Chapter 32: POV - The Shepherd
Dr. Lucian Kael walked through the ruins of downtown New Havenburg as if he were strolling through his own private garden. The infected, his children, his flock, parted before him. They did not see him as prey. They did not see him as a threat. They did not see him at all. To them, he was simply an extension of the same force that now animated their limbs, the same signal that had replaced their thoughts. He was the source of the music they all danced to.
He moved with a strange, newfound confidence. The stooped, anxious posture of the scientist was gone, replaced by the upright, steady gait of a leader. He had established a new laboratory, a new nexus, in the penthouse suite of the city’s tallest skyscraper. From there, he could see everything. He could feel everything.
His connection to the Kael Strain had grown exponentially in the days since the outbreak. It was no longer a faint, subtle pull. It was a symphony. He could feel the thrum of thousands, tens of thousands, of his creations moving through the city. Each one was an instrument, and he was the conductor.
From his vantage point, he observed a phenomenon that brought him a deep, profound sense of satisfaction. A great migration was underway. From every corner of the blighted city, his flock was converging. They were moving with a slow, inexorable purpose towards the city’s main artery: Interstate 95. It was a river of his children, flowing together, consolidating their numbers. He saw it not as chaos, but as the emergence of a new, beautiful, and terrible order.
He closed his eyes, extending his consciousness, his will, across the city. He could feel their collective, singular mind. Hunger. Movement. Sound. These were the simple, driving principles of their existence. He was beginning to learn how to manipulate those principles.
He focused on a particularly large group, a tide of several thousand that was moving through the financial district. A distant car alarm, set off by a collapsing piece of debris, began to blare. The sound was a discordant note in his symphony. He felt the horde’s attention shift towards it, a ripple of instinct.
Kael smiled. He decided to test the limits of his growing control. He did not want them to go towards the alarm. He wanted them to continue their path to the highway. He focused his will, not with a command, but with a gentle, persistent "nudge." He imagined a stronger sound, a more compelling scent, in the direction of the interstate. He projected the idea of a greater concentration of prey, a more satisfying hunt.
He felt the resistance, the pull of their base instincts towards the immediate noise. But his will was stronger. He watched, both through his own eyes and through the collective sense of the flock, as the great wave of bodies hesitated, then slowly, deliberately, turned away from the car alarm and resumed its inexorable march towards the highway. The feeling was intoxicating. It was the purest form of power he had ever known.