Electra

"This is it," Erin confirmed with a shrug and a smile, keeping hold of her bag. "I've got it, it's not heavy. I appreciate you all coming out to get me. Are you from around here, then, or did you get here a few days early?" Even while talking, she kept an eye on everything around them, just to be sure she knew what was happening in all directions.

With regards to time of day, I set it as late afternoon in my first post, around 5pm. Alder's post changed that to early morning. I suppose if they're all going to school together, it might make sense for it to be earlier in the day. Traveling 12 hours to arrive first thing in the morning would be pretty brutal, but then again, Erin doesn't need much sleep. =) Should I change my first post?

It took Erin only a moment to see the sign, which was admittedly very difficult to miss. Someone had obviously spent a lot of time, and perhaps an entire tube of glitter, in making it. She hefted her bag onto her shoulder and began to cut through the crowd in the direction of the group with the sign. As she approached, she studied their faces carefully. Finding them strangers, she gave them a friendly, if cautious smile. "Hi," she said, looking from Mike to Alex. "I'm Erin. Are you from the school?"

Getting picked up by a mom works perfectly fine for me. =)

Well, maybe if we're all orienting together, you could come along for introductions? =)

By the way, I started a getting picked up at the airport thread in Southside if either of your characters are coming into the city via the airport.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009, Wander arrives at the Freedom City Airport. (Touching Down)

This is the OOC thread for Touching Down.

It had already been a very long day for Erin by the time she got off the plane, and the most difficult part hadn't even started yet. She'd taken the redeye out of Seattle at 8pm, standing with bleary-eyed commuters and vacationers still smelling of Memorial Day barbecue smoke as they all shuffled together through security. She supposed that it was a mark of Dr. Franklin's confidence in her that he'd let her travel coach this time, a sign of his faith that she could be squashed in with other people for seven hours of flight without losing her composure. And she'd done all right for herself, hadn't she? She'd read her magazines, looked out the window at the acres of lights below, eaten the wasabi peas she'd brought along, much to the disgust of her seatmate. The late-night plane was less crowded, at least, and most of the people spent most of their time sleeping. It would've been nice to have a discman or an iPod or something to distract her, but she wasn't going to cry about it. She'd be too busy for distractions soon, anyway. She picked up a midnight snack during the stopover in Cincinnati, some horrible thing that was masquerading as chili, but she ate it anyway, too pragmatic to waste food. By the time she'd crossed three time zones and touched down at eight in the morning in Freedom City, she wasn't exactly sure how long she'd been traveling. But she was very glad to be back on the ground. She ignored the announcements about baggage claim as they touched down, since everything she owned was in the duffle bag at her feet. She was traveling light, but at least she wasn't going to lose her luggage. With her bag slung over her shoulder, Erin made her way down the ramp to the terminal with everyone else, pausing as she disembarked. What was she supposed to be looking for now? She herself looked just like any number of high school or college travelers, her short hair rumpled from the trip, blue blouse and khakis a bit wrinkled, her face a little confused. Nothing about her suggested anything out of the ordinary, so how was anyone supposed to find her? She wished she'd double-checked all this ahead of time, but it was too late now. Nervously she looked around, automatically inventorying who was nearby, who was in reach and could hurt her, and what threats might be coming from every direction. With a frown, she shook it all off. This was an airport, and everything was fine. She just needed to find her ride.

To get Erin started at Claremont, I'd like to do a thread with her getting started out and oriented to the school. I don't know if a power check or an orientation would be more appropriate for that, but if someone could help me out getting that set up, I'd really appreciate it. =)

Is there anything that enrages you? People being careless with one another, like they don't realize what a gift they have in each other. I don't usually do anything about it, because that would be too weird, but it makes me so angry inside. They don't understand how fast one of them, or both of them, or all of them could be gone, just like that, and if I tried to explain, they'd just look at me like some kind of freakshow. Is there anything which embarrasses you? Being singled out for anything. I just want to blend in. And, I guess, being so far behind in school. I know it isn't my fault, it wasn't like I skipped for two years on purpose, but it still doesn't feel good. I hope I don't make a fool of myself at school. Do you enjoy "roughing it", or do you prefer your creature comforts? I have no problem roughing it, but I won't do it if I don't have to. Had enough of that for one lifetime, thanks. Do you have a patron deity? Like I said, I don't think I believe in God anymore. Are you devout or impious? If there's no god, how could I be impious? If he were going to smite me, he'd have done it. Come to think of it, maybe He already did. But how would that be fair? I believed in Him, before he let everything fall apart! Was your faith influenced or molded by anyone special? Watching my sister die while I begged God to save her was a pretty formative moment for my faith. Will you kill? I would kill evil to save the innocent. I don't know if I would feel comfortable, in the moment, making that judgment. When did you decide (or learn) that you would? Just now, I guess. I hadn't really thought of it before. When do you consider it okay to kill (under what circumstances)? When I know that the person I'm killing is evil, and that by killing him, I would save people who are innocent. When do you consider it wrong to kill (under what circumstances)? When I can't be sure. What would you do if someone else attempted to (or successfully did) kill under your "wrong" circumstances, what would be your reaction? I don't know. I don't know if I'm qualified to pass judgment on anybody else. Who am I to be anyone's moral compass? I don't think I'm even a good person, but I don't want to be a hypocrite, too. What would you do if something were stolen from you? I probably wouldn't care unless if it was one of my mementoes. Then I would go to the ends of the earth to recover it. Those are the only things that matter to me. What would you do if you were badly insulted publicly? Probably leave the area. Or I might punch someone. That's why I'm in therapy. What would you do if a good friend or relative were killed by means other than natural death? Bury them. What the hell else are you supposed to do? God, this navel gazing is making me twitchy. I don't like thinking about this stuff. Are we almost finished? What is the one task you would absolutely refuse to do? Go back. I'm not strong enough, and I don't think I ever will be. What do you consider to be the worst crime someone could commit and why? Kill people for profit, either directly or through criminal negligence. How do you feel about government (rulers) in general? Why do you feel that way? We need them for infrastructure and to keep the lights on. But if something had happens, I don't trust them to keep anyone safe. I've seen what happens. Do you support the current government of your homeland? I don't really know. I'm not up to date on that stuff. I mean, I can name the president, but I don't know what he stands for or what he campaigned on. If so, how far are you willing to go to defend the government? If not, do you actively oppose it? I'm still learning, I don't know enough to say one way or another. What form of government do you believe is the best (democracy, monarchy, anarchy, aristocratic rule, oligarchy, matriarchy) and why? Anything that keeps the world from falling apart. Besides that, I don't think there's much difference. Well, I guess that's not true. I guess you need some sort of personal freedom to let people be happy. But I don't know what government is best for that. Do you have any unusual habits or dominant personality traits that are evident to others? I don't know, I haven't seen myself from the outside. At least, not the me that would have the habit. The other me only looks and acts a little like me. Do you have any unusual or nervous mannerisms, such as when talking, thinking, afraid, under stress, or when embarrassed? I sometimes chew with my mouth open. It's bad manners, but I forget. When I'm under stress, I will sometimes hit first and ask questions later. I'm really working on it. What is your most treasured possession? My mementos. My bear, Megan's music box, my parents' picture. If your life were to end in 24 hours, what 5 things would you do in those remaining hours? End it on my terms. That's only one, but it would be complicated. I'm not easy to kill. If there were some way to make my death meaningful, I would try and do that. I'm not afraid of the dark, just of slipping under without a ripple. Career & Training Where and how were you educated? Seattle Public Schools, K-9. I've had a little tutoring as well since then. I've got some catching up to do. Who trained you in your adventuring class(es)? Nobody. I'm not exactly a pretty fighter. It's probably kind of gross to watch from outside. Look at your skills. How did you acquire them (especially the unusual ones)? I picked up most of my skills while living on my own. I raided a lot of libraries and took the books I needed, and did a lot of trial and error. Have you ever done anything else for a living? I've never really done anything for a living. How do you function in combat (maneuvers, weaknesses)? I hit things and make them fall down, and then I chop them into little pieces so they don't come back. Have you ever received any awards or honours? I got "most valuable player" on my softball team in seventh grade. Then I quit because my new coach wouldn't let me play first base. Maybe I hate him still. I'll have to think about that. He's dead, though, and that's probably punishment enough. Is there anything that you don't currently know how to do that you wish you could? Fight things without killing them. Live in the world. Are you envious of others who can do such things in a good-natured way or are you sullen and morose about it? I'm very determined. It's a waste of time to be envious when you could be working on what you don't know. I don't think there's anything I don't know that I can't learn if I try hard enough. Lifestyle & Hobbies When not adventuring, what is your normal daily routine? I don't really have one yet. It seems like it would be a nice thing to develop. I kind of miss habits and routines. What are your hobbies when you are not adventuring or training? I don't really have any. I spend a lot of time trying to catch up on everything I don't know. What do you do for relaxation? What things do you do for enjoyment? What interests do you have? I sleep and eat. Sometimes I watch movies, but a lot of them make me sad for no reason. It's embarrassing to start tearing up during a comedy movie over a family dinner or a birthday party. Therapy, therapy, therapy! How do you normally dress when not in your adventuring gear? Jeans and blouses. I have six blouses now, courtesy of my parents. I felt weird asking them to spring for more. But I needed something, I only had one set of clothes. What do you normally wear in bed at home? I have a t-shirt nightgown What do you normally wear in bed while adventuring? I don't know, whatever I wore in the day, I guess. Do you wear any identifiable jewelry? I don't have any. I was going to take Mom's ring and put it on a necklace, but I couldn't find her left arm. I suppose I could've gotten all the diamonds and stuff that I wanted, but it never really occurred to me. What would I have done with that? Where do you normally put your weapons, magic items, or other valuables when you are sleeping? In my bureau drawer. They aren't valuable to anyone but me. What morning or evening routines do you normally have? Brush teeth, eat breakfast, brush teeth, go to bed Do these change when you are adventuring? I don't brush my teeth. I don't even know if my teeth can rot. But it makes my breath minty fresh. Travel: how do you get around locally? Mass transit or walking. I don't really go places very much. I find large groups of people kind of unnerving. Do you have a Last Will and Testament? What does it say? I don't own anything. Miscellaneous What would you like to be remembered for after your death? That I died doing something really good for the world. What kind of threat do you present to the public? I'm sort of dangerous to be out in public right now. But I'm working on that with my therapist, and looking to get some fight training. If your features were to be destroyed beyond recognition, is there any other way of identifying your body? Well, you could get a DNA sample and compare it to the Erin here, but I don't know that anyone would bother. A corpse is a corpse, of course, of course. As a player, if you could, what advice would you give your character? Speak as if he/she were sitting right here in front of you. Use proper tone so they might heed your advice... You're more valuable than you think, and there is a place for you in this world. Don't let your quest for some greater purpose blind you to the possibility of satisfaction and joy in making smaller differences for more people.

