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Major had to give it to Don E—he did as good a job getting them out of the mess as he had done getting them into it. Before Major knew it, he and Don E and Sloane were packed in ice in crates of brains and being smuggled back into New Seattle. It wasn't the most comfortable method of transport he'd ever experienced, but the ice slowed down his metabolism enough that he could slip into a state that was not exactly sleep but definitely not full wakefulness, either.
Still, it was a relief when the crate came to a stop in what Major assumed to be Blaine's basement, and an even greater relief when the lid was pried off and he could return to light and warmth … even if he was right and it was indeed Blaine's basement.
He rose from the ice to the sounds of Don E and Blaine exclaiming with joy at the sight of one another, which was pretty jarring after hours of listening to nothing but ice moving around.
Blaine was grinning at him. "GI Joe!"
Half-frozen as he was, Major wasn't going to let an apt cultural reference pass him by. "Destro."
"Everything go according to plan?" Blaine asked, the grin fading.
Major shook his head. "Not everything."
One of Blaine's minions popped the lid on the third crate and from the midst of the chunks of ice came Sloane, chowing down on one of the fresh brains she had been packed with.
"Well, I guess not," Blaine observed.
"Hey! That's my brain, missy!" Don E complained.
Sloane tried to explain … in French. Well, Major guessed they knew where that brain had come from.
Blaine pointed at him. "I'm going to let you handle this."
Why not. Another zombie in New Seattle that they couldn't feed, a zombie created by Don E's negligence, yes … but also by Major's own attitude. He should have known that if he wanted things done right, he couldn't trust them to Don E. He nodded to acknowledge his responsibility.
Once out of the crates and de-iced, he took Sloane back to Fillmore Graves and introduced her to Chase Graves. To his credit, Graves did not fly off the handle when presented with evidence of how spectacularly Major had screwed up his assignment. He took it, instead, with what was becoming his signature weariness and resignation. Not that he agreed with Liv's holier-than-thou pronouncements, but Major did wonder how often Chase Graves regretted what had happened to create New Seattle and his own role in it. Carey Gold had forced his hand, to be sure, but he could have taken steps to mitigate the situation, and instead he had given in and let it happen. Contributed to it. Major regretted it occasionally—but he remembered how high emotions had been running, his included, after the squad house was blown up, and he wasn't sure there had been another option Fillmore Graves as a whole could have accepted.
While Major showered and changed into clean clothes he kept in his locker, Chase Graves took on the job of handing Sloane her zombie info packet and dealing with her rising hysteria over having been turned into a zombie. On the ride over, she had complained bitterly to Major—partially in French, which was a relief, because then he couldn't understand her—and he had wondered what she expected them to do about it. If there was a zombie cure that worked, none of them would be in this situation.
Late that night he was heading out after finishing up some reports on recent patrols and trying to make the Sloane Mills mission sound like something other than a complete mess when he passed one of the common rooms and saw his boss sitting alone in the dark, with a drink in his hand. Major nearly went by and left him there, but he had to admit he was worried about the guy. Even a machine like Chase Graves could break under the unrelenting pressure he was carrying.
Pushing open the glass door, Major said, "I thought I was the only one here this late."
Graves held up his nearly empty glass. "Ran out of booze in my office. Good work on your assignment. You may have saved us all."
Major had to admit he hadn't thought of it quite like that. But he supposed it made a difference that the daughter of a high-ranking general in the Defense Department was now a zombie living among them in New Seattle. Maybe it meant the inevitable military solution to the existence of zombies could be held off until Ravi could finally make a reproducible cure. Stranger things had happened. "Well, it didn't go exactly according to plan."
"Ah, it so rarely does. We've all had to do things that we never would have imagined ourselves doing."
It seemed clear from the late-night boozing, the unusually defeated posture, and the resigned tone that something specific was bothering Graves, some task that lay ahead of him that he was struggling with. Major didn't know what it was, but he knew that despite his emotionless demeanor, his superior had a good heart, and generally made the decision that seemed best for everyone at the time. "You gotta do what you gotta do," he said, hoping he was being encouraging.
Chase Graves looked at him, swirling the remaining booze around in the crystal glass, but didn't say anything. Major decided he had said enough about whatever they were talking about, and he left Chase Graves to his thoughts.