2065
Specialist HQ
His adrenaline was the only thing that had kept him from collapsing to the ground earlier. His body was trying to adjust to life outside of the ice.
When he opened his eyes agin, there was a faint light above him, blinding him more than he already was. He squinted his eyes and turned his head away as he groaned.
"Hey, can you see my hand clearly?" A feminine voice asked. She held her hand above his face.
"Its a bit blurry." He mumbled.
"Here, this will help. Whatever you do, don't jump." She advised. He couldn't see who was talking to him, he just kept his eyes shut tight as he faced the ceiling.
The woman ushered for one of the medical robots to tend to him.
"Hey... what is that..?" Anthony saw an unusually shaped blur reaching for him. It grabbed his face and held him steady as it sprayed something in his eyes. The man winced, the liquid burning his eyes temporarily.
"Blink, fast." The woman said as the robot stood by her.
Anthony did as he was told and within seconds his sight was restored. He sat up, and looked around the room. The room was a design he had only seen as illustrations in comic books. The white, shiny walls mixed with a strip of navy blue... the room was lined with a strip of lights all around. Was he in a fever dream? For a second he had forgotten about the people... or person infront of him.
He felt the robot reach for him once more, grabbing his attention. He jolted.
"Don't worry, he's not here to harm you. When we you arrived here a few days ago, your body nearly shut down. Supplying you with oxygen was simple and so was keeping you asleep. However, raising your body temp was a bit more tricky than we anticipated and for reasons we don't understand. But luckily we got it under control." She explained as the robot undid the straps of the small heating pads from his body. "We made sure the warmest parts of your body were kept heated while you were asleep." She nodded towards the heating pads the machine had taken off.
He looked at her with a look of dazed confusion. "Who the hell are you? Where am I? And how long have I been asleep for? And why-" she interrupted him.
"Calm down." She placed a hand on his shoulder, unaware that he was begining to sound panicked. "My name is Savannah Mason, I oversee all the Specialist ops."
"Mason...? As in, your related to-"
"David Mason, yes. He was my father."
"Alex had a son?!" Anthony's eyes went big. "Wow, he really did prove me wrong. Here I was thinking he was joking about that one bar story." He huffed. "So Alex was your grandfather."
"Yes. You knew him." She said it as a statement.
"Yes. Of course you know." He scoffed. "You probably know everything about me, don't you." He gave the blonde woman a glance.
"Not everything, thats part of why I'm here." She crossed her arms across her crimson blazer. "How did you know him?"
"Answer my questions first, then yours." He said.
"Your in the medical center of the Specialist HQ. This place is one of the remaining places in the world not crawling and decayed with flesh eating zombies."
"Zombies? How long have I been asleep?"
"80 years." She gave him a glance of sorrow.
"What the hell?!? 80 years?!? Beck! Portnova! The kid!" He placed his hands on too of his head. "Are pandas still a thing?" He gasped.
"A what?"
"What the actual-" he muffled his cries of frustration and anxiety. "Mason, what year am I in?" She saw the look in his eyes, he didn't have any desire to know but he needed to.
"2065."
"They're all... dead. Every single one of them. I really am a loner. I suppose there is one positive of the future. I get to piss on Sims' grave." He mumbled.
"Tell me about yourself."
"Me? Well, I don't see why I shouldn't share with you. I've got literally nobody else to talk to, nor do I even have much of a purpose anymore. So, let's start at a simpler time. August, 1959." From there he began telling her everything he had lived. "You've read the reports. You think you know everything that happened. I thought I did too. I beleived I had friends and people I could trust. A name that was mine. A life that I had lived, and memories that followed. I'm not sure what lies were written in those reports, how polluted with them they may or may not be. I'm not the one who filed them. Sims was responsible for that, who might I mention, answered and collaborated with Adler to get the greenlight to write down and file. The actual report never even had mention of an Alexi or Alistair. Why would it, with the man soon to be dead and his son practically a ghost on paper. Quite an intelligent move. So forget about what you read because in the actual report our teams turned out to be a bit different." From there he continued to tell her everything that truly did occurr.
