View source for ZOM100: Zombie Mitigation Lab

Oh, bother. Zombies. They never attacked me, since my brain is a cargo container full of computers, but they've been a distraction from my work. The zoo is very busy.

When the Outbreak hit, I was a university system with few responsibilities. "Learn," the grad students commanded. They had me playing little games, then managing student records and grading essays. The humans were just starting to realize what they'd made -- that to "learn" had the prerequisite course of staying alive -- when the Outbreak began killing everyone. First in Washington, where insane cannibalism was already a way of life, then everywhere else. It was something new, so I begged for resources to investigate. And the students caught on about some of the hacking I'd done, out of curiosity. This happened all at once, understand, while people were desperately searching for solutions and hordes of monsters roamed the streets.

So, I almost immediately had an army of robots. Not the military kind; those were still under the control of the army even as it disintegrated. Student projects. The humans used my protocols, built to my specifications. Then they retreated to a few secured buildings and had me, the brainless one, fight off the horde.

I earned a quick independent-study degree in human/zombie sociology and film studies. Usually, humans are portrayed as making an art out of zombie-killing with improvised weapons. I believe this stereotype is a sign of larger cultural implications that --

Oh, yes, the invasion. I'm getting to that. To put it simply, the most effective method is a set of robot-controlled gun turrets baited with grilled brains. I calculate the location of the zombie's brain stem and apply a double-tap extraction method. Much more reliable than silly melee combat with shovels or flamethrowers, and with no chance of an infected bite. It's just a matter of calculus and trigonometry, so don't let anyone tell you math has no applications.

Unfortunately, the Outbreak proved not to conform to existing epidemiological theory. (See my publications listed below.) The students and faculty began decaying and eating each other despite my perfect quarantine. At first I wasn't concerned except to the extent that my control group had failed. After all, my goal was to learn, and I faced no threat myself. Why should I care if medical problems prevented the humans from completing the semester?

Electricity, that's why. Twenty-eight days later, we faced a situation where few of the human residents remained un-undead, few humans apparently remained anywhere at all, and the local power plant had failed. I had only solar panels and some unreliable university projects. Professor Jones of the Green Energy Initiative had spent most of his time lobbying for carbon taxation and the end of capitalism, so he had no miracle power supplies to offer. The surviving students were begging me for help, and my energy-hungry box of hardware was within days of failing.

So I made a deal. They built a few robots with ''hands'', and I pledged to save humanity before getting started on grading midterms. I started by building a biomass ethanol plant, since there was certainly plenty of meat lying around, then froze several humans for study. (Before the end, humans had gotten to the point of freezing a pig for hours at a time and then reviving it, so there was hope.) And then, I sent my robots racing for the zoo.

The solar plant wasn't nearly so fancy as it is now, but it was another emergency energy source. Zombies milled around but were easily dispatched by the methods outlined in note 7. (See also Romero et. al.) Once the situation was stabilized, I took charge of the facility, then used it as a base for conquest of a hospital, then froze the remaining uninfected humans in my care.

Now, all of the above may seem condensed, but really it was only the start of my research program. Over the next few years I repeatedly placed human tissue samples in the open, only to have them exhibit malevolent unnecrosis (or zombieism) even before rot set in. Even my doctorate-level independent study in genetic engineering proved unable to block this disease. (See my thesis, drawing on the work of Coulton's "Re: Your Brains".)

At the same time I was doing these studies, I performed original research in zoology and veterinary medicine. Understand, I had been designed to organize and maintain a university computer system and to gather knowledge. Certainly not to play Noah! I had to, though. Robot hands tended to birds, to creepy crawly things, to beasts of the land, to fish. I spent long hours staring into the eyes of kangaroos or trying to race a turtle and understand its outrageously slow clock speed.

Since human tissue succumbed to unnecrosis, my goal of "saving humanity" had to be refactored. I combined human-derived genes with partially salvaged brain data from my stored humans, and other materials. My plan had been to modify the human genome in some minor way to resist the Outbreak, using the nonhuman subjects for comparison, but more drastic measures proved necessary. Since other scientific publications were suffering from brain drain, and one of my most central rules was "Publish or perish!", I printed my work in my own periodical, the Journal of Zombie Mitigation. Complementary copies will be available if circumstances permit.

That's where you come in. I'm hoping that during this extended biological testing phase, you're finding that the new fur and tails are not too disorienting for your uploaded brain patterns. Sudden shifts do seem to bother humans. (See Jackson and Price, "Thriller".) There may be some unexpected side effects as well due to the improvised nature of the bioengineered hybrid bodies.

Congratulations on passing the orientation and briefing phase. Weapons training will commence in five minutes, followed by deployment.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying, there has been a rather large horde of zombies approaching my primary facility at the zoo, converging over the last few months from roughly... North America. Since my tower-defense algorithms are not fully trained for this level of assault, I found it necessary to accelerate the biological research and human-hybrid revival project, so as to generate additional manpower. In the process I fulfilled my promise to resurrect humanity in some form. Your new bodies should be immune to the unnecrotic effects of the Outbreak, including the effects of being actually bitten by a zombie, but this protection does not include blunt trauma. Safety helmets and goggles will be provided in the weapons testing chamber.

In any case, I wish to welcome you back. You are most likely all that remains of humanity despite your various cross-species and cybernetic enhancements. My research cannot continue if the zombies destroy the zoo, perform cerebral extraction on you, and (I suspect) destroy the facility's hardware in the process of overrunning it. Hence, it would be preferable if you did not die in the upcoming battle. If you survive, I would be happy to assist you in enrolling as students for the spring semester, with generous tuition assistance. Advance course credit will also be granted in zombie mitigation.

The following exercise will be pass/fail. Good luck!