Chapter 99: Anarchy

The vase shattered against the wall beside Peter’s bed.

Porcelain exploded outward in a violent spray, shards skidding across the infirmary floor.

“YOU FAT PIECE OF SHIT!!! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!”

Jane’s scream ripped through the room, raw and animal.

Peter didn’t stir.

He lay motionless beneath thin white sheets, chest rising and falling in slow, mechanical rhythm — blissfully unaware of the chaos detonating inches from his head.

Jane lunged toward him.

Josephine caught her just in time, fingers locking around her wrists before another object could be hurled.

“Jane—Jane, please,” Josephine pleaded, struggling to keep her steady. “Getting angry at your husband won’t solve anything. He had nothing to do with this.”

Jane fought her grip for a moment longer.

Then something in her broke.

Her knees hit the floor.

The sound was softer than the vase breaking. Somehow worse.

Tears flooded her face, uncontrollable, blurring everything. Her hands clutched at Josephine’s coat, fingers twisting into the fabric as if she were drowning.

“My one and only daughter…” she choked. “How could—”

Her breath hitched violently.

“How could you people let this happen…?”

Silence spread across the infirmary.

Hale stood near the supply cabinet, arms crossed tight against his chest, jaw clenched so hard the muscle twitched. Carl lingered near the doorway, his expression rigid but distant — already thinking three steps ahead. A few others stood scattered along the walls, avoiding Jane’s eyes.

No one had an answer.

“She’s all alone out there,” Jane sobbed. “She doesn’t know how to fight. She’s never— she’s—”

The sentence collapsed under its own weight.

Josephine knelt with her now, brushing hair from Jane’s damp face, whispering reassurances that sounded hollow even to her own ears.

Carl finally cleared his throat.

It was a small sound.

But it cut through everything.

“If I may, Mrs. McNally…”

Jane’s eyes lifted — red, swollen, unfocused.

Carl stepped forward slowly, careful, like approaching a wounded animal.

“I’m willing to bet she left with our friend, Aubrey. We haven’t seen her around either.”

A beat.

“She’s in safe hands,” he continued, voice steady. “I can guarantee you that much.”

He glanced briefly at Hale before looking back at her.

“She knows what she’s doing out there.”

Jane searched his face — desperate for something to hold onto.

But in truth, Carl wasn’t sure that he trusted even his own words.

—

The burlap sacks were ripped off in one violent motion.

Light flooded Isabella’s vision.

She flinched hard.

Cold air clawed at her damp skin, slipping beneath her clothes, needling into her bones. Her cheeks were stiff with dried tear tracks. Her lips trembled. She didn’t lift her head.

Aubrey did.

Slowly.

Measured.

Her face didn’t move — but her eyes did.

They had been tied up, hands bound behind their backs, kneeling down before basins that were stained with dry blood.

So did a line of other faces exactly like hers, kneeling figures stretching down the length of the concrete room.

Something twisted in her chest.

“…This was a fucking mistake. I should’ve never stopped for you.” Aubrey spat.

Isabella continued to tremble, her head down.

“Oh, stop your damn whining. We’re gonna get through this…”

Nothing.

Aubrey glanced sideways at her.

Then she scoffed.

“Knew this was a mistake bringing you.” she muttered under her breath.

Just then, individuals burst from the door.

Several, unhurried boots.

The first man at the end of the line trembled violently, tears falling uncontrollably as despair began to weigh on him.

“What the hell is going on..?” Aubrey whispered,

But she already knew

The men who entered carried machetes, butcher knives, wore aprons that were still stiff with blood stains, and most of all—

That sadistic glare you could only get from an infected, red veins spiderwebbing through the whites, the color of molten amber plastered into the corner of their eyes.

That was the real tell.

The trembling man at the end of the line started sobbing openly now.

“I don’t wanna die—I don’t wanna die—I don’t wanna—”

A hand grabbed his hair, forcing his head back.

Then the blade flashed once.

Quick.

Efficient.

A wet sound split the air.

His body jerked — then collapsed forward.

Blood poured into the basin beneath him, thick and heavy, filling the metal bowl with a dark, spreading pool.

The person kneeling next to him was splattered in red.

He let out a choked, broken scream.

The line shifted.

Not forward.

But inward — people curling into themselves, as if shrinking might make them invisible.

Aubrey had front row seats to it all as an unwilling participant.

—

My fingers dragged beneath my nose.

Wet.

Warm.

