Listening In

Let me just say for the record how much I love running through the woods with Sam and Janine bickering in my ear.  Really.  I just adore that.  Fact is that they both seem to be operating under the false assumption that I have to listen to either one of them.  Don’t get me wrong: they’ve both saved my butt on more than one occasion, but if communications gives me some stupid directive – like, say, “run towards those New Canton runners,” I *will* ignore it.  My job is to run supply and tactical missions while – and this is key – while staying alive.  Everything we know about New Canton suggests an oppressive and isolationist government and, if we’ve learned nothing from the last five millennia of human history, it’s that oppressive isolationist governments tent to spread propaganda that is less than friendly about other settlements.

So... spying on NC today with Lem's headset.  I was right: propaganda.  But it never hurts to be reminded that they are people too, and they are hurting as much as anyone.  But they don't trust us, so I'd rather meat them on my own terms, thank you very much.

Vectors of the Infectors

Ran with Ten today - double digits!  Abel hits the big time!  Anyway, Ten used to be a maths teacher and had some really interesting - and useful - observations about zombie behaviour.  If I understand right, if a zombie is presented with equidistant targets, they add the vectors together and follow the trajectory of the resultant vector.  Doesn't say much for their reasoning, of course, but it does have some implications about the sophistication of their internal navigation systems. 

Ten also said that zoms tend to home in on meat smells "even though they don't eat the stuff."  Um... Ten?  To paraphrase Terry Bisson, we are made out of meat.  Just sayin'.  I'm thinking about chumming the water for sharks.  They probably smell blood and have some sort of Pavlovian response.

Not exactly a big surprise, but Ten left New Canton because they wanted him to use his research to basically weaponize zombies.  Truth be told, NC is starting to piss me right off.  Who uses the end of civilization as a power grab?  "Ooh!  The fall of civilization!  Now's my chance to be the head despot in my own totalitarian regime!"

It was a cool mission, though: we were carrying the post apocalyptic equivalent of the Library at Alexandria.  We traded information with Red Settlement.  I hope the exchange yielded some American TV.  I just can't get into Dr. Who ever since that tall guy with the scarf left.  Even just the musical episode of Buffy would constitute a total score,but I'm hoping for Firefly or the first seven season of the X-Files.

Lem

So, much fun was had by all today.  Standard training run.  Of course, a standard training run in the post apocalypse is generally as full of surprises as any non-standard critical mission, so...

Today it was a chap named... oh, hold on.  I have a pneumonic for this... Lunar Excursion Module.  His name was Lem.  Lem was, apparently, a runner from New Canton.  He was pinned down on the roof of the old mill and I helped get him out.  At first I didn't trust him because, well he was either an Aussie pretending to be a Texan or a Texan pretending to be Canadian, but something just wasn't right.  Seemed like a right decent guy in the end, though.  Lem didn't fare well.  He'd been bitten, so he handed off his radio to me and put distance between us.

As usual, Sam had no taste, which is probably why I like him.  Poor Lem was no sooner off to meet his fate and Sam was cracking wise: asked if that was Ace Rimmer.  Of course, it was completely without compassion for a man who would soon join the legions of undead, but it still struck me funny.  You've got to laugh, haven't you?  Otherwise, you go completely off your gourd.  So I've decided that, should I ever have to head off into the sunset of the damned, my last words will be "Smoke me a kipper.  I'll be back by morning."

Just got back from a scouting run with Four and - oh, joy - Eight.  The truth is, I don't really mind Eight so much as I mind the idea of her.  I mean, she's alright most times, but there's just this underlying creep factor that I can't get past.  But once I was finished dreading running with her and got down to the actual run, it wasn't so bad.  Almost normal, at the beginning.  Just three mates on a run.  I even saw a deer! 

At first, I thought how beautiful it was and how it had been so long since I'd just found something beautiful.  But then I thought too bad we don't have a gun because fresh venison would be freaking awesome.  But then, because I know just enough sciency stuff to make trouble and far from enough to be useful, I thought what if the zombie virus is like Creutzfeld-Jakob 2.0 and you can get it from prions?  I know prions thrive in deer and antelope and moose and such, so maybe venison wouldn't be much of a treat after all.  I don't want to have fresh meat if it means turning into the undead. 

