The Greater Number 3: The Simian Connection part 2

  The large furry humanoid had appeared out of nowhere and was now battling the zombies.  He grabbed the heads of two and smashed them together.  With a single massive paw, he could snap a neck and, boy did he.
Within minutes, he had thinned out the herd.  He took the second-to-last one by the feet, swung him like a baseball bat and whacked the last one in the head like a tee ball extraordinaire.  Home run, mofo!
  The small crowd watching from the Centimator actually did go wild.  Even Cyril had roused from her fetal position to watch what had happened.  Now that the battle seemed to be over, she didn't cheer, but she also didn't go back into a fetal position.  Edger put an arm around her shoulder.
  "Yeah, you know.  I think that's a Sasquatch, a Bigfoot.  What else do they call those things?" asked Hewlett, like that was the most important matter at the moment.
  "How about a thesaurus?" suggested Mbu.
  "No, I don't think I've ever heard it called that," said Hewlett, which earned him a punch on the shoulder.
  The Bigfoot turned toward the Centimator.  "Uh, dad.  Does this thing go in reverse?" asked Yanluo.
  "His name is Yorren," said Cyril.
  "Sweety, don't start with that," Edger said.
  "Mom would have believed me," retorted Cyril.
  Edger turned to the rest of the people in the vehicle.  "Cyril says she can communicate with animals."
  "I don't say I can.  I can.  I've been able to all my life.  So could my mother," Cyril explained.
  "You said his name is Yorren?" asked Father Ng.
  "Yes, he says his home is not too far from here.  His family is there."
  "I thought we were gonna go to that camp," said Mbu.
  "Could you ask him about the camp?" said Father Ng.
  Cyril had opened her door and was standing face to face with the Sasquatch.  After a moment, she said, "He said the camp has been overrun."
  Father Ng reacted as if slapped.  "Lord have mercy."
  "All those people," said Enma.  The whole group was silent for several moments.
  Cyril broke the silence by saying, "Yorren says he smells more of those things in the area."
  "We've got to get moving," said Father Ng.
  "Yorren has a special request," said Cyril.
  "Bigfoot's making demands now?" asked Hewlett.
  "He'd just like to ride in the turret thingy.  What would that be called, shotgun?" asked Cyril.
  "Uh yeah, sure," responded Father Ng.
  Moments later, Yorren climbed up onto the top of the vehicle.  Cyril got back into the vehicle and Father Ng started it up.  Cyril relayed Yorren's directions and they were off.  The whole way to the forest, Yorren was waving his arm in the air like a cowboy in a rodeo.

