Bob walked over, trying to take in Yassa. He’d not taken to the base attire and so long as it wasn’t laundry day for him, he just stayed in what he thought was comfortable. Joey replied, pointing and asking, “That’s the pilot, right?”
Yassa nodded, repeating, “Pilot Bob is his name.”
“Mr. Pilot Bob, I’m sorry but you don’t get to come. I don’t want you to feel bad though, because you are the only pilot. I don’t want to let you get your head removed. Yassa, you get to be our wingman. You totally get to come with.”
“With where, Joey?”
“Oh, Mr. Mark, who needs to get some manners lessons, gave us a list.”
“A grocery list?”
“A zombie list.”
Bob said, “Is he sending you kids after that stuff? We can’t let you go off on your own.”
Joey walked over, giving Bob a hug, and replied, “Look, Mr. Bob, I don’t like telling people no, but I can’t let you go. If a zombie eats you, then you can’t fly people off the base if things go really badly. Unless you wanna show someone how to fly, you know, if you wanna go with us really bad and worry about them zombies killing you? Is that why you are giving lessons?”
“Uh, it isn’t quite that easy to get the plane up and going. But I think you’ve got a good point. Would you be offended if I asked Joe to go with you? He was a Chicago Police Officer. He and the arsenal we took to fight our way to the CDC building. He and Earl went out first to test the powder and from there we came here.”
Joey looked around and whispered to Yassa, “You aren’t going to get in trouble if we take an officer with us are you, Yassa? We won’t get in trouble for stealing the chemicals, will we? I don’t wanna get put in jail for taking stuff.”
“If we get the stuff to kill all of these things, you won’t be put in jail, we are gonna be put in history books. We’ll probably be more famous than rock stars.”
Joey said, “I think if someone wrote our story, this would be a monster story.”
His statement was hauntingly accurate. Yassa and Joey found Joe, and the further promise of hope, which was a rarity these days, did not leave him able to say no. Joe was looking around the base and said, “You guys got an armory close? I’m not going out naked.”
Joey laughed, “Well, I hope there aren’t any of us going naked. I mean, where are you guys going to put your bullets at? I mean, we need a bag for sure right, just to get the stuff back. I don’t think if it kills zombies that I want any of that stuff touching me.”
Joe asked, “Do you know where the college is, Joey?”
“It’s in Iowa. I don’t know where. I think that Ellie knows, though. She’s getting the list of ingredients that we need from Mr. Mark. He was stuck on us having to take a couple people with who were older than me. Ellie figured that if we took him and he died and Scott died that we could be in some serious trouble, since no one else will know how to make what they got.”
“But Yassa and myself would be worth the gamble, is that bout the gist?” Joe asked without much enthusiasm.
“Mr. Joe, you sure are smart. If you wanna go with Yassa, I got a couple other people I want to round up. They’re always talking and complaining how they never get off of the base. Always saying what they’d do to the Turned if we just gave them a chance. Well, they are going to be really happy when I go find them and let them know the good news.”
Yassa didn’t say anything. He was a man of few words, but when it came time to get a job done, he might have unconventional ways of accomplishing it but he did not let down. Yassa was looking at Joe and said, “Well, I’m assuming that we are taking an armored Humvee, I hope. I would say we should take a tank, but the guy that knows how to drive one is off on his own mission and the other one is sitting shotgun, I'd imagine, next to him or in the back.”
“I am pretty excited about getting to go and do a mission right after almost dying a handful of times in Chicago.”
“Strange, you guys went from somewhere horrible, yet you found a way to come to somewhere even worse, probably much worse,” Yassa informed.
“I guess I’m just lucky, Yassa,” Joe said, walking towards the direction Yassa had been pointing in.
Twenty minutes later, Ellie came out, seeing a desert colored Humvee, and she smiled leaning over to Kya. She asked, “Is this what you’d think of for a group going after the most important thing that could change everyone’s fates in the world?”
Kya studied the group; she knew pretty much everyone outside of Joe the officer. When she saw Yassa was coming, she wasn’t sure how much help he was going to be or if he was going to find some way to get into trouble. Joey had acquired four other boys, all the same age as herself and Ellie. She knew Jon would want to come because he’d been trying to get back good again with Clary. The day that Ellie had left, and he hadn’t stopped her, and then the aftermath of hell that was the biggest shit show, almost ever, did not leave him in a friendly position with Clary. So, when Joey had been asking Henry, Brett, and Lucas, Jon had overheard and practically begged him to let him go with. Not realizing