Then I saw the fireflies.  They were beautiful, too, but they got me thinking about mosquitoes.  If you can get zombified by cutting yourself of a zombie-gut-encrusted pitchfork, which I hear you can, then can you get zombified from a mosquito that bites a zombie or a soon-to-be-zombie?  (I think of the bitten-but-not-zombies-yet as "zombies in waiting.") 

So I had already jacked up my paranoia to ten before we found the big pile of dead zombies and loaded guns.  So I'm guessing the guys in blue uniforms are with Pandora and still experimenting and fouling things up, as appears to be their custom because we found a mutant zombie hoarde: they can run!  And let me tell you: that sucks.  And who know?  My paranoia scale goes to eleven!

On the up side, I found a phial of VS72.  I'll be passing that off to Max as soon as I get a chance.  Could be nothing, could be the crowning glory for Operation 5.Theta.W.

In Which Sam and Max Bond Over Geek Stuff

Oh.  My.  God.  I am totally going to kill Sam and Max.  Reader, if you aren't Margie, you don't need to go crazy getting this post to her, but I need to vent.

So they sent me out to get stuff for entertainment.  "Fun stuff," they said.  So I'm thinking balls, jump ropes, Frisbees.  Maybe a Mad Libs.  You know: stuff that encourages physical fitness and mental acuity.  Not to mention stuff that won't drain our resources.  But noooooo.  It turned into GeekQuest1: the first post-apocalyptic NerdFest. Oh my god.  Role playing crap, video games... thank God the zombies showed up, or else they would have had me collecting - and I'm not even kidding here - costumes. 

Okay, I know... it just might be that I am the nerd in this scenario.  Apparently, nerdliness, like sanity, is a matter of statistics.  And I am clearly outnumbered here at Abel.  But really?  Asking me to risk becoming Snack of the Undead for role playing stuff?  Do they really not see the irony of asking me to outrun zombies so they can have a game that allows them sit on their posteriors and to pretend to outrun zombies?  This just sucks.  There was this cool macrame owl kit that I didn't get a chance to grab... I think I've said too much. 

Mission... Oh, I've stopped counting

Margie - or whoever - I just got back from a run for five-lambda.... oh, I'm just going to call it 5. Theta. W.  Anyway, I just got back and any information on a lab tech named Arthur Ghurkhan might be helpful.  He may be the key to getting us out of this... um... pickle.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but ask Siva for whatever he has on Pandora Hayes in his conspiracy files.  He might actually have been onto something.  They were working on some sort of cell regeneration thing.  I wish I'd passed a science class or two!  Anyway, get our geek squad onto this.  They might be able to figure out what went wrong. 

As I said, we've been able to focus a bit on entertainment recently.  Runners have been picking up books, and one of our residents has begun a "book club" of sorts: she reads a chapter or two a night aloud for those who wish to listen.  A couple nights ago, she started reading Pride and Prejudice.  I like to go and listen, and Sam went as well.  Afterward, he gave me his review: "Pretty ridiculous, really."  I was surprised, to say the least.  "It's a classic," I told him.  "Well," he said, "I read the original, and I guess I don't see the point.  It just seems stupid without the zombies."

You owe me for this mission.  Big time.

five-lambda-v-three theta-three w-zero-r-one-delta

Did another mission with Max at the comm today. Margie, if you're reading this, I'll call it Operation five-lambda-v-three theta-three w-zero-r-one-delta. And if it's not Margie reading this, and since our code is the most transparent thing since glass, don't get your hopes up. It's a long shot. I did find some stuff, but I don't know if it will help. Max is good and all, but I don't know if she can figure this all out without a lab and support and all.

Max has a habit of telling a bit more than perhaps I want to know, but she's lucky she can just lose herself in revery. She gets this far away sound in her voice and she just returns to pre-zom. Far be it for me to be the jackass to drag her back to this hell hole. She must have been very much in love. It's kind of refreshing, really.

We're starting to build up, which is nice because our efforts can include some entertainment now, rather than just survival. We have these two guys who do a sort of radio show here at Abel. They yammer on and play some songs and banter. They're not bad, really. It's a good model. It would have been nice to have a station like that at Mullins.

Also, the major came up with this redundancy program. It's a good idea, really. The runners are helping the others to get fit and the engineers are helping the rest of us to learn the practical aspects of what they do: fixing stuff, calculating the force and trajectory necessary to propel a projectile with lethal accuracy. You know. Basic stuff. Everyone seems to really have embraced the plan. It wards off the boredom and anxiety of waiting for the next attack, if nothing else.

