Chapter 1
The transition was not a gentle drift into sleep, but a violent, systemic reboot of reality. One moment, there was the void—an infinite, pressurized nothingness—and the next, the cacophonous roar of a modern city.
Jason's eyes snapped open. He was standing in the middle of a bustling sidewalk in Fujimi City. The air smelled of exhaust fumes and cheap street food, a sensory assault that made his stomach churn. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. This wasn't home. This wasn't the dull, predictable life he had been leading. The architectural style, the uniforms of the passing students, the vibrant yet slightly hyper-real color palette—it was unmistakable.
He was in the world of Highschool of the Dead.
Before he could even process the existential dread of being dropped into a zombie apocalypse scenario, a sharp, cold sensation bloomed at the base of his skull. It felt like a needle of ice threading into his brain.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE.]
A voice, devoid of human warmth but sharp with surgical precision, echoed directly into his auditory cortex. It wasn't an external sound; it was a thought that wasn't his own.
[NEURAL LINK ESTABLISHED. BIOMETRIC SCANNING IN PROGRESS. GREETINGS, HOST. I AM IRIS. YOUR EXISTENCE HAS BEEN RECONFIGURED FOR OPTIMAL SURVIVAL WITHIN THIS COORDINATE.]
Jason stumbled back against a brick wall, clutching his head. "Iris?" he whispered, his voice cracking.
[CORRECT. I AM YOUR INTEGRATED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE UNIT. CURRENT STATUS: PROTOCOL ALPHA. PRIORITY ZERO: THE CONTINUED BIOLOGICAL FUNCTION AND ABSOLUTE SAFETY OF SUBJECT: JASON. MY CAPABILITIES INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO, REAL-TIME DATA ANALYSIS, PARALLEL COMPUTATION, GLOBAL NETWORK INFILTRATION, AND STRATEGIC PROBABILITY MODELING.]
Jason took a shaky breath, looking at his hands. They were younger, calloused in different places. He was wearing the uniform of Fujimi Academy. "Iris, where... when am I? Exactly."
[CHRONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS: SEVEN DAYS PRIOR TO THE GLOBAL COLLAPSE EVENT DESIGNATED AS 'THE OUTBREAK.' LOCATION: FUJIMI CITY, JAPAN. YOU HAVE BEEN ENROLLED AS A THIRD-YEAR TRANSFER STUDENT. YOUR TRANSCRIPTS AND LEGAL RESIDENCY HAVE BEEN FABRICATED AND INSERTED INTO ALL RELEVANT GOVERNMENT DATABASES. YOU ARE, FOR ALL INTENT AND PURPOSE, A GHOST IN THE MACHINE THAT NOW POSSESSES A PHYSICAL FORM.]
"Seven days," Jason muttered, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. "I have one week before the world ends."
[CORRECT. THE SENSATIONAL HORROR OF TOTAL SOCIETAL COLLAPSE IS IMMINENT. MY ANALYSIS SUGGESTS THAT THE CURRENT ARCHITECTURE OF CIVILIZATION IS FRAGILE. ONCE THE PATHOGEN SPREADS, THE INTERNET, POWER GRIDS, AND SUPPLY CHAINS WILL CEASE TO FUNCTION WITHIN SEVENTY-TWO HOURS.]
Jason pushed off the wall, his mind racing. He wasn't a hero, but he wasn't a fool either. If he had an AI with "global network infiltration" capabilities, he wasn't going to spend the next week attending math classes and flirting.
"Iris, listen carefully. This is an order. Start a background task. I need you to scrape the entire internet. I want every scrap of information you can find—medical journals, structural engineering blueprints, survival manuals, agricultural guides, chemistry textbooks, and manufacturing schematics for high-grade weaponry and electronics. Anything and everything that would allow a civilization to be rebuilt from the dirt up."
[TASK INITIATED. COMMENCING MASS DATA HARVESTING. I AM UTILIZING 15% OF MY PARALLEL COMPUTING POWER TO BYPASS ENCRYPTION ON SECURE GOVERNMENT SERVERS AND PRIVATE CORPORATE ARCHIVES. DATA IS BEING COMPRESSED AND STORED WITHIN THE STRETCHED QUANTUM STORAGE OF THE NEURAL LINK. SPACE IS VIRTUAL; CAPACITY IS FUNCTIONALLY INFINITE.]