Relationships Do you have any close friends? If so, who and what are they like? No, not here. I used to, but they died. What is the history of their relationship(s) with you? Seriously, I don't have any. Do you currently have a best friend whom you would protect with your reputation or your life? No, I hardly know anyone here. Do you have any bitter enemies? I don't even know anyone well enough to hate them. Which person(s) or group(s) are you most loyal to? My family Who is your most trusted ally? Doctor Franklin, my shrink. He's not exactly a hero, but he's helped me a lot. I don't know if I would have made it here without him. Who do you trust, in general? I trust the Freedom League. I don't think they're infallible, but I think they do everything they can. I trust my family, but I know there isn't much they can do to help me. I have to fight my own battles. Who do you despise and why? Drug companies. It's their fault. They weren't careful. I don't know if I despise Dr. Atom or not. In this universe, I guess not. He did what he could to help me. Name seven things you hate in others. Lack of compassion, ungratefulness, conspicuous waste, cavalierness about the undead, carelessness in using power, overdeveloped sense of self pity, asking too many questions. Is your image consistent? I've only got the one. Do you deliberately present yourself differently in different situations, and how? Well, I wouldn't show up for a job interview in my pajamas, if that's what you mean. What would you die for? I once thought I would die just to get it over with, but then I got better. I'd die for my family, for my country, or for the greater good. I know that I'm extra, and that I shouldn't be here. If it takes my life to make a difference, is it even a sacrifice? What is the worst thing someone has done to you? Gave me just enough superpowers to let me watch everything I loved die horribly. What is your general reaction to an attractive member of the opposite sex who lets you know they are available? I don't really know. I'm not 100% sure I would notice. How do you get along with others of the same adventuring class? I don't know. Have you lost any loves? Not romantic loves. Who would miss you should you go missing? No one, for very long. The Erin slot in this world is covered. How close are you to your adventuring companions? I don't really have any. Are you a member of any house, guild, organization, or church? What is your level of involvement? We used to be Episcopalian. I was confirmed, but now I don't think I believe in God anymore. God wouldn't have let the things I saw happen. God is supposed to love us. Personality & Beliefs Do you, or did you, have any role models? Once upon a time, I wanted to be an actress like Angelina Jolie, and be really beautiful and adopt babies from foreign lands. Not so much anymore, though. Do you have any heroes or idols, either contemporary or from legend? Not really Did you ever become disillusioned with former heroes or idols? If so, why and what were the circumstances? Well, Angelina and her kids all died in the plague. I started to realize that acting and adopting kids isn't much good when the world falls apart. When did you decide to become an adventurer? I spent some time with my family after I got here, but I really didn't fit in anymore. I needed to find something worthwhile to do with my life and the power I was given. Why have you chosen to risk your life as a career? If I'm still alive here no matter what happens, am I really risking my life at all? Wouldn't I have been better off if none of this had ever happened, and if the me that I am never existed? What do you expect to get out of being an adventurer? What, if anything, would make you stop adventuring? A sense of purpose, expiation of guilt, something to do with my life. Maybe if I found something better, something that would make me feel good inside and like I was doing something worthwhile, I'd do that instead. Do you have any dreams or ambitions? If not, why? I just want to help. Maybe the dreams and ambitions will come after that. What are your short term goals (what would you like to be doing within a year)? I want to be caught up to my grade level again and understand what this universe is like, how it's not like my home. I want to be ready to be a real superhero What are your long term goals (what would you like to be doing twenty years from now)? I don't know. I don't think that far ahead anymore. If these goals seem at odds with each other, or with your dreams, how do you reconcile the differences? If I live through this year, and next year, and the next, maybe I'll make more plans. Do you have any great rational or irrational fears or phobias? If so, what are the origins of, or reasons behind them? I'm afraid of being alone or in groups. I'm afraid of being snuck up on. I'm afraid of the people I love dying in hideous ways. I'm afraid of waking up and being back in my world. I'm afraid of trying to make a life in this world. This is why I'm in therapy. How do you react when this fear manifests itself? I have some breathing exercises I try and do, and some meditations. Sometimes it helps. What are your attitudes regarding material wealth? It's all just waste and rot waiting to happen. Your Mercedes won't give you one extra day on earth. But there's no harm in being comfortable while you can. Are you miserly with your share of the wealth, or do you spend it freely? I don't have any wealth. If I did, I would share it. What's the point otherwise? Do you see wealth as a mark of success, or just as a means to an end? It's nothing more than trying to insulate yourself from the dark. Like if you have enough money, bad things won't happen to you. It's stupid, but maybe it makes them feel better. How do you generally treat others? I try to be polite and friendly. I'm still a little rusty at it. Do you trust easily (perhaps too easily) or not? I have a generally good sense of people. If someone seems trustworthy, I take them at their word. Are you introverted (shy and withdrawn) or extroverted (outgoing)? I used to have a lot of friends. Now I live mostly in my own head. Are you a humble soul or blusteringly proud? I don't know that it's up to me to decide that. What habits do you find most annoying in friends? Taking people for granted. What are your most annoying habits? I'm very jumpy, and I have a tendency to want to hoard essential items. There's no harm in keeping an emergency stash, I guess, but it speaks to something in me that I don't like, some deep pessimism. Sometimes I forget that other people need to sleep and eat a lot more than I do. And sometimes I have a hard time following directions I don't understand perfectly. Maybe it's because I was on my own for a long time, it doesn't come naturally. Is there any race, creed, alignment, religion, class, profession, political viewpoint, or the like against which you are strongly prejudiced, and why? I hate zombies and drug companies. Well, maybe not hate zombies, but I'm not going to let any keep shambling around while I can stop them. Drug companies would kill the world to make a buck. I've seen it. What is your favourite food? I love brats boiled in beer and then cooked on the grill, slathered in mustard and fried onions. What is your favourite drink? Fresh squeezed lemonade with lots of sugar What is your favourite treat (dessert)? Fresh cherries on any flavor of ice cream Do you favour a particular cuisine? I'm pretty flexible, as long as it's fresh and not processed. If I never ate canned food again, I wouldn't mind a bit. Do you savor the tastes when eating or "wolf down" your food? I don't need to eat very much, so when I do eat, I try to enjoy it. I went a long time without. Do you like food mild or heavily spiced? I prefer food with a lot of flavor, whatever the flavor is. Are there any specific foodstuffs that you find disgusting or refuse to eat? I don't like canned food, but there's nothing I'd refuse to eat if I were hungry. What are your favourite colour(s)? Sky blue and lavender Is there any colour that you dislike? Puce. Even the word is ugly. Do you have a favourite (or hated) song, type of music, or instrument? Not really, I don't keep up. I always change the channel when I hear "Bad Day" playing. It was really popular right before the end, my friend Kathy's favorite. She would play it over and over again. Now it just seems ironic and horrible. If you have a favourite scent, what is it? Good cooking smells. Especially baking. I never figured out how to bake, and now it make my mouth water just to smell bread or cookies. What is your favourite type of animal? I like birds. They're so free. Are you allergic to any kinds of animals? No, I'm not allergic to anything.