Well, believe it or not, I have home work to do. I'm learning to do calculus. It's not as bad as I expected.

Runner Five out.

Confidential to Netrophil

Got your message.  I have to think about it.  You make some good points, but I need to be wary of confirmation biases.

Missions 9

So Max - Dr. Myers - was my communications link for my last run.  She's pretty good at it, lets me know what I'm doing, gives me a bit of respect.  (Hear that J?)  Went to the University looking for a special microscope.  No luck.  But there were swarms there... I guess they figured that's where the tastiest brains were.

In all seriousness, though, again, something doesn't seem right.  Maybe I'm being paranoid - I probably am - but there was this tent lab in the quad... why would you set up a lab in a tent when there are buildings all aound you?  Tactically bad.  (Speaking of which, Janine, you did a hell of a good job getting security cam feeds back to Sam and Max.  Credit where's it's due.)  Anyway, I keep thinking back to the people in the blue uniforms that Ed told me about.

Max said they prevented a few of the bitten from reanimating by putting them into insulin comas.  My friend Amber - from Pre-Zom - was the most prepared person I knew and she was diabetic.  It would be nice to have one person I knew from before live through this apocalypse. But then, she could probably have made it without the diabetic coma. 

I picked up some case with Max's name on it.  It might be science, might be personal for her.  It was a hell of a risk to go back it get it, so I hope it was worth it.

Mission 8: Schrödinger's Runner

Well that was fun.  I'm sorry I showed Janine my last post: I may as well have volunteered to get my butt blown off up at New Canton.  Not a friendly lot.  Spent half the night listening to Sam yammer on to a possibly dead me.  To him, I was  Schrödinger's cat, both dead and alive; but to me, I was that guy from Monty Python insisting "I'm not dead yet."  

The plan was to go up and make a trade with some rebels.  The plan sucked.  Total tactical snafu in every sense of the word.  The only positive is that I found a whole new place to scavenge for underwear.  Five packages today!  Yeah.  Not really worth almost joining the legions of undead, but hey.

I knew things weren't going to go well when Sam and Janine were bickering about the wisdom of the plan at the start.  Let me be up front here.  If you were to open my file back at Mullins, there's a little bit of a pattern: I don't follow orders blindly.  I'm good at what I do and, lets face it: there's a bit of a labor shortage, so what are they gonna do?  Fire me?  Apparently, I'm pretty good at what I do here at Abel, too, so I was a little annoyed from the start when Janine opened up the gate and just said "Run."  Not even a direction, let alone any information about the mission.  Close the gate and then tell me I'm on a suicide run?  (Not cool, J.  I know you're reading this.  Not cool.  and then go sleep like a baby while I'm out lost in the woods because of your crappy plan?  I may make it my mission to make sure Sam has some burning question for you every night around 3am.)

Still, now that I know I survived, I have to grudgingly admit it was worth a shot.  All my "humanity needs to pull together" stuff isn't worth diddly if I'm not willing to actually try to work with the less community-minded members of the species.  I should have had a choice in it though.

In other news, I found a tin of custard today.  Custard!  I'm hoping to score a bite of that.  Butterscotch.  I would have preferred chocolate, but.... Custard!  Almost as exciting: we've managed to start a little veggie patch here at Abel.

Hey, I'm wondering... who's reading this?  Anyone?  If you're in another settlement, what do you need?  No guarantees - I have no power - but we might be open to trade if you have anything we could use. 

Alright, I'm off again.  Stay living.

Mission 7

Another day of questioning the point of humanity  here at Abel Township.  Okay, that's a bit melodramatic, but even a good mission can leave a bitter taste in your mouth these days.  I was teamed up with Eight again.  She called us "the dream team."  Even that sounded like a threat from her.  Anyway, when we brought in those refugees from Brunswick, there was a girl named Tess among them - a comp sci student - and this morning she absconded with the lions share of out IT supplies and info.  Eight and I had to catch her before she reached New Canton.

The species is on the verge of extinction, and even then we are compelled to turn on each other.  New Canton is a mess, I know, but they're still norms, right?  But they want to take down our coms, which would obviously be disastrous, so Eight and I had to catch up with Tess and get our stuff back. 