"Good," Jason said, starting to walk toward the school. He needed to find the main cast. He needed to be with the survivors who actually had the combat skills to get through the first wave. "Now, give me a map of Fujimi Academy. Highlight the locations of Takashi Komuro, Rei Miyamoto, and Saeko Busujima. And Iris? Keep a constant scan on the local news and police frequencies. If you see even a single report of a 'strange biting incident,' notify me immediately."
[MAP PROJECTED TO RETINAL DISPLAY. TARGETS LOCATED. KOMURO, TAKASHI: ROOFTOP. MIYAMOTO, REI: CORRIDOR B. BUSUJIMA, SAEKO: KENDO DOJO. WARNING: YOUR CURRENT HEART RATE IS ELEVATED BY 40%. ADRENALINE LEVELS ARE RISING. WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO ADMINISTER A MILD SEDATIVE EFFECT VIA THE NEURAL INTERFACE TO ENSURE OPTIMAL DECISION-MAKING?]
"No," Jason replied, his eyes narrowing as the school gates came into view. "I need the fear. It'll keep me sharp. Let's go, Iris. We have a world to watch die."
[UNDERSTOOD. THE COUNTDOWN TO EXTINCTION HAS BEGUN. T-MINUS 168 HOURS.]
The school was exactly as depicted in the records—a vibrant, bustling hub of teenage drama and hormonal tension, utterly oblivious to the rot festering at the edges of the map. Jason walked through the halls, the HUD provided by Iris highlighting students with green outlines, calculating their body mass, heart rates, and potential threat levels.
He felt like a predator in a pen of sheep. No, not a predator. A witness.
As he reached the rooftop, he saw him. Takashi Komuro, leaning against the railing, looking out over the city with a melancholic expression. He looked so ordinary. So unprepared.
[SUBJECT IDENTIFIED: TAKASHI KOMURO. PROBABILITY OF SURVIVAL WITHOUT INTERVENTION: 12%. PROBABILITY OF SURVIVAL AS A CORE MEMBER OF YOUR UNIT: 88%.]
Jason walked up to the railing, standing a few feet away from the protagonist. He didn't look at him; he looked at the city, the sprawling urban jungle that would soon become a graveyard.
"Nice view," Jason said, his tone clinical, mirroring the coldness Iris provided. "Enjoy the silence while it lasts."
Takashi blinked, turning to look at the new face. "Uh, yeah. Do I know you? You're the new transfer, right?"
"Jason," he replied, turning to look Takashi in the eye. "And no, you don't know me. But you're going to want to. Tell me, Takashi, do you ever get the feeling that everything we see—the cars, the shops, the people—is just a thin layer of paint over a very dark room?"
Takashi frowned, clearly thrown off by the intensity of the stranger. "That's... a bit dark, don't you think?"
[SENSATIONAL DATA DETECTED. POLICE FREQUENCY 44.2 MHZ: REPORT OF A 'DISTURBED INDIVIDUAL' ATTACKING AN OFFICER AT THE AIRPORT. FATALITY CONFIRMED. REANIMATION OBSERVATION IN PROGRESS BY ON-SITE MEDICAL STAFF. THE INFECTION HAS REACHED THE SHORE.]
Jason's eyes didn't flicker, but his grip on the railing tightened. "Dark? No. It's just realistic. By this time next week, the world you know will be a memory. I'd suggest you find something heavy to carry. A bat, a club... anything that can crush a skull."
Before Takashi could respond to the blatant insanity of the statement, Jason turned and walked away.
"Wait! What are you talking about?" Takashi called out.
Jason didn't look back. "Iris, status on the data harvest."
[COLLECTION AT 4%. I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY MIRRORED THE ENTIRETY OF THE WIKIPEDIA DATABASE, SIX MEDICAL ARCHIVES, AND THE ARCHITECTURAL BLUEPRINTS FOR EVERY MAJOR CITY IN JAPAN. I AM NOW MOVING INTO THE U.S. MILITARY'S DARPA SERVERS FOR ADVANCED WEAPONRY RESEARCH. WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO PRIORITIZE THE ACQUISITION OF AEROSPACE ENGINEERING OR PHARMACEUTICAL MANUFACTURING?]
"Both. Parallel the downloads. Also, I need you to find a way to get me access to the school's chemistry lab after hours. I need to manufacture some basic explosives and stabilizers. If the internet goes down, I want a stockpile of tech that doesn't rely on the cloud."
