Zombie Theorem: The End Game (22 page)

I suggested he bring the scientists to the common area, and let Joseph work through who he thought would be important to his work. He sat down and interviewed each one, using a notebook to record his findings. I stood to one side and watched, as Doc and Apache did the same thing with the guards we had captured, including the ones we had taken down upstairs. Cupcake, Delta and a squad of men volunteered to stay upstairs and man the defenses. They hid the vehicles and the Chief and Henry collected their tribe from the hidden location.

I delved into myself as life went on around me. I felt the losses we had accumulated, since day one of the wildfire that had been released on the east coast. God, that had been close to three months ago now. Since then, I had lost my little Angel, Senshi, Little Jonny and a slew of National Guard troops I had barely had the time to meet before they too were gone. Then it hit me, I’d almost forgot Maggie, the saucy woman that Brian and I had found and I guess, rescued from the forty-eighth floor of the TransAmerica Tower, back in San Francisco. I’d been sure that she and I were starting a small relationship, at least I think she liked me. She died just an hour from safety, had her insides ripped out through her belly. I don’t think anything would have blossomed between us further, since I had found my Julie. But she hadn’t deserved to die the way she did. I felt a tear fall down my cheek, and then a massive hand landed on my shoulder.

I looked back and up into Brian’s bearded face, I found his eyes and he read me, just like that. He steered me away from the people and out into the hallway for privacy. He took me in his arms and gave me a brotherly hug, resting his head on mine.

It took me a while, but I finally found my voice and uttered one word. “Maggie.”

Brian hitched slightly as a small sob broke free. “I feel like we have failed her twice, Boss. First, we allowed her to die and then, we forgot about her. What are we doing, man?”

I pulled away from him and looked into his red face and noticed the tears as they fell slowly down his cheeks wetting his beard. “We are living, Brian. We are taking each day, that we get to wake up to, and we are finally fighting back against the Initiative and their lap dogs, Ridder. Each day we live is an honoring to the ones we lost. I was not crying over our intentions and what we are doing, I am fully aware of what we are doing. I was just angry that I had forgotten about Maggie; she has only us to remember her.”

“Message received Boss. Thank you for the pep talk, I needed it. We will not forget to remember those we lost.” Brian’s small smile was enough to make me feel stronger. We fed off each other better than any friends or brothers ever could.

Kuppers found us a moment later, still in the hallway, talking about our time together and remembering our friends, including Matt and our lost coworkers.

“Gentlemen, what are you two up to?” he asked in his authoritative voice.

“Just talking about old friends. Life seems to be going by a little fast, and we have not had time to remember them.” Brian explained.

Kuppers’ intense look melted from his face. He sighed and leaned against the wall. “Yeah, I’ve been feeling the losses, too. We need to take time tonight, and honor their sacrifices. I am just worried about how many more we will have to lose, before all of this is over.” He closed his eye and took a deep breath, filling his lungs to capacity and holding it for a good twenty seconds before pushing it all out. He opened his eyes and he locked back down on his control, pushing his emotions to the side and becoming the fearless leader once again. “Gentlemen, when you are done, Joseph would like to brief us on his situation.” He walked away without another word or looking back.

Brian looked over at me and hunched his shoulders. I punched him in the bicep and turned to follow Kuppers, I could feel Brian turn and fall into step behind me. When we entered the common space, we found Joseph sitting at the long, cherry wood table with thirteen people behind him, standing with their clipboards in hand.

Joseph motioned for us to sit at the table. I pulled out a seat near him and watched as Brian, Kuppers, Apache, Doc, and Vic appeared and sat down. Joseph cleared his throat and adjusted the collar on his blouse.

