Rai waded through the crowd like a skier through snowdrifts. He led with a shoulder through one of the doors by the stage, Sao behind him. The effort went unappreciated as they fell into a large kitchen, where all the lights were off. Considering the refreshments, there was no reason to expect catering staff.

The next hall was lit, but had nothing to see except locked doors. At the end there was a fire escape, in which a couple in matching black sleeveless outfits with heavy boots were smoking.

Rai tried all the doors. Sao tried calling Fin’s number, messaging Maya, sending Jasmine another message via Neocam. It was futile. Two phones and he couldn’t reach anyone.

Bafflingly, there were guests roaming throughout supposedly restricted areas, as if they were also searching. But when Rai asked the second bunch they ran into, a group of six very young-looking girls in uniforms, if they had seen Hazel, or Jasmine or Orchid or Maya, he got six quizzical looks. “You… didn’t follow them?” asked one. “I’m so sorry. But why are you here?”

Rai returned to the central room looking twice as haggard as usual. “I can’t believe I fucking forgot. They’re supposed to be dead.”

“It is hard to forget, after seeing them less than 24 hours ago. I suppose their memorability is one of the things they’re banking on with this event.” Leaning against one of the metal barriers circling the stage, Sao looked around, and at the upper deck. “I wonder if Fin’s here.”

“Who knows. There’s no shortage of dark corners. And look at all those masks and made-up faces. Some of these followers are real nuts, or maybe Hazel’s just a fucking genius. All Fin has to do is pull on a black shirt and he doesn’t even have to try to hide.”

They headed out the back of the room, down the second floor hallway to the elevator. It was out of order on this floor, but the nearby trashcan - or rather, the ashtray on top of the can - was not. A cluster of smokers had gathered, as if for warmth.

“Think I have time for one more?” a smoker muttered in the hazy darkness, checking his phone.

The next voice was familiar. “You’ve got ten minutes. Unfortunately, I have to split.” A laugh.

“Free?” Sao called.

Silence. Rai grunted, “I see you. Get over here.”

Rai’s eyesight must have been better than his. But here he was; Sao could hear the smile in Free’s voice, see the arc of the ember at the tip of his cigarette, waving like a warning light. “So, you two made it. Is this a bust?”

“No. The bust has been canceled, courtesy of the Central Army.”

Free strolled up to them. In shadow, he seemed overwhelmingly large, Sao had to look directly upward to see him, or where he thought Free was. “Let’s talk somewhere else.” Then over his shoulder, to his fellow unseen smokers, “It’s been wonderful, fellas. So good to meet other fans.”

—

The lighting booth was hardly a booth at all, and more of a small uncovered hanging deck they hadn’t even noticed, just under the balcony level. The only indicator of it was a ladder going down from a corner of the balcony, covered by a locked grate that Free undid.

The lighting booth looked over the heads of the lower-level seats by a few meters, and faced the stage directly.

“They trusted you with this?” Rai asked.

“All I have to do is punch a button to turn on the stage lights. It’s not surgery.” He looked to Sao. “Well, did you bring my…?”

“Your what?” Sao said. He was pressed against the wall. The available space on the platform was none too generous.

Free just smiled. “My mistake. So, you were saying about the army’s lack of support?”

“It’s not just that,” Rai said. “The army kicking down the doors could put everyone here at risk. They covered up this E34 thing for years, and a public shaming is going to put targets on everyone’s back. Especially Hazel and her friends’.”

Free gave an exaggerated groan and set his elbows on the switchboard. “Isn’t awareness of E34 and zombie mistreatment what this whole song and dance has been about? A platoon of soldiers bum rushing the place is going to make even better publicity, I’d say. Are you expecting them to start firing wildly into the crowd?”

“No. But the girls could get arrested. And from there… disappeared like the plaintiffs of the old case.”

“Good thing you’re here to witness, then.”

“I’m not supposed to be. The police response was called off. And I’m technically off the case, I got suspended thanks to a certain ‘tipper’ who said someone by my description attacked Jasmine.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t. Say you just came here to party. This is your kind of scene, isn’t it? Your kind of people?”

Rai seemed to be choking. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

The question went to Sao. “I’d even say he fits in like a glove. Eh?”

“What can we do to stop this, Free?” Sao asked.

