Friday, May 25, 2012

Unqualified

Sorry I didn't post again yesterday. The messenger I received was from Will after all, but not about the nursing home situation. There were some problems over in the expansion that needed sorting out, and the process took most of the morning and early afternoon. Turns out when your building materials include shipping containers that you use for storage, it's really easy to lose things you store in them when the metal boxes get moved around.

I did, however, get an answer from the council after all that was done: No. An unqualified negative. We won't be sparing the time and resources to secure and repair anything outside of New Haven at the moment. I understand their reasons--how much it would cost us in resources, the need to put guards all around, transporting people back and forth--but I'm still furious.

I mean, this isn't something that's going to go away. We have too many people ill and more getting that way (three more since yesterday, though one of the other folks that was sick had one of those weird near-instant recoveries) all the time. The clinic has already had to set up tents outside to manage the overflow of patients. Thank god it hasn't dipped below fifty at night or those folks would suffer even more than they already do.

What's worse is the council and Will won't even let volunteers use their free time to annex the place right next to New Haven. It's not our ideal choice as it doesn't have a lot of beds or rooms compared to a nursing home, but it would help alleviate the pressure a lot. It's close enough that getting there wouldn't be a terrible risk.

Their reasoning is sound, but to me it's cowardly. Yeah, the New Breed have hurt us recently. We hurt them back. They're a threat, to be sure, and they're probably watching us and planning to attack any group regularly leaving New Haven. But what are the other options? We're past the point where our medical staff can manage care for all our people easily. It's getting worse. One night of unseasonably cold weather and some of the folks out in tents might not make it.

For once, nothing I say or do is going to make a difference. I've made my case for this very strongly, twice, and I got shot down. Will knows me well and told me in no uncertain terms I'd be locked up if I did something stupid like trying to organize volunteers to do it anyway, regardless of what the council says.

Haha. It's like he read my mind, you know?

While the threat of being put in a cell doesn't hold much fear for me, I don't want to risk being put on the sidelines again. I want to be here if I'm needed--I'm already putting in volunteer time at the clinic whenever I can squeeze it in--and the amount of effort it would take to go against the council's wishes would eliminate every free moment I have. And that's if I managed to even get the place fixed up without getting caught.

No, it's not a game I can win. I've obviously thought about it, and I think it would be a huge net positive for us, but if there's one thing I've learned through more than two years of fighting bad guys whether they be zombies, mother nature, starvation, or asshole human beings, is that you've got to know when you're beat. Taking a stand can be damn important, but survival is about weighing the risks and understanding when the odds are stacked high enough against you that success isn't likely no matter what you do.

So this time I'm giving in. I had an idea, it was rejected, and we'll move on from there. I'd probably fight harder for it if there wasn't a lot of truth in the things Will and the council said to me. We are running low on manpower. We've got to be cautious of our supplies since we don't know how this plague is going to play out. There might be other solutions that, while not as elegant as mine, work out almost as well in the end. Now I've just got to come up with one, since no one else seems to be making any headway on it.

In fact, I think I've just had an idea. It might take a little work, but I think the council will see the wisdom in it. Of course, I thought that before...

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