The blonde Swedish bombshell, Emily Karlsson, decides the time has come to let everyone in on the secret...

A/N: I don't do this often, but I am going to quote a section from a previous chapter at the beginning that I really recommend you read in full before continuing. I had been setting up these plot seeds for a long time now, but since it has been 3 years since I posted that chapter, even with the reveals, the more subtle implications written there have not been repeated or elaborated on much since; this chapter from Emily Karlsson's POV is probably going to seem to really come out of left field unless you refresh your memory.

So, with that warning out of the way, get ready for the beginning of the next stage of the story, the part where we start to explore more about the nature of the zombie, the creation of the marker, how it works and why, and to answer a very important related question: if both of those seemingly supernatural or at least sci-fi plot elements can exist in this branch, then what else is technically possible? Well...read to find out, I guess.

But first, the quoted passage from chapter 53 (link for the full chapter here: https://chyoa.com/chapter/Meanwhile%2C-Swedish-Reservist-Emily-Karlsson-is-wondering-what-was-that-spy-up-to.1460860):

"So...what does that mean?" Allen asked softly but clearly intrigued. "Were your parents not really your parents? And if so, was there a classified reason to keep you in the dark, even if it wasn't a good one?"

"Oh, there was a reason alright," You said with a sigh. "But no, they actually were my real parents. That wasn't the part of the DNA analysis that was throwing me off until I learned what it actually meant."

There was a moment of silence, and Allen could sense the tension in your body language; you were sure. But soon, he turned back from staring at the horizon for more walkers.

"Alright, I will bite," he said. "What did it actually mean?"

You swallowed, knowing that it was a sensitive subject that had a way of making you feel guilty even though, objectively, you knew it wasn't actually your fault. But you had gone this far while trying to vent, so you might as well cross the finish line. Still...

"Promise not to tell this to anyone else until after I tell our owner?" You whispered. "I would rather he hear it from me first."

"Of course," Allen said with a firm nod. "I promise."

"Well, then here it goes," you muttered quickly, as if trying to rip off a Band-Aid. "Turns out, I was part of a highly classified and probably illegal breeding program. And my parents were actually twins that were originally separated at birth."

As expected, the construction worker's jaw almost dropped to the floor, looking shocked. You sighed heavily at that, feeling self-conscious yet again.

"Well...that's something you don't hear every day," Allen finally said after finding his voice. "But..."

"But why?" You asked in a tone of helpful sarcasm.

He nodded. You shrugged in response, not feeling ready to be completely honest with him yet. Still, you could not just leave him hanging after that, so you opted to give him something.

"I don't actually know all the details," You replied, which was true enough. "But I have figured out a few things. It turns out, when my...only grandmother was pregnant with both of my parents, she was near enough to Chernobyl when the nuclear meltdown happened that spilled the radiation in the immediate surroundings. But for some strange reason, they eventually realized that her kids were not only born healthy despite their proximity to the nuclear fallout but also quite strong and fit. DNA tests on them were eventually made when they were back in Sweden, and some higher-ups from the Cold War era were apparently intrigued enough by their resistance to radiation that they found in their mutated genes that they decided to keep a close eye on them from afar and in separate environments, which is why my parents grew up without knowing they had a twin."

You gave Allen a moment to process your words. His eyes were wide. "Jeez, talk about stumbling into a secret plot," He said, shocked. "Why would they even want to do this?"

You sighed. "The ever-present threat and fear of nuclear war back in the Cold War gave governments and intelligence agencies the incentive to explore plans and possibilities that they normally would not have seriously entertained all over the world. In my parents' case, it seems that they were initially trying to figure out why it is that my parents were born so resistant to radiation to see if it could be replicated on a massive scale. But while they found some promising data when studying their genes, they decided they needed to experiment even more to find a greater...combination of results," You added as you pursed your lips.

"So," You went on, "my parents were eventually set up by this classified faction in the hopes they would fall in love with each other. And since they did not know that they were actually twins that were separated at birth, that plan worked like a charm because they never developed the Westermarck effect that usually makes kids desensitized in terms of sexual attraction to family members they had grown up with. As a result, they succumbed to the process that some psychologists call genetic sexual attraction. And so...here I am."

Emily Karlsson's POV:

You guide Allison by the elbow as you step out of apartment 4B, feeling the tension radiating off her slim frame. The hallway stretches before you in both directions, washed in the pale flicker of lights that have remained turned on all week, most likely. Your boots scuff against the linoleum, and you keep your rifle angled low but ready, the stock pressed against your shoulder.

"Hey," you say softly, pitching your voice so only she can hear. "Look at me."

Allison turns, her eyes wide and glassy in the dim light. Her father's absence has carved deep worry lines into her young face, and you remember the girl you used to practice corner kicks with on the university pitch, all laughter and competitive fire. She seems so much smaller now.

"He told you he wasn't going to try for the lobby, right?" You keep your tone gentle and matter-of-fact. "Because of the horde that got trapped there. So every zombie we've put down on these floors, it wasn't him. That means he's still out there, holed up somewhere safe. There can't be many left after all we have cleared."