I blinked slowly and pulled my hand back into view.

Blood.

It ran dark across my knuckles before dripping onto the concrete between my boots.

“You alright, son?” Mark asked.

He lowered himself into the chair across from me like he was approaching unstable equipment.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “It just happens when I—”

I stopped.

The fuck was I supposed to say?

When the override kicks in too hard? When my nervous system burns through itself? When the incomplete lattice embedded in my skull tries to rewrite signals faster than my body can handle?

He wouldn’t understand.

Most people wouldn’t.

I wiped the blood on my sleeve.

“It’s nothing.”

It wasn’t nothing.

It happened after heavy use. After sustained combat. After the calculations stack too high.

The backup they sent had been predictable.

Men trained to intimidate, not adapt.

Tripwire at the side entrance.

Pressure plate near the stairwell.

Collapsed shelving rigged to drop once the second man crossed the threshold.

Once they were disoriented—

The Lattice did the rest. Angles. Breathing rhythms. Weapon arcs. Reaction delays.

Clean.

Efficient.

Over.

But the cost always came after.

Pressure behind my eyes.

Metallic taste in my mouth.

The faint hum at the base of my skull like something trying to stay online.

I should’ve left after I helped them the second time.

I didn’t.

No — that’s a lie.

I knew exactly why I stayed.

“Tell me what else you know about this Amber Society,” I said. “Everything.”

Mark exhaled slowly.

He looked older than he had an hour ago.

“I was one of many doctors assigned to cure the infection couple months ago before the surge,” he began. “At first, I thought I had something. A mitigation. Something to dull it.”

His hands folded together.

“But I didn’t cure them.”

His voice dropped.

“I gave them teeth.”

I remained silent.

“It started with my first daughter,” Mark continued. “She was the first infected I ever treated up close. When it’s family… the incentive changes.”

My eyes shifted to Agnes.

She avoided them.

She wasn’t an only child then?

He swallowed.

“Eventually I developed ZP-20.”

“Amber,” I said.

He nodded.

“I was happy. She stabilized. Cognition returned. Motor control improved. For a while… she was almost normal.”

Almost.

“I eventually went on to treat other infected, the ones I was able to…”

“That’s pretty dangerous for an old man like you to do.” I quickly said.

“When you have something that you think can fix a broken world, you’ll do anything you can to put it out. Even if it means putting your own life in danger.” He responded.

“That was my first mistake.” He said after a breath. I frowned.

“Most came back,” he said quietly. “The infected. They wanted more. They even started passing the drug along to other infected. Recruiting, as they’d say…”

Like some kind of sick religion.

“Same thing they did to your friend,” he added carefully.

My jaw tightened.

My eyes drifted toward the car parked outside the barricade.

She was locked inside.

Contained.

For now.

I’d check on her soon.

But I needed this first.

“Their civilization,” Mark said, “isn’t structured. It’s closer to anarchy. The symptoms are suppressed, but the urges remain.”

“Meaning?” I asked.

“They hunt people,” he said plainly. “Not just to feed. For sport. They bring them back. They ritualize it. Cannibalize them.”

A pause.

“They think.”

That was the difference.

I leaned back slightly.

“So what makes them different from baseline infected?” I asked. “The ones without Amber.”

Mark hesitated.

“The baseline kill because they’re driven by impulse,” he said. “Amber users kill because they choose to.”

That landed heavier than I expected.

“They’re more creative,” he continued. “More organized. It isn’t chaos to them. It’s tradition. It’s status. It’s a high.”

A high.

Addiction layered over infection.

The Lattice flickered faintly — not activating, just analyzing.

An organized cannibal society.

Recruitment structure.

Drug dependency.

Unknown leadership.

Supply chain vulnerability.

There’s always a hierarchy.

There’s always someone above the visible head.

“Who’s at the top?” I asked.

Mark didn’t answer immediately.

He looked at the blood still drying on my sleeve.

“People who understand that control isn’t about curing the infection,” he said quietly.

“It’s about managing it.”

Silence settled between us.

Outside, wind scraped against the siding.

Inside, the hum at the base of my skull grew faintly louder.

Amber doesn’t cure monsters. It refines them.

And someone out there was distributing refinement like currency.

I stood up, something settling in my chest.

Yet, before I could say anything else— the car skidded forward. The one with Lila inside.

For half a second, my brain refused to process it.

Then it painfully clicked.

My eyes widened as I saw it speed off.

“Lila…?”

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