Ascension

'Any back up plans?' Ruben was looking closely at Bill again.

'What do you suggest, Ruben?'

'Well, nothing ever goes like we want it to. I think we should at least have a rendezvous, a fall back location that we agree to meet at if everything hits the fan. I think it should be here first, but if we end up driving another hundred miles we should choose another location closer to the target. Just in case.'

'That makes sense, if we get separated we come back to this rest area and wait, say three days? After that we could meet at the campground we were at yesterday, then the airfield they dropped us off at. How about this we scratch our names into the bathroom stall doors along with a date? The last stall in the bathroom should do, then we'll at least be able to know if anyone was there before us or not.'

'I like that. Three day layovers at each place and even if no one shows, we are all least making our way back to Iowa.' said Stewart.

'Okay, let's check guns and ammo and get this done. We could be heading home by the end of today, wouldn't that be something? To have this over with?' Bill asked.

'Yeah, but I won't be happy until we are back in Iowa with the kids.' Max said.

'I'd drink to that.' said Ruben.

'Guns first, then zombies, then drinking.' laughed Bill.

They laid their guns out on the hood of the cars and went through their available ammo for each of them. Everyone except Ruben still had military rifles and Ruben's shotgun was still in good working order too. Again, everyone except Ruben had pistols as backup weapons, Ruben had his combat knife and Stewart was carrying a second back up pistol and the machete she had taken from the state patrol headquarters. Ammunition was still plentiful. They had been given ten magazines with each rifle along with two cases of extra bullets when they had been dropped off by the military. Unfortunately they had burned through most of the extra ammo along the way, they still had eight magazines of military grade ammunition for each gun, plus two loaded with the less accurate.223 ammo they had found. Ruben was drowning in shells for the shotgun, he had well over a hundred left after taking the shells Max had started with. He made sure his gun was fully loaded and he stashed twenty five shells in various pockets in his fatigues before he stowed the rest in his pack. The others divvied up the loose.223 rounds and put them in their packs as well. Stewart and Ruben looked over all the guns and gave them a quick clean up before they were reloaded and handed back to the owners.

'I'll lead off with Max. You three follow behind us.' Stewart said.

Bill started to say something, but Max glanced at him and shook his head slightly until he just said, 'Okay.'

They were all ensconced into their vehicles and driving eastward a few minutes later. Stewart was very quiet, too quiet for Max.

'Stewart? What's up?'

Max expected her to say 'Nothing', in fact he had his response all lined up and ready to go, to cajole her into telling him what was bothering her.

Instead she said, 'I think we're getting fucked up the ass by these guys.'

'Wh-what?'

'Your friend, Bill and his two soldiers. By Draper, by Aubrey, by everyone involved in this so called mission.'

'Whoa, just whoa, slow down for a minute. Draper, sure. Aubrey, maybe; you weren't there. But Bill? No way, uh-uh, never in a million years.'

'A million years is a long time. It might not be on purpose on Bill's part, he could have been fed bad information and is just acting on it to the best of his ability.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Why aren't the military guys going in here? Why didn't Draper come south instead of heading East? Why level with us about the bomb after we parted ways? I mean hell, why level with us about it at all?'

'One at a time please. I'll argue with you about things all day long if you like, but I can't answer everything in such a quick succession. What is bothering you most?'

'Everything!' Stewart yelled.

'Uh…'

'Fuck. I know Max, I know you can't help me out of this. Could you listen to me and give your perspective though? I need to know how fucked we are.'

'I can do that, talk.'

'Okay, first thing's first. Why do you suppose Draper leveled with us about the bomb?'

Max shrugged, 'I've been thinking of that too, there wasn't any point. Except one; Draper wanted us to know that it would blow up and take out more than we had been told. He wanted to give us a chance to get away. When they told us about the bomb they gave us a safety distance, which we had to be at to avoid dying when it went off. If we would have hidden at the minimum safe distance for a nuclear bomb we would have died when this animatronic one went off.'

'Postitronic. You think Draper told us that, just so we would have a chance to live?'

'I do and I think he wasn't supposed to either.'

'What makes you say that?'

'Here is what I figure. If you are giving a group of idiots…well, that might be harsh. If you are giving a group that doesn't stand much of a chance for completing the mission, the tools to complete that mission, you want to give them the best chance of taking out the target.'

'So far, Max, you are not helping much.'

'Let me finish. Most people want to live. A bomb like this comes with an inherent risk to blowing the user up if they are not careful, along with the target. In order to be used properly the bomb has to be placed where the target is.' Max held up his hand in a placating manner to keep Stewart from interrupting, 'I said let me finish. So newbies like us need to set the bomb off as close to the target as possible, but that conflicts with us wanting to survive too. We might set the bomb too soon; this doctor guy might leave the area if we set it too far away. So they tell us it has a short range and we should be able to hunker down close to it and survive. Makes sense, are you with me so far?'

'Go on, but get to the point.'

'What would we do if we knew the bomb was more devastating? We would feel comfortable setting it off further away from the target, giving him a better chance to get out of range. We would be hunkered down too far away to reposition it too, making it even less likely to try. That equals more of a chance for us to fail. Do you see?'

Stewart nodded, 'I can see that is one argument. I am not saying that I agree completely with it.'

'Well Draper, he is a tough guy, hard to trust and difficult to work with. I didn't ever get the feeling he wanted us dead. I think he went against orders to put that message on the bomb. I don't think it was a planned 'after you separate' thing by the top brass at all. I think he disobeyed orders.'

'That's giving him a lot of credit. And your argument makes no sense at all. They could have just left it as it was and not told us anything.'

'Well, that's all I got, whether it makes any sense or not. Next question.' said Max.

'No, I don't think…'

'Next question. You asked my opinion and I gave it, you said you had a lot of questions, let's go through those first and if you still want to poke holes in my argument after that we can revisit this.'

'Oh, we're playing that way are we? Fine. I'll do a two for one then. Why didn't the military send more soldiers or send Draper directly?' asked Stewart.

'Me. That is the long and short of it. I can pinpoint this asshole. I've been thinking back to my conversation with Aubrey and I am not sure we were the only group they inserted either. She said something to me before we parted ways, something about how was I sure she hadn't contacted the other teams? She used plural, when she was talking to me. From my perspective there is only one 'other team' out there, Drapers.'

Stewart mulled this over, 'You aren't really saying anything I haven't already figured out myself here. Somehow when you say it, things sound better. Are we on a suicide mission?'

Max leaned backed, he hadn't considered it. Given what he had already said about the bomb he was having a hard time stating 'no' outright. 'I don't know. I know I have two kids back in Iowa and I know I plan to get back