038 The Vibrant Forward Base

Verdant mountains stretched endlessly, lush grass blanketed the earth, and a gentle breeze at the turn of summer to autumn rustled the leaves—slightly yellowed, yet far from their time to fall. Dappled sunlight flickered through the woods like the first rising stars of dawn. Walking among them, one's feet sinking into the slightly slippery moss, one might almost believe oneself in another world. The air was so crisp and pure it seemed to cleanse the very soul. For any traveler from the city, the forest offered the promise of rebirth.

Yet, at this moment, the forest was too silent. The usual chorus of insects and birds had vanished, as if no living thing remained. An inexplicable, bone-chilling gloom settled, something even the sunlight could not disperse. And among the trees, staggering shadows flickered, heightening the sense of unease.

The shadow was, of course, unnatural. Its belly was grotesquely distended, as if pregnant, while the rest of its body was gaunt, skeletal. This imbalance made its gait unstable. Mossy, slippery ground caused it to fall, but it felt no pain. Whenever it collapsed, it simply rose and lurched on, choosing a direction at random, like a particle in Brownian motion.

At last, after a fall that any creature with intelligence would have avoided, a tree branch tore open the shadow’s belly. A foul stench burst forth; ruptured organs spilled out with nameless rotting flesh, tumbling onto the meadow, where the shadow trampled them into putrid mud, smearing corruption across the once-picturesque landscape.

A closer look would reveal this being no longer cared about losing a quarter of its body weight in an instant. It was not alive. Its lips were gone, exposing jagged, broken teeth. Its eyes, once blood-red and terrifying, had faded to stone-like white and were useless. Yet, organs hidden deep in the skull—eardrums and nasal passages—were better preserved. This so-called "zombie," as humans named it, retained enough sense of smell and hearing to react to stimuli, to hunt for the living it craved, hoping to fill its shattered stomach and bowels.

After repeated efforts, the pitiful zombie finally freed itself from the entanglement of its own organs, stood up once more, and dragged a long length of intestine through the woods. When the intestine caught in a crevice and ripped free, taking with it the last scrap of spleen, its belly was at last empty. Unburdened, it moved a little faster and, by chance, stumbled in the right direction, becoming one of the few zombies to emerge from the forest and face the open wilds.

Then the wind carried a scent of blood.

It was like a beam of light in darkness.

The zombie pursued the scent, striving, crawling, struggling. As it drew near, the aroma vanished.

Its ruined mind harbored no anger or regret, only confusion.

Something cold and unyielding locked the zombie in place. No matter how it growled, struggled, even twisted its limbs off, it could not break free. The loss of blood-scent calmed its agitation. Its stagnant mind could only await the next temptation, incapable of hope, perhaps even unable to comprehend what hope was.

Tu Hongye watched as the third zombie specimen of the morning was brought into the laboratory. The hollow cavity of its torso came into view. There was no ripple in his heterochromatic eyes. Without expression, he donned his headgear, his assistant zipping him into his protective suit and securing the layers. Ten minutes of comprehensive decontamination followed before he and three others, all fully suited, passed through layers of security to reach the zombie containment lab.

The laboratory was on the first basement level, its conditions crude—nothing like the secret facility near the capital. That could not be helped: it was far too dangerous to capture large numbers of zombies in the quarantine zone and transport them hundreds of kilometers for vaccine and biochemical weapons research. So the authorities compromised, converting a nearby military prison, formerly used for detaining soldier convicts, into a forward research base.

Tu Hongye, with a shadowy background and top expertise in transgenic and viral research, naturally took on the most dangerous assignment, becoming the sole leader of this new quarantine-zone base.

"This is the organization’s show of trust in you," Director Xiong of the capital base had solemnly told Tu Hongye.

Trust, my foot.

The prison was located northwest of Shenyang, in an area where the military, focusing its defense on the Northeast, had left only highways and railways intact for ease of access. In reality, the site was within the quarantine zone, where stray zombies frequently appeared.

Tu Hongye knew he’d underestimated the old bureaucrats. He swallowed the bitter pill, pacified Ruoxi, and hurried to assume command. Still, having a base where he alone called the shots, however inconvenient the location, was progress toward his goals. And the power of the state was no joke: in a single day, the prison and the surrounding two kilometers were swept clean—no zombies, not even a mouse to be found.

Walking through the former inmate activity room, now a lab with blood-red slogans scrawled on the walls and rubber flooring underfoot, the four of them, clad in full protective gear, could not escape the noise and stench of the zombies. Along one side were a dozen experimental tables, each holding a freshly cleaned zombie, strapped down for research. On the other side were dozens of iron cages, housing at least a hundred more zombies. Most had lost their sight and could not detect the presence of suited humans by the groans alone. Those with vision pressed to the bars, howling and reaching out, desperate to claw at anything alive and clean. Any ordinary person would likely fall ill at such a sight.

Tu Hongye, unfazed, led his assistants to the first table, observing the zombie bound there. Its body was naked; between the high peaks and lush hills lay curves that would drive any male mad. Though the face was twisted, its ferocity was limited; its mouth could not open wide, and its sharp chin and identical, upturned eyes gave it a mask-like rigidity. Without question, this zombie had visited Korea in life, perhaps even a minor internet celebrity.

