Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Put Out

I'm writing this from Patrick's house, as Jessica has kicked me out of ours. Turns out her anger is a little more durable than I expected. She's not a happy camper that I went on a potentially suicidal mission without consulting her. My personal life probably isn't as interesting to you as it is to me, but if I seem distracted or a bit off today, that's why.

Our watchers keep sending us steady updates on activity at the fallback point. The Exiles continue working on setting up a permanent home for themselves, though most of the work has been done for them. When our extra people moved from the fallback point to New Haven, they took a lot of stuff with them, but an even larger amount of equipment was left behind. All the rows and rows of raised beds and the tracts of arable land are still there just waiting to be worked. There are quite a few homemade weapons, though what the homesteaders bring to the fight from whatever military base they raided is surely superior.

All in all, it's kind of depressing.

Will and I are working with many other people on contingency plans. We've got a ton of ideas on how to defend ourselves, some thoughts on how to prevent an all-out assault on New Haven, and other ideas that may or may not be feasible. One of our tried and true tactics--using swarms of zombies as weapons--wouldn't be possible for a while yet given the weather even if the new breed weren't clever enough to figure out what we were doing eventually.

The Exiles aren't ignoring us, however. Our guards at the remaining bridge have been forced to pull back quite a ways, driven away from their posts by rifle fire. We've got our own riflemen set up at the new watch post, but they can't guard the bridge itself. By the time the enemy comes into view of our people, they'll have already crossed it. That's a small but important defeat, but we'll adapt to it and deal as best we can.

There's a bit of concern right now for what happens when warmer weather comes through. While the Exiles will certainly be a major concern for as long as they continue to exist within two time zones of New Haven, we're rapidly approaching the time of year when the weather gets nicer day to day. The new breed is terribly creative in their desire to consume us, and while the team and I have a solid grounding in how to fight them and anticipate their tactics, the rest of New Haven doesn't. We've handled smart zombies before, but only in small numbers. Dealing with the Exiles and the new breed during clement weather might be impossible.

I guess that means we're on a schedule. As I said, there are many options on the table, but an equal number of concerns and worries to go with them. We've got to think of security and the overt threats against us, sure, but we also have to feed our people, find a way to trade with the outside world, and a hundred other things that go with having a community of any size.

I'm rambling, I know, but barring a miracle, we're going to be stretched pretty thin very soon.

Hmm. I've just had an idea. I need to go find Will.

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