At first, I couldn't stop thinking that a student is most likely younger than I am and in better shape.  I know the real heroes these days are the computer scientists, but I'm ashamed to admit that I clung to every stereotype I could to keep up the hope of catching her: comp sci students are pudgy, cheese-puff-stained, spotty weaklings with thick glasses.  Of course, that was all wrong, lucky for Tess.

I don't feel good about what we did.  Eight hit her with a cudgel to stop her.  That was necessary, but then we left her there.  I know we can't bring a traitor back to Abel or keep prisoners who don't earn their keep, but it seemed so inhuman to just leave her there with zoms closing in.  We left her with Eight's bastinado.  "To be sporting."  Frontier law, I guess.  But she looked afraid as we left.  In Pre-Zom, theft wasn't punishable by death.  Who knew the humane treatment of criminals was a luxury?

Turns out Janine keeps copies of our communications.  I'm uneasy about that.  Maybe some Pre-Zom idealism holding on, but it could become censorship and next thing you know, we're no better than New Canton.  Still, Janine seems trustworthy.  In fact, I'm planning on running this blog by her before I post it.  She could read it anyway.  I may as well preempt any trouble.  Besides, I don't want to put us at risk.  I just want to get what information I can back to Mullins.

I'm warming to Eight, at least a little, which is to say that I'm glad to see she thinks of me as on her side because I sure as hell wouldn't want her to think I'd crossed her.

I hope Tess made it back to New Canton.

Mission 6

Went back to the chopper today with Eight.  She still sounds like she's going to hack up a lung and her jokes always sound like veiled threats.  She told me a bit of her story.  Sad, like everyone's. But I'm avoiding the topic now.  Today was hard.  Awful, really.  My chopper pilot was reanimating when we got there.  I left her there, injured, strapped in, defenseless.  I did that.  Maybe if I hadn't been so scared - if I hadn't just run without checking on her - maybe I could have saved her. We have all of this talk of heroics when it comes to scavenging underwear and flash drives, but when circumstances call for real heroics, none of us are really up to the task, least of all me. 

At one point, our com link was down and Eight talked me into getting the pilot to chase me so she could see what supplies she could get from the chopper.  "Trust me," she said.  I don't, but I figured my chances were better with a zom than with a psychotic norm.  

Turns out Eight used to be stationed out at Mullins or something.  She brought up Greenchute, like I'm supposed to know what it is.  She might get off my case now that she's seen my ID, but I still think she's a bit mad.  But then, who isn't these days, eh?  We have an entire society predicated on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Who was that philosopher who said that if the entire world goes crazy, then sanity becomes the new mad?  Turns out sanity is a matter of statistics.  Anyone who can stay "sane" these days is a definite outlier.

Abel Township, Mission 5

Sorry it's been so long.  I've been laid up with a blister.  A blister.  Would you believe that?  Remember when you could just slap some salve on it and move on?  It's kind of a big deal now, though, what with the antibiotic shortages and all.  It was starting to hurt after the doors got stuck, but then there was little Molly out in the woods.  You don't just leave a baby in hostile territory because you have a wittle bwister, do you?  But then afterward, it was all big and oozing and raw.  Took awhile to heal.

Back in Pre-Zom, I used to joke that I didn't run "unless something large, green and scaly is chasing me."  After a few far-too-close inspections of zombie skin, I can say with confidence that I've not broken my rule.  Who'd have thought there'd come a day when the thing I yearn for most in the world is a pair of running shoes with big, cushy soles?  Maybe I can make some out of sports bras.  I suppose it won't matter forever, though.  My feet will toughen up like those Olympic runners from Pre-Zom.

So apparently the folks at New Canton go into denial about being bitten.  Zom 101.  If you get bit, get lost, right?  But apparently people in New Canton routinely ignore this one.  Great.  

Anyway, coms are down out at Brunswick because of a big fire and some people were sheltering out there while the fire burned out and... I don't think I knew zoms liked fire so much.  So today I went on a mission to warn them.  Met up with Eight.  Goody.  But we did save a lot lives.  She's crazy, but she's efficient.  I'll give her that.

Abel Township, first post

Sorry about the data dump.  I've been keeping my logs in an old notebook since I got here, but I found a laptop today.  Once I upload this, I'll turn it over to Sam - he's our communications guy - but I needed to try to get this up to Margie back at Mullins in case anything I've learned is useful.  Like everyone else, I'm pretty much in the dark about what's going on.  Hell, the chopper pilot knew more about my mission than I do!  Greenchute?  I was told I'd be dropping in with supplies, doing some basic training with the people, and bugging out within a day or two.  "Easy-peasy," they said.  Right.



