. Cockroach opined.

Susan shook her head, patting him on the back with her index finger. "It's not your fault. Who knows where the zombies came from?"

"They're just covering bases," Link agreed, though his heart didn't seem to be in it.

BOB blinked, his one eye floating around aimlessly. "…I don't get it."

"What?" Susan asked.

"Why did they take your hair?"

The Doctor sighed. "Remember when they did the tests on us, BOB?"

"No," BOB answered truthfully.

"…They're running tests on Susan, to see if she's irradiated," Dr. Cockroach said, glancing up at the fifty-foot-tall woman. Susan, in the same moment, looked down at him. She sighed lightly.

"Why?" BOB asked.

"…I don't know," Susan lied. She knew perfectly well why Monger took her hair. They probably suspected that radiation from the nukes had something to do with the zombies.

So she'd been right.

x - x

"Jesus."

"I know."

Monger stared at the flickering piece of purple tentacle matter in the vial, rooted to the floor of the situation room. Hathaway had taken to pacing the floor as soon as he saw the evidence. Emmeline didn't move her gaze away from the floor, face pallid. A scientist was lurking nearby, just as pale as Emmeline.

"It… wrapped around your head?" Hathaway asked.

"No, just smashed against it," Emmeline explained. "I… shot it."

Not surprising, Hathaway thought with a bit of a smirk before remembering – oh yeah. The end of the world. Again.

"There's a ridiculous amount of Quantonium in the skin cells," the scientist, a dark-skinned woman, explained when she finally collected herself.

Monger's eyes widened. "Sweet baby Jesus, this isn't good."

"Alien zombies," Hathaway muttered, as if he couldn't believe it.

"…In laymen's terms, yes," the scientist said, voice shaking.

Emmeline turned whiter. "We have to get this contained -"

"- Before the media finds out," Hathaway finished for her.

"Monsters?" Monger offered.

Hathaway nodded, but Emmeline hesitated, biting her lip. Monger didn't say anything, recalling their earlier conversation.

Finally she nodded.

x – x

A/N: So here's part four. It's a transitional chapter, not gonna lie about it. And we're introduced to Kevin, who ends up playing a major role in this story towards the end. (OMG spoiler? Should I have not said that? XD) Anyway, constructive crit is always welcome!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own MvA.