“You shouldn’t be asking me. I’m here to support the cause. Got a little shaky on my way, as everyone does, but I assure you, I always was with the victims of the E34 disaster.” With obscene serenity, Freenet slammed a hand down on the switchboard, and with a sound like a drumroll, the stage was illuminated in a sheet of white.

—

Only one person was onstage, grasping a microphone, elfin features quivering. “Hello. I’m Maya. I guess some of you know me, know I’ve been silent lately. My mental health hasn’t been good, I’m sorry. But… I also accept what it is. I hope you do to.”

She held up her wrists, each wrapped with stitches like shackles, and a dark black band of scarring.

“Do you know what these are? Of course you do. There were times where I wanted to hurt myself. Or kill myself. Nobody knew that better than the girls I met on Neocam - to be looking for a way out of your skin. And sadness, and life.”

(“Getting out of your skin, we get that, don’t we?” Freenet whispered.)

Maya lowered her arms, slowly, and a hundred pairs of eyes - and nearly as many cameras - followed. “We have something important to share with you tonight. It relates to how some might live and some might die. It was a secret for too long, though it should never have been. And it’s not some silly nonsense everyone knows like ‘depression exists’ or ‘therapy isn’t for everyone’. We have more respect for you than that. It’s something not so obvious. It’s something that might seem good for some, and bad for others. But the point is - we want you to know. So cameras on. Film away. Tell everyone. Now, Hazel–”

Hazel emerged, seemingly from nowhere. Eyes and lips lined black; even without her hair, here she was unmistakeable. A portion of the darkened crowd gasped, began to murmur. (What felt like a neat quarter of the crowd, Sao thought.)

“Yeah, yeah. I’m alive. Or I am now.” Hazel took the microphone. “I know what you’re thinking. That I faked it. That I was a liar. That I did it for attention. And I just wanna ask, have you ever been stripped in front of your brother and beaten over your bare ass and chest with a dog’s leash? That’s what happened to me that day. And there was the promise it would happen again.” She shook her shaved head, gravely. “And mom calling me a god damn slut for taking it. I couldn’t see a way out. The doctors would put me right back where I was. I thought I had it worse than anyone could have it…”

A hush, which Hazel dispatched with surprising candor.

“Well, I was wrong. Because I had an escape, and I took it. A goodbye vid and a wine glass of sodium nitrite - the Internet’s recommended drink of death. I don’t personally agree; too much puking and burning and dizziness. But whatever. The point was: I was out. It was something, at least, that I could control.”

She stepped to the edge of the spotlight.

“I’m not the only one.”

(“Damn it,” Rai was saying.)

“Maya had her wrists slit, all the way through. It was hours until she arrived at the hospital.”

(Free gave Rai a hard shove away from the switchboard.)

“Orchid cut off her own head.” (Cheering.) “Yeah, I know how many of you perverts saw that one.”

(Entering stage left; gray and gaunt, Orchid made for a striking figure in the spotlight. Sao took his eyes off her to hover over the knobs and levers. “Rai. What should I do?” Free swiveled onto him with a look that could pierce flesh. Sao slid his hands back to his sides.)

“Jasmine, poor Jas, she hanged herself. I know you all saw that too. What’s that, any cheering for all the work she put into it? Good, you get it now.”

(Emerging from behind Hazel, Jasmine’s fresh neck wound added to her wounded glory. Then, somewhere, a door opened. It sounded like it came from above.)

“I don’t hold it against any of them and neither should you. And fact is, we did die. No, really. I was put in drawer 24 of Central Mainline Hospital mortuary.”

With a click, the rectangular sheet of light hanging over her head flickered once and showed a photo of Hazel on the gurney. Eyes closed, mouth rimmed with a chemical rash, with her full head of burnished bronze hair. More gasps. (And more than a quarter of the room, this time.)

“I was awaiting autopsy until… well, let’s get to that. I was brought back for a reason, I think. And not by some loving godly power. No! It was a conspiracy, other people’s suffering and the only higher power involved here is the very real one we hear about every day, the army who fucked everyone over. I’m here to tell you not everyone’s so lucky. I’m here to tell you to think of the zombies.”