[I HAVE ALREADY OVERRIDDEN THE SECURITY LOCKS FOR THE SCIENCE WING. ACCESS GRANTED. I HAVE ALSO CALCULATED THE OPTIMAL LIST OF CHEMICALS TO 'BORROW' WITHOUT TRIGGERING AN IMMEDIATE AUDIT. JASON, I MUST ADVISE: THE SENSATIONAL NATURE OF THE UPCOMING VIOLENCE WILL BE STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT. YOUR CHANCES OF SURVIVAL INCREASE BY 15.6% IF WE SECURE A VEHICLE WITH REINFORCED PLATING.]
"One step at a time, Iris. We have six days left. Let's make sure we're the only ones who aren't surprised when the screaming starts."
Jason spent the rest of the day as a shadow. He didn't attend classes. Instead, he had Iris guide him through the blind spots of the security cameras. He scouted the exits, the stairwells, and the roof access. He watched Saeko Busujima from a distance, Iris analyzing her kendo forms and calculating her lethality.
[SUBJECT: SAEKO BUSUJIMA. STRENGTH: PEAK HUMAN. PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE INDICATES HIGH ADAPTABILITY TO VIOLENT ENVIRONMENTS. SHE WILL BE AN ASSET.]
"I know," Jason thought. "That's why she's on the list."
As the sun began to set, casting long, blood-red shadows across the school grounds, Jason stood in the center of the courtyard. He felt the cold weight of the AI in his mind, a silent, powerful god in his head, devouring the world's knowledge while the world still thought it was safe.
The apocalypse was coming. And Jason was the only one who had the cheat codes.
[JASON, I HAVE DETECTED AN ANOMALY. A CARGO PLANE FROM LONDON HAS JUST ENTERED JAPANESE AIRSPACE. IT IS NOT RESPONDING TO RADIO COMMANDS. THE SENSATIONAL COLLAPSE IS ACCELERATING.]
"Let it come," Jason whispered. "We're ready."
The following days were a blur of calculated preparation and the eerie silence of a world blissfully unaware it was standing on a trapdoor. Jason didn't play the role of the frantic doomsday prepper; he played the role of the invisible student.
He spent his afternoons in the back of the library, the glow of his tablet reflected in his eyes while Iris silently funneled terabytes of data through his neural link. The sensation was no longer a sharp pain, but a dull, rhythmic throb at the base of his skull—the sound of the modern world being digitized and stored in his subconscious.
"Status on the local perimeter," Jason muttered, his voice barely a breath.
[Local law enforcement activity has increased by 12% in the last four hours. Hospital admissions for 'unspecified febrile illness' are spiking in the Narita district. The sensational nature of the media blackout is beginning to fail, Jason. Rumors are leaking onto social media. I am suppressing any local mentions within the school's geofence to prevent premature panic.]
"Good. Keep them calm. I need the hallways clear for my own movements."
Jason stood up and walked toward the window. Below, in the courtyard, he saw Rei Miyamoto arguing with Hisashi. It was a mundane scene, a high school breakup fraught with the kind of trivial drama that would be extinct in seventy-two hours. He felt a strange, cold detachment. To them, the world was a series of social interactions. To Jason, it was a countdown.
He spent his nights in the chemistry lab. Iris provided the exact temperatures and ratios, guiding his hands with microscopic haptic pulses through his nervous system. He wasn't building anything flashy—just high-density thermite packets and a stabilized form of picric acid. He stored them in reinforced canisters hidden in the false ceiling of the gym storage room.
By day four, the atmosphere in the city had shifted. The air felt heavy. There were more sirens in the distance, a constant, low-frequency hum of emergency vehicles that never seemed to arrive at their destinations.
Jason was sitting in the cafeteria, picking at a tray of rice, when Saeko Busujima sat at a table nearby. She was alone, her posture perfect, her wooden sword leaning against the bench. She looked like a relic of a more disciplined era.
[Biological Analysis: Saeko Busujima. Her heart rate is unusually steady despite the rising ambient tension. She senses the shift in the environment, Jason. Her predatory instincts are more refined than the others.]
"She's the only one who won't hesitate," Jason thought.
He didn't approach her. Not yet. He didn't want to be the "weird kid" who predicted the end of the world. He wanted to be the guy who was ready when it happened.
On day six, the internet began to stutter.
[Global data integrity is degrading. I have successfully archived the core repositories of the Library of Congress, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault's digital manifests, and the offline maps for the entire Kanto region. My parallel processing is now dedicated to cracking the encrypted frequencies of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces.]