Erin's Questionnaire Introduction Give a two or three word description of yourself. Sturdy Zombie Fighter Do you have any nicknames, street names, titles, or nom de plume? They said I needed a code name, but I couldn't really think of one, so I picked the first thing that came to mind, Wander. It's sort of what I'm doing now, and Wanderer just makes me think of that song about going round and round and round. What is your full birth name? Erin Keeley White Where do you live? The Claremont Academy Why do you live there? Because there's already a me living at my house. What do you perceive as your greatest strength? Nothing really scares me anymore. What do you perceive as your greatest weakness? I don't know how to live here anymore. Physical Traits How old are you? Sixteen, seventeen on November 12. What is your sex? Female What is your race? Caucasian How tall are you? 5'8 How much do you weigh? Dunno, average. What is your general body type, frame, bone structure, and poise? Tall and kind of gangly, but I've learned how to use my body. I have a lot more muscle than I used to, that's for sure. I can't get by without wearing a bra if I want to do anything acrobatic, and that's annoying. My bones are okay, I guess. I've got some cheekbones, kind of a pointy chin. Everything else seems pretty normal. The little finger on my left hand is double jointed, if that makes any difference. What is your skin colour? Pasty. I don't burn, but I don't tan anymore, either. What is your hair colour? Brown What is your hair style? Short. And, I dunno, wavy? Do you have any facial hair? I have eyebrows. What is your eye colour? Brown. I used to say hazel, but that was a lie. How attractive are you? I guess that depends on your type. I don't really get out much. What is your most distinguishing feature? I'm kind of boring, really. Tall for a girl, though. Do you have any scars, tattoos, or birthmarks? I have a little brown birthmark shaped like Iowa on my left calf. What is your handedness (left/right/ambidextrous)? I write with my right, but I fight with both. Do you resemble some currently known person? I have a double, but I'm not sure that's what you're driving at. What kind of clothing do you wear? Jeans and blouses. I have two pairs of jeans, and khakis for special occasions. Do you wear makeup? Not anymore, I don't have any. Maybe I should start, if I want to fit in at school. What sort of vocal tone do you have? Alto, but please don't ask me to sing. History Where is your homeland? I grew up in the Seattle suburbs. Was that the question? Are you aware of its history? I had a unit on it in seventh grade, but it's fuzzy now. Are you patriotic or a social outcast? Can I be both? Can someone be patriotic on behalf of a city? Seattle's kind of granola for that, I think. What are your opinion of home? I love my home, but it's not exactly my home. It's really complicated. It's a nice place to visit, but I can't live there. Where is your home town? Oh, Seattle. Was I supposed to say the United States before? Are your real reasons for becoming an adventurer different from what you tell others? Well, I do want to make a difference. But I also feel so damn guilty sometimes, that with all the power I got, I never really managed to help anyone except myself. Maybe if I can help people here, I'll be able to live with that. How far would you go to keep such secrets from being revealed? What would you do if the truth became known? It's not really a matter of keeping secrets. Mostly I don't tell people about where I came from because it's so depressing. I don't want to talk about it, and nobody wants to hear it. What do you fear would occur if the truth became known? I would fit in even less than I do now. People don't want to be around people who've seen them die in agony, then killed their reanimated corpses. Do you have any particularly high or low ability scores? I'm very strong, and very fast, and very hardy. I'm also pretty good with my hands. Everything else is pretty average. Sometimes I feel like a complete social moron, but my shrink tells me I'm okay, just sixteen. I don't know if that's reassuring. How have these scores affected your life so far? Well, they kept me alive when everyone else on the planet died and turned into zombies. What about your race, growing up were you in the majority or a minority? I'm white, so growing up in Seattle, I was in the majority. Then I was alive when everyone else was zombies, so I was in the minority. I don't know if that counts. Did this impact your outlook in any way? It's sort of lonely being the only person alive for hundreds of miles. How do you feel about other races? Except zombies, I think I can get along with anyone. Were there any traumatic experiences in your early years (death of a family member, abandonment, orphaned at an early age)? Yes. Briefly describe a defining moment in your childhood and how it influenced your life. There was that time when everyone died. That made me pretty sad. What stupid things did you do when you were younger? I didn't appreciate everything I had. I also rode my bike off a ramp and into a ditch once and broke my arm. And once I shoplifted candy from the Walgreens and my mom made me take it back and apologize. Which toys from your childhood have you kept? My teddy bear, and my sister's music box. Why? What do they mean to you? If you didn't keep any, why not? What did you do to them all? They're the only things I have left. I wanted something to hold onto, and she wanted something pretty. We couldn't bring the rest with us, and I buried her stuffed pony with her. The rest is probably all rotting in a dead world. Do you have any deep, dark secrets in the past that may come back to haunt you? Well, the past haunts me, but I'm getting therapy. And it's not a secret. Are you who you claim to be? More or less. I'm Erin Keeley White, but my social security card may not be valid here. Do you have any sort of criminal record? No, they don't do shoplifting pops on six year olds. How do you view the heroes/legends of your country? They do their best, but in a real catastrophe, they can be as helpless and ineffectual as anyone. Sometimes they're just the first to die. Family Who were your parents? Roger and Clarissa White Were you raised by them? If not, then why didn't they and who did raise you? Till I was fourteen, and then they died. After that I was sort of on my own. Now they're back, but I don't know that I need a lot more raising. What was their standing in the community? Dad worked in the tech industry, like practically everyone else. He had a good job, and we had a nice house. Mom was the secretary for the HOA, and she was on a billion committees. People liked them. We had a lot of friends. Did your family stay in one area or move around a lot? I grew up in the same house my first fourteen years. We never moved around. How did you get along with their parents? It was okay. I was just starting to get into the rebellious phase when it was all over. After that, I was just so glad to see them again, it was hard to argue. How would your parents describe you? Answer this in the voice of your mother, then in your father's. I can't. I don't want to do that. I don't know what they would think of me. Look what happened to them. Look what happened to Megan. And I just ran away to a place where their lives and deaths are nothing more than bad dreams. Do you have any siblings? If so how many and what were their names? How did you get along with each of your siblings? I have a little sister, Megan. I used to think she was bratty and annoying. When it was just the two of us, though, we got very close. Then she died, and it was my fault. Now she's back, though, and we're like strangers. There's also the duplicate me, but I don't know if that counts. What was your birth position in the family? Oldest of two. My parents waited a long time before having another, so I was seven when Megan came along. List all current knowledge of family locations, spouses, children, birth dates, schooling, and any important incidents that only you and they might remember. This family in this world is all in Seattle. In my world. Dad is buried in one of the Seattle mass graves, because he died before they stopped burying people. Mom is with Uncle Aaron and the other people from the compound behind the garage at Uncle Aaron's place. We couldn't tell who was who. Megan is buried in the garden outside the Kasemen Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque. Do you stay in touch with them or have you become estranged? I keep in touch with the family here. Our relationship is weird, but they're my family. Do you love or hate one member of the family in particular? I love them all. I don't think I could hate them, not after everything that happened. Is any member of the family special to you in any way (perhaps, as a confidant, mentor, or arch-rival)? It's sort of hard to get along with myself. It's just so weird. I think both of us feel a little threatened by the existence of the other. We're each other's road not taken. Are there any black (or white) sheep in the family (including you)? That would be me. If so, who are they and how did they "gain" the position? Well, there was the time when everyone died, and I didn't. Do you have a notorious or celebrated ancestor? Not unless you count Uncle Aaron. If so, what did this person do to become famous or infamous? He made a lot of money patenting things I can't begin to understand. In this universe, that's about it. Do you try to live up to the reputation of your ancestor, try to live it down, or ignore it? He made me who I am. I live with it every day. Do you ever want to have a family of your own someday? I don't know. I can't think about it right now. Would anything change your mind on this issue and if so, what? If I can get better. What type of person would be your ideal mate? I don't know. He'd have to be really patient.

