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.