The pictures were high-octane battles fueled by vicious actions. Countless masses converged on the Old cities, the hordes moving with a speed and agility never seen before. They leapt. They ran. And they killed with savage lust. People from the Old cities attempted to fight back with crude weapons and cudgels, only to lose ground when summarily defeated.

Whereas the AG saw potential dangers, the vice president saw differently. "This is a godsend," he said. "Let the Wasteland savages and the city clans slaughter each other. It only serves to take the weight of responsibility off the forces guarding the Fields of Elysium. By killing each other off, they promote security for us."

"You need to look more closely, Mr. Vice President."

The AG zoomed in until the victors could clearly be seen.

Their skins were putrid and gray with corded veins. Ruined flesh had been pared back to reveal bone and muscle mass, and racks of ribs showed through areas where skin had decayed. In others, the yellow polish of jawbones were exposed as they fed on the corpses of their victims, and eye sockets were hollowed or gutted, yet they could still navigate through the plains and fields of the cities with little difficulty.

The vice president spoke as if to dismiss away the problem with a simple explanation. He raised his hand to the screen. "Disease," he said. "They're savages driven to hunger living in an unsanitary wasteland eventually becoming the hosts to what-leprosy?"

"Leprosy hasn't been around for centuries."

"It hasn't been eradicated, either. Not completely. If the conditions were there, then it could return."

"With all due respect, Mr. Vice President, I believe you're missing the big picture here."

"Really." Schaffer responded as if he took it personally. "Suppose you enlighten me."

He switched to multiple screens, and they showed the same thing. Multitudes of savages covered areas the same way bison use to roam massive regions the size of American states.

Schaffer sucked in a breath. "Where the Hell did they all come from?"

"That's precisely my question, Mr. Vice President. They're everywhere." The AG then turned to Schaffer, pinning him with a benign stare. "Once they're done with the Old cities, once the food supply is gone, then what? Will they attack the Fields of Elysium?"

"No. The automated sentry guns along the parapets will protect us." But the vice president sounded as if he was trying to make himself believe his own statement. "We'll be fine."

The AG looked at him disconcertedly a moment before speaking. "Mr. Vice President, there aren't enough weapons, sentry guns, Stryker's, soldiers or ammunition to keep that amount of people-or whatever they are-at bay."

"The walls will hold."

"Perhaps . . . But if they don't?"

"They will," he returned. The corners of his lips moved with nervous tics and his eyes averted from the monitors. "They'll hold."

"They're hungry," the AG added. "And hunger turns us all into savages. If they want to breach the walls of the Fields, they'll find a way . . . eventually. Our time is coming."

The vice president didn't respond, which made the AG wonder if Schaffer heard him at all.

"Good day, Mr. Vice President. If you need me, you'll know where to reach me." He turned and left the Oval Office, closing the door behind him with a snicker of the bolt locking.

Schaffer allowed his eyes to gravitate toward the monitors and watched the mayhem play out. Then he considered that the AG was right. Turning a blind eye wasn't going to make the situation go away.

He knew the food supplies in the Fields were dwindling at a rapid pace, and eventually they'd be gone altogether, leaving men to their own devices to survive. Even inside utopias.

Hunger, as the AG said, but not in so many words, can turn the most civilized people into savages. And a day will come when all men will be equal. No more Wasteland savages. No more clans living within the ruined cities, and no more people living in luxury. Everyone would be the same. They would be barbarians killing each until no one was left.

He closed his eyes and came to a very painful truth.

Mankind was finally coming to a vicious and brutal end.

Chapter Twenty-Nine.

When the freight elevator made its upward journey, there was something besides the noise of its mechanical whirring. At first it sounded soft, a slithering of sounds and whispers.

The president cocked his head. "Any of you hear that?"

Eriq nodded. "Yeah . . . I do."

"What is it?" Sheena asked.

No one answered because no one knew.

. . . um to ssssssssssss meeeeeeeeeee . . .

"Escaping steam? Maybe from the pipes?" offered the lead Detail officer.

"No," Eriq stated with confidence. "Not even close."

. . . whirrrrrrrrrrrr . . .

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

"Is it coming from behind us?" asked Lisa Millette, her head whipping around to scope the corridor behind them "It is, isn't it? They're behind us! My God, they're coming up from-"

Senator Newel took her into his embrace and shushed her. "Listen."

. . . whirrrrrrrrrrrr . . .

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

The whispers were growing louder as the elevator neared.

Eriq moved to the elevator doors and placed his palms against the cold steel.

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

Then he pressed his ear to the door.

. . . COOOOOOME TOOO MEEEEEEEEE . . .

