[h3]Li Shang/Lincoln[/h3][hr][hr][h3]Day 307 (Present Day)
11:30 a.m.
Gymnasium, The Army Base, Pennsylvania[/h3][hr][hr][i]Sometimes I run never to experience fear, 
Sometimes I fly from its frustrating power; 
Sometimes I withdraw myself from evil
So never to be in its bondage; 
So never to panic.

The earth thunders and my heart cries; 
I am ever watchful, never to give in, 
Never to fall; 
Never to be trapped, 
Never to be captured by its power.[/i]

[color=f7941d]“If this is to make me run faster, Jun Jie,”[/color] Li Shang quipped, from where he jogged without ever moving forward on the groaning treadmill. [color=f7941d]“It’s not working.”[/color]

[color=6ecff6]“闭嘴 [i](bi zui)[/i],”[/color] Jun Jie muttered from where he had been reading aloud, perched on a chair and a book split in half in his hands. [i]Shut up[/i]. [color=6ecff6]“It’s by Jokpeme Joseph Omode, called Running From Fear.”[/color]

His little brother still held dear to his books on literature and poetry, prose that never-ended, and haikus that were as sweet and concise as the taste of sugar. [color=f7941d]“傻瓜 [i](sha gua)[/i],”[/color] Li Shang teased, hopping off the treadmill and switching it off. [i]Fool[/i]. For believing any honeyed words could fend off death, or the putrid breath of the things they kept outside their walls. But the truth was harsh, and Li Shang couldn’t bear to weigh his brother down with it. [color=f7941d]“You will never get any girls if you keep your nose in the books.”[/color]

That pinked Jun Jie’s ears, and Li Shang smirked at him as he picked up his tablet. [color=6ecff6]“You’re never away from that thing,”[/color] Jun Jie protested abruptly with a slight sputter, still frazzled, but unwillingly to linger on the subject of girls. 

The cameras had been acting up lately. Blotches would whizz across the screen sporadically, and while that could be easily dismissed as faulty wiring, or bad weather and signals, it tended to terrify whichever poor soul Li Shang stuck with camera surveillance duty, nerves already on edge at the imagined prospect of a zombie leaping out at the camera. His attention was being called more and more to it. [color=f7941d]“Yes, well,”[/color] said Li Shang, scanning the feed from the cameras – all seemed good, [color=f7941d]“this tablet is my job.”[/color] Maybe he should check the cameras on the perimeter. Risky, but Li Shang did not enjoy margins of error in his work. 

[color=6ecff6]“You work too hard then,”[/color] Jun Jie said nonchalantly. [color=6ecff6]“I’ll leave you to it. Mama says Chinese lessons after lunch. I don’t see why it matters, seeing as a zombie would eat me whether or not I scream Mandarin vulgarities at it.”[/color]

Li Shang glanced up from his screen, and shot his little brother a quizzical smile. [color=f7941d]“Mama isn’t teaching you Chinese vulgarities.”[/color]

Jun Jie returned the smile mischievously. He was already out the door. [color=6ecff6]“She says them in Cantonese under her breath and to Baba. She thinks I can’t understand.”[/color]

Li Shang called his name in admonishment, but Jun Jie was already gone. [color=f7941d]“笨蛋,”[/color] he muttered with a splitting grin turning his gaze back to the tablet. Whipping a towel around his shoulders, Li Shang left the gymnasium and entered the flow of the corridor. There was a steady bidirectional stream of people. It was nearing noon, and soon the hallways would be packed with survivors searching for lunch. He had better grab his meal soon then from the mess hall.

Head bowed to the tablet, Li Shang checked the thermal cameras. At least these ones weren’t giving him splotchy performance. He had plans to put up proper fencing. The current generators wouldn’t be able to support electrical fences, but with a few tweaks and maybe a bit of a jump… Li Shang didn’t see why they shouldn’t experiment with how many zombies they could fry and deter.

Suddenly, there was an insistent tugging on his arm. He paused his pace, and turned to find a grizzled man with grey peppered in his hair and beard – both unkempt – at his side, staring up at him with wide eyes that looked feverish and exhausted at the same time. [color=f7941d]“Mr Finch,”[/color] Li Shang said, straightening and pivoting to face the man properly. He had an inkling what this would be about.

“Lincoln.” Mr Finch sounded tired, but vibrating with some kind of electrical charge. “Have you – have you found anything? On the cameras you have around the walls.”

[color=f7941d]“I am sorry, Mr Finch. The feeds have not shown us anything. Not even the thermal information is reporting abnormalities.”[/color] A cold analytical voice. The voice of a computer, of Lincoln, who refused to empathise with this man’s loss. Finch had had a wife and daughter in Philadelphia. He had been flying back from an overseas trip, forty thousand feet in the air while the world crumbled below him. Once he had touched down, he had been ferried off to the army facility. Finch held a job important enough to land him here, but perhaps the influence didn’t extend to his family in crises. Wife and child, both lost to him, yet Mr Finch persisted in clinging to his irrational wishful thinking like a dying man. With the recent discovery of the Martello brother outside of base, Finch was not alone in reviving his hopes of having his family returned to him. 

The man withered before Li Shang. The rekindled light in his eyes died every day with Li Shang’s words, and in front of Li Shang’s eyes he slumped away with a nod of defeat, as he always did. Li Shang watched his back retreat, knowing that come tomorrow it would all repeat. [i]Die, live to hope, and die again[/i]. Li Shang wondered if it would simply be mercy to put Finch to the sword one last time. Spout the truth in his ear – that his wife and daughter were dead, that if Finch did find them it would not be to feel warm blood and flesh – and cease his suffering. 

However, today, Li Shang let the man walk.