Thank you for reading!
Major had spent a fair amount of the morning texting back and forth with his doctor friend from Max Rager, trying to get details on the party. Wyatt was being surprisingly cagey about the info, but Major finally managed to convince him to spill some. Immediately he headed to the morgue with the update, hurrying down the stairs. Janko's brain was hard at work in his head, making plans, and he wanted to share those with Liv and get her input.
"Hey! Dr. Wyatt finally returned my texts—" He broke off when he saw Clive standing there. It was the first time they had seen each other since Major had been an accused murderer sitting across the table from Clive in an interrogation room, and it felt just about that awkward. "Clive," he said. "I never got to thank you for everything you did to get me out of jail. You saved me."
"Well, it had a bit more to do with the future of the species."
"Still." Major held out his hand.
Clive looked at the hand, clearly still processing and not entirely sure if he was ready for bygones to be bygones, but eventually he returned the handshake.
"Be like Private Ryan," he said. "Earn this."
"That's the plan," Major told him. Liv had explained some of what Clive had lost, the bridges he had burned, to make this happen, and Major could only imagine having to wrap your head around the existence of zombies, come to terms with your partner being one, know you had a murderer in custody, and have to set him free without being able to give anyone the very good reasons why that was necessary. In addition, apparently the FBI agent had left, and wasn't returning Clive's calls. Major may have come within a hair's breadth of losing his sanity while in prison, but Clive had paid, too, and Major wasn't about to forget that, any more than he was going to forget the basement full of zombies locked up by Vaughn du Clark. Looking at Liv, he said, "So, turns out the party at Max Rager tonight is a lock-in, down in an underground parking lot, prison-themed." Clive frowned, not following the relevance of the prison theme, and Major explained. "Because of their new Super Max drink."
"A prison theme," Clive said with some bitterness, and muttered under his breath, "White people."
"So the party starts at 8 pm. By 10 pm, the gates will be locked and no one will be allowed in or out."
"That's a pretty tight window to make something happen," Liv said.
Clive turned to her. "And by 'make something happen' you mean …?"
"We're going to break into Max Rager and free Drake and the other zombies in the basement," Liv explained. Her tone was matter-of-fact, like it was something a person did every day. Of course, Janko probably had, and his brain was fueling Liv's thoughts as much as it was Major's. "The biggest hurdle," she continued, "is that the elevator doesn't go all the way down without the hand print of someone with authorization."
Major thought of Janko, and his brains, and the rest of him, which was probably still here in the morgue. "I have an idea."
"Great. Let's hear it."
He tilted his head in the direction of the body drawers, waiting for the light to dawn.
Ravi groaned. "Are we really thinking about this?"
"It does make sense. Why waste an asset when you have it on ice?" Liv said.
"You all want to fill me in?" Clive asked.
"Come on." Liv led the way to the drawer, opening it to reveal Janko's body, its head cut open and brainless.
"So, what," Ravi asked, "you plan on Weekend at Bernie'sing a dead Janko through the halls of Max Rager?"
Major frowned at him. What a ridiculous suggestion. "'Course not."
"We'll just take his hand," Liv added.
Ravi and Clive both grimaced, which surprised Major, because he thought the idea had been an obvious one.
"You're going to cut off a dead man's hand and use it to open an elevator?" Clive asked.
"I think it's Janko's mercenary brain that's making them think this is a reasonable idea," Ravi told him.
Major supposed it was. Still … he hadn't heard any better suggestions yet. "I guess it is kinda grisly," he admitted.
Liv was clearly thinking the same way he was. "I'm not hearing other ideas," she pointed out.
Decisively, Ravi pushed the body on its slider back into the drawer, shutting the door firmly behind it.
Major racked his brains for another idea. Then it came to him. "Maybe Dr. Wyatt."
"Who?" Ravi asked.
"One of the doctors who works in the basement lab. Young guy. I train him. He likes me, and I've heard him say some things that make me think he might be sympathetic to the zombie cause. Maybe I can talk him into letting us downstairs, everything goes right, we could be in by the time the party starts and out before lockdown."
"Even if this guy lets you in the basement, what do you do when you find the zombies?" Clive asked. "I mean, how are you going to get out of the building?"
"We'll have twenty nearly invulnerable zombies," Liv told him. "We'll figure it out."
"No warrant?"
"We don't plan on arresting anyone."
"And if someone gets in your way?"
"Then things will likely go south for that someone."
Clive rolled his eyes, clearly not happy with Liv's plan.
"They have Drake," she told him.
He held up his hands, shaking his head. "I can't help you with this."
"I would never expect you to." She looked up at Major. "This is a zombie thing."
Ravi asked, "Are you sure this Dr. Wyatt is even someone you can count on?"
"Well …" Major hesitated. "He's all we've got. I guess …"
"I guess we're going to have to count on Major's charming personality," Liv finished for him. "It's never failed me before."
"Right." Major grinned and pointed at himself. "Charming. That's me."
"Uh-huh," Ravi said skeptically.
"I wash my hands of this plan," Clive said. "Liv, are you sure?"
"I have no choice."
"Then … good luck, and I'll see you if I see you."
They watched him leave the morgue. Major regretted that they hadn't been able to come up with a better plan, but there was so little time and so much to do, they had none to waste on regrets. "All right," he said to Liv, "where do we start?"