Abel Township, Day 1.

Today did not go as planned.  The chopper got shot down by a rocket launcher.  Who shoots down a supply chopper?  Plus, even operating a rocket launcher seems beyond the reasoning abilities of a zom.  But why would a norm shoot at us? 

Dr. Myers insisted that I run through the old hospital and try to get some stuff, which worked out pretty well, thankfully.  I'm really grateful to Sam.  He talked me into the outpost, warning me about what was around me.  He pointed out that anyone who can move above a slow shamble can keep ahead of the zoms.  Lucky for me, eh?  It says something about the make-up here at Abel when my pudgy bum is one of the faster moving ones here.  But adrenalin does some crazy things.  Sam started calling me "Runner Five" because they just lost Runner Five in the old hospital and I guess he had some sort of thing going with her.  Dead Man's Boots, I guess.  Anyway, unlike Runner Five, I made it back out of the hospital. 

I've been greeted as some sort of a hero, which is totally bogus, of course, but I was able to find some CDC file the doctor wanted and some general supplies, which is something.  Incidentally, there is a strange amount of underwear in the woods around Abel.  And sports bras.  Weird. 

I wish I knew what happened to the chopper pilot.  She looked pretty bad, but didn't get to check before Sam started telling me to run.  I should have checked.  This whole thing... it's like you don't have time to think.  You know how it is.  You're always scared, but you just have to keep going.  It's worse out here in the middle of nowhere. 



Abel Township, Day 2

Well, they've decided to keep calling me "Runner Five."  Ironic, huh?  Me, a runner.  But I'm probably in better shape than most of the people here just because I've been able to eat regularly until recently.  They forage tinned food and water bottles from the surrounding area.  It's amazing this was once an industrialized nation.  Anyway, I ran around with "Runner Seven" today to get the lay of the land.  I'm a little disturbed that I've only heard of runners with single digit designations.  There aren't many people here, but really?  Less than ten who can move above as slow shamble? 

Seven told me that no one is coming for me any time soon.  Thanks a lot for that.  But it's not completely horrible here, really.  Decent folk and all that.  Just trying to get by like everyone else.  And I seem to be really valuable here.  It's good to be doing work that really matters.  All the stuff I do back at Mullins is important - though I guess not important enough to make you come get me - but this is so much more immediate.  That stuff I brought into Abel yesterday really helped people.  It's amazing how grateful people are for something as simple as something to change into while they wash their pants, let alone all the medical supplies I was able to gather in the hospital. 

Oh!  And the rumor about the teen compound may have been true, but its been decimated.  Sad, really.  That myth kept Siva going, didn't it?  Hackers and their anarchist tendencies.

Seven said something interesting today.  Turns out Mullins sent in someone right before Scoob was destroyed.  I would not be happy to find out that I'm some sort of patsy.



Abel Township, Day 3.

Another interesting day at Abel.  I did a lot of running, but the real heroes of today were the engineers.  The doors got stuck in the open position and they had to fix the motor with bits of mobile phones and radios and whatever else we've found scattered around the woods.  Before the outbreak, we used to joke about outrunning the zombie hordes, but we never expected that engineers would be the ones to save the day.  Kind of makes me wish I'd done more maths!

Anyway, I had to run around with Runner Eight, who, incidentally, probably has the plague and may well be insane.  We were supposed to draw the zoms away from the open doors until the engineers could get them operational again.  I wasn't sure what was more unsettling: the zoms or the fact that Eight had been given a gun.  I don't like her.

Apparently Abel doesn't talk to New Kent or New Canton.  It's like the horticulturalists out here, tribes that keep to themselves, regard each other with suspicion.



Abel Township, Day 4

Good day.  Rescued a kid abandoned in No-Man's Land.  Long story, but we got a couple new residents and found some good supplies. 

But Eight put some thoughts in my head.  Crazy, paranoid Eight.  But she made some points yesterday.  The Major getting called away on "urgent business," the rocket launcher. And today, when we picked up Ed - the new guy - he said something about men in blue uniforms.  Zoms don't wear uniforms.  Got me thinking about that CDC box I picked up on my first day.  Something stinks here.  I don't know who I can trust anymore, but this whole outbreak is starting to feel like some sort of government experiment gone awry.  I hope I'm wrong.