ZOMBIE lost & found

14: Out of the Lying Pan

The reassignment order arrived by internal mail near the end of the day.  The transport would pick him up from home next dusk. He could take two trunks worth of possessions.  The two trunks, basically large metal footlockers, were provided. Fred looked at them morosely.

The better angel of his nature told him that one of those trunks was the best way to repatriate Hank.  Once he put his research supplies in the other he'd have about enough room for a good book and a change of clothes.

Certainly not 'the' good book.  He told the better angel, I've got to draw the line somewhere.

He looked up to see Jenny watching him, less judgmentally than usual.

Fred mused, "If you put a dog in one of those, do you think it would suffocate?"

"You could drill holes," Jenny offered grudgingly.  She went into the utility room, presumably for a drill.

While she was gone Fred slipped into the toes-and-tackle room to do a little dick-napping.  As long as he brought everything he needed, he'd have time to roll the dice before shipping out.

To my almost certain demise, but at least I won't die a eunuch. Maybe.

He had not been able to grab a moment to check on Mrs. Roadkill, and there should have been other trials using non-endogenous material to confirm he had solved the transplant rejection problem.  

Jenny cursed, drill shrieking, as she tried to perforate the trunk. Fred squared his back to her and packed up his fume hood.  Slipping the pilfered member, rolled in aluminum foil, into a package of pipettes nestled next to a coldpak.  Lying in the box it looked like nothing more than a rather disappointing burrito, or a very impressive tamale.  He patted it reassuringly before closing the lid.

I am going on an adventure, he told himself.  He did not find himself very convincing.  I'm more Gollum than Bilbo, let's be honest.

Jen finally finished and stood, blowing flyaway hair from her face.  "Should I do the other one too?  It might look suspicious otherwise."

Fred shrugged.  The beat-up trunks differed in their dimensions, paint, and fittings.  He doubted a few holes would draw much attention.  The fact they were so obviously fresh and showing shiny silver metal was more of a problem. But most likely no one going to give a shit about a reservation medic and his stuff, even if I dressed as a clown and packed the trunks with two live tigers.

"You know my pickup's not working," Jen added.

"You what?" 

"I hit a feral sheep up the pass road," she added. "Those things are becoming a fucking menace. I'm going to have to cut away from stuff that's rubbing on the wheels, so I came on the moped today. Speaking of which I am going to have to leave now before first light."

"Fred rubbed his temples, feeling his unconscious mind rearranging its plans. "Yeah, all right. Don't make the same mistakes I did."

Jenny was already putting on her overcoat. "Hardly likely," she said.

He was struck by another wayward thought. "Hey, Jen. What do you think they are like for equipment at the res.  Testing equipment, human medical stuff, and so on."

Jen gave him one of her trademark exasperated looks.

"What?" Fred raised his hands. "I may not give much of a shit, but no one has ever been able to call me incompetent."

"It's going to get you killed, Doc. And in any case none that stuff is here. You'd have more luck at a veterinary hospital than this one." She paused and thought. "Except maybe in the subbasements, and most of that will be expired." She made her departure. Not one for heartfelt farewells. Except maybe her haste was to ensure she didn't show any emotions, rather than because she didn't have any,

God help me, the only kind of dog I am is the pathetic kind of stray Jenny feels sorry for. And even then, not a cute enough pup to get an offer to help.

He had almost an hour to dawn, the sun-up times were posted on a fading Gestetner copy next to the door.  His only real hope for help was...

Just around locking up time, Fred stuck his head out the door. The large woman with a bat had been replaced by a tall, older-looking lady with a round face and glasses. She held a large black umbrella in one hand and a machete in the other.

"Didn't the proper security guys give you some trouble about that?" Fred asked nodding to the large blade.

She shrugged, "I guess they decided not to."

Fred nodded. Machete Woman had dead marble eyes that suggested a trump card level of sociopathy, so he didn't blame security for giving it a pass. He looked out across the now largely empty carpark and the sky just starting to lighten. 

"There have been some troublesome developments," he said.  He waited for some kind of reaction and getting none just pressed on. "Could you get hold of Thorn, preferably with a few able-bodied friends and a vehicle? Sharpish?"

The woman's expression did not change at all, but she reached into the folded of her drab gray dress, which apparently concealed a pocket, and pulled out a walkie-talkie. "Batgirl to Spider, come in."

She's more a Ma Parker, really.  But who am I to say?

A static-y reply came back, to blurred for Fred to make sense of but Ma seemed to have no trouble. "Roger that Spider. Tell Alpha to bring the truck plus two with him.  Lapdog wants a meeting."

You... what the fuck? This metaphor is seriously getting a bit too meta!

There was another burst of buzzing words ending with: "ETA twenty, Roger that."

"So," Fred ventured. "Alpha, is that lie the boss of you all?"

Somehow he had just assumed that Thorn's group were all a bunch of immature near-do-well more of less like him.  But now things were sounding a bit more serious and organized.  It made the gambit he had in mind a lot riskier than he had hoped, and not just for him....