Despite his internal musings, he remained silent as he started to jog alongside her. She looked over at him and smiled briefly as she continued her circuit on the machine. They ran like that for a while before Reece finally got the nerve to speak.

“I wanted to thank you,” he finally managed to say.

“For what?”

Honestly, for having my back through all this craziness. You’ve come to mean a lot to me. I hope you know that.”

Aika seemed mildly irritated before bringing her treadmill to a complete stop. She turned and faced Reece directly. She had a matter-of-fact, yet somehow challenging look on her face. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail to keep it out of her face while she jogged, and she had small rivulets of sweat dripping from her scalp down the contours of her neck. The tank-top she was wearing clung to her body from the sweat, but she didn’t seem to notice how exposed she was to him. Reece was both apprehensive and excited at the same time.

“So, what are you going to do about it?” she asked as she continued to stare into his eyes questioningly.

Reece took the not-so-subtle hint and stopped his own treadmill. Making up his mind, he stepped over to hers. She was so close. He felt nervous but excited. His desire took control and he leaned into her, kissing her full on the mouth. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. Her lips felt soft, warm, and wonderful, yet his anxiety over what her reaction would be overwhelmed much of the pleasantness of the kiss.

After an eternity, she returned his kiss and it was like a dam broke. Reece’s passion flooded forth, washing away the awful feeling of anxiety. Only the kiss and the warmth of her body remained. He pulled her into him, and she wrapped her hands around his head. Her passion matched his own. Needing to come up for air, she pulled away from him and took a deep breath before a smile formed on her face. The smile didn’t make it all the way to her eyes, however. Those had a wicked, almost predatory look in them.

“It’s about freaking time,” she growled before leaning back in and kissing him with more than just passion. It felt like a wanton, lustful, long-overdue need that she was finally being allowed to meet.

“You’re…so…dense,” she sighed between kisses. They stayed like that for a long time before she dragged him to the gym’s bathroom where they enjoyed a nice long couple’s shower. They finished their shower and retired to the women’s barracks where they enjoyed each other until exhaustion finally overcame them and they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

His strange dreams had continued, but this one was a little different. He was traveling through a desert with nothing but sand in every direction. He knew he had been traveling like this for weeks with no water in sight when he finally came across an oasis. A line of palm trees ran down from a darker-hued dune and formed a ring around a large clear blue pool of water. He tentatively approached, fearing it would disappear. When it didn’t, he bent down at the edge of the pool and scooped up a handful of water, sniffing it. It smelled fine so he tasted it. It was cool and refreshing. He drank deeply, putting his face in the water to drink as much as he could. More than merely slaking his thirst, he felt energy coursing through his body.

When he awoke sometime later, he felt like a new man. He found Aika in the mess hall having some breakfast, so he joined her. He sat down next to her with an apple and fried potatoes and she greeted him with a kiss before returning to her plate of mashed potatoes and fresh scrambled eggs. As Reece took his first bite of the apple, Pasha rushed into the mess hall. He had bags under his eyes and his hair was splayed out in several directions. He looked like he’d been up all night. Despite that, he was smiling and had a gleam in his eyes. He seemed more excited than they’d ever seen him.

“I’ve hit the motherload!” he exclaimed.

“What do you mean?” asked Aika confused.

“Pasha’s been pouring over that backup drive that you guys recovered yesterday,” Reece answered for the crazed-looking man.

“What did you find?” asked Aika, suddenly interested.

“I know what the serum does. I know where they found it. I know what they were doing up here. And I know some of the people they’ve been talking to and where they are holed up on the surface. And there’s more. A lot more, especially about that black rock, the nightcore,” explained Pasha excitedly.

“Okay, you aren’t kidding, are you?” asked Reece, feeling a rush of excitement grab him as well.

“Oh no,” Pasha called over his shoulder as he grabbed a couple of slices of bread and spread peanut butter on them. “Pardon me, I’m starving.”

Reece and Aika waited patiently for the ravenous man to finish making his dinner. It didn’t take long.

“So, get this,” he said through bites of his hastily constructed peanut butter sandwich. “The commander is part of some group called the Order of the Purifiers, but they seem to just go by the Order. They’ve been experimenting with the nightcore, using it to change the properties of certain chemicals somehow. Apparently, they don’t even understand it. They figured out how to control people’s minds, increase their physical abilities and even bring people back from the dead. The problem for them is that there are serious issues with all of it. This plague that turns people into zombies was being developed up here...on this station."

