[ Qubit folds his arms. That explanation conspicuously fails to disprove his hunch - that Carlisle's "affliction" is a bad case of the undeath - and in fact rather supports it. He's dealt with the reanimated dead on a few occasions, and one of those odd truth-in-television details is that, pretty consistently, they recognize or at least ignore members of their own "species."

But he won't press the issue right now. Even if it does turn out Carlisle's a walking corpse or something, what's relevant at the moment is what it means for the plan. ]

All right. So if this goes pear-shaped, you may not be able to draw them off me. [ He takes a more thorough look around, weighing his options. The lone zombie down one of the aisles, apparently noticing him, starts shambling their way; Qubit shoulders his laser gun and aims down the sights at it. ] May not be necessary, though, I think I can stay ahead of this lot. One second.

[ He fires! It does make a sound, but not a loud one, just a reasonable pew pew. It takes two shots to the head to drop the thing - not ideal - but it does drop, and the others don't seem to notice anything amiss. ]