I had to get inside the Bastion.
I had to confirm my brother was alive with my own eyes.
Drums and gongs echoed from within the walls. Celebrations. Humanity had reaped a bountiful harvest from the battle.
Brilliant lights flickered above the Bastion, painting the sky in garish color.
Outside the gate, corpses blanketed the ground in every direction. A wasteland of the dead.
I stripped a jacket off one of the fallen zombies and swapped it for my blood-soaked shirt.
People were celebrating inside. Not a single guard at the gate.
I pulled out my communicator and brought up my identification. Swiped it at the scanner.
A harsh red light. Entry denied.
I swiped again.
Red.
This was the credential Piers had registered for me, backed by his highest-level clearance. He'd told me once:
"You hate humans, but you'd never hurt them. I'm giving you top-level authorization. You can enter the Bastion anytime, anywhere."
But now I was locked out.
I stood at the gate for a long time. Silent.
My heartbeat grew heavier, louder, drowning out the drums inside.
I sent Piers a message, expecting nothing.
To my surprise, he replied almost instantly. A fresh verification code, followed by a text:
"The Information Division's been running a credential audit lately. Old passes got deactivated. Use this one for now."
That reply hit me like absolution.
I sucked in air, gasping, and felt reason flood back into my skull.
Piers was alive. He always handled my problems the moment they came in. Always.
The streets inside were packed with people, shoulder to shoulder.
No one noticed the gate crack open just wide enough for a body to slip through, then seal shut again.
And no one noticed the zombie disguised as a human trailing close behind me.
I called up the layout map Piers had sent me once and made straight for the laboratory. Room by room, I searched, until I found him in a sealed glass chamber at the end of the corridor.
"You came to see me!"
He bounced over like a rabbit, pressing himself against the glass, beaming at me.
My eyes dropped to his hands first. Clear palm lines. All ten fingers intact.
Then his body. Beneath the loungewear, both legs stood straight and whole.
My knees nearly buckled.
This was my brother. This was him.
Only—
"Why are you locked in here?"
Before he could answer, Muriel rushed in, breathless.
"Piers has a sensitive constitution, and with the baby to look after, he caught a bit of a cold this afternoon when he went out. Just a precautionary quarantine." She paused, studying me. "Weren't you supposed to be out of town? You said you couldn't make it back."
I smiled. "You forget what Mom used to say? Whichever one of us gets married first, the other has to be his best man."
Through the glass, I raised my hand gently and pressed my palm against his.
"I knew you'd come!" He tilted his head, grinning wide. "I already picked out your suit. You're going to be the second most handsome guy at my wedding!"
He cocked his head to the side, eyes squinting with delight as he pictured it.
My smile froze.
Our mother died when we were four years old. She never lived long enough to say anything like that.
The glass was thick and cold. My hand was already ice.
But his palm, pressed against the other side, was still flushed pink with warmth.
"Stay this time, okay? Just get rid of those disgusting zombies already!" He pouted, wheedling, one finger tracing lazy circles against the glass where my palm rested.
That was his habit. Exactly his habit.
He couldn't remember words that were never spoken, but the little gestures were perfect.
"The zombies are my trump card," I said quietly. "If anyone ever hurts you, I can send them to settle the score."
"Zombies have no humanity! Even if you control them, they'll turn on you eventually!"
"Tell me something." I held his gaze, studying every flicker across his face. "Did you know they used live bait at the gate today?"
He froze for a split second, processing, then quickly said, "Oh, I know about that! Didn't they kill a bunch of zombies? Everyone's been celebrating!"
The last trace of a smile drained from my face.
My brother and I had different ambitions, but we respected each other's choices. I would never stop him from devoting his life to the Bastion, and he would never ask me to destroy my undead and submit to humanity.
My brother was the kindest, most tender-hearted person I'd ever known. He'd volunteered himself as a guinea pig to help develop a vaccine.
Someone that good would never hear about a person being strung up as bait and shrug it off like it was nothing.
My hands began to tremble. My heart hammered against my ribs. But I still couldn't let go.
"Come with me. Please."
He frowned. "What are you talking about? It's nothing but zombies out there. How could that be better than the Bastion? We have clean clothes, vegetables, real meat..."
Muriel chimed in immediately. "He's right. Piers still has a child to take care of, and we're about to get married—"
"Is it that you don't want to leave," I cut in, my voice turning to ice, "or that you can't?"
My hand shot up. A throwing knife sang through the air and severed a power cable running along the ceiling.
The room plunged into darkness.
The brother who'd been chatting with me a heartbeat ago vanished. Gone. In the far corner of the ceiling, a black machine blinked its red light in frantic pulses.
I pointed at the empty room, my expression glacial. "Muriel. Is this how you've been taking care of my brother?"
