"Agreed. But what else could we do in times like this?"
"I still don't get what is going on?"
"We want you to join us."
Dave blinked. "Although I wouldn't consider myself political, I do have strong opinions. I'm not sure that I could be as neutral as you'd like."
"Which is why you'll be in parallel organisation to DOA. You'll have access to a lot of DOA resources but only on a per request basis. If you ended up developing some nasty political motives that could become harmful then our support will be dropped."
"That seems weird."
"Basically, as long as you continue to explore the dead, do all that you can to understand them and maybe even develop countermeasures then we'll help you."
"I was kind of going to do that anyway. You could have gotten all that labour for free."
"Like I said, it looks like DOA has the only communication system in the country. It needs a lot of work, but you'll be able to use it to spread what you learn. This was what won over all the DOA operatives into helping you. We're worried that we'll lose your knowledge, but if you regularly put what you know out onto the DOA communication network then that knowledge will survive on and will help others to get through all this."
Dave chuckled and shook his head. "Sounds nuts, but I'm in."
Jane held out her hand. Dave looked at it for a moment before taking her hand in his and giving it a firm shake.
* * *
When Dave woke up the next day, he found a note on the floor near the stretcher where slept. Jane had left while he was asleep and left a few items. One was a small note explaining her absence. It wasn't a particularly meaningful explanation and Dave suspected that DOA still didn't trust him fully. On the back of the note was a crudely drawn map that showed the location of a house.
The crude map was a building only a few kilometres from Dave's camp. Dave spent the morning riding his bike to the location and searching out the address on the map. It was a plain, one-family house of no real note. Dave walked about the house trying out the front door and some of the windows.
Eventually he found a loose window that he gave a jerk and scraped open. After climbing through the window, Dave searched through the house looking for the main bedroom. Once he got to the main bedroom, he opened the door to a walk-in wardrobe. The wardrobe was stocked with all manner of tactical military clothes that seemed the default fashion for the DOA people.
It was the safe at the back of the wardrobe that interested Dave the most. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key that Jane had left with him. He tried the key in the safe's door and pulled the door open. A number of military-influenced weapons greeted him. Dave nodded in confirmation.
This was a little and a strange sort of help. Dave had no reason to expect miracles. He had no real knowledge of the outside world. He could only assume that the whole world had descended into chaos and was lost to humanity. Yet Dave believed that he would find a way forward. He couldn't see exactly what that way forward was but he was convinced that it was there. It was that growing belief in himself which was enough for Dave to now consider himself to be not be the useless bastard that he once was.
It was a faint spark for a man. It would become the fire of hope for humanity.
