in her kitchen. They all had cups of coffee and were seated informally. Paige had a laptop to take notes with on next to her. The council members all looked at her and Dora said, 'Well then, no new business? Then I vote to adjourn until tomorrow, same time, same…'
'Dora!' Paige interrupted.
'Fine. Any old business?'
'Tim.' Alex said
'Tim.' repeated Freddie and Leon at the same time.
'Yeah, Tim.' said Mary.
'Et tu Mary? Tim would be crushed. What is he doing now?'
'Normally that would be worded, 'What is he NOT doing now?'' said Freddie, 'But in this case he is speaking to the other adults about how you are not going to give him a seat on the council when he could do so much good.'
'What the fuck?' Dora said turning to Paige, 'I thought we sent him out to check on Father Cruz?'
'He wouldn't go, said he had too much on his plate to go out checking on stubborn old holdouts.' said Alex.
Dora's face turned red, 'And no one told me?' The others looked away from her, not meeting her eyes, except for Paige, 'Paige?'
'We thought we should address it here. I told him twice to get moving. Even Steven reminded him he had to work. Tim just said he was too busy to go today. Even after Alex said he was taking over Tim's project in Nina's yard.' Nina Roberts had moved into the house next to Dora's, where the large hall was being built.
'Huh? So he wants to play hardball huh? Well I say boot him out. Fuck him, he is dead weight anyway, he isn't building shit and what he has built looks like shit to me, am I right Alex?'
Alex nodded curtly, 'It doesn't look good. I think he was more of a manager, not a builder. Hell Freddie and I could do a better job and we have already discussed it.'
'Does he have a weapon we need to worry about?' asked Dora.
'Him?' asked Steven incredulously, 'The guy is afraid of his own shadow. He has a gun, but he won't use it.'
'Okay then I vote for booting him. Don't you look away from me! I know why you tolerate keeping me at the top of the heap, because I make the hard choices so you don't have to. Let me make this one and get this dead weight out of here, send him to Iowa, they will take him, they take any survivors.'
'Dora, maybe we could give him the choice? He either does as he is told for the good of everyone or he leaves for Iowa?' suggested Paige.
'He won't do either.' said Steve, 'Iowa has the mandatory serve law, they are fighting for their lives, the horde broke over us, swept around us like an island and we are really behind enemy lines, even though they caravan over to us pretty much every week. But Iowa got hit hard in Council Bluffs too and rumor has it they want to push the zombies back to Lincoln. They got zeds coming down highway thirty five from the twin cities and to the east they got the highway eighty hordes from Chicago. They can only thank fucking God that the rivers on the east and west sides of the state are so large and the populations to the north and south were relatively small otherwise they wouldn't have a chance. So no, Tim won't go to Iowa, didn't you seem him getting the news with the others yesterday when the Guards dropped off those kids?'
Dora shook her head, while Mary said a soft prayer about forgiving Steven for using the Lord's name in vain. Steven nodded to her and said softly, 'Sorry Mary.'
'Apologize to God, Steve. I know you are caught up in the passion of the moment, but try and live by his rules.' Steve nodded.
'Holy fuck.' Dora said softly.
'What?' asked Leon.
'I have surrounded myself with religious whackos! Paige, why didn't you warn me I was the only atheist on the council?'
'Dora! You are NOT an atheist!' said Mary sharply, 'Do not say such things! Don't even joke about them.'
Dora shrugged her shoulders, 'You are not all Catholic are you?' Everyone but Paige nodded. 'So we are the last voices of reason here, Paige?'
'Well after what happened with Marge, I have been going to a few study groups with Mary, but nothing official.'
'Only Father Cruz can do that, well, actually the…' began Mary.
'Don't care! Don't care! Forget I asked, can we get back to business?'
'Long story short Tim knows if he goes Iowa, he goes Army and they will put him on the front lines, he has not shown any skill worth having that would make them keep him off the front lines and I know the people over there would just push him to the front, they will figure that he will man up when the time comes.' said Steve.
'So he dies, not our problem. My problem is he is useless and wants a job on the council. Do the people think we don't go out and do things anymore? Hell, Steve you were just out at the wasteland trench two days ago. Is the perception that sitting on the council means staying out of danger?'
They sat and thought about it for a moment, then Alex said, 'I think only Tim believes that. I haven't heard any one else say it, Tim thinks if he can get a seat here, he can make a job that doesn't require him to face the zombies. He wants to be safe again, watch Monday night football, and maybe throw back a few beers.'
'Then he is a dead man. That will never happen, it's over, it's all over. Is he a drinker?'
Leon answered, 'No drinking, no real friends. Look, Dora the only people who listen to him are those who are scared themselves, he ignores the kids, so that leaves, what forty adults for him to persuade and seven of those adults are here, plus we are not even elected officials, we are a dictatorship. If you went out and shot the man in the head no one would do a damned thing.'
'Hm.' Dora scratched her head, thoughtfully, 'I could…'
'No.' Paige said, 'You can't. We are here because we agree with you that there really isn't anywhere safer, you start shooting people in the head and they will start thinking it isn't safe.' she raised her hand in a 'stop' gesture before Dora could respond, 'I know you don't give a fuck, but who would take care of the kids? And I know you give a fuck about what happens to them, don't even deny it. We got four kids fourteen and under to every adult here, you want to make that ratio ten to one? I don't.'
'Okay, so what do we do? He won't leave voluntarily, he won't do anything useful.'
'We have to be creative.' said Mary.
'If he could only build like he led us to believe, I mean even as a laborer he might be useful, but he thinks he knows things, and he doesn't, so he won't follow direction. Do we want to make a slave class? Put him in chains and bring out the whips to force him to do what we need?'
Leon sat up and grimaced at Dora, 'Probably not a good idea.'
'Oh, sorry, I was just throwing that out, maybe more like a chain gang thing than slavery?'
'What about a babysitter?' asked Paige.
'Does he get along with the kids?' asked Steven.
'Well not really, but if offered that instead of exile he might take it.'
'And I don't want him influencing the children, they can smell fear. He would make them nervous.' said Mary.
'Okay, this isn't going anywhere, no one wants him. How about this. We have the water tower now right?' asked Dora. Alex nodded. 'Won't we need a guard out there?'
'Well not really…' began Alex who stopped when Dora stared daggers at him, 'Maybe we could use someone to flip on the generator when we needed the pump to come on.'
'So we could build him a fucking bunker out there under the tower, is there a shack or fence or something around it? When I was a kid they had our town water towers fenced in to keep kids from climbing on them.'
'Yeah, a chain link fence. And a shed, but it was insulated and heated to keep the equipment from freezing, no air conditioning though.'
'So we bunker his ass in, lock the fence up and give him a walkie-talkie so we can tell him when to flip the switch.'
'Dora I was going to use a wireless relay to do that, so we wouldn't have to risk anyone being there all the