The Greater Number: Index Patient

  Kojira DeSoto was the son of Jiro DeSoto, the founder of the Japanese Institute of Science and Microbiology, located in Tsukuba, Japan.  One day, Jiro died of heart complications.  Kojira was called into his father's office by Jiro's secretary, Hiranaka Ansadora.  Being a licensed helicopter pilot, Kojira flew in and landed on the helipad of the JISM building.
  "Choobinuptu, Hiranaka?" asked Kojira when he got to his father's office.
  "What did you say?" asked Hiranaka.
  "Did I stutter?  I said, 'What have you been up to, Hiranaka?'  I haven't seen you since the Christmas party. Although, I admit, I don't remember much about that night."
  "I've been really busy with the company since your father died, but I hope to be able to go see a Kabuki show this weekend.  That's why I called you here," explained Hiranaka.
  "How about Noh?"
  "Huh?" asked Hiranaka.
  "What about Noh?" repeated Kojira.
  "I don't know what you're talking about."
  "What part of Noh do you not understand?"
  "Anyway, Kojira.  I called you here today because your father has left the company to you to lead."
  "Holy shit, you for reals?"
  "Uh, yes.  But don't worry, you will have help."
  "Wait, why can't you do it?"
  "Your father's will specifically names you as the next CEO of JISM."
  "So what's this help you mentioned?"
  "Your father's trusted second man, Shavonte.  He's on his way up here right now."  Just then the double door opened and a man walked in.  "Ah, here he is now.  I'll leave the two of you now."
  "I'm Shavonte Nakamoto."
  "Shavonte?  Somehow I thought you'd be..."
  "Taller?"
  "Yeah, that too."
  Shavonte had worked for Jiro since the beginning.  He had watched him erect JISM from the ground up.  He secretly resented the fact that Kojira, who had no experience whatsoever, had been made CEO.  Behind his back, he called Kojira 'Tatami Boy'.  The biggest test for how JISM would stand after Jiro's untimely fate came in the form of an email from Russia.
  JISM was on the forefront of cloning technology.  Recently, the well-preserved remains of a woolly mammoth had been discovered in Russia.  The scientists in Russia wanted to bring some of the remains to Japan for possible cloning.  It was Shavonte's job to make sure Kojira didn't screw this up.  First things first, he had to call him from wherever the hell he was and get him into the office.
  After several attempts, Shavonte finally got through.  "There you are.  Haven't you heard my phone calls?"
  "No.  My phone's on vibrate mode."
  "Where is it?"
  "In my pocket."
  "Numb nuts, I've been trying to get a hold of you for an hour now!"
  "I've been flying around Tsukuba in my new helicopter.  I was just thinking about you too.  Do you think I'm too skinny to be a sumo wrestler?"
  "What?  That's not important right now."
  "Well it's important to me.  I've always wanted to be a sumo wrestler."
  Shavonte took a deep breath.  "Do you know what I just found out that I didn't know?"
  "You're gay?"
  "No!"
  "Oh, you already knew that?"
  Shavonte counted to ten in his head before resuming communication with Tatami Boy.  "Russia has the mummified remains of a woolly mammoth and they want to bring them here so that we can clone it."
  "You shitting me?  My dad wouldn't even let me have a dog growing up.  What the hell do you feed a woolly mammoth?  Do they like peanuts?  You're a scientist.  Where we gonna keep him?"
  Shavonte cracked his knuckles one finger at a time, letting his heart rate lower before addressing Tatami Boy.  "The cargo is already on its way.  Hiranaka is at the receiving bay awaiting their arrival.  The remains have been kept frozen so we'll have to thaw some of it so that we can try to extract DNA."
  "Hey, does my dad's computer get internet?"
  "He was the CEO of JISM.  Yes, his computer gets internet."
  "Cool, I'm gonna start pricing out peanuts in bulk."
  "Whatever.  I'll be downstairs with Hiranaka.  We'll call you if we need anything."
  Shavonte and Hiranaka signed all the paperwork for the mammoth remains, then it was off to the thawing room.  Hiranaka was so excited he wanted to stay in the room with the remains.
  "Hey man, a watched pot never boils," warned Shavonte.
  "Oh I know, but we're really doing it aren't we?"
  "Yes, we are.  I'm excited too.  Tatami Boy is upstairs buying peanuts for our little nest egg here."  The two of them shared a laugh over that one, then Shavonte left Hiranaka in the thawing room to go eat.
  When Shavonte got back from lunch, he went back into the thawing room.  Hiranaka was face down on the floor.  "Holy Krizmak!  Hiranaka, what happened?"  He turned Hiranaka's body over and lightly smacked him on each cheek in an attempt to rouse him.  The downed scientist wasn't breathing and his skin was cool to the touch.  Suddenly his eyes flew open.
  Shavonte was confused at the seemingly mixed signals he was getting from his fallen comrade.  Some signs of death, some signs of life.  In his head, he tried to make a tally of each.  He figured the the ratio of living attributes to dead attributes should tip the scales one way or the other.
  It seemed like a good idea until Hiranaka clamped his jaw solidly on Shavonte's wrist.  That still didn't answer the living or dead question for Shavonte, but it did hurt like hell.  He pulled his hand away from his friend's teeth and ran out of the room.
  In the meantime, Hiranaka ran around the building biting all the scientists.  Shavonte was cowering in the security room watching this horror unfold.  Every person that Hiranaka bit eventually became another not-quite-dead biter.  Luckily, Shavonte's wound wasn't very bad, but he knew that he'd become one of those things he was watching on the closed circuit television.
  He decided to call Kojira.  "Kojira, this is Shavonte.  We have a problem."
  "Me too, man.  My online search hasn't amounted to a hill of beans."
  Shavonte finally had no more patience.  "Will you shut up about your peanuts for one second!  Hiranaka's dead or something.  Anyway, he's biting people and making them almost dead too."
  "Or almost alive, depending on which way you wanna look at it."
  "So all these people are sick with this undeadness.  It's transmitted through bites and I've been bitten.  Hiranaka is the index patient and he bit me.  I figured you could medivac me to a nearby hospital in your helicopter before I turn into one of those things."
  "What's an index patient?" Kojira asked.
  "It's the first person to present with a disease."
  "Where are you now?"
  "I'm in the security room."
  "I'm on my way."
  "Be careful.  There are a lot of those things all over the building."
  "I'll be there as soon as I can be."
  "And, Kojira."
  "Yes?"
  "Thank you."  Shavonte pressed the button to disconnect.  Now it was just a matter of waiting for Kojira to make it from his father's office on the 27th floor to the security room on the first floor.  As time went by, he became more and more despondent.
  After twenty minutes, he knew he wouldn't make it to the hospital.  He wanted to make sure he wouldn't come back after he died.  He took a power cord and made a noose out of it.  He slipped it over his head and stood on a rolling chair.  It was while he was standing there that Kojira finally arrived.
  "Dude, what are you doing?  We have to go!"
  "I can't.  I'll be dead in a matter of minutes and I don't want to come back."
  "I'm sorry I took so long.  I had to kill several of those things on my way here.  I noticed you have to destroy the brain in order to silence them permanently."
  "Yeah, I know.  I saw you on the security monitors.  That's why I'm standing here with a noose around my neck.  Once I die, my body will become slack, separating my head from my spinal cord and preventing my return as one of the undead."
  "If I had just gotten here sooner, I would have been able to save you."
  "You could have just abandoned me and flown away to safety, but you risked your life to try to save mine."
  "But I've never finished anything in my life.  And now, when it matters the most, I've failed again."
  Shavonte was touched.  "I appreciate that I matter to you that much.  I know what you mean about never being able to finish anything.  When I was a kid, my parents put me in karate classes.  I got all the way to red belt, but I never went for the final test to make black belt.  That has defined my life.  I've spent my entire life as a red belt.  Which is why I resented you being made CEO of this company I've worked so hard to climb the ranks in.  I felt cheated out of my prize."
  "God, I'm so sorry.  I never even wanted to follow in my father's footsteps.  I didn't do very well in school.  The only way I was able to get through some of my classes in high school was by doing makeup work and extra credit.  I realize that I have taken on this whole attitude in life.  Makeup work is basically easy extra work that you do because you didn't do well at the prescribed objective.  For instance, to make up for having done poorly on a math test I would make up my grade by doing extra math problems as homework.  The problem lies in the fact that doing work at home with the book in no way gives you any indication of how well you know the material.  You're just doing it robotically like the book tells you to.  The real test would be to see how well you do with no one helping you and you have to know on your own how to solve a problem.
I would have no idea how to run this company."
  "I'm sure that if all this hadn't happened, you would have done a great job running this company.  I've seen what you can do when you set your mind to it.  You fought your way through a building full of the undead so that you could save my life.  You're also the one who successfully got your helicopter pilot license.  I wouldn't have been able to fly myself to a hospital."  Shavonte's body started to go into convulsions.  After a while, it went still and the wheeled chair rolled to the side.  Once his legs were suspended in the air, there was an audible crack as his neck broke.
  Kojira made his way past the undead and got to the roof of his father's building.  He boarded the helicopter and flew off, leaving his old life behind.