Allison exhales, a shuddering breath that carries a half-laugh. "Thanks, Emily. I know you're trying to make me feel better."

"Trying and succeeding," you say with a small grin. "You'll see. We're going to find him behind that maintenance door, and he's going to be alive and annoyed that we took so long to get here."

She manages a weak smile, but before she can answer, Mills' hand snaps up from the front of the column. The lieutenant stands at the stairwell entrance, her radio pressed to her ear and her expression sharpening with each syllable from the voice crackling through the speaker.

"Say that again, Zachary," Mills says into the handset.

The drone operator's voice comes through, his tone urgent. "I've got eyes inside the fifth floor, ma'am. There's a window open on an apartment facing the east side. I flew the drone through it, and the apartment's clear. The door leading to the hallway is open too, so I've got a direct line of sight down the corridor. Five zombies, ma'am. They're banging on a large steel door at the end of the hall."

Your grip tightens on your rifle. Five zombies. A steel door. Frank Smith had told Allison he would hole up in the maintenance room.

"Copy that," Mills replies, her voice flat and professional. "Can you confirm the door they're hitting is the maintenance room?"

"Affirmative, ma'am. It's got a hazard stripe on it. Looks like your guy's hideout."

Allison makes a small sound beside you, a choked half-sob that she swallows almost immediately. Her hands are shaking as she grips her own weapon, the small pistol you'd asked her to carry looking absurdly fragile in her fingers.

"That's him," she whispers. "That has to be him."

The lieutenant nodded slowly before opening her mouth again. "Anything else you can see that we should know?"

"Yes," Zachary replied. "You better watch your feet. While the apartment door I mentioned is open and seemingly clear of any lingering zombies, a glass table near the entrance was shattered at some point before we got here. There are a LOT of sharp glasses scattered all over the floor between the apartment and the hallway ahead so be careful as you move. Zachary out."

Mills took a deep breath as she clearly thought about her next course of action before turning to face the group, her eyes sweeping over each of you in the dim stairwell light. Zhang stoof with her medkit ready, her knife already drawn and glinting. Garcia has her rifle up, her earlier emotional conversation with Kristen apparently having settled her hands. Allen Jones looms behind you all, his heavy boots planted wide, and Jonathan still looked a bit nervous and pale but also determined as he rotated his shoulders like a footballer about to hit the pitch.

"Seven of us, five hostiles, two corridors, one secured door, and potentially one survivor," Mills says, her voice carrying the crisp authority of someone who has done this kind of thing a hundred times. "They're focused on that door, which means they won't hear us coming if we're quiet and manage to avoid stepping on the broken glass shards. So, make sure to do just that, because that pack is too deep inside the building for Sergeant Vanders to provide overwatch support with her sniper rifle. Either way, we go up the stairs, stack them in the corner, and take them out the moment we have clear sightlines. No hesitation, for they are past saving, and you know what happens if one of them gets their jaws on you. But we might have the chance to rescue someone else if we are careful and efficient, so make our next moves count, people!"

You touch Allison's shoulder and lean close enough to whisper. "Stay behind me. You're not cleared to engage unless they get too close to the front lines and you feel you can easily stab them in the head from your position behind me. Understood?"

She nodded, a jerky motion that tells you she was swallowing back about a dozen questions and fears as she gripped the knife they handed her more tightly. You squeezed her shoulder once, trying to convey a silent promise of support.

"Move out," Mills orders.

You ascend the stairs two at a time, your boots silent on the concrete steps as years of soccer conditioning and some military training carried you through the motion despite all the energy past fighting on the lower floors. The stairwell door on the fifth floor looms ahead, its glass pane dark with grime. Mills reaches it first, flattening herself against the wall beside it. She peers through the grimy glass, holding up two fingers, then three, then a closed fist.

Five. Still five. But even though they hadn't noticed them yet, you immediately realized that there was a big problem ahead even before Lieutenant Mills visibly winced, her eyes wider with concern and realization. Which is why you weren't surprised when she silently gestured to the rest of you to return to the stairwell and carefully, silently, closed the door.

"What's wrong?" Allison demanded. "We are so close!"

"And therein lies the problem," You replied in dawning understanding before Mills could do it herself, glancing at you as you did so. "That corridor is not just packed with zombies; it is also too short and narrow before it turns in the direction we will have to enter from. Most importantly, however, I looked up and noticed that the lightbulb hanging overhead was clearly burnt out. And that means that while we will be able to just about make out their silhouettes in the dark, it will be too hard to aim for their heads with our guns effectively, and if we don't take them out quickly, they will turn and throw themselves at us with next to no distance to cover. Which will make things extremely risky, because our backs will be against the exit door, or, barring that, the stairs, and fighting effectively while walking down the stairs backward is asking for trouble and probably bites and broken bones while we're at it. And that's saying nothing of the fact that all that shattered glass on the floor will definitely complicate matters now that I saw the corridor. We will definitely be unable to dodge most of it on the way, so we will quickly loose the element of surprise even if we go slowly and what's worse, tripping while we defend ourselves from the approaching pack will add an extra hazzard that could make it easier for them to bite us."

