Chapter 12. “Zombie Basketball: brittle bones in a gilded cage”

he tarmac of the slums begins to vomit as the antidote missiles blow up.

Mutated children crawl out of cracks in the ground, spinal spines piercing the skin to form natural baskets, rotting palms clinging to Spaulding remains. Inside the gold-plated shields of Wall Street, old Marcus smiles at a holographic billboard, "All-new tournament NBA-Z (Zombie)! Place your bets and get free anti-mutant champagne!"

Lucas's bone whip pierces the crack in the shield, only to see Marcus's mutated eyeballs broadcasting the "Paradise League" - rich guys in chemical-resistant jerseys, zombies chained to diamond shackles to serve as human basketball racks. The commentator roared, "Look at that! This zombie was his math teacher last week!"

"Brother, it's time to put some gold on your bones." Marcus' spinal orb suddenly sprays neurotoxin, and the moment Lucas rolls to avoid it, the ground reaches out with the hand of Clone 13 - Elena's regenerated body wrapped in radioactive mycelium - and shoves the remains of an antidote missile into his mouth, "Swallow it! It's your mother's ashes!"

In the excruciating pain that burns his throat, Lucas sees visions: in the early morning hours of March 16, 2001, his burn-covered mother gave birth to him in a blast cabinet, carving the real antidote formula into the baby's birthmark. And Rayne rushes into the fire carrying another swaddle, the baby with the eagle's head branded on its ankle ...

The herd of zombies suddenly turned en masse. Their bone-spiked baskets automatically pointed in the direction of Wall Street, and rotting vocal cords squeezed out the final command set by their mother, "Dunk on the capital."

As the first cracks appear in the shields, Old Marcus activates his sonic weapon. The Regal Grandstand pops champagne glasses to catch the ghetto's exploding brains, "This '82 zombie Lafite, CHEERS!"

Elena's mycelium wraps around Lucas's festering right hand, the skin flaking off to reveal a fluorescent birthmark - it's not a pattern at all, but a chemical equation carved by her mother with a nano-knife. Marcus's six eyeballs filled with blood at the same time, "Impossible! I'm the chosen one..."

Rayne's mechanical heart suddenly crashed through the sky as his mother's fingers wrote burning judgments in the clouds, "The bastard son of RH+ is only worthy of being a stepping stone for the King of RH-".

The zombies' bone-spiked baskets begin to fuse, spelling out the date of his mother's true tombstone on the rubble: 2001.3.16-2023.3.16.

Lucas's twenty-second birthday as the spherical sun begins to collapse.