“Thank you for coming to this unscheduled meeting. I want to keep you all informed of what we have found here, and introduce my new research team. First and foremost, this facility is one I did not know about. Ridder has been running it to do the same exact thing that we want to do. Unfortunately for them, they are nowhere close to my original strain. They have been working off the old strain that the Initiative had given me. Now that I am here and have all the supplies I need, I believe that with the help of my new team, we should be able to put a serious dent into the Wildfire strain. I will not be able to give you a time-line or an exact guarantee, but I promise we will do our best. We do have a problem, though. Ridder is planning on beefing up the security here and are rolling a pretty large force in here. We have two days before they arrive. And according to my chief assistant, Holly Kivett,” he turned and introduced her. She was tall, almost six feet, with blonde hair that seemed long even tied into a pony-tail high on her head. She was in her late thirties, if I had to guess. “We will be running two teams going at this thing from two different directions. My team consists of Brandy Yassa, Alina Lonescu, Butch Barth, Chris Derouen, Christy Thornbrugh, and Dillon Beefus. Holly’s team consists of Allen Gamboa, Ricky Fleet, Janice Mickolas, Kevin Ranson, Ruiz Bazan, and Damien Corona. I figured you would want to meet the team. The others I couldn’t use, or were not willing to work with us. Do you have any questions?”

I wrote down every name, a short description of them, and who their team leader was. “Joseph, will you be running your teams twenty-four hours? And are there any supplies that you need?” My pen sat poised to write in my notebook.

Holly took the lead on answering my questions. “I am sorry, what is your name?”

“Major Dan Welko.” I answered politely. I added my rank just to let her know I was of a high rank.

“Major Welko, then. We will be running twenty-four hour crews. Half of our team will work days, and the other half will work nights. I will lead the night team and Doctor Hedley will lead the day team. Would you like us to report all findings to you?”

“I wouldn’t understand half of what you’d report Holly. How about you and Joseph meet with me twice a week, and when you hit milestones. If I am not available, Lieutenant Leeder here will take my place and if both of us are unavailable, then Lieutenant Apache will sit in.” I looked down the table and got nods from Brian, Apache and Kuppers.

“Excellent Major. As for supplies, we have no need for anything right now. This facility uses a geothermal generator for power and heat. We have three separate supply warehouses full of food stocks, and the necessary supplies we need to do our research. So as you see, we have everything we need. Oh, and to show good faith, because I know those idiot guards will not tell you, there is a hidden garage in the base. If you open door five-two-five and follow that corridor for two hundred yards, you will come to a security door. The code is Alpha-4-2-Whisky-Zulu-6. That code is also the master override for any secured door in the facility.” She smiled and looked down at her clipboard.

“You scientists were prisoners, weren’t you?” Asked Doc.

Holly looked at the floor and nodded her head yes. “Yes, most of us were working in the Stanford lab at the University and these military wannabes came in and took our research, and then arrested us and sent us here to work with these other scientists they had already imprisoned. We have been here since the first week of all of this starting.”

I looked around at the research team and they all nodded their agreement. “Holly, if you were a prisoner, how is it you know so much about this facility?” I asked suspiciously.

“Because I pay attention Major, I also have a perfect Eidetic memory. I remember everything since when I was a child. Perfect recall.” She said all this as if I was a petulant child.

“I stand properly rebuked. Forgive me, Holly,” I said with glacier patience in my voice.

“No reason for forgiveness. You had no idea, Major.”

Thank God I was able to put the pin back in that grenade, I thought to myself. Brian leaned over and handed me a slip of paper. I read it over and had to hide a smile, he had written “Good job disarming her, Boss.”

“If this is all you have; I will dismiss you to get back to work. But first I want to tell you. You are no longer prisoners. You can leave any time you want. But I will not give you any supplies or a ride anywhere. What I am asking is that you stay here and help Joseph defeat this damn scourge, and give the human race a chance to survive, and a step in fighting back against the powers who try and conquer us and put us on a leash.”

I looked into each person’s eyes and saw understanding and a light which told me they were all in, all the way.

“Major, we understand the situation, and I assure you we will continue to work hard. And with Doctor Hedley on our side, we have a chance at finding a cure. Now if you don’t mind we have a lot to discuss and prepare.” Holly answered.