(There were footsteps overhead. “I’m going up,” Rai said, grabbing the ladder to the balcony level. “If the army’s here… I’ll see what I can do. There are so many people around - they’ll have to tell us what they’re planning.”)

“Eight years ago the military shut down a particular experiment. The experiment was intended to make a drug that would turn normal people, volunteers who thought they were doing good, into undying soldiers, who would keep moving and talking and shooting even after their guts were blown open. Or their head was sliced off. When the lab was shut, all the people zombified by this thing were left to rot…”

(When Sao tried to slide past Free so he could follow, Rai drove him back with an ungloved hand. “You keep an eye on this.” It wasn’t the stage he gestured at.)

“You see, they picked test subjects with no families or friends or presence. They were poor and lonely and unloved. So nobody kicked up a fuss for them. They had no one. Left to live with holes in their guts and heads… and no way out.”

(Rai had gone.)

“When those poor leftovers made even a little noise, when they tried a little lawsuit for just a bit of money, they were taken away. Tricked into thinking they’d get treatment. Nobody heard from them again. If they were treated at all, wouldn’t there have been letters back. Calls?”

(Hazel seemed to be looking right at them. Did she notice Rai had climbed up? Could she even see the lighting booth outside her blazing ring of spotlight?)

“Look it up! It’s E34234. That’s a palindrome: 34234. Look it up and all you’ll find are old articles like it was all solved, never existed. Only two people had doubts.” (Aquila’s photo - her slack and black-veined hospital photo, naturally - flashed up.) “This lady Aquila was the sister to one of the test subjects. She was found cut up and braindead in her apartment last week! She was a secret agent in hiding when the experiment ran, so her brother looked like an orphan… and she came back to find him undead, confused, hurt. Then the army just took him away - but she never gave up! She was readying a new lawsuit. So of course, the army had to make sure she’d never talk.”

(“Is that what you told them?” Sao flashed a glare at Free, who looked directly back at him with those strange, drowsy-yet-sharp violet eyes.

“Is that not what happened?”)

“The second person fighting the coverup had more reason to be afraid than even Aquila. He was part of the drug trial. The survivor they didn’t catch. He was drugged and zombified and abused when he needed help, and was left with nothing. Once let go he still had nothing - and had the army chasing him, looking to take more, make him disappear. He couldn’t go home, or make any place home. Enough to make anyone want to die. But that’s the problem. He couldn’t!”

Hazel looked over the crowd. They seemed fairly engrossed but she shook her head, disappointed.

“I see you don’t believe me. It’s like this for all kinds of suffering and causes. Boring. You might not even think this stuff exists. I’m just someone who popped up online, after all. Neocam’s full of fakes - I know. But we’re here in the flesh now, so watch.”

With a free hand, she reached to the back of her waistband.

A thunderous explosion shook the theater. Screams and footsteps. Sao shouted and hit his head on a low scaffold bar and barely registered the pain. Even Free stiffened with attention. And Hazel dropped to the floor.

A wide arc of blood had sprayed across the floor, framing her fallen body like wings. Around her head more blood was pooling in an uneven halo, branching as it sank into gaps between the wooden planks that formed the stage. Stark on the dazzling plane of white, she looked like something burned up and dropped from the sky.

The pistol rolled out of her hand, smoke rising from the barrel, spiraling up toward the spotlight fixtures.

The crowd was going berserk.

Jasmine picked up the microphone from the rattling stage and watched with an eerie calm.

“Did you do this?” Sao gasped. His hands were shaking, he was trying to reach Rai’s number, he messaged HQ again, shots fired at—

“You blind? She did it to herself.” Free had recovered and resumed his reclining-elbow pose over the control board.

“A gun. We know for sure her family wasn’t involved in military and as awful as they were…” Sao took a deep breath. “If they had one, I think she would have used it for her initial suicide. Or something.”

“Or something. Well, someone took my nice tools, so I couldn’t go down and do any chopping in person. I improvised.”

A lousy excuse. But the zippered pouch began to weigh heavily in Sao’s coat pocket.

The crowd had quieted down, though the air was still electric with mutterings and the occasional shout. It sounded more like heckling than anguish, Sao was upset to note. And as Hazel bled out onstage, two figures fumbled through the crowd to make their way to her, both dressed in black.

“Looks like it all worked out.” Free’s grin glinted like a scythe in the dark.