"They were trying to create a compliant workforce without the need for food or rest," said Pasha, continuing his explanation. "Can you imagine the gall? They clearly hadn’t finished developing the serum because the results are more than horrific. Now, what's even more interesting is this; the nightcore supposedly can activate dormant traits in regular humans that have subhuman ancestors in their family tree. This seems to be a totally different branch of research, but most of the files are encrypted. On top of that, none of them seem to know where the nightcore came from or what it really is. Now, I won’t pretend to understand what half of all that means, but it's nice to finally be getting answers after all this time, right?”

He sat down with the couple and finished his sandwich.

“Okay, you’ve got to come with me now. I’ll show you everything I’ve found,” added Pasha as he sucked peanut butter off his fingers.

He quickly cleaned up and they followed him to control. Once there, he logged into the main console. From it, he showed them everything he had discovered so far on the backup drive. Detailed files listing test subjects, experiments, chemical compounds, maps of the Earth, and numerous others scrolled across one monitor.

On the other were dozens of images; a blue liquid, zombie rats, human injections, and even a grainy video that seemed to come from a cell phone. It had captured a man staggering out of the woods and grabbing a passing woman. The man looked hideously diseased as he bit her neck, spraying blood all over the ground. There was no sound to any of it, so Pasha narrated it all.

“The serum supposedly links the minds of the those injected with it. In addition, it causes the zombies to ignore those who get the injections,” said Pasha as he continued to enlighten his crewmates through the narration. “It also protects them from something called the haze. It’s some sort of gas they apparently released all over the planet shortly after the outbreak started. It’s supposed to render any human male that breaths it in, completely sterile."

"Don't you see," he continued. "They wanted to ensure that the future of all humanity would come from themselves alone. That’s where things go sideways for this group. The haze also made most of the humans inflicted with it, almost mindless upon undeath. They never considered the effects of the haze when testing the serum on dead bodies. Instead of a compliant workforce of regular people, they got rotting corpses that are only interested in eating the living.”

“So, this whole plague was developed up here and got out when the shuttle, Hermes, crashed into the Florida everglades,” concluded Reece.

It certainly seems so,” agreed Pasha. “But I’ve got a bit of good news. This Order has headquarters and safehouses all over the world and this hard drive shows the locations of most of them. Now, they need this nightcore to finish their serum. I guess it’s lucky you found it first. The last few entries were rushed and never got encrypted, so I’ve got a good idea of what they’re trying to do. They want to find a way to control the infected and keep them alive at the same time. They’re just as horrified as we are by the prospect of the cannibalistic rotting corpses.”

Pasha took a deep breath when he finished explaining it all. Aika and Reece just tried to process the prolonged and wild explanation.

“If there is some sort of a resistance to these evil bastards, they’ll need this information,” stated Pasha. “We need to get this data to the ground and find some remnants of humanity that have survived the plague running rampant down there. These evil fucks did all of this to create a workforce that they wouldn’t need to feed, clothe, pay, or care for. The elitists of the world finally figured out a way of completely controlling the masses. No more worry of revolts, riots, or protests. Just nice docile servants that always do what they’re told. And they are so saturated with nepotism, that they decided that only they should be able to have children...just as Aldo wrote in those journal entries.”

Reece narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t know people could be so callously evil.”

“This is sick,” added Aika. “I agree with Pasha, we need to do something about this.”

“I think we are all of one mind here,” agreed Reece. “Pasha, if you would start using the long-range comms on a regular basis. See if anyone down there is still listening. I’ll get to work repairing Shuttle Wisdom. But there’s something I want to do first. Aika, I could use your help to get the repairs done more quickly.”

“Ahh, and it’s not even my birthday,” she teased. “Yeah, of course, I’ll help you. All you had to do was ask.”

They all nodded to each other and got to work with a new sense of purpose.

Reece began his work repairing the shuttle, Wisdom. The work was intricate and time-consuming and every time he had a breakthrough, he ended up with three setbacks. Still, he soldiered on for himself and his crewmates. It was the only thing left to give them hope of ever reaching the ground. Aika was there, helping every step of the way. Her assistance made things go much quicker and allowed them to speak in private whenever they desired.

“Reece…something’s been bothering me for a while now. I need to know…what took you so long to make a move? Was it because of what we did with Naeva? Did you think badly of me?” asked Aika one day when they had been working on Wisdom together for several hours.

Reece finished screwing down the connector he had been working on while he pondered his answer. Looking over at her she had her head down and was looking at him while unconsciously biting her lip. She looked incredibly attractive to him. He took a deep breath to collect his thoughts before responding.

“First, no, I never thought badly of you for what we did. It was amazing and you’re an amazing woman and I have all the respect in the world for you. But honestly, I valued your friendship very much and after losing it for so long before, I didn’t want to risk losing it again. I guess I was scared that you really didn’t feel the same way and I would ruin our relationship.”