It was an emotional meeting for all of them, not quite an introduction, not quite a reunion. They met at the house, in order to avoid any scenes at the airport, but Erin broke down as soon as they pulled into the driveway, and cried through most of the first meeting. Her mother cried too, very affected by even an extra daughter's tears, and her parents both hugged her, a sensation she'd never thought to feel again. Megan was very skittish, obviously not knowing what to think, but she was alive and well and being taken care of, and that was enough to know for now. The most awkward moment came when she met herself, sizing up this other version of her, and being sized up in return. She didn't really look very much like the other Erin, more like cousins than twins, what with her own hard, energetic lifestyle and the old Erin's disdain for exercise of most sorts. In the end they hugged, awkwardly, like friends-of-friends, and both looked to their parents for guidance. "Well," said Clarissa, "why don't we all go inside and have supper? I hope you like brats on the grill as much as our Erin does." It was, in fact, her favorite, a fact that made Erin relax just that much more. With the meeting having gone as well as anyone could've asked, arrangements were made for Erin to spend some time with her family here. They made up the guest room for her, right next to her old bedroom, down the hall from Megan and her parents. She started going by "Erin Keeley," her first and middle name, just to distinguish her from her counterpart. The first few days in the house were very hard to adjust to. She'd wake up in the morning to the smells and sounds so familiar to her youth, and be so intensely disoriented that she'd need five or ten minutes before she could get out of bed. Much of the day she had to herself, with her parents at work and the kids at school, so she wandered around the neighborhood, where everyone seemed to have heard something about her. Everyone was very kind to her, even as they seemed a little nervous of her. She found it hard to blame them. It was obvious that she didn't quite belong here anymore. Things worked out well enough that she stayed with her family through most of the spring, but as time went on, Erin became more and more aware that this wasn't her answer. She loved her family, and they'd all been more than kind to her, treating her as part of their family, for all she was a strange addition who surely had to be an uncomfortable reminder of their mortality. They never discussed her world, and she didn't want to talk about it, but sometimes it was hard not to blurt out things like "I'm so glad you're alive," or "it's just really good to see you." Even if she could somehow meld back into the family that already had a perfectly-fit version of herself, what would happen then? She was still far behind in school, and all the friends she remembered were friends of another Erin, of another lifetime for herself. Much as she appreciated being accepted, she knew she needed to find a place for herself in this world. Erin shared her insights with Dr. Franklin in their weekly teleconference, and found him in agreement with her. He suggested that she should apply to the Claremont Academy. She still had time to be accepted to the summer session, which would give her some time to catch up before beginning the actual school year. Not only would it be a good fit for her academically and keep her close to the Goodman Building for further therapy and testing if necessary, the Claremont Academy trained superheroes. She'd said she wanted to make a real difference, and this was her chance. In the world she'd come from, superpowers hadn't been enough to save anyone except herself, but now she could change that. Erin eagerly set off the application and waited for whatever would come next.

Erin spent nearly a month in quarantine at the Goodman Building in her new world, which was something of a relief. It was wonderful to be with people again, but it was hard, too. There were so many of them, and the world was so loud! She'd never noticed how loud people were, and cars, and buildings full of equipment. She was also, she realized, a little bit jumpier than was healthy for normal people. The first time someone in a hazmat suit woke her from a doze in front of her television, she nearly took the poor man's head off before she pulled her strike. Not everything that moved here was a zombie, and nothing here was trying to kill her. It was just a little difficult to internalize that fact. She turned sixteen in the quarantine room, but didn't mention it to anyone. It seemed wrong to celebrate, after everything. It was only after she saw Siren riding a parade float in the Thanksgiving Day parade that it even occurred to her to ask the most natural question: if this world was almost exactly like her own, were there versions of her family, too? It took a couple of days for the technicians to get an answer for her. Yes, her family was alive and well, yes they were living in Seattle, even in the same house she'd grown up in. And yes, she was there, too. It was strange, hard news to hear, stranger still to see photos they'd printed off for her. There were her mother and father at a barbecue this past summer, happy and healthy, arms around each others' waists. There was Megan, nine now, wearing braces and glasses, looking a little sulky about being photographed. And there she was too, another Erin, this one still with a little clinging baby fat and a beautiful, easy smile that seemed like it would be alien on her own face. She was an Erin who had gone to that birthday party, an Erin who'd never really known a day of pain or fear. It was hard to imagine herself as that person. What would she do in a world where that was who she was supposed to be? After consulting with Erin and a psychologist, Dr. Atom even arranged a phone call, just as Erin was being released from quarantine. Her parents had obviously been well-briefed, but it was still a stilted conversation. They told her she should come and visit as soon as she could, that everyone would be happy to meet her. Before Erin went anywhere, though, she had more work to do. She spent December and much of January in a small apartment at the Goodman Building, not quarantined, but not encouraged to go out, either. She had daily appointments with Dr. Franklin, a psychiatrist, and Ms. Richardson, a tutor, to get her mind in order and up to speed with this new world. She worked very hard to make up for the school she'd missed and the new world she was joining, and though she'd never exactly been a good student, she began to catch up at an acceptable rate. Getting her head in order was more difficult. Dr. Franklin was a compassionate man, and very easy to talk to, but even he couldn't tell her quite how to cope in a world where her former life was nothing but a bad dream. Should she give it up and try to forget? Or did she owe it to the people who'd died to remember them, even if they weren't dead here? Could she even forget if she tried? He prescribed a few medicines for her, but her body rejected them at anything but absurdly high dosages, and she didn't like the drugged feeling that massive medication gave her. Cliched as it was, the pain reminded her that she was alive. She just needed to work through it, get beyond it, and use it to do good. That, she and Dr. Franklin both agreed, would be the best cure for her mind and heart. In February, she made the trip back across the country, a journey that had taken months in a Jeep and on foot lasting only hours in an airplane. She even got to ride first class with Dr. Franklin, since he was just a little bit skittish about putting her cheek by jowl with dozens of other passengers in coach. She was surprised at how much she enjoyed it, and how easy it was to enjoy things, when she just relaxed and didn't feel guilty about it. Her family, her dead family, wouldn't want her to grieve forever, as Dr. Franklin had repeatedly assured her. The meal they served was really good, and there was a movie. She even managed to sleep for a few minutes in the cushy seat. The closer she got to Seattle though, the more nervous she felt. What would it be like to see her family again, alive and well?

