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."