Cultivator in a Zombie Apocalypse

Chapter Eighty Nine - Clarify; Just Who Is The Real Enemy

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 circumstances 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 noble 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 grass 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 bloody 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 assigned 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 chore and he felt that under other circumstances, 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.  Damn it was harder than organising an assault 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 fucking hated all this negotiation and talking shit.

Author's note; this chapter was also a bit shit as well as being really late.  I'm going to save some clarification points for the next chapter as I am unhappy with this but not sure how to fix it otherwise.  I'll try get that chapter out today and then from next week, hopefully some new things will occur!