He backed away, quickly, then grabbed Sheena's hand and began to guide her away from the elevator. "Everyone, get away from the elevator! Now!" He turned and led Sheena down the corridor. "This way!"

"And why would we do that, Mr. Wyman?" asked the president. "Safe passage is almost here."

. . . COOOOOOME TOOO MEEEEEEEEE . . .

"Not on that boat it isn't!" he cried. "Those things-they're on the elevator! That's what you're hearing!"

The whirring stopped.

. . . COOOOOOME TOOO MEEEEEEEEE . . .

And the lit number above the elevator door flashed their numbered level.

. . . COOOOOOME TOOO MEEEEEEEEE . . .

"Move!" yelled the Detail guard, pushing and ushering the president in the direction taken by Eriq. "GO!"

They raced down the corridor, following Eriq and Sheena, taking sharp bends and turns. Two of the president's guards stayed behind to secure the hallway, taking stances, double-fisting their firearms, and aiming at the doors, waiting to set off a volley of shots to give the president time to widen the gap between them.

. . . COOOOOOME TOOO MEEEEEEEEE . . .

The doors began to part.

. . . COOOOOOME . . .

Arms extended through the opening, cancer-infested looking limbs that lashed out like the tongues of snakes, as quick darts, with clawed fingers raking the air.

. . . TOOO . . .

The guards stood by with their fingers applying most of the pressure necessary to pull the triggers.

. . . MEEEEEEEEE . . .

The doors opened.

And the dead spilled out into the corridor like clowns exiting a vehicle at a circus affair, the flow of people never-ending.

. . . COOOOOOME TOOO MEEEEEEEEE . . .

The guards pulled the triggers in quick succession, the bullets finding the center of body mass. Chunks and bits of decayed flesh and viscous fluid blew back, showering those who were behind the first wave, but the front line continued on, the undead absorbing the bullets as if they were nothing more than the sting of wasps.

Then the guards redirected their aim for headshots, and pulled the triggers.

Heads sheered away as cranial pieces and gray gore took flight, the bodies falling, but the second wave leapt over them with athletic ease and came at them with unbelievable speed.

Muzzle flashes continued to spark the corridor with light as the guards continued to hit their targets, all headshots, taking down the dead, but they were like roaches. No matter what you did to stop the flow, they just kept coming.

"How can there be so many?" one guard cried.

They leapt and caromed off the corridor walls, bouncing from one side to the other.

"What the Hell are these things?" one guard hollered, then he ran out of ammo, ejected his magazine, and quickly seated another. "I'm running low!"

"Same!"

They started to move back, firing and taking out the dead with headshots, sending gray matter to splash against the surrounding pipes and conduits in ghoulish display.

. . . COOOOOOME TOOO MEEEEEEEEE . . .

As some fell to the corridor floor, others took their place and came at the guards with frenzied eyes and bony talons.

When one of the guard's gun started to go off in a series of dry clicks, he dropped it and headed in the opposite direction, running as fast as he could. The second turned as well, pivoting on feet that were too slow to react in timely fashion as a hand slashed across the guard's back, ripping its nails through his flesh, and drawing scratches across the bones of his vertebrae.

The guard screamed, feeling the burning sensation of white-hot agonizing pain, the type of pain that would give pause to one who would believe that death would be a better alternative to this. As he fell to the floor they crawled over him like insects, the tips of their fingers tearing his skin as if it was as fragile as rice paper, then reached for the morsels of his innards.

A fount of blood erupted from the guard's mouth, and then his lungs sounded off in a wet rattle a moment before they were ripped free.

The second guard ran down tunnels that branched off into several different directions. His group was nowhere to be seen.

"Mr. President!"

The dead gave chase.

The Detail guard took a series of turns, his eyes wide as he turned his head from one side to the other, seeing nothing but empty warrens. Where did they go?

"Mr. President!"

. . . COOOOOOME TOOO MEEEEEEEEE . . .

The dead were closing the gap between them, their speed unbelievable.

And then there was silence.

The guard stopped and listened, at first hearing nothing but the beat of his heart against his temples. Steam bled from the seams of pipes, relieving pressure, the hissing sounding like a den of snakes, and the hull of the ship began to creak as if the metal was becoming stressed.

The guard backed himself against the wall's conduits as steam circled in slow-moving eddies at both ends of the corridor.

He stood there, his heart thumping.

Then a form took shape behind a veil of mist, its features obscured by swirls of rolling steam. And then it beckoned to him. This way!

"Show yourself!" the guard called out.

The outline of the man within the fog continued to beckon to him with his hand. This way!

"I said, show yourself!"

But the figure didn't have to as the pipes relieved enough pressure and steam, the fog dissipating.

It stood at the end of the corridor before a turn, a silhouette, something big, someone the guard did not recognize or care to know.