World War Z

[He grins confidently.]

I started my career trading on the floor of the NYSE, so I can yell as hard and long as any professional drill sergeant. After each “meeting,” I’d expect the call, the one Pd been both dreading and hoping for: “Mister Sinclair, this is the president, I just want to thank you for your service and we’ll no longer be requiring…” [Chuckles.] It never came. My guess is no one else wanted the job.

[His smile fades.]

I’m not saying that I didn’t make mistakes. I know I was too anal about the air force’s D-Corps. I didn’t understand their safety protocols or what dirigibles could really accomplish in undead warfare. All I knew was that with our negligible helium supply, the only cost-effective lift gas was hydrogen and no way was I going to waste lives and resources on a fleet of modern day Hindenburgs. I also had to be persuaded, by the president, no less, to reopen the experimental cold fusion project at Livermore. He argued that even though a breakthrough was, at best, still decades away, “pla

Project Yellow Jacket-I still kick myself when I think about that one. These Silicon Valley eggheads, all of them geniuses in their own field, convinced me that they had a “wonder weapon” that could win the war, theoretically, within forty-eight hours of deployment. They could build micro missiles, millions of them, about the size of a .22 rimfire bullet, that could be scattered from transport aircraft, then guided by satellites to the brain of every zombie in North America. Sounds amazing, right? It did to me.

[He grumbles to himself.]

When I think of what we poured down that hole, what we could have produced instead… ahhh… no point in dwelling on it now.

I could have gone head-to-head against the military for the duration of the war, but I’m grateful, in the end, that I didn’t have to. When Travis D’Ambrosia became chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he not only invented the resource-to-kill ratio, but developed a comprehensive strategy to employ it. I always listened to him when he told me a certain weapons system was vital. I trusted his opinion in matters like the new Battle Dress Uniform or the Standard Infantry Rifle.

What was so amazing to see was how the culture of RKR began to take hold among the rank and file. You’d hear soldiers talking on the street, in bars, on the train; “Why have X, when for the same price you could have ten Ys, which could kill a hundred times as many Zs.” Soldiers even began coming up with ideas on their own, inventing more cost-effective tools than we could have envisioned. I think they enjoyed it-improvising, adapting, outthinking us bureaucrats. The marines surprised me the most. I’d always bought into the myth of the stupid jarhead, the knuckle-dragging, locked-jaw, testosterone-driven Neanderthal. I never knew that because the Corps always has to procure its assets through the navy, and because admirals are never going to get too fired up about land warfare, that improvisation has had to be one of their most treasured virtues.

[Sinclair points above my head to the opposite wall. On it hangs a heavy steel rod ending in what looks like a fusion of shovel and double-bladed battle-axe. Its official designation is the Standard Infantry Entrenchment Tool, although, to most, it is known as either the “Lobotomizer,” or simply, the “Lobo.”]

The leathernecks came up with that one, using nothing but the steel of recycled cars. We made twenty-three million during the war.

[He smiles with pride.]

And they’re still making them today.

Burlington, Vermont

[Winter has come later this season, as it has every year since the end of the war. Snow blankets the house and surrounding farmland and frosts the trees that shade the dirt track by the river. Everything about this scene is peaceful, except for the man with me. He insists on calling himself “the Whacko,” because “everyone else calls me that, why shouldn’t you?” His stride is fast and purposeful, the cane given to him by his doctor land wife serves only to stab at the air.]

To be honest, I wasn’t surprised to be nominated for vice president. Everyone knew a coalition party was inevitable. I’d been a rising star, at least until I “self-destructed.” That’s what they said about me, right? All the cowards and hypocrites who’d rather die than see a real man express his passion. So what if I wasn’t the world’s best politician? I said what I felt, and I wasn’t afraid to say it loud and clear. That’s one of the main reasons I was the logical choice for copilot. We made a great team; he was the light, I was the heat. Different parties, different personalities, and, let’s not kid ourselves, different skin colors as well. I knew I wasn’t the first choice. I know who my party secretly wanted. But America wasn’t ready to go that far, as stupid, ignorant, and infuriatingly Neolithic as it sounds. They’d rather have a screaming radical for a VP than another one of “those people.” So I wasn’t surprised at my nomination. I was surprised at everything else.

You mean the elections?

Elections? Honolulu was still a madhouse; soldiers, congressmen, refugees, all bumping into one another trying to find something to eat or a place to sleep or just to find out what the hell was going on. And that was paradise next to the mainland. The Rocky Line was just being established; everything west of it was a war zone. Why go through all the trouble of elections when you could have Congress simply vote for extended emergency powers? The attorney general had tried it when he was mayor of New York, almost got away with it, too. I explained to the president that we didn’t have the energy or resources to do anything but fight for our very existence.

What did he say?

Well, let’s just say he convinced me otherwise.

Can you elaborate?

I could, but I don’t want to mangle his words. The old neurons aren’t firing like they used to.

Please try.

You’ll fact-check with his library?

I promise.

Well. . . we were in his temporary office, the “presidential suite” of a hotel. He’d just been sworn in on Air Force Two. His old boss was sedated in the suite next to us. From the window you could see the chaos on the streets, the ships at sea lining up to dock, the planes coming in every thirty seconds and ground crew pushing them off the runway once they landed to make room for new ones. I was pointing to them, shouting and gesturing with the passion I’m most famous for. “We need a stable government, fast!” I kept saying. “Elections are great in principle but this is no time for high ideals.”

The president was cool, a lot cooler than me. Maybe it was all that military training … he said to me, “This is the only time for high ideals because those ideals are all that we have. We aren’t just fighting for our physical survival, but for the survival of our civilization. We don’t have the luxury of old-world pillars. We don’t have a common heritage, we don’t have a mille