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Major was enjoying a relatively peaceful day at work—nothing untoward to report in his paperwork, Ravi back to human again and no longer jonesing for heroin, Liv off his radar almost completely, Jordan and Captain Seattle settling in and learning to be decent soldiers—when he got a call from Chase Graves, summoning him up to the big glass office. That was never good; almost certain to lead to some talking-to or assignment that would mess with Major's peace of mind.
Still, he imagined that Chase Graves would give a lot to have even the half day of contentment Major had just enjoyed, so no use complaining about his own lot. He tucked his paperwork away in his desk and headed up to the top floor.
When he arrived, Graves' assistant Alice motioned him to go on in. Chase Graves was standing behind his desk fiddling with something that looked like a walkie-talkie receiver, only smaller.
"You asked for me, sir?"
"I did." Graves focused on the receiver for another moment before remarking, "General Mills hasn't said a peep about nuking Seattle, since you smuggled his daughter into the city." He looked up at Major at last, and Major tried to keep his continued chagrin over how that particular mission had gone off his face. Graves smiled and put the receiver down. "That's one problem solved on a very long list. There's a brain shortage out there. Most of our problems come back to that. We've heard rumors that our own men are skimming brains and selling them on the black market. I want you to find out who's behind it."
Major hesitated. It was true, there were guys out there doing just that, and he had a fairly good idea of at least some of their names, but … if he went behind their backs and reported on them, their buddies would make his life miserable.
At Major's silence, Chase Graves turned to look at him, disappointment and impatience clear on his face. "You want me to find someone else to do it?"
"You give the order, I'll do it." Major was a good soldier, after all … and he knew as well as Graves did how much of their trouble stemmed from a city full of increasingly hungry zombies. Loyalty was fine, until it came up against the potential for a serious disaster because of your fellow soldiers' greed.
"You just don't want to be a rat. Am I right?"
Major didn't need to respond to that one; Graves knew.
Smiling, Graves dispensed some advice. "Get over it."
Well, if that was the mandate, Major was going to go all in. "There is one name I know. Russ Roche."
"Ugh! Roche is a dolt. No way he's the ringleader." Graves thought about that for a moment, then added, "I want you to buddy up to him."
"Fun, fun."
"If he likes getting a colonic, you take him out for his-and-his colonics. Make him a colonic-themed mixtape. Just find out who's calling the shots."
As they talked, Graves had been moving around his office, running the receiver along pieces of his furniture, picking up anything loose and passing the receiver over it. Major realized suddenly that it wasn't a receiver at all—it was a scanner for listening devices.
"Sir, is there a reason you think your office is bugged?"
"Yes." When nothing further was said, Major decided he'd been dismissed and headed for the door, but was stopped before he could reach it by Graves calling his name. Turning, he saw Graves looking at him, really focusing on him, for only the second time in this conversation. "Be careful with Roche," Graves told him. "He's not smart, but he is a killer."
Major nodded, understanding, and headed out the door to figure out how to start buddying up with Roche without making it seem obvious.
He caught up to him in the rec room, where Roche liked to monopolize the pool tables. Major managed to get himself into a game with Roche, carefully losing just enough to make Roche feel like he had accomplished something when he took Major's money. In the process, Major dropped into the conversation some dark allusions to Natalie's birthday, which was coming up and did bother him, and how it was humans who had killed her and all their friends. This was popular stuff, and went down well, in addition to being true.
Enough progress was made that Roche told him at the end of the night, while he was counting Major's money, that Major should come hang out with him and his buddies at the Scratching Post. Because where else did bored zombies with money to burn from selling illegal brains go, after all?
He reported to a very distracted Chase Graves the next day intending to give him a progress report, and was asked to stay for a staff meeting, which turned out to be a long and hopefully cathartic rant by Graves about the newspaper coverage of Mama Leone's execution. Turning the paper over, Graves ended with, "And you can probably guess what they say about me. Let's see. Ah! I spend more time at the gym than I do at my desk. I'm a demagogue who uses the city's tax dollars to eat brains at Romero's." He put the paper down.
It was shoddy reporting—anyone who knew Chase Graves at all knew that he was rarely away from his desk, and ate brain tubes in his office more often than he went out anywhere, much less Romero's.
"One article. In one newspaper," said one of his advisors, in a tone that clearly indicated she thought he was making a tempest in a teapot.
Another advisor, an older man named Hobbs, leaned forward uncomfortably. "I'm sorry, Commander. Can I ask what …" he paused and looked over his shoulder at Major, "Lilywhite is doing here?" He pronounced "Lilywhite" as if the word tasted bad. "Did he get some kind of promotion we weren't made aware of?"
Graves looked at him blankly. "Huh? Did I forget the paperwork?" The advisor stared at hm, startled, and Major wondered just what exactly he had been promoted to. This was news to him. "I might have," Graves added thoughtfully. "I've had my hands full." He stood up, still eyeing the advisor, and announced, "Major is the new vice president of getting stuff done. Which means he outranks any of you because, well, he gets stuff done."
There were some smiles at the table, the advisors seeming not to realize that Graves was completely serious.
"Everyone out," Graves announced suddenly.
Major nodded and turned to go. The rest of them moved more slowly, gathering papers and generally taking the order as more of an invitation.
Over the sounds of their paper rustling, Graves shouted, "Except my VP of getting stuff done! You, get back in here."
At the order, Major stopped with the door partially open, holding it for the rest of the meeting's attendees as they filed out, looking at him with expressions ranging from curious to patronizing to hostile.
Once they were gone, Major turned to Chase Graves. "Sir?"
"Have you made any progress with Roche?"
"Oh, I've lost a hundred bucks to him playing pool, buddying up to him, and we made plans to hit the Scratching Post next week."
"What do you say we turn you into besties?"
Major was pretty sure whatever this plan was, he wasn't going to like it.
"Take Roche's unit down to the offices of the 206 Weekly and shut them down."
Yes, Major definitely didn't like it. The 206 Weekly was the paper Graves had just been ranting about. It was also the paper that had blown open the truth about zombies after that girl reporter had wormed her way into Ravi's trust. Still … shutting down the press felt—wrong. "Do we have the authority to do that, sir?" Major asked carefully.
"We are the authority." Graves said it quietly, with some regret.
And Major had to accept that. He agreed to the assignment and left the office, gearing himself up to become someone everyone he loved was going to hate.