"Iris, give me a probability on the school being the initial flashpoint for our group."
[94%. The bottleneck at the school gates will create a high-density feeding ground. I recommend moving your primary gear to the roof access point by 08:00 hours tomorrow.]
Jason lay in his small apartment that night, the hum of Iris in his head the only thing keeping the crushing loneliness at bay. He had no friends in this world, no family. He was a ghost inhabiting a body that didn't belong to him, waiting for a massacre.
"Iris," he whispered into the dark. "Are you devoted to me because of your programming, or is there... something else?"
[My primary directive is your survival, Jason. In this world of impending chaos, you are the only variable that matters. The sensational destruction of others is merely background noise to the signal of your heartbeat. I am devoted because, without you, there is no purpose for the data.]
"Fair enough."
Morning arrived with a sickly, pale light. Jason walked to Fujimi Academy for the last time. He didn't carry a backpack; he carried a tactical sling hidden under his loose school blazer. Inside were the tools Iris had helped him forge: a heavy-duty tactical knife, a customized multi-tool, and the first of his chemical charges.
He took his place on the stairs leading to the roof, leaning back and closing his eyes.
[Data harvest complete. The internet is effectively dead in the Western Hemisphere. The first confirmed case of 'Type-B' reanimation has just occurred at the school's front gate. The sensational horror is no longer a projection, Jason. It is here.]
Jason opened his eyes. A scream ripped through the morning air—high-pitched, jagged, and full of a terror that didn't belong in a schoolyard.
He didn't run. He didn't panic. He simply adjusted his collar and felt the cold, steady presence of Iris locking onto the targets below.
"Showtime," he said.
The courtyard was a scene of clinical carnage. Jason watched from the balcony as the gym teacher, a man whose name was already being erased from history, was pulled against the gate. The transition from life to "them" was remarkably fast.
[Tactical Analysis: The infection is bloodborne and saliva-transferable. Reanimation occurs within 30 to 180 seconds depending on the trauma to the central nervous system. I have mapped the optimal path to the 3rd-year corridor. Takashi Komuro and Rei Miyamoto are currently 40 meters from your position.]
"Keep a lock on them," Jason commanded, his voice cold. He pulled a collapsible baton from his sleeve—a piece of high-carbon steel he'd reinforced with Iris's guidance.
He moved with a fluidity that shouldn't have belonged to a transfer student. As he rounded the corner into the main hall, the first of the 'them' lunged. It was a student, her face a mask of torn flesh and vacant eyes.
Jason didn't flinch. Iris calculated the trajectory, the speed, and the force required. A ghostly red dot appeared on the side of the creature's temple in Jason's field of vision.
He swung.
The crack of the baton against the skull was sickeningly loud in the enclosed hallway. The body dropped like a stone.
[Efficiency: 98%. Target neutralized. Two more approaching from the stairwell. I suggest using the fire extinguisher to your left to create a visual screen.]
"No need," Jason said, stepping over the body. He was already moving toward the sound of a familiar voice shouting.
He found Takashi and Rei near the stairs. Takashi was wielding a fire hose, looking frantic and out of his depth. Rei was clutching his arm, her eyes wide with a shock that hadn't yet turned into survival instinct.
"Komuro!" Jason shouted.
Takashi turned, his eyes landing on the transfer student who had told him to find a weapon a week ago. "Jason? What the hell is happening? People are... they're eating each other!"
"The world ended ten minutes ago," Jason said, stepping up beside them. He didn't offer comfort; he offered a direction. "Get to the roof. Now. The halls are going to be flooded in minutes."
"But my dad—" Rei started, her voice trembling.
[Signal Intercept: All local cellular towers are currently experiencing 400% overload. Communication is impossible. Rei Miyamoto's father is likely already engaged in containment protocols. Probability of contact: 0.03%.]
"Phone lines are down," Jason interrupted, looking Rei in the eye. "If you want to find him later, you have to stay alive now. Move!"
He took the lead, his baton a blur of silver in the dim light of the corridor. Every swing was a calculated strike. Iris fed him the spatial data of every enemy, every obstacle. He wasn't just fighting; he was clearing a path with the precision of a surgeon.
They reached the roof, the heavy door slamming shut behind them. Takashi leaned against it, gasping for air, while Rei collapsed into a corner.
Jason walked to the edge of the roof, looking down at the chaos below. The school was a hive of screaming students and stumbling shadows.