“Excellent, carry on, and thank you.” I pushed back my chair and prepared to leave. Joseph stopped me with his words.

“What are you going to do with the incoming Ridder forces?”

I put my hands on the table and looked at Kuppers. “We don’t know right now. Just do what you promised me and I will continue to do as I promised.” I turned and walked away, making my way to the door.

Brian caught up as I reached for the handle. “Where are you heading, Boss?”

“I need a nap, then when I wake, I want something to eat that does not come from an MRE package. Then I want to convene our leaders and go over a battle plan to protect this place. Once Ridder and the Initiative find out where we are, they will not rest till they can dig us out.” With that I opened the door and walked out.

I found an unused room and stumbled in, kicked out of my boots and shucked my uniform off. I fell face first on the bed and was out. I opened my eyes and found myself on the boat, in the bay, with Angel sitting next to me. At least, I thought she was Angel, I had no way to know till she spoke.

She smiled at me and I smiled back. “Hey, Dan. Sorry about not being around last time. Eroquenne took care of you, I hope?”

“You know she did. Or I wouldn’t be here right now. By the way Angel, why am I here? I mean, it is so nice to see you again. We miss having you around.”

“I could see you were having some emotional dilemmas and I wanted to help. If I can help you relax now, then when things go bad, and they will, you will be able to handle things better.” She handed me a cold beer and leaned into me.

I liked the way she worked. I took a sip of the cold beer and wrapped an arm around her. Her presence always calmed me and could help relieve exhaustion and clear my mind. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the gentle rocking of the boat. I loved my little mini vacations to paradise.

“Angel, could you tell me if any of my friends have made it to the island paradise?” I opened my eyes and pointed to the pristine shores and white sandy beaches.

“They are awaiting judgement. So many souls have requested entry that He has been very busy, since the scourge has come. I will put in good words and make sure they have a fair chance at entrance.”

I relaxed a little more and tried to put that thought out of my mind. “Angel, will I need to be judged when it is my time?”

“Everyone needs to be judged before entrance, but I am sure with how much you have suffered, you will have a very good shot.” Angel pulled away and I felt my calm start to slip away with her movement.

“What’s wrong, Angel?”

“No matter what you do tomorrow, you will take losses. Everything will change.” Her voice quieted as she laid back against me again.

My calm came back, but I thought about her words. “Who am I going to lose?”

“The future is never set in stone, but every time I look into it, I see death. Just know, you need to stay in command and make decisions. Just understand, no matter what you say or do, you will lose people.”

I took her words and thought about them. But every time I tried to consider what it meant, my thoughts would scatter. I sighed and wrapped my arms around Angel, taking in the coconut aroma that her hair gave off. I finished my beer and kissed the top of her head. “I think it’s time you send me back, kiddo. I have a lot to do.”

“Time means nothing here, Dan. But I understand. I will see you again. Send my love to Brian.” She changed to the little girl I knew her best by and jumped into my arms. “I miss you, Dan. I wish he would send me back again. But he won’t let me, says he needs me here, and that he is relying on you.”

I looked up into her pretty eyes and opened my mouth to say something when the scene changed, and I was in a dark room. I heard snoring off to my right and was pretty darn sure I knew who it belonged to. I laid there in my bed and thought about the words that Angel had said.

No matter what I did, I would lose people in the upcoming fight. So, do I put into the plan; counting for acceptable losses? That never made sense to me. No loss of life was acceptable. I rubbed my face in my hands and rolled off of my bunk. I walked over to the sink in the room and took a whore’s bath. I laughed quietly to myself, remembering doing this in the tower. I found a razor and some shaving cream nearby and quickly shaved the hair on my head, then cleaned up my beard into my new goatee look I had cultivated since this all started. I toweled off and looked at the man in the mirror. Last time I’d done this, I’d had been in the SFPD locker room and I had seen a defeated man who had so much to learn and grow from.