The Greater Number 3: The Simian Connection part 1

  "Alright, so there's a big old white furry ugly thang standing there staring at us.  Does that about sum up our current situation?" asked Liam Moor.
  No one else had anything to say.  They had been on the verge of cannibalism, but this new development had all of their attention.  Suddenly, Julianne said, "His name is Kohmos.  He is a Guardian of Shangri La.  He has taken care of the zombies in the area and he will now take us to the palace."
  "Lady, you're starting to freak me out, but since you're at it, why don't you ask if Cosmo here has any food at this palace of his so we don't have to eat Tom, Dick and Harry," remarked Liam.
  "There is food at the palace.  He is able to talk through me because I am pregnant and he is able to connect spiritually and psychically with my unborn child."
  Beau hadn't known yet about his wife's pregnancy.  He jumped in the air and let out a whoop of joy.  Of course, this was the weirdest thing any of them had ever seen.
  Darion asked, "Is this that Shangri La of legend, shaped like a lotus and hidden in the Himalayas?"
  "Naw, it's Shangri La, New Jersey, dumbass.  We're in the Himmies, yuh!  What I want to know is, how's he gonna get us to this magical city of blah blah blah," uttered Liam.
  In response, Kohmos picked up the back of the bus with his bare hands.
  "Wait, so this yeti dude is gonna drag us in this bus all the way there?" asked Liam.
  Again, in response to Liam's question, five other yeti appeared from the woods.  They took the bus, three to a side and carried it like pall bearers.  The six survivors loaded onto the bus and they were on their way.
  "All my life, I've always been the pall bearer, never the corpse.  Now I'm riding in style," said Liam.
  When the group got to the gates of the fabled city, the yeti put the bus down and opened the gate.  An ornately carved wood sign above the gate said, 'Love is all good people need'.  The survivors piled out and entered the walls of the city.  The first thing they noticed was that the people had bluish gray skin.
  The natives spoke through telepathy.  The six survivors were split up so that they could each have their individual needs.
  Julianne had been injured in the bus explosion.  She was taken to a room where there were three of the Shangri as she came to know them.  They had her lie down on a table.  The three Shangri began to sing.  They didn't sing through their mouths.  They had holes in the backs of their necks through which an airy whistling sound emitted.  As the three singers harmonized, Julianne could feel her wounds mending and soothing.  Before long, she was feeling stronger and was able to rise to a sitting position.
  In a different room, Darion was laid out on a table.  He had been shot by a guard at Xi'an.  He had lost a lot of blood and was not in good health.  The Shangri made a critical decision to transplant his heart with that of a yeti.  News of this caused quite a buzz among the Shangri.  They called the yeti, 'Guardians'.  Darion didn't know why the Shangri were so excited.  After the operation was completed, the three singers came into the room and before long, he was sitting up on the table.
  Suddenly, the double doors that led into the room opened and a table was wheeled in.  On the table was a Shangri who was dressed in elegant robes.  Through the language of the mind, Darion knew this was Shwama Po, the 31st king of Shangri La.
  Shwama Po reached out a hand and took Darion's hand in his.  "You are the one of whom the prophecy of Shambhala speaks.  You shall be known as Guardian Heart.  You are now the 32nd king of Shangri La and you shall save the world."  With that, Shwama Po withdrew his hand, exhaled, and never drew another breath.  Darion was left with a myriad of questions.