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Major arrived at the address Roche had texted him with some misgivings. Actually, a lot of misgivings. It was near the docks, a conglomeration of warehouses, and it appeared completely deserted. A perfect place to get rid of someone, in Major's assessment, and he should know, given that he used to be someone who got rid of people.
He stood beneath a street light and waited, trying to be patient and calm, ready to run for it if he had to.
He was just starting to type a text to Chase Graves when he saw headlights coming around a corner. Deleting the text and shoving his phone back into his pocket, he waited while an unmarked black van pulled up in front of him. Squinting through the headlights, Major tried to see into the van, but he couldn't make out anyone's faces.
Men armed with axes piled out of the van, standing between it and him. Finally, Roche climbed out of the driver's seat, also carrying an axe. Major waited, warily, until Roche came near enough to toss him the axe. He caught it deftly, trying not to show how relieved he was.
"Ready to get your hands dirty?" Roche asked him.
Major looked at the axe and then back at Roche and nodded. "Born ready."
"Let's go pay some folks a visit."
He followed Roche and the others to a warehouse down the block, hidden amongst a lot of boats. Rich people's toys, mostly, although they were pretty handy for getting out of the Seattle area, as well. You saw a lot less boats these days than you used to.
At a nod from Roche, Major bent down and grasped the handle of the warehouse door, rolling it up swiftly.
The two zombies inside looked up, panicked, at the sound. One of them started backing away, but the other showed more defiance. Even as Roche was coming toward him with a pistol leveled at his head, the zombie was complaining, "No, man! These are our tubes. We bought them. We're just repackaging them." Roche had closed with the mouthy zombie by now, grabbing him by the coat collar and shoving him back into a support column. "Please!" the zombie begged. "No!"
The other one tried to run, and Major decked him, knocking him backward into a pile of barrels.
Roche grinned over his shoulder. "Nice." Then he looked back at the zombie he was holding, gesturing with the pistol. "I should probably make an example out of you, don't you think?"
The zombie shook his head. "No."
"No?" Roche glanced at Major over his shoulder again. "What do you think, Major? Should we waste him?"
Part of Major wanted to say yes. Seattle had too many zombies as it was, and these two were endangering everyone by cutting the tubes with gelatin—underfed zombies were a menace, and Seattle already had more than enough of them without these guys getting in the way. On the other hand, this zombie had been a person, with a life and a family, most likely, before he was turned—possibly by Fillmore Graves itself, in its bid to make Seattle a zombie city. It wasn't his fault. And he was likely starving just like all the other zombies in the city, just trying to make a little extra money to buy more brains.
Either way, Major couldn't outright say no to Roche without a good reason. Then he had an idea, and grinned at its simplicity. He dug a coin out of his pocket. "Call it."
Roche nodded. "Heads we waste him."
Major flipped the coin, slapping it down on his hand, and looked at it, carefully, ready to move his hand and make it fall if anyone came near enough to see that it had landed heads. "Tails," he reported, pretending to be disappointed.
For a moment, he—and the zombie—thought Roche was going to pull the trigger anyway, but eventually Roche put the gun away and took his hand off the zombie's throat. "There won't be a next time, will there?" he asked.
The zombie shook his head. "No."
Turning away from him, Roche called out, "Put those axes to good use, boys!"
Major was glad enough to do so. Brain tube chop shops like this one were bad for everyone. He was relieved that his first job for Roche had been fairly innocuous, but disappointed that he wasn't going to come away from this with anything he and Chase Graves could use to take Roche down. More pretending to be a monster, then.
He slammed the axe into a pile of barrels, finding it therapeutic. At least he was getting a workout from this situation, if nothing else.