"As you can see, what we have in our blood, replicates something that Sunny created naturally. When she got bit, something in her own blood went nuts and turned the Zombie virus into something else. A side by side comparison shows that we somehow replicated what she does naturally." Torie explained.
"But how is that possible?" I asked while Sunny sat at my side looking around.
"I really don't know, namely because whatever her body was before the bite, well there is no base blood from her to compare it too. I can offer an idea, but it would only be a best guess scenario." Torie admitted.
"Please give us your best guess." I told her and she nodded.
"I believe she had a very rare blood type or disease, nothing bad mind you. But something in her blood made her create a hyper active immune system. Remember the Zombie disease is not an active predator, it lies in wait to ambush other cells. But with Sunny her immune system may have seen everything as a threat." she said and then shrugged a bit. Torie was correct with out a sample of her blood before the bite, there was no way to know for certain.
"Now as for what happened to you earlier, that could have happened to any one of us. Well those with the Cure in their system or even within Sunny." Torie added.
"Explain that?" I asked her.
"Think about it, every time you have given the cure to someone, you aren't exactly by their side, but you are watching over them. Asking about them, keeping tabs on them. Even now you are subconsciously scanning them when you are outside, when you pass by someplace where a lot of them are gathered. When you do not see them right away you ask about them, you know every single one by face and name. We all do, we all watch over each other with out even realizing we are doing it. The Cure adds a heighten protective instinct that demands we watch over each other." Torie said which had everyone reviewing their own actions.
"I'll be damned, she's right. When I think about it, I can name every single one of the changed with out even trying and I always go looking for anyone who is not where they should be or normally are with out even thinking about it." Jackson said quietly.
"Now add that drive with your natural desire to protect someone you care about." Torie said slowly.
"Imagine how you would feel if someone was aiming a weapon at someone you actually love." Torie whispered.
"My Blood's heat shot right up, I mean I barely even had that picture flash in my head and I am ready to kill in an instant." Sam admitted. Torie nodded and was fighting to stay in control, I even found myself working for control. I pulled Torie to me even as Sunny grabbed my arm, I could feel her shaking and her eyes were glowing with her naturally blue eyes, but a purple coloring was bleeding into the blue until only the Purple color was evident. We also found out her blood has a purple hue coloring that would get more pronounced during distress.
"Okay everyone, we are fine, lets all take a deep breath here." I reminded them while hugging Torie and Sunny while Maria hugged Sunny from the other side to help her calm down.
"Why didn't Tami react when Charlie was down?" I asked curiously.
"The shock of the moment, injury to herself at the same time, it's hard to say for sure. You were outside so fast, she may have felt safe and protected at that point so her instincts didn't kick in." Torie said as a guess.
"We'll keep an eye on this new development." I replied while looking at everyone, "For now lets just go back to work, oh and I want all the changed to keep an ear out, if they hear anything that even sounds like what happened, I want to know about it and word for word what was said and when and to whom." I added. They all nodded in agreement.
After everyone ran off to start getting their groups moving, I stood watching the scene below. Everyone going about working on everything, even the trucks were getting serviced, cleaned up and reloaded. Taking a seat I watched as the sun began the slow descent behind the Mountains. Down below purple eyes brightened slowly to compensate the dark. Sunny was, as usual, staying by my side or getting more water when the glass was near empty.
At night we would take turns staying with the abused woman who had been whipped. The wounds were taking time to heal. And running when we would notice the need to move around. The next day, the injured woman was led out and jogged slowly to start getting her worked into a routine.
"She is healing much faster now, with the exercise helping the cure in her system, the cure is now able to replicate faster and now more is available to heal her." Torie explained and I nodded. To me it sounded like we were all making this up as we went, but as long as it worked, why not?
The last two weeks have the injured woman, Carrie, on her feet and helping where she can and running. The other Trader groups returned one at a time with their lists, and would swap things back and forth with us then head out again to complete the trades. Fort Wilderness is up and running, planted a late crop, they'll be short one harvest but it should not hurt them as the fields were more then what their small numbers would ever need.
The other two Forts heading to Stateline would get their trades along with a few more that we could start doing as well. We raided a Warehouse where several of the Big Stores would keep things to save room inside the distribution stores. Much of it was useless as there was no internet. The Flat Screen TV's, DVD players would go a long way in trade with those places who had power in one fashion or another. Not to mention about every movie you could think of inside other boxes.
All of the trade vehicles made one run out to Stateline to drop off supplies and machines to rebuild the Stronghold with walls of Cement and Steal Gates. The Interior holding a complete system designed for wind and solar power and the Buildings were torn down one by one and rebuilt. The Once captive women, watched as the building they had been forced in to was torn down with silent tears in their eyes. While they did help to rebuild the place, they would never stay, instead they returned to Reno.
The walls were built much like Reno's and each tower had weapons capable of devastating fire power. While we could make our own shells for the rifles and hand guns. Once the rockets were used up, it would be the end of them.
The Walls had been extended enough that a small five acre area was set up for growing a mixture of vegetables. Outside a large Coral and Stables was set up for Horses and Cattle, long as the Zombie's don't get curious about the human scent on the stables, they should leave the animals alone. Besides two of the watch towers have an overlapping view of the corals and stables to insure that Bandits and fools did not try and help themselves.
"Seriously?" Jackson asked me and I nodded.
"Many of your Officers from Redmond have not gotten the Cure, opting instead to remain unchanged and use the cure as a last resort. Why not put one of them in charge of the Stateline Fort, it would insure that they adhere to the rules that most Military follow and keep them from trying to shut their doors to the Changed. I explained to him while he listened.
"I don't care if the unchanged are scared of us, but I won't allow their paranoia to create rifts within the Forts we have, they can either get with the program or get the hell out. I am done trying to play politician." I added and he chuckled lightly.
"Agreed, with a couple squads at hand, they should be able to keep the nonsense to a minimum." Jackson said while thinking about who could be trusted to do this. In the end they assigned four Officers and two squads who would be the Forts security and when given a choice another 37 men and women also moved to the rebuilt Fort.
The Trade vehicles began running once more and with trailers full of things considered valuable trade, they were gaining the trust from outlying Forts and Strongholds. Letters carried back and forth, people reunited with relatives feared to be dead. A few times Husbands and Wives thought lost, had remarried having given up long ago in finding their spouses.
The Biggest surprise was when Maria announced she was pregnant, most of us feared that the Cure might have made us sterile. And for those who wanted the 'Cure' it was stated that it was a possibility. Another reason so many opted not to get the Cure, with Maria coming up pregnant, now we had an influx of people wanting to become Changed.
We adopted a new rule, no one new could be given the Cure until after being with us for six months. If they still wanted it and had shown a desire to help the community. They would become one of the Changed. Many believed the rule to be fair, besides for most they would opt out of being changed once they realized they no longer needed to fear Zombies once inside the walls.
