The Roaming (Book 3): Haven's Promise by Hegarty W.J

Author:Hegarty, W.J. [Hegarty, W.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Zombies
Published: 2020-07-19T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Exile

A cadre of familiar faces gathered in a spacious conference room near the center of deck ten. Captain Kayembe hosted the weekly meeting not far from the wheelhouse. He sat at the head of a long table; the others filled in the empty seats with no discernible rhyme or reason behind their placement. Only the heads of critical areas of the ship were in attendance.

Miller had grown more comfortable in the preceding months, and it must have shown, because he was asked personally by the captain to attend this meeting. Now he was sporting a full beard and his dirty blond hair was just long enough that he would tuck it behind his ears. He was seated beside Kayembe; the captain thought it best to groom the man for a leadership position. When asked, Kayembe simply stated that he wanted Miller prepared should the need arise to expand the excursion teams. Kayembe had loftier motives.

Miller knew or had at least met all of those in attendance, with the exception of a disheveled, middle-aged man in a tattered suit. The man’s face was hidden behind a salt and pepper beard, and he carried a stack of papers that he dumped on the table in front of him. Before he sat, he cleansed his hands with a bottle of sanitizer he kept squirreled away in his breast pocket.

Michael “Mensa” Billingsly got his nickname from Haven’s staff in the earliest days of the outbreak after he offered his services to Captain Kayembe. He was a statistician, a genius for finance. Prior to the crisis, he was pulling in a high six-figure salary by crunching numbers for the Department of Defense. Now he was the mind behind Haven’s strict ration of supplies. Mensa knew exactly how much of everything the storage rooms held and how much each person was able to receive daily, down to the tablespoon of rice. The Financiers having meals to order off an actual menu and splurging at their whim infuriated the man. All that excess threw his numbers off, forcing him to constantly recalculate proportions. He detested the Elite for this, but after thirty years of working for the same selfish-minded scum back in the real world, he was used to it. Mensa did what he’d always done. He put his head down and crunched numbers because that was what he was good at, and it kept people alive.

The department heads took turns voicing concerns from their various sections of Haven.

Mensa led the proceedings with the same criticisms he shared as often as anyone would listen. “I feel I must again protest the continued allowance of an a-la-carte menu for the Financiers. Its mere presence puts an unnecessary strain on rations.” Mensa’s glasses were at the end of his nose. He put on a show like he was looking over the numbers, but he had them all memorized. Kayembe knew as much.

“Here, here,” Sweet Lips added.

“What if we pull back on their menus to once a week. Would that help?” Naomi offered.

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