Now? It was nothing but writhing, stinking dead flesh. Its pale, scrubbed body was covered in wounds—most from scrapes and friction. The deepest, on its left leg, exposed bone, and showed no sign of healing; instead, it had become home to fly larvae, a few of which crawled merrily in and out.

"If cleaning is ever this careless again, the responsible party will eat the leftovers," Tu Hongye said, his tone calm. It sounded like a complaint, but his assistants knew he was deadly serious. They’d better remind the wound-cleaning crew—no more mistakes.

Tu Hongye paid his assistant's thoughts no heed. His focus was on the zombie before him. He drew a scalpel and carefully incised the occipital bone, exposing the grey-white tissue and confirming the location and viability of the cerebellum. Following protocol, he injected five milliliters of experimental agent. The procedure was complete.

As head of the forward base, Tu Hongye only needed to demonstrate; the rest was left to his assistants. He could have skipped the demonstration altogether, but from the very first day, he’d scrawled "lead by example" on the base wall. To show he was a doer, not a bureaucrat, he’d joined the cleanup teams, personally clearing out every corner of the prison and taking down more than ten zombies himself. His suit had been so soaked in zombie blood it was nearly ruined—a testament to the danger.

It was this attitude that had quickly boosted morale; though three soldiers had since died for various reasons, the base for vaccine and bioweapon research was up and running at record speed, without incident—a rare feat.

The injections were simple; three assistants managed well. Tu Hongye did not linger but went ahead with decontamination and left the lab.

Swiping his card, entering his password, and submitting to retinal scans, he entered the pristine, silent control center. He waved for the staff to continue their work, glanced at the stack of army bedding in the corner, and sighed inwardly. Circling behind the console, he reached in and extracted a petite figure still hard at work.

She barely stood a meter and a half tall, with a figure like a ribbonfish, looking like an underdeveloped schoolgirl. Despite being a woman, her head was shaved, and she wore oversized black-rimmed glasses—without lenses. Her big eyes blinked behind the frames. Without knowing her age, no one would guess she was over thirty. Interrupted at work, she simply grinned foolishly at Tu Hongye.

"Mai Rujing! How many hours did you sleep last night?" Tu Hongye, seeing her expression, could not muster any anger; even if he tried, she would not notice.

Mai Rujing tilted her head, thought, and held up four fingers.

"Four hours?" Without hesitation, Tu Hongye fished a pill bottle from his pocket, tipped out a tablet, and handed it to her. She scratched her head and, seeing his hand unmoving, opened her mouth and swallowed the pill. She shuffled to her bedding, crawled in, curled up, and soon snores issued from the filthy covers.

Tu Hongye could only sigh. He surveyed the control center. "Number 3794, could you do me a favor? Take Mai Rujing to her quarters, get her cleaned up, and let her have a proper rest."

"Yes, Professor Tu," replied Operator No. 3794, who, with the help of security, escorted Mai Rujing out.

Mai Rujing, with her peculiar name, was an Asperger’s patient. Like many with her condition, she could not read expressions and rarely spoke except with those closest to her. Unlike most, she was a genius with an IQ over 140, especially skilled in mechanics and electronics with some programming knowledge—a talent Tu Hongye had recruited from a psychiatric hospital. When he came to the forward base, his requirements were few, but one was that Mai Rujing join him as his assistant. She proved invaluable: anything mechanical, she inspected, updated, and repaired with ease, sparing Tu Hongye countless headaches.

A treasure like her could not be allowed to collapse from exhaustion.

As for Operator 3794’s dewy eyes as she left, Tu Hongye simply ignored them.

With Mai Rujing gone, Tu Hongye verified his identity and entered his private office. He activated the touchscreen to observe the zombies that had received the experimental drugs or bioweapons.

There was no need to visit the cold storage; drones transmitted live feeds of the subjects. When finished, he could close the screen and the drones would automatically return to charge. If he wished to extract or destroy a subject, he needed only to touch the screen—automated systems did the rest. Completing these designs in just a week had greatly reduced risk; aside from Mai Rujing, few could have managed it. According to her plan, with enough state support, she could halve the base’s personnel within a month.

The base had operated only a week. Subtracting setup and logistics, these zombies under observation had only received the drugs yesterday.

As for the results—utterly disappointing.

Yesterday’s batch of zombies was either hyperactive or bleeding from every orifice, dying in grotesque ways. Not one looked remotely like a normal corpse. The drugs killed the virus but destroyed everything else as well.

After confirming the results, Tu Hongye was deeply disappointed. He could not help but reminisce about human test subjects.

Unfortunately, after the failed experiment with Wang Chen, the authorities had banned further human trials, whether the subjects volunteered or not. All were now under house arrest, awaiting confirmation of drug efficacy in zombies before any further human testing. The only advantage was an endless supply of material; the downside was that drugs potent enough for zombies tended to be dangerous for humans, so the process had to proceed slowly. Progress was painfully slow.