The actual implementation of the plan was a lot more complicated than she'd thought it was going to be. It took time to set up the beacon, and parts that weren't always easy to get. Erin spent a month just following Dr. Atom's directions on where to get various fuels and battery cells and receptors she didn't have a clue the names or functions of, fighting off increasingly lethargic zombies the entire time. As she went, she kept looking for humans. As much as she looked forward to the possibility of escape, it would be better if she weren't the only one. Even though it drew attention to herself, she would walk down the empty, stinking streets of Freedom City yelling "Hello?" and "Is anyone out there? Is anyone still alive?" in the hopes that someone, somewhere, might be holed up and hear her. No one living ever turned up, though she killed probably hundreds of zombies on her trips. She did eventually find out what had happened to Dr. Atom's grandchildren; the four teenagers and their stepmother, all in the advanced stages of the plague, preserved in cryogenic suspension beneath the Goodman Building in advance of a cure that would probably never come. Not every superhero had died; she learned; but some had taken their own lives or disappeared after the death of the world around them. They'd all stayed at their posts, though, something Dr. Atom was still very proud of. Their determination, Erin soon learned, had its downside. The most obviously dangerous part of life in Freedom City now was the super-zombies. As best as she and Dr. Atom had been able to determine, some superhumans had taken the vaccine and been transformed into zombies, but their powers had protected them from starvation. She'd never fought anyone with superpowers before, but her human intelligence gave her a lead against minds consumed by nothing but hunger. She'd killed enough zombies by now that she knew killing the Emissary and Siren was nothing but a liberation for the people trapped inside. Sometimes there were flashes of light in the sky that came from no lightning storm or other natural source, and Dr. Atom picked up transmissions from places that had survived the apocalypse. The robotic despot Talos was at war with the Grue who'd come to collect the dead planet and mine its resources, while elsewhere strange metallic men with energy spears occasionally passed by those few working cameras still hooked up to Dr. Atom's worldwide viewing network. Dr. Atom kept up a good face for his assistant, but she knew he was worried about her. They had to get the project finished soon. At last, when October was finally chasing some of the stench from the air, Dr. Atom announced that he had made contact with the universe next door, and that the preliminary signs were encouraging. They had not been infected by the plague, and they weren't averse to helping bring a survivor across, if the safety of their reality could be assured. Erin was present for the second contact, and was asked to tell her story from the beginning for the first time. That was harder than she had thought it would be, especially trying to talk about the deaths of her family members, but she muscled through it without more than a few quiet tears. The other Dr. Atom, from the other universe, agreed that they would help her cross into their world. She would need to stay in quarantine for awhile, to make sure she wasn't carrying either the plague or fragments of the zombie vaccine, but that seemed like a small price to pay. She prepared for her trip, taking only the clothes on her back and the most precious of her possessions. Her diary and her bear, Megan's music box, her parents' photo, all sealed in a clear plastic bag that Dr. Atom was sure would assist in decontamination. She bid him, and her world, goodbye on a rainy fall evening, stepping onto a long-disused transporter mark and waiting for the beam that would take her away. When it came, it felt like she was dissolving from the inside out, and for an endless moment, she thought it hadn't worked, and that she was dead. When she emerged, behind a glass wall in a laboratory filled with healthy people, she still wasn't sure if it was another world, or if she'd gone to heaven. Either way, she was happy to be there.

It was empty. Erin sensed it as soon as she walked in the door, but she had to be sure. She walked up the endless flights of stairs, a flashlight showing her the way, checking on every floor. There were no bodies, which was very strange for a building like this, but there were no living people, either. She ended her search on the top floor, in a large, pristine lab that still glowed with emergency lights after all these months. There was no society here, there were no people working on a cure. She'd come all this way, pinned all her hopes on this, all to wind up in one more empty room. Enraged, she smashed her hands against one of the panels, pummeling it to bits as though to punish it for both their impotence. To her shock, the equipment around her began to rev to life as the lights rose. "Hey now!" a man's voice came from nowhere, sounding indignant. "Stop that! That's valuable property!" That was Erin's first meeting with Dr. Atom, and the start of yet another chapter in Erin's life. Erin quickly learned that Dr. Atom had gone into hibernation mode months ago, as the chances of anyone having survived the plague and the vaccine had waned. Automated security had kept the zombies out during the height of their movement, but those systems had gone dormant as the generator capacity shrunk. "There was nothing I could do," the mind of the venerable scientist explained. "I have no way to expiate my guilt for my part in the vaccine. I was so wrapped up in trying to save my grandchildren, I failed to see the inevitable end result of the vaccine program. By the time it became obvious, no force on earth could've pulled it back. Perhaps if the time travelers hadn't died in the first wave, or if we'd noticed sooner... I hadn't known anyone was left. My models suggested a survival rate of perhaps one one-thousandth of a percent worldwide. Six thousand people isn't many to fill a world." "My uncle said you were dead," Erin told him. "He said you wouldn't have let something like this happen. That you would have listened to him and not brushed him off like everybody else. Is it your fault? Did you make this happen?" she demanded. He never really gave her a straight answer to that, but he was very interested in hearing about her uncle, and about the serum he'd given her. Since she had nothing better to do, she assented to being scanned by his instruments and letting him take a few samples. It was an amazing serum, Dr. Atom eventually declared, mournfully. If it had been produced faster and spread as widely as the vaccine, it might have changed everything. As it was, he didn't even have the tools and equipment to replicate it any longer. "My generators are excellent," he explained to her as she ate some of the food from his emergency supply, "but they are not infinite. I decided long ago that I have no wish to live forever, contrary to appearances. They also appear to have been damaged in at least one attack during the time in which I was dormant. I'm afraid that with my current resources, coupled with the state of the world and the likely lack of a viable gene pool anywhere within reach, there are few options for you and I to make a difference. But I confess to feeling a special obligation to you. I knew your uncle. He was a very smart man, with ideas that were difficult for many to accept. Perhaps if someone had, if I had, this tragedy would've unfolded very differently. I believe that I can help you." "What do you mean?" Erin asked, startled, her mouth full of food. It was hard to get used to being around people anymore, even one person who wasn't really a person. It took awhile, since Erin hadn't been good with science even before she'd missed more than a year of school, but eventually Dr. Atom explained a little bit about multiverse theory, enough to explain that he could send a distress call to a universe he'd had contact with before, one very much like this one, but that hopefully hadn't been infected. It wouldn't heal the world, but it could be a solution for one teenage girl who happened to be uninfected and at the Goodman Building. It didn't take long for Erin to agree to that proposal. If it had seemed like the world could recover, she might have felt obliged to stay. Like her mother had told her, it would be cheating not to do all the good you could while you could. But this world was doomed, at least as far as people went. She didn't want to grow old and die in the company of nothing but zombies and cows.

It was in Indiana that she met her first group of survivors, too. From what she could tell, they were a religious sect that had isolated itself so thoroughly from society and medicine that they missed out on both the plague and the vaccine, and had managed not to be overrun with zombies. Erin found them totally by accident as she was running cross-country after a particularly wily deer and practically stumbled over their hunting party. The two teenage boys she met were startled at her speed, and very interested to hear news of anything outside their experience. They'd never even been off their compound. Erin went back with them willingly, finding that they had a nice setup going, with farms, gardens and domestic animals, even generators providing a little bit of power. She hoped that maybe this was a group of people she could join up with, but the leaders were less than open to the idea. Calling her an "abomination" and a "bringer of plague," they ran her out of town without even giving her a sandwich. Momentarily, it crossed Erin's mind that she could have all this, if she wanted. These hateful people wouldn't be any harder to take down than zombies, certainly, and then she could have the farm and the garden and the animals. She shook the startling impulse off almost immediately. She was a human being, not a monster. She killed monsters. With a rude gesture to the elders, she took off running again. If one group of people survived, there had to be others. Freedom City had to be the answer. She kept on going, sticking to the highways because those were the easiest to find on her maps. The encounter with the cultists in Indiana made her wonder if it was her travel strategy that kept her from meeting people. Surely anyone who survived and hadn't tried to group up and find answers would've made it by being small, unobtrusive, and hard to find. They probably wouldn't be anywhere near the highways. She had no real inclination to start randomly wandering around though, so she stuck to her plans and ran onward. Occasionally she stopped and knocked down a fence or two that hadn't been collapsed by the winter, letting free the scrawny livestock that had survived by scrounging so far. It seemed like the least she could do. Maybe in a few decades, cows would rule America, traveling in great black-and-white spotted droves across the plains. It was a weird thought. But she didn't let herself get too distracted by such things. The city was waiting for her, and she'd lost too much time already. She cut through Pennsylvania and arrived in New Jersey at the height of summer, but stalled there for quite awhile. Even on the outskirts of Freedom City, the smell was horrendous. She'd been in large cities before, but she hadn't been paying much attention. Now that she was attuned to the world again, the stench of putrefication was overwhelming, even a year after the world had collapsed. When she finally worked up the courage to go in, she realized why. The zombies were finally dying off as well. She found them everywhere, with no marks of violence on them but their faces frozen in expressions of agony. With no better ideas, she had to conclude that they'd starved to death. If they couldn't eat each other, and they had no lingering memories of what was outside the cities, maybe they'd just wandered around until their vaccine-riddled bodies had run out of fuel. Rotting zombies smelled every bit as bad as regular rotting corpses. Steeling herself, Erin did her best to ignore the stench and made her way into the city, heading for the Goodman Building, which everyone knew was the center of superscientific discovery. Surely there would be people there, if there were people anywhere. She had to fight on the way, but the fighting was merely a distraction now, a means to an end. Finally, finally, she reached the place she'd been searching for all these months.