Lieutenant Mills raised an eyebrow at your quick tactical analysis but simply nodded in silence, and her face turned unfavorably uncertain for once. You scratched your chin in consideration, a deep moment of silence rising as they contemplated those facts.

They had been very fortunate and successful so far as they had fought their way through every floor, but they were clearly getting tired by then, so their reflexes would be more sluggish if things went wrong, and under these circumstances, one or more of them might actually get killed, and you knew your Master would not want to risk that badly for the sake of the mission based on his recent actions and his speech before they got started on this mission, even if it meant potentially endangering Frank's life by making a tactical retreat and returning later with more manpower and resources to try to manage the dangerous pack ahead more effectively.

After all, while you had known Master Michael well enough by now, both before and after you realized that you belonged to him in every way, to realize that he loathed to break his word if there was any viable alternative, you also knew that his highest priority and sense of duty now went to the people he owed as ruler of their group and that Frank and Allison were not formally members of his group yet, for he hadn't met them or even talked to them, so while he would clearly like to rescue Allison and her father in order to recruit them and their skills for the benefit of their group in exchange for protection, it's not like he had personally given Allison his word that they would do their best to rescue her father even if it meant almost certainly risking a bite or three. And that, you suddenly understood, was probably very important to her owner, given that he usually liked to choose his thoughtful words with care.

No, you soon realized that if Lieutenant Mills decided to radio in their Master to shove the decision upwards given the circumstances, that was the most likely scenario. And something irreversible may happen in the time gap waiting for reinforcements and equipment.

But while your Master may consider that the best course of action left to him...he didn't yet know you as well as you knew him...and you HAD made an important promise to your friend, even if your rightful owner hadn't.

You were snapped out of your musings by said friend's distraught expression. "There has to be something we can do," She insisted, but her voice sounded brittle with vulnerability.

Lieutenant Mills stared back at her with regret in her eyes as she sighed. Then you glanced at Allen, remembering your conversation with him yesterday when you revealed the classified, incestuous nature of your birth related to that secretive breeding program.

You were still angry, frustrated, and ashamed about the implications of all of that. But you didn't tell him everything about the nature of your unusual genetic mutations either back then, nor have you had the time or the nerve to approach your Master and confess to it all over the last 2 days, especially after you got wary due to the revelation of Natasha being a Russian spy putting her past conversations with you before the society started collapsing in a new, concerning light.

Still, while you still weren't looking forward to outing yourself as a child of incest or explaining what the higher-ups in Sweden's intelligence service learned from the circumstances of your birth...aside from the fact that your body was unusually resistant to radiation that is...you knew that given the risks and the time-sensitive nature of the threat if they made a tactical retreat, you were the best chance Allison had to reunite with her father.

And you intended to keep your promise.

So, as Lieutenant Mills' hand started sliding towards her radio, you opened your mouth to hopefully abort that move without openly trying to countermand her after the fact. It's not like she could, after all, since their Master had declared that while this operation lasted, an order from her was an order from him, and needing to abide by that command would prevent her from being able to fulfill her promise.

"I have a plan that will work," You rushed to say.

Mills stopped what she was doing and turned back to her, tilting her head. "What is it?"

You inhaled sharply while caressing the bracelet you commissioned to be made of different kinds of metals in an interwoven fashion that was brushing your arm's naked skin. Then, your mind finally made up, you focused on the cool, steel section first, along with the tin and magnesium ones. And then you winced a bit as you were reminded of the risks involved while thinking about your gold earring.

"It would take too long to explain, with time being short, and you probably wouldn't believe me anyway," You muttered. "So...I guess I will have to show you."

With that, you unholstered your rifle, left it on the floor so it wouldn't weigh you down, and tightened your grip upon your axe before opening the door. Then you tapped before getting started...and casually broke Usain Bolt's record running speed, your axe finding the first zombie's brain at the end of the second corridor in about half a second.

A/N: I know this chapter triggered many more questions than answers, but I am looking forward to answering them in the coming chapters, since, like I said, I have been waiting for literal years to get to this point in the story after all the earlier priorities I wanted to focus on and build upon before we got her. In the meantime, I am really curious to read your comments about this one.

I will provide a hint, though, for my fellow fans and for those that aren't but are curious enough to use Google on the matter while you wait. What Karlsson did is partially based on a borderline scientific, hard-rule-based magic system that can be found in Mistborn, one of my favorite book series from Brandon Sanderson's shared universe of high fantasy literature known as the Cosmere. But it is an alternate take with some key differences, a few expansions, and less magic-based and more genetic evolution/mutation, ala X-Men from Marvel and/or the metahumans from DC. More on that and in what ways that ties with the origins of the marker and the beginnings of this zombie apocalypse in the future.

Until then, though, thanks for reading all the way to my 101st chapter for the branch. Really, really looking forward to finding enough time to work on the coming chapters as soon as I can, so I hope you enjoy the ride to come.