~ Chapter 24: An unexpected encounter ~

[Kardian’s point of view]

The day began like any other. We woke up early in the morning and after doing a couple of stretching exercises, we went to the bathroom to clean up. Afterwards, we returned to the kitchen and ate a small breakfast. With a full stomach, we went down and checked on the barricades we setup the day before. Only the one at the entrance on the lower floor was breached, allowing a couple of Nano-Z to make their way inside. We killed them off and then walked outside, where we were met with a couple more.

By now, it was clear that every night, the Nano-Z who turned rabid would move from place to place, hunting for prey, while during the day, they would revert to their less dangerous idle mode.

As we made our way towards the apartment building we had planned to exploring today, Nataly noticed something in the distance. When I turned my head to see what it was, I only spotted a bunch of Nano-Z running across the street.

“Something startled those things.” Nataly remarked with a bit of worry in the tone of her voice.

“A Mutated one, perhaps?” I guessed.

“No.” she shook her head “The Nano-Z were running towards something... hunting.”

“Then it must be a group of survivors.” Xerya concluded.

“Do you want to go there to investigate?” Nataly asked as she looked back at me.

When I met her eyes, the first word that crossed my mind was ‘No.’, and it shocked me.

Looking back to the empty street, I realized that for some reason, I began to fear meeting other humans. There were strange thoughts that ran through my head, such as ‘what if they are raiders?’, ‘what if they want to trick me and take my supplies?’, ‘what if they ask about Nataly and want me to hand her over?’.

As my thoughts began to drown me, my heartbeat began to increase. I was drifting swiftly into a panic attack.

Xerya realized that something was wrong and slapped me with Nataly’s hand. My empty gaze was locked onto the bloodied sidewalk in front of me.

“What happened? Why did you suddenly slap him, Xerya?” Nataly asked as I slowly lifted my hand up to rub my stinging cheek.

“Kardian has apparently entered what humans call a Panic Attack.” she replied.

“A panic attack? But why would he...” she then stopped and looked back towards the now empty street. “I see...”

As I looked at her, my eyes were big, and my lips parted, but no words escaped my throat.

“Sometimes, when an individual stays isolated from society for too long, they begin to subconsciously fear society itself. They become used to the loneliness and start to feel uncomfortable among other people. This can lead to them having mood swings or even acting out violent towards new social encounters. As a mercenary or a soldier, you are taught about how to take care of yourself when you are found in a situation of social isolation, for example, when you are within enemy territory. You could be required to stay hidden for weeks or even months at a time and thus need to use various methods to keep yourself sane if you already have enough food and water available.” Nataly explained.

“So... you’re saying I’m having a panic attack because... of social distancing?” I asked as I was slowly getting a grip over myself.

“Yes. Since, you apparently don’t have social anxiety...”

“But... I’m not socially distancing myself, I have you and Xerya... so...” I tried to argue.

“Indeed, we are here with you, and this is what prevented you from developing social anxiety as well, but technically speaking, the three of us... aren’t exactly what you call a society. We too are in a state of social isolation.” she explained.

I looked down at my hands that started trembling and took a deep breath to finally calm down my heart palpitations. Maybe she was right, and I was having a shock from the idea of finally being able to reconnect with society, but I had to remind myself that just a couple of possible survivors did not mean that I was doing that. At most, I would just find a few more humans who were in the same state of social isolation as we were.

“Is this condition normal among the human population?” asked Xerya.

“Nope, not really.” she shook her head “There’s a chance that you could get it, but if you have the right train of thought, you won’t. Like I said, mercenaries and soldiers usually go through a special training to help them cope with situations like this one, especially those who are meant to travel for a long period of time through space on board of a spaceship. But yeah, those individuals are trained... Kardian here was just a simple teacher, he didn’t have any special training. It’s normal for him to have some sort of reaction to this end of the world scenario. A panic attack is among the worst, but... that just proves he’s normal.” Nataly said, although with a bit of a sad note in the tone of her voice.

This reminded me that she was technically feeling alright despite having been disconnected from her own body for such a long time. At least I could still move my limbs, and I had to be thankful for that. If I couldn’t do that... and didn’t have Xerya or Nataly to talk to... I don’t know if I could have survived with my sanity intact for as long as she did.