This time, though, there was no haze of mourning, no period of aimless wandering. Erin knew what she was going to do. She was going to kill every goddamned zombie she could find, wipe the earth clean of them, until one of them got lucky and killed her first. She forgot about getting to Freedom City, forgot about finding a society to rejoin. There wasn't anything to protect anymore. She started in Albuquerque, going to the hospitals and the churches, places where zombies congregated, and cleaned them out with shotgun and bare hands, then found a sporting goods shop that catered to an odder crowd and acquired a hunting knife that was practically a machete. That worked well, also. Armed and dangerous, and half-out of her mind with grief she wouldn't acknowledge, she got back in her Jeep and headed for Texas, moving from town to town and exterminating as she went. Erin didn't know how long she spent fighting zombies, filling out her calendar was a pointless exercise and it never seemed to get cold or rainy like it had in Seattle. Texas was a big place and had a lot of cities full of zombies, just begging to be put out of their misery. She was begging to be put out of hers, too, but nothing seemed to take. Even on the rare occasion when something did break her skin, it healed up again within hours, without even a scar. Forgetting to eat, sometimes for days at a time, wasn't much of a problem, and even the baking sun that ruined her canned supplies (which she ate anyway, and no harm) didn't burn her skin. She developed new muscles, and got a little taller as well, a bit more developed in the bust, and had to find new clothes for herself. She probably wasn't fourteen anymore, she decided eventually. It didn't matter. Eventually she started making her way north again, following the highways. Eventually she stopped being able to get fuel for the Jeep, but she realized that she could actually run faster than she was willing to drive, so that didn't matter either. She put her most important supplies into a backpack and left the Jeep behind in Oklahoma, next to a pile of destroyed zombies. As she traveled north she found snow, and eventually spring flowers and fruits, and very slowly she began to heal inside. She'd never be the same person she'd once been, that girl was gone, but the raw suicidal pain began to fade in the light of a new season of growth. She began to wonder, once again, if there was any place that people still gathered. With the return of sanity came the realization of her own loneliness. She wasn't built to live without people. There were definitely plenty of animals around. Erin was curious and motivated enough to get into a library in Missouri and learn about hunting and dressing animals, and considered it quite a victory when she had her first meal in more than half a year where nothing came from a can. Rabbit and dandelion greens weren't gourmet fare, but they were better than pork and beans! As she traveled, Erin found herself awakening to the world again, and the possibility that things could get better. She still killed zombies wherever she could find them. She was very good at that by now, but it wasn't the only thing she did anymore. Eventually, she made her way through the Midwestern summer, learning more about what was good to eat and how to get it, and relying less and less on the increasingly unpalatable fare of supermarkets whose wares had stood in toxic miasma for a year.

They followed I-8 out of California and through Arizona, which took a long time. Erin wasn't willing to go more than forty miles an hour in the old Jeep, and whenever they got low on gas, it was a big chore to find more. Then there was food, and finding safe places to sleep. It was frustrating, and very, very lonely. Erin had been sure that once they got out of rural California they would start seeing more people, but weeks passed and Arizona turned into New Mexico, and still there was nothing. They had to leave the highway east of Albuquerque where a bridge over a gully had collapsed, doubling back and picking their way, finding a place in the wilderness to camp out. It wasn't the first time they'd done it, and Erin thought nothing of letting Megan go off to collect fuel for the fire while she assembled the tent and got out their supplies. But when Megan screamed, Erin was there in a heartbeat, just in time to see her sister go tumbling over the edge of an embankment that had been screened by brush. It was stupid, was the first thought through Erin's mind as she dived after her sister. So stupid! No plague, no zombies, no horrible car crash, just a little fall, it couldn't mean anything... When she reached the bottom, skidding and tumbling, she knew she was wrong. The creek bed Megan had fallen into was full of sharp rocks, and she'd landed very badly, arms and legs askew, head bloody and lolling. Amazingly, she was still conscious, enough to see Erin and moan softly. "It hurts, it hurts..." Erin carried her back to the jeep, a trivial feat with her added strength, but there was nothing she could do but give Megan Children's Tylenol and try to bandage the visibly bloody parts. Erin wasn't stupid, she knew about broken bones, concussion, internal injuries, but what was she supposed to do? Maybe if there'd been a hospital, even a doctor, but she wasn't any of those things. She'd never even been a girl scout. She drove through the night and into the next day to reach Albuquerque, praying all the while. She pleaded with God to give her own strength and immunity to Megan, that she didn't need it, that wasn't she owed just this one tiny little miracle, after everything else? But God, if there was a God, which she had already started to doubt, wasn't listening to this barren world anymore. Megan's dose of serum was just enough to keep her lingering for two days in terrible pain, while Erin picked their way through the burned-out streets of Albuquerque and found it as empty as all the rest. In one empty, stinking hospital she fought off a dozen zombies and broke into a pharmacy to find some good painkillers, the stuff she'd gotten after her wisdom teeth had been removed. There were no doctors, but at least she had this. Megan hadn't eaten since the fall, but Erin crushed three pills and mixed them in water, pouring them down her sister's throat and hoping she wouldn't choke. As the pain faded, Megan started to cry again, this time because she was afraid. Erin choked back her own tears and told her sister that she'd be going to heaven to be with Mom and Dad, and that it was okay, because Erin would be joining them soon and they'd all be together again. When Megan went to sleep, she did not wake up again, and Erin hadn't expected her to. She took the shovel from the back of her Jeep, the same shovel that had buried her mother, and buried her sister in the hospital's withered garden, along with her favorite stuffed pony and all her clothes. Erin kept the music box Megan had insisted on bringing from home, just as she'd kept the wedding photograph she'd found in her mother's suitcase.

