The next few days were some of the most stressful Percy had ever had the displeasure to endure. He thought he'd been through it all, he'd faced the rigor and hazing of Officer Candidate School, pushed his body to its physical limits in mock dogfights, and even grew up in a tough part of New York. Yet nothing could prepare him for the constant night movements he and Annabeth were forced to do to escape New York.
The zombies weren't exactly the problem, Percy knew their vision was probably downright horrendous, no, it was the idea of accidentally bumping into a zombie that was the problem. See, he and Annabeth didn't have many options, they didn't have night vision goggles so they couldn't see in the dark, but using a flashlight would bring problems of its own, the infected were attracted to the light, they'd found that out the hard way.
By the time they were out of New York, Percy was certain that between him and Annabeth, they had enough ammo to hold off a horde for five minutes, then it was either run or die. He tried his best to fire well-aimed shots but that was hard to do when he was running for his life, stopping to shoot would've been a death sentence.
Once they'd finally left the urban jungle that was New York City, they found themselves in the middle of absolute nowhere. There were a few abandoned cars along the side of the road they were walking on, Percy wasn't sure if any of them worked but they didn't have time to check all of them, they were losing daylight quick. Going through the forest was risky, he knew they'd risk getting lost if they did that.
He looked over at Annabeth as she walked, her limp growing worse nearly every day. She wore a pained look on her face, like every step she took felt like putting a nail through her foot. She bit her lip to stifle her pained moans.
"We can stop if you need to." He said.
Annabeth shook her head, "No, we can't stop. We're so close."
Percy sighed but he let her go on. He knew he should've stopped her but he knew better. Over the past few days, he learned more about Annabeth, she was a stubborn girl. In fact, he even pegged her as a know-it-all since she refused to admit when she was wrong about anything, which admittedly, didn't happen a lot. She was smart, he could say that for sure.
Yet Annabeth's intelligence raised some questions in Percy's head. She was so smart, he'd seen her do math in her head that most people would've needed a calculator for, and she was scarily good at memorizing stuff, yet he couldn't help but wonder why she went into virology. She could've easily gone for something beyond that, something that paid even more.
"So, uh, do you mind if I ask you something?" He asked.
"Go ahead."
"Why virology? When we first met, you said you were a virologist." He said.
Annabeth sighed, he couldn't help but think he'd somehow pissed her off just by asking a question.
"I didn't want to become a virologist, in fact, I used to want to be architect. I went to college for it, everything was going great for me, I had an internship and my grades were good." She said.
"Then what happened?"
"My mom died, that's what happened." She said sharply, looking at him with those piercing gray eyes, "Doctors said she caught a bad strain of the flu, by the time they got her to the hospital, it was too late."
Percy instantly felt like an asshole, he didn't mean to remind her of her dead mom. At the same time, how could he have known? He had a dead parent too, he knew it was rough to talk about, he wouldn't wish for anyone to go through that kind of pain.
"After that day," She said, "I swore I wouldn't let anyone else I love die from a virus."
Percy walked alongside her for a bit, not really saying much out of fear of exposing yet another invisible wound. He started to wonder just how much Annabeth had been through. She was mentally tough so he figured she must've been through a lot and frankly, he wasn't sure if he wanted to know.
"What about you?" She asked, "You said your mom was down in Florida. Is your dad down there too?"
And there it was. She'd managed to bring up the parent he lost, he didn't know what it was like to lose a mom but he definitely knew what it was like to lose a dad.
"My dad's dead." He said.
She winced before looking sorry for him, "Sorry."
"Don't be." He waved her off, "He died before I was born. Still don't know how it happened, my mom just said he was lost at sea."
"So that's why you joined the Navy." Annabeth said, "Because of your dad?"
"Partially." He said, "I joined the Navy because I wanted to get the hell out of New York. I thought my degree would do that but when I started looking at the jobs that needed marine biologists, well, most of them didn't pay well. The ones that did were already taken. The Navy was the next best thing."
Annabeth was about to say something when he spotted something moving behind her in the trees. He put his mouth to his lips and raised his rifle, looking through the scope to see if he could spot anything hiding in the trees, he could see a tree branch swinging from where whatever he saw had brushed against it.
Annabeth must've spotted the movement too because she aimed her rifle at the trees as well.
Percy swallowed as an uneasy feeling crept up his spine, "I think we're being followed."
"You think so?" She asked him, "It could've just been a deer."
"Maybe." He said but he wasn't convinced, he was always told to trust his gut and his gut was screaming at him that something was following them. Whether it was a zombie or not, he didn't know.
"Come on, let's keep moving." She said.
Ω
It didn't take long before Percy saw the CDC office Annabeth was talking about, it was hard to miss since it had the typical blue and silver CDC sign out in front of it. He had to admit, it was smaller than he thought it would be. He was expecting a giant mega lab or something but instead, it looked more like a midsized office building. He couldn't tell if the infected had gotten into the building or not though.
"I've never been to this office before." Annabeth confessed next to him, "But as long as I can get into a computer or call someone, I should be able to get some help."
Percy shrugged, it was either that or they'd have to walk all the way to Florida.
She started walking towards the office, "I don't see anyone but be careful."
