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.