A Gang of Six(ish)

If you missed yesterday's post, you might want to go back and read it. Go on, I'll wait here.

...

Done? Good. then you know I've been asked to assemble and lead a team of people to travel with me all over the country in a repeat performance of Courtney's trip last year. I'm to lead the team, and technically be a sort of diplomat in the field, but the council suggested very strongly that they wanted someone with me who went on the last trip. Someone the various groups of survivors had met, gotten to know, and trusted. 

So yeah, Steve is coming with me. He volunteered, since beside Courtney (his wife) there's no one that went on that journey who was trusted more than him. Little David would have been a good choice had we not lost him recently. While I'm technically the envoy, Steve is the practical choice. He knows these people. They'll listen to him much easier than they will me. 

Becky is also on the list. She's useful in a ton of different ways, and while she's getting more comfortable around the people of New Haven, she's still dealing with a lot of emotional fallout from her trip across the world to get here. She and I have grown very close in the time she's been with us, especially given that she lives with Jess and I. She doesn't want to stay in NH without me. Not to minimize how much her skillset is going to help out, mind you. I'm just glad she's been teaching people how to make explosives, or the council probably wouldn't have let her leave. 

You may have guessed already, but I'm also taking Will Price. I spent a lot of time yesterday basically telling the council that if he didn't get to go with me, I wouldn't leave. They made the argument that Will, who is still technically a prisoner, has been vital to the defense efforts here. That New Haven would be less safe without him. I made the case that we shouldn't be so reliant on a convicted criminal, which was my underhanded way of trying to have his sentence overturned, his punishment ended. Dodger, who is in charge of defense, has a lot of Will's plans and designs to work with. NH will be fine without Will. 

The outcome of this trip will determine whether or not Will remains a prisoner. I'm keen to see him do well. 

Mason is coming with us as well. He's healed up from his injuries, though the process took months. He's back to his normal, scary military man self. Plus, he knows the outside world and safe routes. None of us have gone a tenth as far as him. 

So far we haven't got a sixth person on the roster. I'm looking into it, and maybe a seventh. It'll depend on what the other members of the team think. I need to keep our numbers small for the sake of mobility and making supplies last, but I won't turn away someone who might make our trip easier or safer because it would make seven. 

That's all I have on the trip so far. My brother has outright declined to go, but he's busy making sure all the stuff we'll need for a long haul is ready. That, while he's still managing the completion of the outer wall. His work ethic is almost crackhead-like. 

One last parting word for the day--if you live in a group of survivors that doesn't sweep the main thoroughfares around your base of operations, you should. We've only been doing it for a week, and most of Frankfort is now empty. We still get stragglers here and there, and more zombies are always wandering in, but daily upkeep makes the roads, neighborhoods, and clusters of buildings so much safer to navigate. I'm really glad we started doing this. You wouldn't believe how many places we left untouched because there were too many zombies in or around them. We're finding all kinds of neat things.

Preparations to make, projects to work on. My job is never done. 

I think that's a good thing.