"Alright." He nodded.
Percy knew the infected had definitely reached Edison because he could see the black marks on the parking lot meaning someone or a lot of people had been in such a hurry to leave that they'd burnt rubber in the process. Not to mention, he could spot spent bullet casings on the floor, though he didn't see any blood nearby.
There was no noise coming from the office, no inhuman noises from zombies and no talking from humans. The idea that there could be people hiding in the office didn't slip past him, he knew full well that anyone could've been in there and there was no guarantee that they were friendly.
The closer they got to the building, the more tense Percy felt. He really didn't like how foreboding the building was, he just imagined hallways crammed with infected or leather-clad raiders waiting inside with double barrel shotguns. He tried to keep himself calm but the thoughts never left, they stayed and bit at him like mosquitos. Even the rifle in his hands barely reassured him anymore.
Annabeth pushed the front door open and peered inside, her rifle at the ready. She reached forward and clicked on the flashlight, illuminating the main lobby.
She looked back at him, "The lights are off and the lobby is empty."
"Alright, I'll watch your back." He said, following her into the lobby.
Percy had to admit, he was a bit jealous, Annabeth had a fancy flashlight attachment for her rifle, all he had was a random flashlight that he'd duct taped onto his rifle. Every time he tried to turn it on, some of the tape would come loose and he'd worry about the flashlight falling off and making noise.
As he scanned the room, he nearly fired when he spotted someone sitting against a wall, their head tilted down, "Fuck!"
Annabeth spun towards him, "What?!"
"Look." He said, motioning with his rifle towards the guy sitting against the wall.
Annabeth walked over to the body and nudged it with her boot. She turned to him and shook her head, "I think he's dead."
"Well, get away from him, he might've been bit." He urged.
Instead of getting away from the body, Annabeth knelt down and started examining it. He was waiting for her to get bitten any minute, yet she didn't, the body stayed limp.
"Woah," She said, "This guy didn't die from a bite."
Percy walked over and knelt next to her. That's when he spotted the large slit across the poor guy's neck. Now that he was close enough, he could see that he was a security guard, he had the badge and everything. He looked over and found his pistol on the floor, spent casings lying on the ground right next to it. He looked over his shoulder at the lights and realized one of his shots must've hit the lights, maybe when he was cut.
"Who do you think did it?" He asked her.
"I have no idea," She answered, "It wasn't someone with the virus, the infected don't use weapons. We ran tests on them, they don't have the mental capacity to use weapons, they prefer to bite and scratch."
For a minute, Percy imagined a bunch of nerdy scientists handing a zombie a gun and telling it to shoot. He nearly smiled but that went away when he realized Annabeth was still looking at him, he'd look like the world's biggest psycho for smiling at a dead body.
Annabeth stood up, "Be careful, whoever did this might still be around."
"Yes, ma'am." He said, smiling when she narrowed her eyes at him.
She walked over to the front desk and sat down at the computer, pressing a button and turning it on. Her gray eyes were focused on the screen as she logged in. He wasn't sure why but the way she looked just sitting there reminded him of a hot secretary in the middle of the apocalypse type thing.
He turned to look in the hallway when he heard Annabeth shriek, "What?!"
He walked over to her, "What?"
"My access to the Kronos Virus research has been revoked." She said.
"Huh?" He thought they were here to get help, not research.
"I only have access to research I've downloaded, this doesn't make any sense." She said, "Why would they revoke my access?"
"I don't know, I thought you were going to call for help." He said.
She looked at him, "I will, I just wanted to see if Luke published anything new." She rolled over to the telephone on the desk and picked it up, dialing a number before waiting. She looked pissed.
"Hello?" An older man's voice came over the phone.
"Oh thank God, Chiron. It's me, Annabeth." She said with relief.
"Annabeth? Where are you? I thought you were in New York!" Chiron said.
Annabeth smiled over the phone, "I made it out alive. I figured I'd call you, listen, is there any chance we could get picked up?"
"What's your location?"
"Edison, New Jersey." She said, "I'm at the CDC office."
"Got it." Chiron said, "Hold tight, we'll send a helicopter to come get you. It might take a day or two."
Percy felt like tackling Annabeth in a hug right then and there, she'd just saved their asses. He didn't care what anyone said, this girl was officially the coolest person he'd ever met.
"Oh, by the way, did you revoke my access to the research database?" She asked, "I just tried to log in and it's saying my access has been revoked."
There was some silence over the phone before Chiron said, "No, our access has been revoked too, including mine. We're trying to figure it out, the only way my access can be revoked is if someone logged into the director's computer in D.C or the cybersecurity operations network and revoked all access to the database."
Annabeth bit her lip, "Okay, thanks for letting me know."
"Don't worry, we'll get to the bottom of this. See you in two days." Chiron said.
She hung up the phone and sighed before looking up at Percy, "Well, we officially have tickets out of here. We just need to hold out here for two days."
He smiled, "Yeah. Who was that anyways?"
"Chiron, he's the director of my department. It's not his real name but that's what everyone likes calling him." She said, "I'm just wondering who revoked his access. It's not easy revoking director access to stuff."
Percy wasn't sure how to answer her but his gut told him the reason for it couldn't have been good.