They spent time driving around southern California, looking for people, looking for food, looking for gas for the jeep. Erin couldn't figure out how to make the pumps work at gas stations that had no gas, so she learned to siphon, based on trial and error and things she'd seen in movies. She swallowed some on the first couple of tries and worried that she would get sick, but it didn't seem to bother her body at all. It was impossible to keep track of days, when every day continued so hot and dry and sunny. They found plenty of grocery stores, horribly unpleasant places full of rotting food and often a body or two, but with canned and dry goods, camp fuel, and other things they needed. Megan, who didn't seem to have Erin's new resistance to eating nasty things, made herself sick twice on candy and sugary pop before she learned the error of her ways, and Erin picked up a cookbook and some pans to try and learn better cooking than "open the can and warm it up over the fire." All the gardens and farms they passed were dead in the intense summer heat, so there was nothing fresh, but plenty of cans, boxes, and bottles. Erin thought about trying to get some birdseed and catch birds, but the thought of going into any of the petstores and seeing the animals starved to death in their cages made her feel ill in a way that dead human bodies weren't really doing anymore. And at least the birds in the sky were alive and weren't trying to kill them, which was more than she could say for just about anything else they'd seen so far. She left them up there, contenting herself with Spam, canned hams, and tuna fish. They'd been away from the compound for more than two weeks, by her reckoning, before they found any more zombies. It was a surprise attack, a half-dozen or so coming upon the girls as they left a store with their arms full of canned goods. "Get back in the store!" Erin yelled to Megan, who dropped her bags and bolted. Erin, without access to any better weapons, began pelting the zombies with cans, throwing them as hard as she could, then using them like loaded fists as she swung wildly at the ones who got too close. Surprisingly, it worked! Her throws were so fast and hard that the cans exploded the rotten skulls of two of the zombies before they could close in. She felt them biting at her, but the teeth didn't penetrate her skin, merely ripping at her clothes and tearing her hair. It was a hideous, disgusting fight, but this time Erin was the one left standing, covered in rotten guts, with a bevy of destroyed zombies at her feet. When Megan crept back outside, she couldn't believe it, and even Erin had a hard time. She had to believe it was the serum Aaron had given her. He'd said it would protect them from what the first vaccine had made, but she hadn't understood. Maybe if he'd injected them all a little earlier, everyone would've lived through the attack. Maybe it was all just another hideous waste. They fought zombies several more times in California before a massive wildfire sent them racing out of the state and for greener eastern pastures. Megan got caught up in the fighting just once, and was bitten by one of the zombies. Apparently, the tiny dose of serum she'd gotten wasn't enough to protect her the way it did her sister. Erin was worried that she might turn into a zombie too, like in the movies, but the vaccine didn't work like that. The bite eventually began to heal, with careful bandaging and loads of Neosporin, but it illustrated a chilling reality. There were no hospitals, no doctors here. No one would help them if they got hurt or sick. They had to get to Freedom City, or anywhere that there might still be people and society. Many of the highways they tried to travel on were peppered with roadblocks, but the blocks had prevented traffic jams from forming, and it was usually a simple matter of moving barricades or driving around on the shoulder. Erin tried to remember to say prayers for the dead policemen and soldiers who had perished of the flu or been eaten by zombies while doing their jobs, but it was really sort of hard. She found she couldn't think about it too much. If she started concentrating on the way every corpse had been a person, every skull had, just months ago, been full of a mind that had loves and dreams and family, she couldn't do anything except cry for all that had been lost. They couldn't think like that, or they would curl up and die too. Sometime in what Erin was pretty sure was early August, they celebrated Megan's eighth birthday, because that was important. Erin didn't know how to make a cake without an oven, so she made a pile of pancakes and stacked them up with chocolate frosting between the layers, then stuck a candle in it. It was sort of a miserable birthday, but at least it was a way to mark time.

The period of waiting came to an abrupt end in the second week of May, when she and the others in the garage woke to the strong smell of burning in the air. There was no local television or radio, hadn't been for days, but the glow on the dawn horizon said that Flat Creek, the nearest tiny town, was burning with no one to stop it. They were standing out in the yard, trying to decide what that meant to them, when Aaron came rushing up from his lab, a syringe and a tray of ampoules in his hands. "Everyone, hurry! They're coming here, this way, hundreds of them and less than a mile off! There's no further time to refine the formula, we can only hope that it works in time, or we're doomed! Take the shot, then arm yourselves!" This announcement caused more consternation than panic, though the panic wasn't far behind. What had so far been a crazy horror movie played out on the television screen was suddenly bearing down on them faster than they could take in. Like everyone else, Erin and her mother and sister lined up for the shot. She gasped at the flare of pain that went up and down her arm, then her body, as though someone had set her on fire. It felt like she could barely move, let alone somehow pick up a weapon and fight. As Erin staggered away and huddled in the shadow of the building, Clarissa got her dose, and tiny Megan received a fraction of a dose. "Best I can do," Aaron commented gruffly. "Full dose would kill her deader than the zombies." Clarissa gave Megan a push in her sister's direction, and suddenly everything went to hell. Aaron had said hundreds of zombies, but it seemed like thousands, like all the zombies from every news report were bearing down on them at once. The survivors, all of them reeling like Erin from the injection, never really had a chance. They used guns, clubs, anything they could find, but the wave was unstoppable. Erin saw her mother ripped in half by a crowd of howling, screaming, wailing corpses that had once been nice people, and she didn't stay to see more. She staggered away from the fighting, dragging Megan along with her, and headed for the compost heap. If zombies looked for warmth and the smell of people, she figured, maybe they would be fooled. Or maybe they would just die in the trash, but there was nowhere else to go. She burrowed down in the filthy, stinky, hot mass of manure and straw and clapped a hand over Megan's mouth to keep her quiet. There would be time for crying later, if they lived. The screams seemed to last for ages. First the screams and shouts of the living as they died, then the moaning and crying of the zombies as they wandered the compound, looking for whatever it was that drove them. They ate human flesh, Erin knew that from the reports, but no one was sure why. No one had really had a chance to do any tests. A few times zombies came near the compost heap, but they didn't stay. Eventually, whatever had drawn the horde to the compound drove them onward again, some memory of where people had lived, or simply the smell of humans on the wind, and they moved on, leaving an empty compound of bones. There was time for mourning then, and Erin and Megan did plenty of it, wandering hand and hand through the compound like ghosts, staring down at what had been the last of what was real and normal, the bones of their mother, their uncle, the adults who'd cared for them. Now that the pain of the injection had faded, Erin felt great physically, better than she ever had, but mentally, emotionally, she was shattered. For days, maybe weeks, they hung around the compound, digging a hole and burying the bones while Erin mumbled prayers over them and they sang whatever hymns they could remember, then scavenging in the lab and the garage for food. Supplies had already been running low, and eventually it was hunger that sent them onward. Mostly Megan's hunger, really. Since the injection, Erin hadn't felt much like eating most days, or even like sleeping. Flat Creek was gone, but there were other towns nearby, and some of them had to have food. They were also likely to have zombies, but maybe there were still places that hadn't fallen victim. Maybe there were grownups, maybe there was help. Maybe if they got someplace big, someplace like Freedom City, there would be people still working on a real cure, something to fix the zombies and put the world back together. After a few practice runs around the compound in her uncle's Jeep, Erin and Megan took their suitcases, the guns, and the little food that remained, packed up, and left.

There was hardly time to mourn before things got even weirder. Everyone on the compound, of course, wanted to go out and get the vaccine, but Aaron categorically forbid it. "I've seen that formula!"Â he barked, "and it's poison, through and through. They don't know what they're releasing on the world, and they won't listen when I try to tell them, the goddamn bastards. This never would have happened if Alex Atom was still alive, or if Daedalus had come back from space! This is a thousand times worse than the flu itself, goddammit. Now I have to change my formula, protect against what they're making." With those cryptic words, and the assertion that anyone who took the vaccine would be chased from the compound with lethal force, he disappeared back down into his lab. A few people left the compound, determined to take the vaccine even if it meant losing a place of shelter, but Erin and her family didn't really have anywhere to go, and Clarissa was spooked enough by Aaron's words to avoid the vaccine. Instead, they waited and watched. Initially, it didn't seem like Aaron's predictions had any merit to them. The television showed images from all over the world of people lining up to get the shots, sick people and healthy people alike. The sick people, especially, seemed to show immediate improvement. The hundred-hour vaccine was touted as a miracle, and for a few days, the rate of death, which had been rising hourly for weeks, plummeted. Erin was angry. Why weren't they allowed to get the vaccine? What if she or her mom or her sister got sick? They were all they had left! It was stupid to let some old man tell them that the vaccine was no good, when it was obviously a miracle. If it wasn't good, why would everyone in the world be taking it and saying it was great? She stewed about that for days, four days, in fact. That's when things started going pear-shaped all over again. At first it was just a few isolated reports, very vague, of people having a bad reaction to the vaccine, a few days after it was administered. People who were already sick and dying, mostly. The newscasters reported it, but made sure to tell people not to stop getting vaccinated. But as more days passed, and more people started reacting, the stories started getting more lurid. People who should've died from the flu weren't dying, but they weren't living, either! They were persisting as some kind of actual zombie, brain dead and with no bodily functions to speak of, but still able to move, even walk around. Some were even behaving violently, as though seeking vengeance on those who'd deprived them of heaven. At least, that was how the particularly lurid tabloid shows put it. The zombies were scary, but they were all in quarantine in hospitals anyway, and they could be restrained, destroyed. For awhile. Another few days passed, and suddenly it wasn't just people who were dying of the hero flu who were turning into zombies. Apparently the slightest immune system response could trigger the vaccine into overdrive, taking over even a healthy body, hijacking the bloodstream to the brain and sending the system into a survival mode that guaranteed the death of the living person, even as the body survived and shambled on. It was like something out of a terrible movie. Erin and the others at the compound stayed glued to the television screen, even as days passed and channel after channel went despairingly blank, even as the remaining ones reminded everyone that the government and the surviving Freedom Leaguers were working on a new and expanded cure. Erin's fear and anger gradually turned into despair as the days passed and things got worse and worse. It was the end of the world, and they were all going to sit here in the desert until they were the only ones left, and then they would starve. She wished she'd died already, she decided on one particularly bleak day. Then she would be up in heaven, and she wouldn't have to mourn the people who'd died, or watch everything fall apart. She told her mother that, one day after yet another news channel went from one anchor and one cameraman to dead air. "Don't say that," Clarissa reprimanded her sharply. "Don't ever think that way. Every day you have is a gift, even the hardest ones. You're on this earth for a reason, to do good and help others wherever you can, and that's your responsibility. Wanting to die because you think it wouldn't be as hard? That's just cheating." It didn't exactly change Erin's mind, but it made her think. When would Aaron's cure be finished? Would it be soon enough to save them? Would it be able to save anyone else, or was there anyone out there to save?