“I’m alright now...” I said as I clenched my fists and took a deep breath of fresh air.

“Then, what do you want to do?” Xerya asked.

“We’ll go after them. If we can help them, we will, but if they are raiders...” I then looked back at Nataly. “We’ll leave them to the Nano-Z.”

“I’m alright with that.” she nodded.

“Understood.” said Xerya.

Thus, we made our way towards the place where Nataly spotted the odd movement of the Nano-Z. We had no idea if we would find survivors or something else, but it was clear that something or someone had alerted them there. These mindless creatures would not move on their own unless they were in the Rabid State or if they spotted a potential prey. If it was a Mutated one, then they would have tried to run away from it rather than head towards it.

When we reached the intersection, we turned to the right and saw the Nano-Z standing in front of the entrance of an office building. That place was covered entirely in blood. They were not going inside, they did not dare take even a single step in, which was quite strange.

“Do you detect any humans, Xerya?” I asked her.

“Scanning. Two potential humans and one Nano-Z was detected within the building.” she replied.

“This is odd...” Nataly remarked.

We approached the two of them but did not attack them, leading to them considered us as one of their own. They were just staring towards the entrance and letting out creepy groans in combination with guttural sounds.

“Push one of them in.” Xerya suggested and I did just that.

With a strong kick, the Nano-Z on the right stumbled inside the building, but as soon as it realized that he was there, he urgently moved outside. It was as if he was frightened by whatever was inside, but what could even frighten these things who acted and behaved based on the signals sent by the nanobots inside them? It was illogical unless you considered the fact that they were designed to act like this.

“A Mutated Nano-Z could be inside.” Xerya suggested.

“What makes you think that?” I asked just to confirm my own thoughts.

“It’s similar to the strange lair where we found miss Nataly. The regular Nano-Z are missing or are only lurking around in small numbers. There is substantially more blood and gore to decorate the place.” she told us.

“Blood and gore to decorate the place?” Nataly raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, when we found you, you were literally among body pieces, and everything was painted in blood.” I made a wry smile.

Because I only kicked him lightly and didn’t damage him, the Nano-Z were not triggered into attacking us, at least for now. The guy who crawled his way out of there simply returned to the entrance, standing there and staring at it as if nothing happened.

“Let’s kill these two and then go inside.” I said as I unsheathed my Retractable Blade.

“Agreed.” Xerya replied as she activated the Retractable Blade on Nataly’s body.

With two fast attacks applied almost simultaneously, the two Nano-Z were killed, and their nanocores were swiftly extracted.

I then entered the lair of the Mutated Nano-Z with Xerya right behind me. 

“Do you think you can handle it?” Nataly asked with a bit of worry in the tone of her voice as we made our way deeper.

This place was covered in blood, guts, and ripped out body parts. It was gruesome and made me sick to my stomach. The only reason why I wasn’t puking was because Xerya made sure to inhibit the signals sent from my brain to my diaphragm and stomach to contract and expel the semi-digested food inside.

“This guy was a merc...” Nataly said when she saw a head dangling by the spine from the ceiling.

“Are you sure?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

“Yes.” she nodded “I saw him back at the base. He was hired as the guard of some other fancy rich folk. He was a bit rude to me at first, but then he started to respect me after I beat his ass.” she declared with pride.

“Heh, guess he didn’t make it.” I looked up at him.

He had short brown hair and black eyes that were now starting to rot. He had been hanging from the ceiling for a while, but he was not the only one, there were many more like him in this place.

“It’s like a display of its prey...” I realized.

“This behavior shows signs of limited intelligence. It is possible that this Nano-Z is in the latest stages of his Mutated phase.”

“That means a bigger and juicier nanocore for you.” I joked.

“Yes.” Xerya confirmed.

“Let’s be on our toes... I don’t like how easy he was able to kill so many people. Maybe he’s not as much of a weak opponent as you two think he is.” Nataly expressed her worry.

“Unlikely.” replied Xerya.

“Anyway, where is it?” I asked as I looked up.

“Two floors up. He is trying to get inside a room where the two humans apparently are hiding.”

“We should hurry then!”

With utmost speed, we rushed up to the second floor. We could even see the tracks left behind by the two survivors as they were running away from this thing. My question, however, was how in the world did they even end up in the lair of this thing?

