Before reading

1.	What does the title “The end of the beginning” suggest?
While reading
2.	What is the most frightening thing that Zed faces on his lone helicopter ride?

13. Epilogue: The end of the beginning

A small boy clung to the underside of a helicopter. The helicopter carried him through the dark night and the storm. He didn’t know where it was taking him, and he didn’t care. One life lay behind him and another lay before and both were frightening, but that howling black emptiness was below, and that was more frightening still. So the boy clung on.

The small boy was gold, and he shone gold, and he billowed gold in the night. His enemy was gone, snatched by the storm. Do enemies ever really die?

He didn’t know.

Would anyone believe his story when he returned? Would he try to tell them? How long did it take for zombies to return to normal once the zombie master had gone? Who was his father? How had he died?

He didn’t know.

The small boy clung to the helicopter and thought of all the people in the world, all the regular people, the people who knew nothing about him and cared nothing for him – the people he’d spend the rest of his life protecting.

Maybe Ulric Chilvers was right. Maybe the world is binary. Maybe there are only ones and zeroes. The ones have power and the zeroes give it to them. But now Zed had seen something of power and what kind of person craves it, and Zed knew where he belonged. He belonged with the weak and the foolish and the gullible. Not because he was weak or foolish or gullible, but because if there are only two choices, if there are only sheep and wolves, Zed did not want to be a wolf. He did not want to cause pain to anyone, or anything, ever. That was what he believed.

Clinging to the helicopter, the small boy made a list of the things he believed.

 

It is better to be harmed than to harm.

It is better to be weak than to make other people weak.

It is better to be a sheep than a wolf.

“You were half right, Ulric,” he said aloud to the howling night. “I am a zero. But I’m not just a zero. I am a zero that stands up for other zeroes. I am a zero that pushes back against the ones. I am the zero without end.”

He raised his eyes to the falling rain and he said it aloud, for the first time.

“I am SuperZero.”

After reading

1.	What does Zed mean when he asks “Do enemies really die”? Do you think that Ulric is really dead?
2.	Zed has many unanswered questions and thoughts going through his head. Which one is the most important to him do you think?
3.	Ulric believes that the world is made up of ones and zeroes.
3. a)	Which of the two is Zed?
3. b)	Which of the two are you? Why?
4.	What do the words “the people he would spend his life protecting” reveal to us about how Zed sees the future?
5.	Look at Zed’s list of things that he believes in. Which ones do you believe in? Why?
6.	What do the words “I am the zero without end” tell us about how Zed intends to live his life?
7.	Is Super Zero a good title for both Zed and the novel? Why?