"Impossible!"Ren Zexian was calm of nature, an intellect and someone whose temper had been refined over the millennia. It is not to say that in his youth he was never hot-tempered nor could he say that he was never foolish, however such impulsive reactions had become sharpened on the edge of both instinct and physical honing; he retained swift and decisive action for the battlefield as it had been so for many, many centuries. But, it could not be said that he had no bottom line.
His obsidian eyes narrowed as they examined the twenty or so men and women before human; their uniform, their equipment, their auras or therefore lack of. He was quick to notice Faith, who still hid her face in the shadow of her headwear, embarra.s.sed by the behaviour of Thomas, who remained brash and unapologetic in the face of facts.
"Do elaborate," Ren Zexian urged, the curve of his lips remaining soft even though his eyes had hardened. This disturbance upon his serene morning with his beloved was unfortunate at best, as long as misunderstandings were smoothed over, he could continue to enjoy it. He was not the only one who felt discomfort, Nathan gripped his robes a lot more blatant in his unhappiness than his lover.
Thomas was unwilling and turned with an expression of accusation towards Faith; he had not seen the events that led the woman and the three soldiers who"d remained behind to believe that Ren Zexian carried the infection. Now seeing that the man not only had no signs of zombification after many days had pa.s.sed, even appearing to be br.i.m.m.i.n.g with health, he felt that the information he"d been fed had been misleading, causing him to be embarra.s.sed in front of a superior.
"Will someone please tell me just what is going on?" The man in charge of this mission was a few years older than Thomas and someone who he"d looked up to since being stationed in this foreign country.
"Sir..." he began, uncertain where to start. As much as he would like to pa.s.s the blame, he knew that this officer"s personality was such that he disliked those that pushed bias and refused to take responsibility.
Faith sighed and stepped forward to advise him from her own point of view, but before a sound could escape her throat, a low guttural noise came from a short distance along with the small rumble of hooves upon dry mud. Both Dexter and Jimmy glanced down the road from which the soldiers originally came, while a few soldiers followed suit.
"The herd?" Jimmy questioned.
Dexter nodded. "Sounds like it." He returned his attention to the soldiers and sighed. "You lot better come inside unless you want turn into a bovine meal." He received some odd expressions. "A cow could kill a human even before becoming undead, imagine what a herd of them can do now."
The officer in charge ushered his people inside in an orderly fashion and the gates were closed behind them just as Dexter caught glance of the bull of the herd staring at the wall with mad, hungry eyes. Smoke blew from its nostrils before it turned towards the left and lead the herd in that direction. Dexter shuddered before slapping Jimmy"s shoulder, who happened to look equally as disturbed and was rethinking his decision to end his bed-rest early.
*****
The company of soldiers glanced about the green verges and crawling ivy and vines uncomfortably, just as those they"d come to retrieve had all those weeks ago. But again they were quickly warned not to touch the seemingly harmless vegetation and could only linger close to the centre of the crumbling road that linked the three large acreage properties of this small base. Uncomfortable, they really doubted the wisdom of their mission. Before they"d had a goal; eliminate the potentially dangerous undead man that could easily be a threat to their base"s survival and rescue any survivors, prioritising their own men first. Only their commanding officer as well as Faith and Thomas understood that there was slightly more to this command, although the former did not know the political stand point complicating his mission further, but he suspected of much.
One of those people acting as his superiors had asked him to look out, with the aid of Faith, for a man who could manipulate water into ice and another had asked him to trust Thomas to guide him to a young man who had excellent control over plant life. Inwardly, he had sneered. He was not a fool, he understood how important the capabilities of these two could improve the circ.u.mstances at the base, however already from what little his eyes had gleamed from the moment he had arrived here, the close rapport that the men living here was not one they could weaken. It would be difficult to convince those men to accept the double-edged invitation of the base.
Tossing the secondary mission to the back of his mind, he spied Faith amongst his squad and quietly approached her. "Clarify; is the initial target that Chinese with the weird get up?"
Unlike those closest to her, she was not startled by his silent appearance, not so taut of nerve as her comrades due to being in this place. She nodded slowly, her eyes sweeping towards Ren Zexian and the youth nestling against his side. The pair, or rather, the oriental man was speaking with Dexter, this base"s clear leader, but she could not hear what was being said.
"He doesn"t look zombified to me," the man muttered. In fact, he appeared to be glowing like a man who"d found water after suffering a long drought and if his eyes weren"t deceiving him, that kid he holding close to him had been the one to quench his thirst.
Faith"s expression twisted slightly before she admitted; "Actually, the survivors here did claim that he"d be able to... fend off the infection and not turn. But I couldn"t imagine it and Thomas... well you know him better than I, sir."