“I can see something ahead!” Nataly said as she looked towards the end of the corridor.

There, I saw a Nano-Z, a man, with no injuries on his body, a dark gray skin, with big eyes, sharp teeth, and a muscular body. He was not wearing even a single piece of clothing on his body, so we could all see that he did not have any genitals. The man either lost them at one point as a result of an attack or an implant that got rejected by the nanobots.

“It’s coming this way.” Xerya said.

The Nano-Z let out a screech and then moved towards us. Instead of rushing in, he was approaching us with a hint of curiosity in his eyes, most likely because we gave off Nano-Z signals, but we didn’t look like them, so he didn’t know if he should classify us as enemies or allies, or that was what I thought...

When it was in jumping distance of us, he let out another screech and then crouched down.

“He’s going to jump!” Nataly warned us.

“I know.” I replied in a casual tone of voice as I took a step forward.

As predicted, the Nano-Z jumped at us, but this was his first and final mistake. With a swift attack, I stabbed the blade under his chin and pierced his brain. The Mutated one dropped down on the floor next to Xerya with a loud thud. I pulled out the blade and then stabbed his right temple with the Extractor tool.

The nanocore in his head was definitely larger than that of the other Nano-Z, it also had a smoother surface, like an amber drop. I placed it in my bag and then looked at the body.

“If not for his sharp teeth and gray skin, there’s not much to differentiate it from a normal human.” I noticed.

“Yeah, which is creepy.” Nataly remarked.

“He probably didn’t have enough time to research other implants or maybe he hunted more humans than he did Nano-Z which led him to have a lower stock of nanocores. If Kardian was a mindless host, I would have used him to hunt more nanocores rather than humans.” Xerya explained.

“Wait, am I not doing that already?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

“But you are not mindless. You are doing this out of your own initiative in order to evolve me and gain better implants that will help with our mutual survival.” she pointed out.

“True.” I nodded.

“Is there anything else you can salvage from him, then?” Nataly asked out of curiosity.

“Negative. His nanocore was the most important part since he doesn’t seem to have any implants that were made from nanobots like you do.” she explained.

“So, he was a weakling!” Nataly remarked.

“Indeed.”

“Let’s go check on the two survivors.” I said as I began to move towards the end of the hallway.

The Mutated one was considerably weaker than Nataly was, but this was maybe due to the fact that she had various high tech military implants on her at the time of her infection. If a regular human being ended up like this dead weakling at our feet, then humanity’s chances for survival looked far better, and honestly, I did not want to meet something like a Mutated Nataly every time. It was too creepy to look at with its popped-out brain cage, open wounds, and other weird appendages sticking out of her body. It was ridiculously powerful too when compared to a normal human being, but I couldn’t quite tell how high on the Mutated Nano-Z strength scale she was placed.

The two survivors managed to flee into this room and barricaded themselves inside. I tried to turn the knob, but the door didn’t open, it looked stuck. I went to the window at the end of the corridor and tried to see if I could peek inside, but there were pieces of furniture blocking my view.

“Have you tried knocking?” Nataly asked raising an eyebrow.

“Nope, good plan.” I replied without showing that I was bothered by her remark, Of course I was going to ignore the most obvious solution! I told myself before knocking on the door “Is anyone in there? You’re safe now. We killed the Nano-Z!” I called out.

It didn’t seem like anyone was willing to answer, but before I could knock again, I started hearing signs of movement coming from the other side.

“They are moving the furniture out of the way...” Nataly guessed.

I took a step back and then waited patiently until the door made a click and a small face appeared from the other side.

“Is... is it really dead?” it was a teen girl who asked, but she wasn’t just anyone, I knew her.

“Zuiza? Zuiza Azerdam, is that you? It’s me, your teacher, Kardian Pandora!” I said with a smile.

“Eh? Teacher Pandora?! But... are you sure you are him?” she asked with a furrow of her brow.

“Wait, did you say Pandora? There’s no way that teacher is alive!” someone else said this, a boy, before opening the door wide and revealing the two of them to us.

“Zuiza Azerdam and Yumino Akabura, the two tennis club aces that I’ve been hearing so much about this year. So, it was the two of you, huh? I’m glad you survived!” I told them with a gentle and friendly smile.