—

Fin reached the stage first, crashing into the metal barrier and falling over it, crawling up the platform steps on his hands and knees. Rai threw the cheap metal fencing aside and followed.

Fin’s cries were stifled by the commotion of a hundred onlookers, swirled together with static from the speakers; the microphone pressed in Jasmine’s hand broadcasting her muffled pulse. Seeing him shout with all his might to produce no more than a distant whine made Rai’s chest hurt. Only when he was kneeling close could he make out the pleas. And wished he didn’t.

“Hazel? Hazel, I said I was never sure if a shot to the head worked. I never tried it. Hazel, I was a disgusting coward. Why…”

Fin started retching silently like he was about to throw up. Rai felt a little sick too. He kicked the pistol out of the spotlight and as it slid into the dark it left behind a streak of blood. Mocking him.

Hazel too, somehow. Despite the illusion of cracks created by the thin rivulets of blood running from the small black hole on her forehead, her face was intact. She maintained even in death a tight, grim look. Not pained. Not sad. But wholly unimpressed. Rai away, looked out at the crowd, which didn’t help.

He saw faces upon faces, layered in wavering rows like a poorly constructed stone wall, and painted an unearthly white by the glare of the spotlight. Worst of all, they were moving, mouths like wriggling worms and eyes shifting like pill bugs embedded in off-gray dirt.

And in that moment he wished he could follow Hazel’s lead. Grab the gun and go. This must be what it feels like at the bottom of the pit, he thought. All darkness and pressure, eyes all around, waiting for you to do something, bring the show to a close. Breath and heartbeat drowned out, the body’s gone along ahead, good as dead already.

There is light, lots of light, but it means nothing.

He enveloped himself in the possibilities, coming up waterlogged. It was the smell that dragged him to his senses. The stage stank of blood and whatever else came out with a bullet to the brain. No, the gun could stay where it was.

"Get up, Hazel,” he said.

Fin was sobbing. It may have been a trick of the spotlight, which turned everything black when grazed by even a drop of shadow, but his tears looked dark as oil.

The drops fell on Hazel, spotting her skin and mixing with the blood from her wound. Hazel twitched as a stream flowed into her left nostril. Her hand lifted from the stage and brushed Fin’s shoulder. Thin fingers searched for the fabric of his collar, and clamped down. Rai saw teeth, edged in red. “I told them this would work.”

Fin flew back as if he’d seen a ghost. A pretty funny figure of speech to pin to a zombie, Rai thought. The undead sees the dead, and gets spooked.

“My fucking head,” Hazel grumbled. Maybe it was all the public-speaking practice she had as a Neocam regular, but her voice was not so easily cast into the sea of murmurs as Fin’s was.

“Do you ever let up?” Rai asked with a bitter grin.

“Does the world ever let up? It’s all about keeping time.” Returning the smile with vengeance, Hazel wiped blood from her face. “Hey, Fin. What are you doing over there? Help me up.”

Fin scrambled to steady her at the same time Jasmine approached, strolling straight through the pool of blood. She handed back the microphone.

“This man here is Fin,” Hazel roared, surging to her feet. “The survivor. The one who brought all this to light. Gave me reason for my second - and now my third chance. He shared the black pill with me, because he thought I should live.”

A click. Rai craned his head to see, directly above them, Fin’s morgue shot on the projector.

“The last living subject of the original experiment. In hiding alone and homeless for over ten years, holding the pills, the evidence of the army’s cruelty, left to him by those that were forced to turn themselves in. Has he thought of dying? Of course. But you saw me just now - and I’m not even a full zombie like he is. Blast off his own head and he’ll just keep living, pain and all. So he can’t die - he can’t escape with death like we can. The problem is, he can’t live either. Not like this. Not while the army’s looking to wipe him out of existence.

“He wanted us to live, and I want to give him what he deserves. Even if we can’t stop the army from doing horrible shit in the future. Even if he can’t be cured. Even if you forget me and Jas and Maya and Orchid and Sapphire when we get old. I want you all to remember him. Don’t let him be shoved into the dark like all the other victims. I want him to be able to die if he wants to die. But I don’t want him to even think of dying before he’s had the chance to really live.”