Glancing at the clock, with half an hour until lunch, Tu Hongye was about to make a video call when a request from Chen Hanxin popped up. He accepted. Chen Hanxin’s ashen face all but leapt from the screen, looking like a monkey king abandoned by his tribe—utterly defeated.

Tu Hongye’s eyes narrowed. Without waiting for him to ask, Chen Hanxin said, "Senior, I just received a message and data from MSS. Take a look first—we have an emergency meeting in twenty minutes."

Data? What data?

Tu Hongye opened the folder Chen Hanxin sent. Two PDFs, labeled USA and RUS. He opened RUS first, skimmed a few pages, and his face darkened.

The Russians claimed they had developed a preliminary zombie pathogen vaccine and were moving from zombie to human trials. How many days had it been since the tanker incident? The research vessel was still adrift in the Pacific! The Russians had a vaccine for human trials already? Had God intervened?

Telling himself to stay calm—perhaps it was a Russian ploy—Tu Hongye opened the USA document. After a hurried read, he felt as though he was sitting on needles.

The Americans had developed a biological weapon against zombies.

Unlike the Russians’ grandiose claims—lacking real data and reading like a bluff—the Americans’ detailed report on bioweapons was far more convincing.

Developing bioweapons for zombies was a good idea, but implementation was fraught with difficulty. Bioweapons fell into two main categories. Chemical weapons were out—they harmed zombies but devastated the environment even more. You might as well use thermobaric bombs; at least nature could slowly recover. Chemical agents would poison water and soil for decades, leaving even the air laden with toxins.

So the Americans turned to biological weapons. First, they described their failed attempts: genetically engineering flesh-eating bacteria to break down rotten meat, with built-in "genetic bombs" to ensure the bacteria died after a set number of generations. Released into zombie-infested areas, they would accelerate decomposition and eliminate zombies. But computer modeling predicted disaster. If the genetic lock failed, the destruction could rival the zombie pathogen itself. Imagine: every living thing on earth infected and rotted away. The apocalypse a hundred times over.

Thus, the Americans pursued another route: using gene-edited higher organisms to combat zombies.

Brain-eating amoebae.

These small creatures, known scientifically as Naegleria fowleri, are widely present in nature, though in low concentrations. They spread through water or as dormant cysts in the air. If enough amoebae enter a human brain via the nose and evade the immune system, they rapidly proliferate, causing fatal brain inflammation—mortality nearly one hundred percent. Slightly modified, these amoebae could reproduce in zombie brains, accelerating their decay and thus clearing out zombies.

The key difference between zombies and humans is that the zombies’ immune systems are inert. So, gene-edited amoebae would be far more lethal to zombies than to humans. Even if the same number entered a human brain, the immune system would offer some defense. Moreover, these organisms, being larger than bacteria, could be blocked by a simple mask or dense cotton cloth, making prevention cheap and easy.

For Tu Hongye, who had been busy establishing the forward base, the idea of using brain-eating amoebae as bioweapons was only a rough concept. Even those in the rear, like Chen Hanxin and the military, were still at the earliest stages of biological agent selection. Whether to use amoebae or bacteria had yet to be decided. Yet the Americans had already completed development and begun production. No wonder Chen Hanxin looked so grim.

As one of the few who truly understood the urgency and scale of the crisis, Tu Hongye knew what this meant: the Americans now had the power to dictate terms to every nation—holding the fate of the world in their hands.

Want to avoid cooperating with the Americans? Fine—if you can develop your own vaccine or weapon before the zombie pathogen mutates into a pandemic. But who would dare gamble a nation’s future and the lives of all its people?

No one.

This emergency meeting boiled down to two questions: How credible were the Russians? How advanced were the Americans?

The first was settled in ten minutes: the Russians were all talk. Their capabilities in genetic science were similar to China’s; even if, by some miracle, they had produced a vaccine, its stability, effectiveness, and production rate were questionable.

The second topic took longer. Had the Americans really succeeded, or was it just a theoretical proposal? Or perhaps they had a working prototype already? No one could say for certain. Gene-editing amoebae was more complex than working with viruses or bacteria. But who could say the Americans hadn’t been developing amoebic bioweapons long before the outbreak, and simply found them useful against zombies now?

In the end, Tu Hongye proposed two actions: accelerate domestic research into brain-eating amoebae, and send a delegation to America to verify their results in person. At the very least, force the Americans to demonstrate the amoebae dissolving a zombie brain into a pool of blood. What happened after confirmation would be for higher authorities to decide.

The meeting was not long, but left Tu Hongye exhausted. The bureaucrats with academic backgrounds at least seemed willing to work. The high-IQ fools obsessed with power, on the other hand, were all evasion and irresponsibility. When Tu Hongye suggested sending someone to America, Directors Xiong and Qin from the capital base kept their faces neutral, but their eyes darkened. Clearly, the "delegate" was meant for one of them. Were Tu Hongye not leading the forward base, he would have been the best choice himself. Now one of the two would have to go, at a time of intense uncertainty. If the zombie pathogen mutated into a pandemic while they were abroad, there was no guarantee of getting home alive...

As the saying goes, retribution comes in its own time.

PS: I wrote over two thousand words of debate and deleted them all—this is not a political intrigue novel, after all...