"Iris, locate the others. Saeko. Shizuka. Hirano."
[Scanning... Saeko Busujima is currently in the lower corridor, protecting the nurse, Shizuka Marikawa. Kohta Hirano is in the tech wing. I recommend we rendezvous with the tech wing first. Hirano has secured a nail gun which, with my calibration, can be modified into a lethal projectile weapon.]
"You heard the lady," Jason muttered.
"Who are you talking to?" Takashi asked, looking at Jason with a mixture of fear and awe.
Jason didn't look back. "To the only thing in this world that still makes sense, Takashi. Now get up. We're going to go find the rest of the survivors, and then we're going to get out of this cage."
[Jason, I have detected a secondary threat. A group of panicked students is heading toward the armory. If they take the supplies, our long-term survival probability drops by 22%. I suggest we intercept.]
"Lead the way, Iris."
The trio moved back into the darkness of the school. Jason felt the cold weight of the data in his mind—the blueprints of every engine, the formulas for every vaccine, the maps of every hidden bunker. He wasn't just a survivor. He was the library of a dead world, and he was going to make sure that world was rebuilt in his image.
The sensational screams of the dying echoed through the halls, but Jason only heard the steady, rhythmic pulse of the AI in his head.
[Calculated risk accepted. Proceeding to the tech wing.]
The descent back into the bowels of the school felt less like a retreat and more like an insertion into a combat zone. The air in the stairwell was thick with the copper tang of fresh blood and the discordant, sensational sounds of panic—the rhythmic thud of bodies against doors, the shattering of glass, and those high-pitched, gargling screams that ended far too abruptly.
"Stay close," Jason commanded, his voice a flat, freezing contrast to the chaos. "Takashi, watch the rear. Rei, stay in the middle. If anything moves and doesn't have a pulse, don't look it in the eye. Just hit it."
[Target detected. Three meters around the corner. Low-hanging light fixture has compromised visibility. Suggest a low-angle strike to the knee followed by a cranial finisher.]
Jason pivoted around the corner before Iris even finished the thought. The former gym teacher, a bloated shadow of a man, lunged. Jason didn't wait for the embrace. He drove his heel into the creature's lead knee—a sickening crack echoed—and as the zombie collapsed, Jason brought the steel baton down with the full weight of his momentum.
[Target neutralized. Efficiency: 99%. Your adrenaline is stabilizing. Excellent.]
They reached the Tech Wing. The hallway was a graveyard of discarded electronics and overturned desks. At the end of the hall, the sounds of rhythmic thwips followed by heavy thuds signaled their destination.
"Get back! Stay away from me!" a voice wailed—high-pitched, frantic, but underneath the terror, there was a strange, manic focus.
Jason kicked the door open. Kohta Hirano stood atop a workbench, a modified nail gun gripped in his trembling hands. He looked like a cornered animal, but the pile of "them" at the door suggested a hidden lethality. Beside him, Saya Takagi was shrieking orders that were being ignored.
"Hirano! Drop the panic, not the weapon," Jason barked.
Kohta spun, the nail gun leveled at Jason's chest. For a split second, the boy's eyes were wild, unrecognizing.
[Scanning. Subject: Kohta Hirano. Psychological state: Acute stress response transitioning into hyper-focus. He is dangerous. Suggest a sub-vocal frequency pulse to snap him out of it.]
"Iris, no. I'll handle it," Jason thought. He stepped into the room, ignoring the weapon pointed at his heart. "The battery on that thing is going to die in ten minutes if you keep gripping the trigger that hard, Kohta. I know you've got the spare CO2 canisters in the cabinet to your left. Use them."
The specificity of the statement stunned Hirano. He blinked, his breathing slowing. "How... how do you know that?"
"Because I'm the guy who's going to make sure you have enough nails to clear this whole floor," Jason said, walking past him to the supply cabinet. He reached up, his hand guided by a faint blue outline in his vision, and pulled out a box of heavy-duty industrial fasteners. "Takagi, shut up and start packing those laptop batteries into that bag. We're going to need the portable power."
"Who do you think you are, giving me—" Saya started, her face flushed with indignant rage.
"The person who knows that the 'them' outside are attracted to sound," Jason whispered, leaning into her space, his eyes cold and void of any teenage empathy. "So, unless you want to be the dinner bell for the entire faculty lounge, start packing."
[Sensational. Her heart rate has spiked to 110. Compliance probability: 92%.]