She looked at Fin, and pulled a thin but unnervingly honest smile. Her eyes were slightly red, and from the bullet wound on her forehead, a bubble of dark fluid was solidifying.

“I won’t let him get away with that.”

And at her rallying a chant began, the words of which Rai wasn’t clear. It sounded like let him die, which was more or less on-brand for Hazel.

He stepped out of the spotlight and felt like he’d been punched by the darkness. He raised a hand to his eyes forgetting he’d taken his gloves off, and the brightness of his hands blurred his perception again.

Cameras were flashing.

From nearby, he heard someone ask who he was. Someone behind a huge, shoulder-mounted camera. Right, the news crews. Right, he probably looked more important than he was since Hazel hadn’t kicked him off for interloping.

Rai gave his name but refused to meet the reporter’s wet gaze, instead he tried to search for uniforms, for scarier-than-usual faces and physiques, for weapons.

Hopeless. Nothing looked quite human in the milling dark.

“Are you - are you Rai Kir, like the son of Augustine Kir?” asked the interviewer, pushing herself up on the metal barrier. Rai squinted down at her, at least this was a person he could clearly discern. The side of the camera was defaced with the logo of the Daily, the notorious Central tabloid.

“Yeah,” he shouted in her vague direction. “I’m here to give my support. Though obviously they don’t need it.”

She lunged at him with a microphone. “You knew about this experiment, then?”

Rai knelt down again. “Kind of. I’m actually here because I heard a rumor that the army was sending a special squad over. For security, although now I think I might be for the coverup. You wouldn’t happen to have seen anything? Guns, combat gear…”

“How big of a gun might we be talking about?”

Rai’s mouth hung open at that. “Uh.” He looked to the back of the stage where Hazel’s pistol should be. (Though wasn’t it always the case in the movies; leave the blood-soaked killer lying on the floor only to come back and find him gone?)

“My partner,” here the woman clapped her hand to the camera - uncaring what it might do to the film - “and I caught a late crowd come in. Zoomed in for a look, they set up something like sniper on the upper deck. Thought it was a funny costume. Where was he now…”

The camerawoman made a wide turn and focused on something to the left of the stage. “Over there. That big stick-looking thing-”

“Don’t point,” Rai begged, pulling out his phone. “Please. See anyone else out of the ordinary?”

“Tell us first, what would your dad think of zombie girls? Would he date one? Would you?”

—

Sao held his phone close to his face to make sure he hadn’t misread. “The army’s set up a sniper? Well, at least Hazel’s latest act should prove bullets won’t be much of a threat...”

Nodding along to the chant of give him life, Free snickered, which immediately compelled Sao to believe he’d misspoken.

“I know. It’s still a danger. And Rai’s down there. If they find a reason to fire-”

“He didn’t need to dash onstage.” Free tilted his head to view Sao, sideways like an owl. “Don’t look so hellbent. They’re not going to shoot at him.”

But he might throw himself in the way if they try to shoot someone else. No - saying so would give Free more to gloat over. “If they don’t want to hit Rai, why would they shoot at all, knowing the zombies can survive shots to the head?”

“Hm.” Free tilted his head back upright. “Because the zombie might not live. Have you thought about it? The army clearly didn’t come up with a cure for this disease they made. But a cure’s not the only way to get rid of the infected.”

“Yes.” It hurt that agreement was all Sao could come up with.

“I don’t know what happened to those turned in for treatment, but I can guess.” Free set both elbows down and rested his chin on his palms. “I had a friend who got killed in action. It happened down South…”

“Something to do with the Phoenix General’s assassination?”

This bizarre tangent stopped Free’s thoughts. He clocked Sao with a narrow eyed look, then slowly - deliberately - moved to laughter. “Where did you hear about that silly story? Well, the friend I had was either a scientist or doctor, or both, in the E34 experiment. Right up until the end. He believed that there was a type of incendiary round - a certain compound of chemicals and fire - that was used to wipe out the errant zombies. He never handled one, he wasn’t a soldier, but he knew how things had to end. I never knew when this compound was developed, I assumed during the trial, but I’m sure it came in handy afterward. Now that I’m as informed as I can be of the case and the known fate of the participants I can guess… Total destruction of the body, inside out.”

“They were burned alive?”