The man grunted, not seeming to agree nor disagree with her last statement. He scratched the lengthening hair upon his chin, momentarily thinking about how many points it was going to cost him for a new razor since his last one had become too blunt to use, before returning to the matter at hand. The primary mission was clearly defunct, that man was not a zombie and their men (and the secondary targets) were not in need of rescue. They"d charged here acting like some n.o.ble and righteous force only to appear like a hostile one. Some diplomacy was going to be necessary.
"Well this sucks," the man sighed; he was a soldier through and through, talking really wasn"t his strong point and he disliked being lead around in circles by words. So despite being more qualified to lead the remnant army in the base than most, he"d left it to others and instead had led squads on numerous missions for food, to rescue survivors and kill zombies. In his point of view, killing zombies was easier than dealing with the enemy soldiers in Afghanistan; zombies were unthinking monsters, walking corpses and were no longer men with friends or family. Sure, it might have been tougher if he"d been back in the States, surrounded by familiar neighbours, people he grew up with, folks who"d cared for him, but that was not the case here.
Finally making a decision, he approached the person Faith pointed out as leading this group of civilian survivors, just as the boy was ushered protectively away and towards the nearest property, the main house according to the schematics he"d received of this place. "We should talk," he said, bluntly.
Dexter looked at the robust man in army attire before him. "Alright."
It was suggested, then followed through, that the soldiers ought take shelter in the second property"s walls rather than remain in the middle of the road under the increasingly hot rays of the summer sun. Zak and his comrades led the others there, while Dexter hesitated before leading their commanding officer towards the main house; it wasn"t as if no base soldiers had been here before. No point hiding their verdant "wealth" now. And so the officer had to walk for many tense minutes up the drive and between rose bushes that seemed normal and mutated, yet benign, with stretches of green lawn beyond them.
He saw the large chicken coop first, aware that there had been some arrangement during his last outing with these people and the higher ups in which they managed to obtain hens and a rooster from them. He very surprised to see the small herd of sheep lazily grazing on gra.s.s beyond that; again, he was aware from the reports that the base owned sheep, a small fact that interested the higher ups immensely, but the fact they were eating outside...? Many thoughts ran through the man"s mind, but he couldn"t decide whether these people were brave or foolish; everyone knew the risks that lie in eating food exposed to the outside world these days and that went for animals as well as humans. Was this whole place a ticking time bomb after all?
Still, he was not as quick to make snap judgement as Thomas and others he could name, his time in Afghanistan and other places he"d been stationed throughout his years in the army had seen to that. He"d seen men and women who doctors claimed would die from their b.l.o.o.d.y wounds live to recover. He"d seen soldiers who were destined to live life in a wheelchair due to lost legs get up to walk and run again on prosthetic limbs. He believed in miracles. He believed that facts could not solely explain things that happened in this world.
Take the whole meditation thing that Chang Min and now his Master attempted to teach the few who had awakened unexplainable abilities since the end. Sure on paper it sounded ridiculous, but in this officer"s mind, it could only truly be dismissed as pointless if it did not show results. They were at war and the enemy"s strength was increasing! Chang Min had long proven his strength was beyond any one ability user the base had, why would they refuse to listen to his words of advice? He, himself, had no ability, but that didn"t mean he hadn"t suggested that the soldiers most loyal to him ignore Chang Min"s words. So he knew of at least two soldiers who usually joined his squad had improved their powers. This had been kept from the higher ups though, those two didn"t want to be a.s.signed for the benefit of those people only.
So despite instinctive reservations, the officer was open and willing to see what this base was all about for himself. Fortunately, this Dexter guy was a straightforward man, blunt and to the point making things less of a ch.o.r.e and he felt that under other circ.u.mstances, he"d get on well with him.
Much later, he would leave here understanding how narrow the base"s view had become, though they were not entirely to blame for it. He would speak to those in charge about a policy that was mostly of non-interference with some beneficial co-operation between two parties and remind them that everyone should refocus on the real enemies beyond their walls; zombies. To this end he would even urge them to send more ability users to the civilian base to learn from Chang Min and Chang Min"s Master (he wanted his own men to gain more strength at the very least). Naturally, this suggestion once again split the council"s opinion and lead to bickering, but the officer just rolled his eyes and caused himself a headache trying to think of a scheme to send the two he had on his mind to the other base. d.a.m.n it was harder than organising an a.s.sault on an enemy"s weapon depot!
Then, he returned to his small, one room quarters and cracked open a can of beer he"d stashed beneath his bed for a while. He f.u.c.king hated all this negotiation and talking s.h.i.t.