To Be A Warrior

Chapter 13: Getcha Head In The Game

Music blares in my ears as I grab the weights, lyrics from Jason Derulo's "In My Head" sounding far less... appropriate than I remember. Still, I'm thankful I found an iPod with working earbuds while I was running decoy yesterday. After Jones and Evans ran off, we had to deter some of the zombies that had been around the fence, plus make sure the horde that had been coming wasn't still coming.

While I'm not the biggest fan of this song or the others that the previous owner of this device downloaded, they're a good distraction from the pain that comes in my legs as I do multiple sets of lunges. I've got a bit too much energy, but I have no runs today and only was scheduled to help with breakfast in the kitchens, so I've got a bit of free time until Phineas gets done with school and needs help with his homework.

I don't want to bother Sam. He's busy with supply runs. While those missions are normally less exciting that the one I had yesterday, there are still quite a few zombies wondering around, scattered a few miles from Abel. It's nothing serious, but there are a few clusters of ten or so zoms here and there, and Janine is true to her word when she states that only doctors are allowed to have vials of the cure on hand unless otherwise stated. I think she's afraid if we have it, we'll start to become sloppy.

I don't agree, since we runners know zombie bites are still extremely panful, and it can get infected and cause you to lose a limb or kill you. Bites in general can get infected easily, and seeing that zombies are literally rotting away, that type of bacteria could cause serious damage, even without the threat of turning into a rotting, moving flesh-bag.

I grunt, setting down my weights for a quick second. My legs are already burning, probably because of how taxing yesterday was, and it was all for nothing. All we got was a bit of damage to our fences and an AI core dangled in front of our faces, only to be snatched away when Jones and Evans fled.

And all I got was a nasty headache from Jones hitting me with his gun, twice. Of course, it had already healed when Maxine checked it out, and I simply shrugged and told her I must have overexaggerated how hard he hit me. She didn't look convinced, but there wasn't really any other logical explanation, none that she could think of.

I get back to my lunges, thoughts of yesterday now plaguing my mind. Was Jones telling the truth about the AI core? Was it something he just came up with because he was pissed we didn't tell what he wanted to hear? He ran off after he said it, and there were too many zombies around Abel for us to worry about going after him and Evans. Just because that device was destroyed didn't mean the zombies were just going to walk away, not when there were tasty humans they could all smell. That's why I had to head back out to run as decoy with Runners Seventeen, Twenty-three and Thirty.

Nicole insisted we go after him, force him to tell us what he knew about that computer core. She suggested capturing him, and while she didn't outright say it, I knew she had an idea of how to get him to talk. Nicole is still a Torrencer, and she doesn't feel guilty when she hurts people. She doesn't see a point in feeling guilt because she's doing what needs to be done. That's what she believes, at least.

But we couldn't. There were too many zombies around Abel already, and we weren't going to force Jones and Evans to tell us about that core. If we tortured them to get what we wanted, we'd be no better than Sigrid, and for all we know, they could have been lying.

I lose count of how many reps I do, but my legs are shaking by the time I stop, and seeing that I'm holding thirty-pound dumbbells in my hands, it must have been a lot.

I do feel bad for Millie, Jones's wife. She didn't deserve to die like she did, but there's nothing we can do about it now, just like there's nothing we can do about Jones and Evans now, or that computer core. I'm sure Veronica would have made great use of the thing, but it's gone, so if we do plan on getting something like that, it'll have to be from a different source.