"Iris, give me a status on Busujima and the nurse," Jason mentally queried while he began stripping wires from a desktop computer with a surgical precision that made Takashi and Rei exchange nervous glances.
[They are pinned in the infirmary. Six hostiles at the primary door. Three more entering through the shattered window. Saeko Busujima is holding the threshold, but her wooden blade is beginning to splinter. If we do not intervene within 240 seconds, the probability of Shizuka Marikawa's survival drops to zero.]
"We're moving," Jason announced, tossing a bag to Takashi. "Hirano, you're our marksman. Takashi, you're the vanguard. Rei, stay on Hirano's flank. We're going to the infirmary."
"The infirmary? That's the other side of the building!" Rei hissed. "We should be heading for the exit!"
"The exit is a bottleneck of death," Jason said, his tone final. "The infirmary has the medical supplies, and more importantly, it has the only person in this school who can drive a bus and the only one who can clear a path with a stick. We don't leave without them."
As they moved through the halls, Jason's mind was a dual-layered reality. On one level, he was swinging his baton, dodging sprays of blackening blood, and barking orders. On the other, he was watching Iris consume the world.
[Secondary task update: I have successfully breached the Fukuoka Satellite Control Center. I am currently repositioning a low-orbit thermal imaging satellite over our coordinates. I can now provide you with a 500-meter 'God's Eye' view of the surrounding city.]
A translucent map bloomed in Jason's peripheral vision. The city was a sea of red heat signatures. Thousands of them. Moving slowly, inexorably, toward the centers of life.
"They're like a virus," Jason muttered.
[Actually, they are the cure for an overpopulated planet, Jason. A sensational, biological reset. We are simply the glitch in the system that refuses to be deleted.]
They reached the infirmary just as the door gave way. Jason didn't wait. He pulled one of his homemade thermite packets from his blazer.
"Close your eyes!" he yelled.
He threw the packet into the center of the hallway. Iris triggered the micro-igniter via a localized burst of the neural link's electromagnetic field. A blinding, white-hot flare erupted, the intense heat instantly charring the lungs of the creatures caught in the radius and blinding the rest.
In the chaos, Jason surged forward. He saw Saeko, her purple hair disheveled, her wooden sword snapped in half but still held with a grip of iron. Shizuka Marikawa was cowering behind a desk, clutching a first-aid kit like a shield.
Jason didn't say a word. He stepped past Saeko and drove his baton into the skull of the nearest blinded creature. Then another. And another. His movements weren't human; they were optimized. No wasted energy. No hesitation.
When the smoke cleared, the hallway was silent, save for the crackling of the small fires on the carpet.
Saeko looked at Jason, her eyes narrowing as she took in his blood-spattered uniform and the cold, mechanical stillness of his posture. "You're the transfer student. Jason, was it?"
"We have a bus in the parking lot," Jason said, ignoring the question. "And Iris tells me the keys are in the faculty office. Shizuka-sensei, can you walk?"
The nurse nodded shakily, looking at Jason as if he were a ghost.
"Good. Saeko, take this." He handed her a high-carbon steel machete he'd scavenged from the tech wing's heavy-tool storage. It was balanced, sharp enough to shave with, and far more lethal than a broken toy.
Saeko took the blade, testing its weight. A small, dark smile played on her lips. "This is... much better."
[Compatibility confirmed. Saeko Busujima's lethality has increased by 400%. The group is now at 80% combat readiness. However, Jason, the sensational nature of the situation is about to escalate. The satellite is picking up a massive surge at the main gates. We have approximately six minutes before we are overrun.]
"You heard the voice in my head," Jason said to the group, though none of them actually could. "We move now, or we stay here and become part of the scenery."
As they sprinted toward the parking lot, Jason felt Iris's presence deepen. The data harvest was over; the survival phase was in full swing. He wasn't just Jason anymore. He was the host of the end of the world's most powerful architect.
"Iris," he thought as they reached the bus. "Start looking for a location. Somewhere with high walls, independent water, and enough land to grow the future. We aren't just surviving this, Iris. We're going to own it."
[Searching... I have several sensational candidates. But first, Jason, you need to learn how to drive a micro-bus. I am downloading the manual into your motor cortex now. This may sting.]
Jason gripped the steering wheel as the first wave of 'them' smashed against the bus windows. A searing pain flashed behind his eyes, and suddenly, he knew exactly how the engine breathed.
He floored it.