"Well, Commander," she began. "You certainly have lived... A unique life." She said after hearing his story. "If people were still interested in reading and watching biographies I would greenlight a company to write and film about you."
"Really?"
"Yes... except they are probably all dead."
"Oh."
"How would you like to run a light mission with us? Just to clear your head some. Maybe get out and see what life in 2065 is like."
"I don't think I need to step outside these doors to know it probably smells like expired Taco Bell thats been vomitted out twice over. The world is literally ending right outside these walls, isn't it?" He asked casually.
Savannah shook her head. "So how did this entire Steven King zombie horror thing happen?" He asked.
"Well, in 2030 a new power rose. Not neccessarily a new one, but Perseus did reappear. This time it was led by, after hearing your story, I beleive to be your friend. They were worse than your experience of Perseus ever was. There was no peace with him, he didn't want money or anything materillistic. All he wanted was to watch the world crumble, and heis enemies with it."
"Beck?"
"Kirk."
"What?" He sat up straight in his bed, his jaw nearly dropped. "Of course he is. He has to be for the story to progress. Call it lazy story telling." Anthony scoffed.
"What?" Savannah eyed him.
"He's alive?!" Anthony gasped, for dramatic affect.
"He was. Yes. But when rumors first started to circulate about you still being alive he searched as soon as he was able to recover. That was when he put you on pause and got a taste for power. He refounded Perseus. This time with more strict rules and guidlines, and zero tolernace for anything he saw unfitting for the organization."
"Is Perseus still around?"
"Yes, but not nearly as strong as it once was before the infection. Nothing is. He handed his title over to his son, and eventually reached Kirk's grandchild. Thats who oversees it now. Over time, powers switched their priorities and things were forgotten about. It just so happens that your frozen body was one of them."
"And the zombies?" He noticed how she still hadn't spoken of the origin of the zombies after having asked her more than once.
"Yes. Those flesh eating vermins." She sighed. "To you, seven years may be a blink of an eye. But for seven years, they have effectively dwindled down Earth's total population. And it all started in Russia. It started because of Perseus. They were venturing through old classified projects from your time and little before, more specifically, during the era of the second world war. Soviets and Nazi scientists had somehow found a common interest in reviving the dead, regardless of the two countries never having worked with each other on any top secret study like this. In 2045, Perseus began doing their own studies and used this old research to create a foundation. They meddled with it, molded it into something modern and nearly unrecognizable. The nazis had wanted an army of walking dead men at their disposal. The Soviets wanted men who couldn't die. But the modern Soviets wanted an army of soldiers that were impossible to kill right at their fingertips. So they furthered their studies with other scientists around the world, somehow keeping their agenda secret. In 2055 they had their first trial and it had some flaws but was quite successful. So they tried again in 2058, this time with a human subject rather than an animal. They were impatient fools, the machine wasn't ready for human trials yet. So when they put the man in, he came out different, deformed almost. He was dead. His skin had rotted, his clothes torn and bloody. The doctors checked for vital signs and thats when he attacked and killed everyone in the room. And from there it spread."
"Wow." Was all he managed to say.
"I know, it must be difficult to wake up in an entire new world only to find out its infested with living corpses."
"So thats why you woke me up? You expect me to be your magic instant fix to all this?" He said, clearly dreading everything.
"I cant expect you to do anything." She huffed. "This world has reached its breaking point. Rock bottom. I guess everyone forgot that we had you up our sleeve." She rose to her feet. "You don't have to stay here. If you wish to leave, HAM here will accomadate you with your neccessities to be on your way. Otherwise, you know where to find me if you change your mind."
"I don't actually know where..." He said across the room as she left. "... know where to find you." He mumbled, somewhat defeated and torn as the door slid shut behind her.
He sat there, alone with this own thoughts. Exactly what he feared most. He needed anything but that. It drove him to his breaking point everytime he let his mind wander. He never wanted experience 80 years of his wandering brain ever again. "Shit." He groaned, tossing his feet over the edge of the bed.
"HAM, toss me my clothes will you?" He asked the AI.
"Of course Mr. Petrov." The masculine robotic voice responded. He came over and drew the IV tubes from his arms.
"Thanks." Anthony threw on his old clothes, and left HAM to clean the room.