“I-I just wanted better for him. I want him to be safe.”
“Peter, he’s his own man, capable of making his own decisions. He chose a path, a path that was good enough for you.”
“But he can do better.”
“Really? Peter, I’m a little insulted.”
“Insulted?”
“You heard me. What is better than sacrificing to serve your country, to protect your loved ones?”
Peter was a bit embarrassed. “I-I didn’t mean…”
“Peter, you can’t protect Carl anymore. He needs to look after himself. Besides, he might surprise you.”
Peter’s anger seemed to melt away with this newfound insight. His anger was a way to take charge and protect his brother, but they weren’t little kids anymore. He no longer needed protecting.
“Okay, but getting back to what happened during the training exercise today…I’m a little weirded out by Lorenzo’s reaction.”
“Not Major Lewis?”
“No, I get his point. It was a total breach of etiquette during a combat exercise. But Lorenzo appeared to…”
“Feel bad for the ID you beat up?”
“Yeah. Should I have felt bad? I mean, he said I beat it as if it was a slave.”
“Is that what you feel it was like?”
“No…but I’m not so sure. I don’t believe in slavery, but that ID is not human. It has no rights.”
“So it’s just a tool?”
“Yeah. I guess so. Something like that. So why do you think Lorenzo was so upset, Doc?”
“Perhaps to him it was a matter of decency.”
Peter couldn’t believe it. Not her, too. “Decency. Decency. What is so freaking decent about a zombie anyway? In fact, it is the complete opposite of decent. It’s unholy.”
Captain London sat back in apparent satisfaction with his statement. “Ah, at last we came to this point. I thought you’d never get around to it.”
“What point? That the ID are unholy?”
“Is that how you view it?”
“Can you please stop answering my questions with other questions? It’s getting on my nerves.”
“Peter, you are going to have to come to terms with what you are doing in this program. Is it unholy? Is it an abomination? Or is it technological application?”
“I don’t know anymore. I’ve never really given it this much thought.”
“Too preoccupied with thoughts of revenge that you never stopped for a moment to consider, really consider, exactly what it was you were doing.”
“Help me, Doc. I don’t know what to make of any of this.”
“Well, let’s start with what your views on death are.”
“Well, I’m not religious. You know that.”
“So, you still must have some idea about death.”
“Well, I don’t know if I believe in a heaven or hell.”
“So what do you think happens?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we just cease to exist.”
“Okay. Snuffed out like a light. What about a soul?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“And what would happen to the soul?”
“Maybe it gets reabsorbed into the universe.”
“Good. So what of the body left behind?”
“I-maybe it rots in the ground.”
“What about cremation?”
“Makes no difference to me. I won’t care if I’m dead.”
“So what’s the quandary about using bodies to hunt terrorists?”
“Lorenzo thinks it’s indecent.”
“Well, what about organ donors? What if you needed a kidney and someone was good enough to kick the bucket and give you one? Would it be indecent for you to accept it?”
“No, of course not. But we’re not sending the kidney into caves to get shot by terrorists.”
“Really? That kidney goes wherever you are, does it not?”
“Yes.”
“Well, don’t we send you into situations where you are shot at?”
“I guess.”
“Peter, so what if the ID are, for all intents and purposes, the ultimate organ donors, as in they donate all of themselves?”
“I-I guess…but is that what happens? Do these people give permission?”
“Does it matter? As you said, it really doesn’t matter what happens to the body after death.”
Peter thought about his mother and his friend Delroy Apone. “Well, I’m not sure I’d completely agree with that.”
She gave a wry smile again. “Oh, so we’re back to decency again.”
Peter huffed in exasperation. “Are you enjoying this? Because I hope you are. Somebody has to be enjoying this, because I’m not.”
Captain London chuckled.
“Go ahead, laugh at me, Doc. Do you torture all of your patients this way with your circular arguments?”
“No, just you, Peter. And those are your own arguments. I’m just helping you see your own arguments.”
“So I’m supposed to figure this out on my own. Is that it?”
“Actually, the fact of the matter is that the army sees it fit to use reanimated, soulless bodies to hunt and kill terrorists. And that should be good enough for you.”