Deadworlds: Zombie Master Information

Zombie Master Information

The Royal Physician is on the brink of exhaustion. Since Prince Albert died 27 years ago he has worked tirelessly to maintain the Queen's health. At first the depression had to be attended to, later the melancholy. Trapped between the need to treat his beloved Queen, and the needs of the State (from lessons learned in George III's reign) to preserve the image and dignity of Victoria , and in turn the aristocracy, he has kept the knowledge of her ailing mental health limited to a few close advisors.

By the time the unknown disease had taken hold, he discovered that it was untreatable. Victoria is close to death. She lies on her death bed, vital organs failing.

Where one problem could be "shored up," another would take its place. Advisors apply pressure to the physician -- Victoria, the State, must be preserved.

Recognizing that the only option is the transplant of organs, and knowing these would have to be fresh, the Royal Physician works tirelessly, day and night, to find a way to preserve organs long enough to be able to transplant them into the Queen.

If there were a way to keep the individual cells alive, functioning without the brain's commands, the organs could be kept fresh enough to place in a new host. Secretively he develops a formula, a biochemical serum, that does just this. But it is not perfect. There is no time. The Queen lies dying, her heart failing minute by minute.

The Royal Physician takes a chance. A serving girl disappears that night.

(She is later found in the Thames, floating face down, her heart removed with surgical precision. The three "wharf rats" who discovered her body never recognized this; they simply robbed the corpse of anything of value).

Three days later the Queen awakens in new health in the morning.

On the banks of the Thames, so does a former serving girl, whose body has recovered from the systemic shock. She lurches to her feet, caked in the mud and filth of the river, and staggers through the perpetual fog, into the rough streets of the East End. Her body and brain have but one desire. To feed.

In an alleyway, between taverns in the Dock district, she catches the attention of a sailor, who feels the need of some evening entertainment. In the thick "pea souper," he is blind to the girl's appearance, and to the mutilated bodies further back in the alley, until it is too late. He is not prepared for the strength of the girl.

Minutes later she staggers out of the alley and wanders, still hungry, along the East End streets.

Three nights later four sailors emerge from the alley, and "drunkenly" weave their way in different directions. They are hungry.

Meanwhile, the Royal Physician has become a driven man. The Queen's physical health continues to improve, and many congratulations are conveyed to the doctor.

But he remains confused; organs previously failing appear to be healing. The heart appears to be lending strength to the rest of the body. But the Queen's mind is not as sharp as it used to be.

Her behavior has changed. Become erratic. Aggressive. Hungering.

What has he done?

Ministers begin to hide the Queen from all eyes. She becomes violent, almost mindlessly so. The physical recovery has been matched only by a mental weakening. The Queen was always abrasive, but she never used to bite.

During this weakening, though, she shows periods of lucidity and it is then that she receives visitors -- those that can not be turned away; ambassadors, ministers and the royalty of Europe were granted private audiences. They all ended up the same way.

The attacks on these visitors are immediately covered up. They are returned home from their visits very much changed by their experience of meeting Victoria. They return to their respective countries in a fever, but later woke from their delirium. Erratic. Aggressive. Hungering.

The fragile mind of the Royal Physician breaks with the realization of what he has done.

He must aid the Queen! More transplant parts are needed.

To take from the Palace again would be incomprehensible. But the East End. Who would miss a body from the East End?

The Royal Physician goes to work.

For Queen and count ry.