“Really?” asked Aika incredulously. “How did you not know I wanted more from you? I thought that having sex with you would have clued you in.”

“Yeah,” agreed Reece, chuckling. “In hindsight, I was pretty oblivious. In my defense, our lives have become insanity in a blender.”

“Insanity in a blender, huh?” laughed Aika.

“Yeah,” explained Reece. “I just don’t think regular old insanity really does justice to what has happened ever since I arrived here.”

“Okay...Well, I like it,” replied Aika as she mulled it over, repeating the saying to herself as if checking it into her head for later use.

“So…I have a confession to make myself,” added Aika. “I need to apologize for scorning you for all those months. When we first met, I felt an attraction to you. Later, when we had that long talk for the first time, I started falling for you. When Naeva and you became an item, I was jealous and angry and wanted nothing to do with you because it hurt too much to be around you. Now, I realize that I lost months of your friendship and that pains me even more.”

“Aika…I suspected as much…but I was with Naeva by the time I had a clue. Look…for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. You were right before; I am dense sometimes. Now, all I can do is make every moment with you count from this moment forward. Whether it be as friends or as more. And I for one want more, but I will settle for your friendship if that’s all you want to give.”

“All I want to give?” Aika laughed mockingly. “You dolt. I’ll show you all I want to give.”

Aika stretched her body sensuously into the cockpit with Reece and kissed him with all the passion she had in her body as she pressed it up against his. Reece’s skin was instantly on fire as they pressed together. The flimsy tank tops they each wore provided almost no barrier to the heat of their passion. The garments were soon removed and forgotten.

Reece completely forgot the control panel that they had been working to repair. They didn’t make any progress on the damaged shuttle for the rest of the day. They were more engrossed with each other. Eventually, they fell asleep in the captain’s chair. Each wrapped in the other’s arms with Aika’s face nestled comfortably in the crook of Reece’s neck.

The dreams came again, but this time they were different. Darkness was replaced with celebration. For once, it was an entirely pleasant dream. At least, that’s all Reece could remember of it.

The following day they got back to work, and the repairs seemed to go smoother. Maybe it was because they were just in a better mood. Regardless, they worked well together. The demolished console was mostly repaired after a quick couple of weeks. They started to reach the more difficult repairs that Reece had been putting off in favor of making progress.

As they made the repairs, their forward momentum slowed considerably. Despite that, they happily kept toiling away at it, making progress wherever they could. He and Aika had been working on Wisdom for a couple of months. It was halfway through one of their workdays when Pasha came running into the airlock. He was a welcome sight. Aika and Reece were going over Wisdom’s schematics for the hundredth time, and they could use a break.

“I’ve finally gotten into contact with someone on the ground!” he yelled with joyful excitement.

The two of them immediately dropped what they were doing and ran after Pasha as he led them back to control. As they entered the module, they could hear a voice calling out over the long-range comms console speakers.

“Does anyone copy? We heard your broadcast. Hello, is anyone there? Over.”

Pasha jumped on the console, donned the headset, and activated the microphone.

“We copy you,” replied Pasha. “Who is this?”

“My name is Micah,” came the reply. “We were helping a group of government folks with satellite equipment attempt to set up a communications channel on board this aircraft carrier. Is this Zhengzhou Station? Uh, over.”

Pasha looked back at Reece and Aika, who both shrugged.

“I can’t see how it would hurt to tell them who we are,” announced Aika. “It’s not like they can do anything to us up here.”

“Don’t mention the nightcore,” cut in Reece abruptly with the afterthought.

“Both good points,” replied Pasha as he got back on the comms. “This is Pasha Novak, aboard International Space Station Mark XXVI, code name: Zhengzhou. It sounds like you were with our Ground Control buddies. How are they fairing? Over.”

“Good to meet you, Pasha,” came the reply. “Unfortunately, we’ve had a rough time with all the infected attacks, not to mention some of the other...beings that have started popping up. Look, we can talk about that later. Some of your fellows on the ground here indicated that part of this plague started from your space station. They also said if anyone was still alive up there, they may be able to shed some light on what is happening down here. Please tell us you know something. Over.”

“Well,” replied Pasha proudly. “We just so happen to know quite a bit, actually...and are more than happy to share. Over.”

A few muffled yips and cheers could be heard over the comms.

“That is the best news we’ve heard in months, replied Micah. "Please, tell us what you’ve got. We’re taking notes... oh, Over.”

With nods of approval from Aika and Reece, Pasha began relaying all that he had discovered to the remnants of Ground Control. They were shocked by all that the crew had uncovered. The information answered many questions that the ground crew had about the plague and its beginnings.