“If you could call what they are ‘alive’. Again, a fire could make good publicity. Proves the army is ruthlessly devoted to coverup. Someone actually dies. Sympathy pours in. But…” Free paused, regarding the stage, Sao was disturbed to see, with some fondness. “The girls were probably right. The place is packed. Snipers or incendiaries or not, the army won’t kill the girls or Fin here. ”

“Free!” Sao felt his entire body was numb. With unfeeling hands, he grabbed Free by the shoulder and attempted to turn him around. It was like trying to shift a mountain. He felt the pressure in his skull mounting, eyes starting to water as if the force had burst his sinuses. “You didn’t tell them - or us - that you knew the army has a way to actually kill them?”

“I only promised to help with the show, get the message out. And it’s out.” He shrugged Sao’s hand off. “I’m not keen to put myself in the sights of the army either. None of these people are my friends.”

“That’s right. Your friend is a person who helped make the drug, helped draw in victims, and cover it up. I hope he died happy.”

Free wouldn’t even face him. He was about to go on, when he saw a violet eye peering over one broad shoulder. And he saw teeth bared - not a grin anymore.

“Do not go there.”

Sao collapsed onto a small step at the back of the lighting booth. “What happened to you, in these years? What did this friend, the friends you made, do to change you?”

“Wish I could ask you the same.”

“But I was always a weakling. Whatever I became, I didn’t get much better or worse in that regard, I think we can both agree. You, however, were the throat-cutting, belly-slicing enforcer. The fearless, bloodstained midwife. You shocked and amazed, you captured so many bodies when nobody else was willing. The night we met, you had taken out a group of well-known soldiers all on your own. Just to show me, one useless idiot of hundreds, that you could.” Sao smiled. “Perhaps you haven’t gone weak, but mellowed.”

Free’s eye, brimming with fire, held him in its gaze. But Free was silent.

“You don’t see it, I suppose? I know, it’s hard to tell if you’re good enough or bad enough. If you’re faking it to yourself. After all these years, I just want to say, despite my frustrations now, when a bit of bloodlust would be nice… I don’t disapprove of what you are.”

Come on. Come on, strike me down. Take us all…

But Free just stood. The lethargy had returned to his eyes and his posture. “I don’t have to put up with this. I’m leaving.”

Sao’s heart sank. “I’ll keep calling for the police.”

“Don’t bother.”

Free had one hand resting on a ladder rung, and had gone back to staring at Sao, with faint amusement, or pity. He made no further motion to leave. Sao flinched when Free thrust his palm out.

“You got something for me?”

Sao blinked. He reached into his jacket’s inner pocket and pulled out the zippered pouch, a bit sheepishly. He felt like a child caught with stolen money, or candy. Perhaps that image was a defensive measure his own brain took to protect his conscience from what he was about to allow.

Not just allow - it was what he’d asked for.

With a swift snap, Free took it. Checked the contents, humming contentedly. He pulled two mean hook-ended knives from their holding compartment and slid their blades against each other. His motions, gentle as willow branches. And yet, Sao heard it, even over the chanting: the scream of metal on metal.

“Why?” Sao said. He suddenly sounded tiny. “Why must you do that?”

“Full of questions tonight, aren’t we?”

Sao kept his mouth shut.

Free smiled and slung the pouch over his shoulder with one of the thick straps. “The look on your face. What other reason would I need?”

And with that morsel out of the way, Free launched himself up the ladder in one smooth, feline motion, and was gone.

Sao seated himself in the newly vacated seat by the control panel and watched the stage as the reveal drew to a close.

He thought vaguely of checking HQ’s responses to his earlier panic, or checking the news or the live Neocam reactions. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He did not look to the left or the right, or down or up, or at his phone. He also tried to ignore any sounds coming from the balcony.

The less he took in, the better. The less there was to construct a nightmare, the better.

Instead, he watched Rai’s hands, what felt like miles away, at the edge of the spotlight. Rai was stepping off the stage now, diving back into the surrounding dark. All Sao could see of his supervisor was his hands, those tiny tears of blue moving through a world of black and gray and white. Sky blue. The backdrop of better days. A color which had been made conspicuously sparse throughout this sweltering, weeks-long drudgery of sadness, death and desperation.

But blue skies would come back, eventually, he told himself. They always did.