“Are you regretting what has occurred, Peter? Are you having second thoughts about our mission?”
“Oh no! Of course not, sir!” The man nearly leapt out of his chair in his haste to convince Kevin.
Kevin assessed the man. He was in his early thirties. Horn rimmed glasses perched firmly on a slightly crooked nose. Clear blue eyes stared back at him, with a healthy mix of respect and fear. Wispy blond hair combed slightly forward to cover a receding hair line.
“It’s ok to feel regret, Peter.”
Kevin’s expression had softened. He walked down the table and sat at his chair with a soft sigh. He could feel the heat blowing at him from the fan inside the projector. It was not altogether unpleasant.
“We’ve done something terrible. We believed. Or rather, we believe in what we did and why we did it. But it was terrible, just the same. Brenin... Our beloved Sentinel... He cried when we set this in motion.”
“He carries the burden of this... severe verdict. But carry it he does. For us, and the greater good. For the future we all desire.” He met the eyes of the others at the table as he said this. Looking for doubt. Looking for defiance.
He saw none. “Continue, Peter.”
Peter cleared his throat and unnecessarily pushed his glasses further onto the bridge of his nose.
“Well sir, we believe that we can disable most of the nanobots over North America if we were to explode three nuclear devices. We have the locations and altitudes worked out, and only n–”
“I’ll stop you there, Peter. This is out of the question.” Kevin stated calmly. “An EMP would also disable many facilities, and seriously harm our satellite groups.” The others at the table nodded their agreement at this.
With a small shake of the head, he continued. “No. No, that’s not going to work.”
The room was silent for several long moments. The only sound heard was the hum of the projector, it’s fan attempting to keep the temperature within the device within operational limits. The leader stared at the projector for a few moments, lost in thought.
He turned his head to face the presenter. “Sage Johnson, can you skip ahead to the status update pertaining to our operations. I want to know how we are doing.”
Please let there be some good news. Our Sentinel needs this!
Sage Johnson flipped through the next few slides to stop on one titled ‘Operation Sanctuary’.
Status as of November 1
Primary Domicile
HQ Pod – All systems operational.
224 members, Attrition 0
31 associates of Ministry, Attrition 2
Kevin frowned. Two apostles had committed suicide. He had very little use for apostles himself, but Brenin put a lot of stock in spiritual guidance. Apparently, two out of the ten apostles couldn’t handle the knowledge of what they had done.
‘We’re supposed to be the good guys’ One of them had written down before taking his own life. Fools. There are no ‘good guys’ in this world. Kevin thought bitterly.
He focused on the next slide as it came into view.
Pod 1 – All systems operational.
78 members, Attrition 0
2 associates of Ministry, Attrition 0
Pod 2 – All systems operational.
77 members, Attrition 0
2 associates of Ministry, Attrition 0
This continued for pods three through eight. No ‘attrition’ as they called it. It all sounded good.
But Kevin had expected that. They had the best security measures, plenty of stockpiles of food, water, medicine and fuel, as well as several redundancies built in for power and air.
It was the satellite locations that worried the Paladin. Sure enough, the next slide confirmed his fear.
Satellite Alpha – Status unknown
228 members, Attrition unknown
8 associates of Ministry, Attrition unknown
“Satellite Alpha. That’s in Phoenix, right?”
“Yes sir. We lost contact with Alpha on October 24th and have not been able to hail them since.
The paladin nodded and continued down the list.
Satellite Beta – All systems unresponsive, satellite considered destroyed
424 members, Attrition 100% (Est.)
12 associates of Ministry, Attrition 100% (Est.)
Satellite Beta was located in San Jose, California. One of the places that the government had bombed in all their wisdom.
Maybe some of them got out. Kevin hoped.
Satellite Charlie – Multiple system failures, considered overrun
Security – down
Comms – unresponsive, last transmission; distress signal
310 members, Attrition 100% (Est.)
12 associates of Ministry, Attrition 100% (Est.)
Sage Johnson rattled off the statistics, one satellite location after another.
The paladin put his elbows on the table and rested his forehead on his hands. Sage Johnson hesitated for a second, then continued. When the end of the list had been reached, Kevin tallied the results in his head.
Out of twenty-four satellite locations, only four were operating with all systems operational and little or no attrition. Another six had some problem or another but were most likely not in any serious trouble. The other fourteen satellite locations were unresponsive, considered overrun, or were transmitting a distress signal.
“How....” He couldn’t continue. There was a pregnant pause as he tried to come up with a cohesive thought. The paladin lowered his hands, but his head remained bowed. His eyes were closed.
When he spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper.
“I think that I know. But I need you to tell me. How did this happen?” The Paladin asked the question, hoping to hear something he did not know.
“I will have to tell Brenin, and pray to Summuh.”
The last member at the table spoke up. “Sir, we were simply not prepared for the dead to rise and attack the living. We assumed that they would simply pass away–”
He hesitated as the paladin looked up sharply. There was a moment of awkward silence, until the paladin nodded for the man to continue. “Go on, Sage Wang.”
“Um, ... As you know, the satellite facilities weren’t as secured as our home base.”
Sage Wang was right. Several satellite locations were nothing more than an apartment building in some downtown area. These buildings included the satellite population, but also usually a large group of others. Those others were supposed to get sick and die. Not rise up as nearly indestructible zombies to attack the people of the