“So, this whole zombie apocalypse popped up because some rich pricks wanted to take away our free will?” replied Micah, asking the question rhetorically. “If that’s the case, it seems like we need to do something about it. Over.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much how we feel too,” replied Pasha. “On that note, I do have some good news. We have the locations of numerous bases for this Order complete with GEOs, err...geographic coordinates. Do you have a mem-pad ready? Over.”

“All the time,” replied Micah almost immediately. “Go ahead. Over.”

Pasha went on to relay several of the Order’s bases of operation.

“We’ll definitely be putting that to good use, you have our word,” stated Micah. “I guess we owe you all some intel in return, though I don’t know if we can give you the same value. This whole thing began shortly after your shuttle, Hermes, had crashed into the Everglades of Florida. The first of the infected had started spreading from there. Within weeks, similar reports started coming in from all over the world. It seemed as if the release of the first plague was a signal for the Order’s bases to all start their own plagues."

"It made the spread virtually impossible to stop," continued Micah. "Even with the combined might of all our armed forces. We’ve no idea if this was the plan all along, or if the other Order branches jumped the gun when the first release got out in Florida. We all figure it was a mistake since none of us could fathom how a zombie apocalypse would benefit anyone. It wasn’t long before the entire world had been overrun. Only a few scattered pockets of humanity had managed to evade the hordes of Z’s. By the way, we’ve been calling the infected a bunch of names; zombies, ghouls, crazies, Zed, or just Z’s for short.”

“Yeah, we were aware of most of that already, but thanks anyway. It’s just good to have a 'friendly' on the ground,” replied Pasha.

“No worries, mate," replied Micah. "We do have a bit more info. There had been rumors of late that huge and massively obese zombies had been spotted among the larger hordes. Oh, and many survivors have taken to ships, boats, and the like to escape the hordes by turning to the seas and lakes of the world. They’ve been frequently scavenging cities and towns near the water to keep themselves supplied. Also, I’m not sure if you knew this, but animals were also affected by this scourge."

"These things are much more cunning than the human types and are fast and vicious," warned Micah. "They’re also a lot bigger than before they were infected. You need to watch your six around those. They’re no joke. Now, reports varied wildly with regards to the human infected’s mannerisms. Some seem to be much faster and stronger than people, while others are about the same. On the upside, there are some that are much slower and weaker. They seem to travel in groups, though lone zeds are sometimes found as well. Not that any of that will be of much help to you guys up there. If we think of anything that could be of use to you, we’ll be sure to let you know. Over.”

All in all, the information exchange was successful for both sides and they agreed to keep in contact at least once per day for the foreseeable future. Pasha continued to scour the logs, video files, and comm’s messages for anything pertinent to their situation or the situation on the ground. The more intel they could recover, the better prepared they would be for whatever may come.

Aika and Reece assisted him when they weren’t too busy. Pasha was usually glad for the assistance, but he didn’t mind doing it on his own either. He seemed to have a feverish desire to learn everything he could about the plague and the conspiracy that led to it.

One day, Reece’s curiosity got the better of him.

“So, Pasha, you seem to be really into solving this whole mystery. May I ask where the motivation is coming from? I could use some myself,” he asked.

“Well, you wouldn’t know this, but I nearly joined the Police of the Czech Republic and had even completed three semesters at Prague’s Institute of Criminology before applying and being selected for my country’s sophomore astronaut program, he confided. “I wanted to be a detective and had always loved reading mysteries and detective stories as a child. The way I look at it; we’re now involved in solving one of the greatest criminal conspiracies in the history of the world.”

“I see,” replied Reece thoughtfully. “You’re absolutely right. That'll definitely be a huge chapter in the history archives, assuming there will still be history archives. Thanks for sharing. I’ll leave you to it unless you need any more help.”

“Nah, I’m good,” answered Pasha. “You have your hands full with that shuttle and your girlfriend.”

“Fair enough,” laughed Reece. He started walking away but waved over his shoulder. “Take care.”

For Aika and Reece, they were fine with Pasha’s preference to work the mystery himself. It gave them more time to spend together gardening, training, working, and doing other things. Reece came to realize that the trio of crewmembers had become a family in solidarity over the enormity of the situation that was thrust upon them. He felt that they were lucky that their personalities worked so well together. Another crew might have been at each other’s throats having to work and live together in such close confines.

Of course, Reece knew this was all part of the astronaut’s selection process. It involved personality tests to filter out those that couldn’t handle these kinds of high-stress and close-proximity situations. He knew they were all the best fit that their respective countries could hope to muster for this job. Still, the astronauts each had their bad days, but it was important that they did a good job of not allowing those days to be defining ones and to learn to get over the small stuff. Reece truly believed that in the end, it was all small stuff compared to the world they would soon have to face head-on, together.