“Until we know the flood gates won’t be opened again, maybe the scenic route would be best?” Lucy suggested.

“True,” he answered as he motioned her to the dresser.

Michael lifted Lucy’s small frame into the attic. As he was climbing in, Lucy looked back and smiled, “Are you going to be staring at my butt the whole way?”

“Of course not,” he answered. “Occasionally I will look where I am going.”

Lucy laughed, “Can we go shopping, honey? I am in need of a new wardrobe.”

“Why of course, my dear,” he answered. “I hear there’s a lovely boutique just right of that giant hole in the wall up ahead. If you would be so kind as to lead the way, I will try not to stare at your butt the entire time.”

She laughed again, then scurried along the rafters like a mouse. Michael followed along, trying not to fall through the floor. He was more distracted than he originally joked. Even in a smelly, old sweater and baggy pants, Lucy looked breathtaking. And crawling ahead of him on all fours did not exactly help matters either.

When Lucy got close to the hole in the wall that led outside, Michael yelled, “Hold up, Lucy!”

She stopped and waited. He crawled up next to her as she fanned herself with the sweater. Flashes of breast popped in and out of view.

“Michael,” she put a finger under his chin, lifting his gaze. “I’m up here.”

“Sorry,” he said as Lucy smiled at his embarrassment of being caught yet again. “Luce, I…I didn’t get a chance to…ummm…”

“What is it, Michael?”

“I didn’t get a chance to clean up the blood.”

Lucy nodded her understanding, and Michael lowered her into the room below. Lucy slipped on a pool of blood and landed hard on her ass. She gasped as her eyes widened in disbelief. Michael dropped next to her and pulled her shocked face into his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We should have used the door.”

“No, its ok,” she said, her face still buried in his chest. “I’ll…I’ll be ok.”

She was lying and he knew it. The room looked like it had been spray painted with blood. It was the room Lauren had fallen into, the room where zombies had torn the helpless girl in half.

After Michael helped Lucy make a run for it, he spotted the zombies in this room still eating parts of Lauren. He’d figured he was as good as dead anyway and had nothing to lose and had gone on a rampage. He’d found a shield and sword hanging on a wall, a family crest he’d assumed at the time, and though he had cared little about the shield, he had wanted the sword. It wasn’t exactly sharp, but when swung like a baseball ball, it had removed the zombies’ heads easily enough, spraying the walls with their dead blood.

Michael had run from room to room in a violent rage, beheading, hacking and killing everything in his path. He knew they were already dead; he’d just been making sure they acted dead and did not get back up. Now, as he looked around at the bloodshed, the memories of the rampage sickened him. He wondered if he would ever tell Lucy of his zombie massacre. Probably not.

With her face still buried in his chest, Michael navigated Lucy out into the hallway and down the stairs to the ground level. Lucy allowed herself to see where they were going but still let him put his protective arms around her.

“Now I really need to go shopping,” she said as she looked at the rear of her blood-soaked pants.

“You could go naked,” Michael grinned brazenly.

“You wish!,” Lucy laughed as he disappeared into a room, reemerging with some hospital scrubs a moment later.

She wasn’t sure why a lab like this needed scrubs, but she didn’t really care, they looked and smelled clean. As they walked to the lab, Lucy noticed that a huge desk blocked the opening where the steel security door came out of the wall. If Robin was going to lock this place down again, Michael had made sure he decided on which side of the steel wall he wanted to be on. Michael was thinking of everything, but she still didn’t know why he distrusted Robin so much.

“Good morning, Lucy,” Robin said as they entered the laboratory.

“Hi,” was all she could squeeze out.

“Tell her what you told me,” Michael barked. It was not like Michael to be so demanding.

Robin looked from Michael to Lucy and began, “Everyone makes mistakes. Some are small, some are bigger. My father’s mistake, born of an innocent heart, fueled by sadness, was the greatest mistake. Some thought the death of his little girl drove him to the point of insanity. Some thought he was trying to be God. But this is not how it happened. The truth is he wanted to save me. To give me life. And, in doing so, everyone was doomed.”

“I’m heartbroken,” Lucy scoffed. “What does that have to do with us?”

“As you know, Lucy,” Robin explained, “Michael has been bitten by an infected person, and, as such, has become infected himself. He will die.” Lucy’s eyes saddened as reality hit home just a little bit deeper. She knew Robin was a computer, but still she sounded so cold. “I can, however, instruct Michael on how to make an antivirus,” Robin added.

“That’s great!” Lucy said, perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

“There is one condition,” Robin explained. “I have discovered through various government agencies that they will be bombing this island in a hope to purge the virus.”

“How did you find that out?” Lucy asked.

Michael leaned down and informed Lucy, “She neglected to tell us that she monitors a few hundred radio stations, short wave transmissions, and encrypted signals through smaller satellite receivers on the roof.”

“Satellite? Then we could have rigged that to…” Michael put his finger to her lips to silence her. Damn, he did it again.

“Remember the cellar,” he mouthed.

“The initial bombing will fail,” Robin announced. “When it does, they will most likely obliterate this island completely.”

“You want to save the island?” Lucy asked as she absentmindedly pulled her wool sweater off and threw it to the floor.

Michael looked at her in wide-eyed disbelief.

“No,” Robin responded. “I want to save me.”

“I don’t understand,” she told Robin.

“If they destroy me, then everything is lost. All of my father’s work will have been for nothing. My body will most likely survive the blast in cryo-preservation, but if the Robin 1 Mainframe is damaged, then all my memories, all of my father’s work will be lost with it. I cannot allow that to happen.”

“What do you need me for?” Lucy asked.

“Michael is dying. The compound I have instructed him to make will only stabilize him for a short time. Without an antidote he will die. Michael has the knowledge to help me, but if he decided to wander off to try and find you and did not come back, then I have no one to help me complete the transfer.”

“What makes you think I will help?” Lucy asked.

“You are already helping. You are here. Michael was most concerned about whether or not the transfer of bodily fluids would in turn infect the recipient,” Robin explained.

“You lost me,” Lucy shook her head in confusion as she slid her blood-stained pants off and let them fall to the floor. She thought she heard Michael gulp, but she was too busy concentrating on what Robin was saying to look at Michael.

“The kiss,” Robin explained to her. “Michael was so upset that he may have infected you with a kiss.”

Lucy’s mind raced back to when she left this place and how Michael had kissed her goodbye. With that thought she looked at Michael and noticed his eyes were firmly affixed to the view of her thong, and he wasn’t about to move his gaze anytime soon. She looked down at her nakedness and realized that in her hurry to get out of those smelly old clothes while listening to Robin’s explanations she hadn’t even realized she was undressing in front of Michael.

“Am I infected?” Lucy asked, turning her attention back to Robin as she pulled on the clean pants.