Chapter Twenty Nine

We barely managed to get dressed, stow my tablet in my cargo pocket, and retie our boots when someone unlocked the door to the trailer. If the doctor who entered noticed the chemical scent in the air, he was nice enough not to comment on it. Or maybe he was too focused on checking whether I'd gone feral during the trip. He was certainly quick to usher me under a scanner so he could take new pictures of my head and chest.

"I'm not seeing any changes," he told me after ten minutes of staring at his computer tablet. "I'm going to clear you for now, but let your CO know you're to return if you feel any changes. Even if it's something minor like a new bruise or a sudden hunger pain, I need to know about it. Okay?"

As soon as Hanson and I stepped out of the medical trailer, we were surrounded by White, Grady, Carver, and Doc.

"What did he say?" Doc asked.

"He couldn't find anything," I replied. "I'm free to go. What did I miss?"

"Commander Trent found the scent trail like you did," White told us. "He's on the horn with the President and the Secretary of Defense right now. They want to talk to you."

I choked. "Me? Talk to the President?"

Grady clapped me on my shoulder and tried to soothe me. "You had no problem talking to Commander Trent earlier. You can talk to the President the same way. He's not going to expect someone like you to be rigid and formal, especially in times like these."

They didn't give me a chance to say no. They escorted me straight to the Intel trailer and shoved me inside, barely giving me a chance to see our camp had been parked in someone's abandoned farm field.

Commander Trent stood up from where he'd been leaning over a workstation and gestured for me to join him at the far end of the trailer. I did my best not to brush against any of the seated techs as I made my way to him, but it was hard since the aisle was so narrow.

On the workstation in front of Commander Trent was a television screen encased behind a steel frame and several layers of bulletproof glass. On the screen itself was a split image showing the President behind his Presidential desk—it had to be an imitation since the White House had been overrun—and another man in a stiff uniform covered in medals whom I assumed was the Secretary of Defense.

"This is the one I was telling you about," the Commander said as he latched onto my shoulder and placed me in full view next to him. "Bryant, President Orwen has a few questions for you."

"I'll keep it short," the President said as he clasped his hands on his desk. "First of all, I would like to thank you for having the good sense to report what you found, Mr. Bryant. It makes me very glad I ignored my advisors and listened to Secretary Jordan instead. Today, you've proven the worth of Zed's Lich Units and validated the worth of Lich in general."

Right off the bat, I knew I was going to live up to my name as Grumpy, because I heard what he was really telling me—there were people in charge who thought Lich should be exterminated on sight.

General Trent heard it, too. The only reason I didn't respond was because of the way his hand tightened on my shoulder, warning me to remain silent.

"However, that's not actually why I wanted to speak to you. You're a young man with a fresh perspective. I'm told you've been a member of the Zed Task Force for less than a week. How do you feel about the activities you've witnessed so far?"

It wasn't hard to read between the lines. He was feeling me out for some reason, possibly with the idea of making me into some kind of poster boy for a 'save the Lich' movement or a military recruitment drive. If I gave a good answer, I'd probably be shipped out to some facility somewhere they could record videos and take pictures.

Fucking bureaucrats.

"Can I speak freely?" I asked. The hand on my shouldered tightened again, but I ignored it. I was seething too much inside.

"Please do," the President urged with a photo-worthy smile.

"You're being wasteful," I stated boldly. "While everyone is trying to think of a long-term solution, everyone is ignoring the short-term ones. There's a crap ton of zombies on the East Coast and they're not going to stay there forever. They're eventually going to get hungry and start searching for food. The longer we wait to take them out, the more chance they'll spread beyond current containment."

"What would you have us do?" the Secretary of Defense asked. "We can't just bomb every city with infected in it."

"Why not? Because it'll look bad? Because people will get pissed off over the property damage? Let them. At least they'll still be around to bitch. Every building left standing is a potential place for zombies to hide and evolve where we can't see them. If there was ever a time for scorched earth tactics, this is it. We should be going building to building, clearing out supplies and knocking them down. Then, when the entire city is flattened, we should firebomb the entire place and salt it for good measure."

Both the President and the Secretary stared at me like I'd gone crazy. Only Commander Trent had the sense to ask, "Why salt?"

"If nothing grows there, wildlife won't survive, either. That means we don't have to worry about any birds or beasts picking up pieces of zombies and flying off with them, spreading the parasite even further. The planet will bounce back, but not until all the zombies are dust and the threat is gone. In the meantime, we humans can grow food in greenhouses. I'm sure you guys were planning on doing that anyway since you're relocating our population to Alaska."

The President's tone turned patronizing. "Even if we did that in the US, other countries might not follow suit. We'll still have the threat of zombies crossing the border onto our soil."

I stared at him for a long moment, then calmly replied, "If the earth is scorched, at least we'll see them coming. And don't you guys have an issue with radical groups trying to leave Quarantine so they can go out, loot supplies, and pretend they're in some kind of post-apocalyptic movie? By knocking down the infested cities, you don't leave them anywhere to go to set up base. Without that, most of them will probably settle down and see reason."

"He makes a compelling point, Mr. President," the Secretary said. He stared at me through the screen, a small smile twitching at the corner of his lips. "Mr. Bryant, I'm curious. If you were in charge of Zed, what would you do?"

"The first thing I'd do is get the uninfected troops out of here," I replied. "They're helpful, but they're also zombie bait. We can't protect them and push forward at the same time. Right now, Zed is stuck holding the line. We can't dive deeper while they're with us."

The Secretary of Defense leaned forward toward the screen. "Okay, then what?"

"Dig a trench," I said. "Not a literal one, but firebomb everything along the River for a few miles in either direction. That'll give you a place to set up a real front line where you can see the enemy coming. Right now, there's too much vegetation. The zombie from last night never should have been able to get so close. After the fire settles down, have the uninfected fortify and defend while Zed's infected push forward into enemy territory. I think I remember someone saying we have permission to knock down buildings. Let us use that to remove places for zombies to hide. Yeah, maybe that'll piss off a bunch of people in the Quarantine Zone, but it's not like any of them can rebuild for a minimum of ten years. Most of the buildings would be scrap by then anyway."

"Another compelling point. Keep going."

I started to relax since they sounded as if they were actually interested rather than continuing to patronize me. "The biggest problem with zombies is they don't stop, even when they're ripped into pieces. The second biggest problem is their numbers. There's too many for us to go around incinerating them one-by-one. Even if we find a vaccine, the longer zombies are allowed to walk around, the more chance the parasite will evolve and make the vaccine useless. With all due respect, I think the only real option is to either set the whole world on fire or freeze it. Setting it on fire would be a bad idea since that would take nukes and zombies seem to be attracted to radiation, but freezing it should be possible."

"You're going to have to elaborate," the President said, his brow furrowing.

"People have been talking about human impact on the environment and how we're causing global warming. We should reverse that and cause an artificial ice age."