In the middle of April, Erin's mother, Clarissa, woke her in the middle of the night and told her they were going on a trip. That was very strange, since nonessential travel was absolutely prohibited since the flu had started spreading. Clarissa wasn't interested in answering any questions, though. She told Erin to pack a suitcase full of clothes and clean underwear, and maybe bring something to read as well. They were going to go visit her great-uncle down in California, and they might not be back for a little while. Erin packed her favorite outfits and plenty of underwear, both her bras, her deodorant and lip gloss, and then filled the rest of her suitcase with her favorite magazines and CDs, her diary, and a few other things she didn't think she could live without. At the last minute, she added her old teddy bear, under a pile of shirts. Things were getting so scary, it seemed like she'd need something to hold on to. When she was packed, her mom made her help her sister Megan pack, too. Megan was only seven and it seemed like she could barely find both of a pair of shoes most of the time. She was annoying and whiny, but tonight they worked together in silence, Erin filling Megan's suitcase with mostly the same essentials as she had her own, but more baby stuff. Megan wanted to bring way more than would fit in the suitcase, but Erin reminded her that this was just for a little while, and then they would come home. Surely they would come home. Someone would find a cure, the vaccine would become available, and life would go back to normal. Her belief in that lasted until they were already in the car, and Erin suddenly realized that her father wasn't with them. "He's not coming right now," was Clarissa's only answer to her frantic questions. "Blow him kisses, okay?"Â From the window, Erin could see her father, Roger, watching them from the doorway and waving. She waved back and blew frantic kisses as they drove off, and was shocked when he nearly doubled over from coughing, there in the doorway. The flu vaccine wasn't coming in time. Clarissa had somehow managed to get a pass that got them through the checkpoints that night, even though it meant paying money a few times to the soldiers guarding them. Erin slept for awhile on the drive, waking to find her mom's eyes red-rimmed, as though she'd been crying for a long time. She wanted to cry too, but it felt like her insides were frozen. She asked questions instead, and finally got a few answers. Clarissa's uncle Aaron, Erin's sort-of namesake, was some kind of inventor who'd made a huge pile of money with patents on various things no one in the family understood, then had gone off into the desert to be a hermit. He said he was working on a cure for the flu, one that would be better than the one the government doctors were working on. He was family, despite his eccentricities, and he would take them in. They weren't the only ones Aaron had taken in, Erin discovered when she arrived at the desert compound. There were about twenty-five people living all together in a big garage with only one bathroom, mainly the families of Aaron's lab assistants and a couple people he seemed to like. She found it hard to get a bead on her great-uncle, who rarely came out to see them, and who looked like Santa Claus on a meth PSA poster. He gave them chores to do, mostly cleaning bathrooms and raking up hay and stuff in the yard, but other than that, he was a mystery. But he promised that he would keep them safe from the disease. The next week brought two pieces of news. The good news was that the government had developed a vaccine! They advised every person, healthy or sick, to get the shot immediately so as to stop the progression of the flu. The surgeon general got on the television to explain that even though they hadn't been able to kill the flu virus, the virus itself expired within a hundred hours of entering its host. The shot was designed to allow the human metabolism to sustain itself through the rigors of the flu for those hundred hours, so that when the virus expired, the person would still be alive. The bad news was that it had come too late. Clarissa got a call from a neighbor who, coughing and weeping, told her that Roger was dead. They'd found him in the living room when they went in looking to borrow some supplies. Hero flu had hit bad in Seattle just after they left, Clarissa explained carefully to Erin, talking to her like a grown-up, though Erin might have preferred ignorance this once. Most of the people in their neighborhood hadn't made it. Her best friend Kathy, newly fourteen and with no birthday party, hadn't made it. Even with the cure, nothing was going to be the same again.

(This is Erin's backstory in a number of parts, followed by her questionnaire.) March 14, 2007 was the day Erin White's world ended. She remembers it clearly, because it was her best friend Kathy's fourteenth birthday, and there should have been a party. There had been a party planned, a sleepover complete with pizza, cake, an R-rated movie, and even makeovers with Kathy's aunt, an Avon representative. It would've been a heck of a party. Erin thought it was the end of the world when school, her parents' work, and the party itself were all cancelled that day because of the hero flu, but she didn't know until much later how right she'd been. It all started out so small. People in Asia had started getting sick and dying that winter, but that happened sometimes. The news programs said that thirty thousand people died every year from the flu. That was scary, but she'd never known anyone who died of the flu, so she guessed it was poor people in crowded countries who died, not people in America. Not people like her, who lived in nice houses outside Seattle and had money and doctors. She had more important things to worry about, like how come it sucked so bad to be a freshman, and whether she was going to be totally uncool forever, even though she'd finally gotten her braces off. They blamed the Asian flu on a Chinese supervillian named Dr. Sin for a while, at least until a superhero working for the Chinese government found Dr. Sin and his daughters dead in their secret laboratory in Tibet. Then the heroes started dying. Erin found out later that the first superhero, a Japanese gadgeteer named Shinnosuke Koyama, had died in January, but that the governments, more than one of them, had covered it up to try and prevent a panic. If superheroes could die, anyone could. But this was a strange flu, and by the end of February, it was obvious that something very bad was happening. This flu hit superhumans first and hardest, and no one knew why. While normal victims languished in hospitals and on respirators, superheroes who'd gone to provide relief to stricken areas died within hours, some literally falling out of the sky. Johnny Rocket was the first Freedom Leaguer to die, his public collapse the first of a new legion of horrors. The ones who remained isolated themselves, working feverishly to find a cure. A few superhumans were immune to disease, anyway, so what could possibly happen to them? The hero flu, as it came to be called, spread across the United States with alarming rapidity, so much so that even Erin had to take notice. On March 12, the first cases arrived in Washington State, a couple of transients who'd brought it up from Los Angeles on the Greyhound, coughing all the way. A band of citizens destroyed the bus depot and four buses, but the damage was done. School was cancelled "until further notice" and all non-essential personnel were told to stay home, cover their coughs, and wash their hands frequently. A vaccine was coming, they were promised. Just sit tight and everything would be all right. When the newscasters on the local news started coughing through their broadcasts, though, people didn't want to wait anymore. There were riots outside the mayor's office and the hospital, and some people died. But that hardly made the news anymore, as the death toll in the United States climbed into the hundreds of thousands, past a million. People were dying everywhere, and there didn't seem to be any way to stop it.