So, I had this idea for a job where a group of scientists are trying to "track" Casualties the way you would track the migratory patterns of wild animals; "tag and release" subjects. The idea is to map out "herds" in the area so that enclaves and travellers have plenty of warning about local populations (a kind of weather forecast), but there might be a slightly twisted ideology underneath of a kind of "mild Meekism" where they don't believe zombies are the chosen, but ARE a valid new life form to be treated as you would any sort of wildlife. Perhaps the data might also be useful to better understand the Blight and what it makes people do in aggregate.
In more practical terms, this translates to a variant of a dead drive using special equipment provided by the scientists; essentially this would be harpoons with embedded trackers. (Who doesn't love harpoon guns?) The Takers have to score as many centre-mass shots with these harpoons as possible (since being skewered through the torso apparently doesn't upset Casualties) and then lure the tagged Casualties into a nearby herd. Ideally, you then get away safely, of course. There would probably be a base rate of pay assuming a certain number of successfully tagged subjects (say, 10) with bonuses for more successfully tagged (since more subjects means more data, which means better data). Importantly, you don't kill the Casualties and you certainly don't kill the herd.
My idea for a complication on this job would be the encountering of a small Black Math cell, who want to Black Math all over the place. Kill all zombies means totally ruining the scientist's data; short term thinking leading to long term problems as it stays difficult to safely travel through the area.
This also has potential to become a job line to the tune of "hey, a bunch of zombies are heading to this enclave, drive them in a new direction!" or "hey, a bunch of zombies are massing in weird places - go check it out!"
Thoughts?
That's a great idea. And for more personal tension, play up the detachment of the scientists, who live in the Recession and have the luxury of seeing the Casualties as subjects to be studied rather than immediate threats of death. Maybe they also insist that the Takers wear trackers on themselves, just in case they get bitten and join the herd.
Or maybe for a secondary complication, the tagging process isn't actually the real experiment -- it's actually a social behavior experiment studying the responses of the Takers themselves as the scientists ask them to do stranger and more dangerous things. Homo Sacer, after all, make excellent test subjects -- especially since they don't have any human rights or anything.
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