“I think that’s the motto of the American Nation,” suggested Benny.
Lilah nodded her agreement, but Riot snorted.
“What?” asked Benny, shooting her a look. “You don’t think so?”
“Close to three hundred million Americans have died, son, during the Fall and in the years after,” said Riot. “How many have to croak before y’all consider it game over?”
“All,” said Lilah.
“Absolutely,” agreed Nix. “We’re still fighting.”
“Yeah,” said Benny, nodding. “Besides, it wasn’t our generation who was defeated when the dead rose. I still believe there’s a future, and I intend to be there to see it.”
Riot considered him, and a slow smile spread over her face. “Well look at you, Captain Hero.”
“Oh, shut up,” said Benny, but he was grinning.
The last thing they found was a folded slip of paper with a series of numbers written on it:
+36°30′ 19.64", — 117°4′ 45.81"
“What are those?” asked Riot.
“Map coordinates,” said Benny and Nix at the same time. They’d both taken orienteering in the Scouts.
“Coordinates of what?”
Benny shrugged. “Probably Hope One, but I’d need a map to figure it out.”
He crammed the useless stuff back into the dead sergeant’s pocket. Then they turned their attention to the satchel, which was crammed with papers. In another climate, rain and humidity might have turned the papers to mush or made the ink run and fade. But between the good leather of the satchel and the dry desert heat, most of the papers were legible, though they were all dried to a fragile brittleness. Joe said that Sergeant Ortega had been a logistics coordinator, and the papers bore that out. There were copies of loading manifests, supply lists, personnel lists, written orders, and a lot of stuff that was so heavy with military acronyms that it looked like totally random collections of letters and numbers.
“Well, that’s as helpful as toenails on a snake,” observed Riot.
“What are we looking for?” asked Nix.
“A small leather notebook,” said Benny. “Joe said that if McReady wasn’t onboard the plane when it crashed, then the logistics guy would know where she might be, and that the details would be in a leather notebook he usually carried in his shirt pocket.”
“I checked the pockets,” said Nix. “Nothing.”
They rifled through the satchel again, digging through every pocket and pouch, and came up empty.
Lilah became frustrated with it all and stalked off to scout the vicinity. She soon vanished into the woods.
Depression punched Benny hard in the chest. He sat down heavily and tossed the empty satchel away. Riot and Nix were still huddled together as they went through the crackling papers. They read each page in mounting disappointment and stuffed everything back into the satchel. All that remained were a handful of small scraps of paper, and Nix sat cross-legged going through them.
“Benny!” Nix suddenly cried aloud, and held up one piece of paper. “Look at this. I think I found something.”
Benny hurried over, dropping to his knees between the girls. The slip of paper read:
URGENT: REPT OF R3 ACTIVITY VCNTY OF DVNP — REL. WIT. *** FTF?
“Don’t make a lick of sense to me,” said Riot.
But Benny said, “Oh crap…”
“I know,” agreed Nix, and despite the heat she shivered. “God… R3’s.”
“What’s an R3?” asked Riot. “Y’all look like you both swallowed bugs.”
Benny said, “When we first found the plane, we also found one of Dr. McReady’s field reports. She wasn’t just looking for a cure; she was studying several weird new mutations of the zombie plague. She divided the zoms into different groups. R1’s are the normal zoms, the slow shufflers.”
For most of his life those were the only kinds of zoms Benny had known, and his first encounters with them had been absolutely terrifying. He still dreamed of the erosion artist, Mr. Sacchetto, recently risen from the dead, attacking him in Benny’s own living room. Benny nearly lost that fight. Times had changed, though, and Benny knew that he was becoming a skilled fighter. In a pitched fight, he was sure that he and his sword were a match for any six or even eight of them. Unarmed, he figured he could do pretty well against two or three at a time. They were slow, uncoordinated, stupid, and weak.
“The R2 zoms,” continued Benny, “are known as ‘fast walkers’ by McReady’s people — quicker and a lot more coordinated. Nix and I ran into some of them near Yosemite Park and again during the battle of Gameland.”
Benny had fought a couple of the R2’s so far, and it was a whole different matter taking one of them down. He wouldn’t want to try it without a sword.
“So what are R3’s?” asked Riot.
“The fast ones,” said Nix. “Like the ones that attacked me and Lilah yesterday. According to Dr. McReady’s report, the R3’s can problem-solve, evade some attacks, use simple weapons, and even set rudimentary traps.”
“Ah. Like the ones that some genius let out of a crashed airplane.”
Benny shook his head. “Don’t remind me.”
In order to create a diversion that would save Nix from a pack of reapers, Benny had climbed aboard the crashed plane and released all the zoms Dr. McReady’s team had collected: R1’s, R2’s, and a few R3’s. The zoms had created the diversion, and that saved Nix’s life; however, it was one of those same R3 zoms who picked up a stick and nearly bashed Benny’s brains out.
“So, according to this message,” said Benny, “someone spotted R3’s somewhere. I guess ‘activity vcnty of ’ means ‘activity in the vicinity of,’ right?”
Nix nodded. “And the ‘Rel. Wit.’? What’s that? ‘Reliable witness’?”
“Sounds right.”
“Then what’s DVNP?” asked Riot. “And FTF?”
“FTF sounds familiar,” said Benny. “I’m pretty sure I saw that in the Teambook I gave to Joe. Wait, it’s right on the tip of my brain….” He snapped his fingers a couple of times, then brightened. “Got it. There was a note. Something about Field Team Five.”
“Field Team?” murmured Nix. “If they were going to investigate something like R3 activity, then a ‘field team’ would sound about right.”
“It listed the names, but all I can remember was Dr. McReady. She was at the top of the list.”
They looked at one another for a long time without saying anything, though their eyes said it all.
“Well, skin me and hang me out to dry,” breathed Riot at last. “Doc McReady was never on that plane. At least not when it crashed. Either of you think any different?”
Nix shook her head.
Benny said, “I’ve been thinking that all along. Ever since Joe told me that the D-series notes were missing.”
“If it was a field investigation,” began Nix, “why would she take her research? Why not just send it on to Sanctuary?”
“I don’t know.”
Riot tapped the note that Nix still held. “What’s this part here? ‘DVNP’? Y’all have any clue what that is?”
“I don’t know,” said Benny. “More military initials, maybe? Department of something-something-something.”
“Useful,” said Nix. “No, I think it’s a place. R3 reported in the vicinity of…”
“Vicinity of where?” complained Riot. “They flew from Washington State to Nevada. That’s a lot of gol-durn places to be in the vicinity of.”
Benny took the note and held it firmly between thumb and forefinger. He wanted to shout at it, to make it speak in a human voice and unlock its mysteries.
And then it spoke to him.
Not in words, but in implication.
His head snapped up and whipped around toward the fallen body of Sergeant Ortega.