I returned to the living room sometime later to find that everyone had reassembled. Upon my entry, every eye turned to watch me, I could feel them searching my face, assessing my condition. I bristled at the unwanted attention.
“Rayna, how…” Oliver began.
“If one more person asks me how I am, I will demonstrate for them, do you understand me?” I snapped, waving Tom away from the computer so I could check on the status of the data.
“I am sorry about James,” Liz said softly. “I didn’t know him for long, but…”
“Don’t,” I stopped her. “I have no reason to believe he is dead, so there is no call for a eulogy. The Domini have been taking prisoners, and until I find out otherwise, I am going to proceed as if he is captured, but alive. Some of our people are looking into where he might be, and once I get more information, I will see what I can do to get him out. Until then, I’m going to continue with the plan. And you all going to try much harder to hide the pitying looks you keep giving me. Understood?”
I offered a tight smile and turned back to the laptop, unplugging the current hard drive, and plugging in another to start the next copy.
“Well,” Adam cleared his throat first; it made sense, he was the least involved in all this. “Oliver has filled me in. I have everything prepared and can upload your data whenever you are ready.”
“Thanks,” I handed him the completed drive. “Feel free to start, just don’t make anything public until I give you the word.”
Adam nodded, taking the drive he retreated from the room a little more quickly than was seemly. I couldn’t blame him, it wasn’t like I wanted to be here that much, either.
“How are things in the field?” Tom asked, trying to sound casual.
“Fine. Gail is managing things on that front; she seems to have it well in hand. They have teamed up with the regular security for the summit and have been working to secure the area in preparation for the speeches. They found, and disarmed, explosive devices in multiple locations and they also managed to flush out several Domini, who have been taken care of. Things seem to be stable, for the moment, but they will continue to search. Once we are done here and everything has been delivered, I’ll meet up with Gail and we can focus our efforts on the protection of the televised speeches.”
“Why not just make the announcements now? Wouldn’t it be safer?” Liz inquired.
“Maybe. But this gives Gail and her team a bit more time to lock things down. The Domini don’t know our plan yet, so they have no reason to rush their own planned attack. Once the announcements begin, though, all bets are off. It wouldn’t do to miss a bomb or a sleeper and lose everything at the last moment.”
“Fair enough,” she nodded. “So, what now?”
I looked back at the computer,
“Well, this is going to take some time, still. There is a lot of data to copy. Probably as good an opportunity as any to get some rest. Because once we leave here…” I left the rest of the thought unsaid.
“There are guest rooms upstairs,” Oliver announced. “They are very comfortable, and I imagine everyone could do with a bit of privacy. So, if you could all just follow me, I will show you the way and we can all get some sleep.”
Tom rose from his seat on the couch,
“That is an excellent idea.”
Jessica rose too, sticking close to Tom, clearly still a bit uncomfortable around the ubarae. It was hard to blame her, after what had happened. The two of them watched me expectantly from the doorway,
“Are you coming?” Jessica asked.
“You two go ahead. I’ll just sleep on the couch here, so I can keep an eye on things.”
“I could stay, too, we could trade off shifts,” Simon offered.
“No, it’s fine,” I waved him away. “You go and get some proper rest.”
Simon hesitated, but Oliver decided for him,
“Come on, son,” he clapped Simon on the shoulder. “You’ve been falling asleep in your chair. You clearly need the rest. Let the ladies handle it.”
Simon blushed faintly,
“Alright. But if you need anything…”
“I know where you are. Thanks, Simon.”
He smiled sheepishly and fell in line with the rest. Before he led them out, Oliver and Liz exchanged a quick look that I couldn’t decipher. Then, they retreated up the stairs, and it was just the two of us.
“He really is a nice enough guy, Simon,” Liz observed. “A shame he got tangled up with the Domini.”
“Probably lucky for us that he did. After all, no one else seemed keen to tip us off to them.”
“Yeah, that was… a mistake, on our part,” Liz admitted. “We didn’t realize how far they would go, how far they had already gone, until it was too late. Maybe you are right, maybe we were lucky that Simon stepped in where we failed.”
She glanced back at the stairs, then shook her head.
“You’re not sleeping?” I asked.
“Not yet, there are a few things I need to take care of, first,” she took a seat at the table. “In fact, maybe you can give me a hand, while you are waiting.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“What do you need?”
Liz pulled a gun from the folds of her clothing and laid it on the table, along with a cleaning kit that appeared to be freshly purchased.
“You seem to be pretty familiar with these contraptions. Think you could give me a hand with some maintenance?”
“You can’t be serious. I have seen you shoot several people. You know how to use a gun.”
“Use one in the most basic sense, sure. I can pull the trigger, and I have decent aim, especially at short range. But I wasn’t lying when I told you that the gun I had when we met was borrowed. I didn’t make a habit of flaunting the Pact, before this, so I have never actually owned a gun, myself. I am, therefore, somewhat inexperienced in many aspects of maintenance and cleaning, and I wouldn’t want it to jam at a crucial moment. So, what do you say? Willing to give me a crash course?”
I considered the idea for a moment. My own weapon could probably use some attention, and I did have some time to kill.
“Why not?” I agreed, moving the laptop to the side so we had some space to work.
I walked her through the process of unloading and disassembling the weapon. There was usually something soothing, even meditative, about completing the familiar task. But today everything was just a little bit off, the way it feels when you miss a step on a set of stairs you have used a hundred times. I had to use just a bit too much force to disassemble the parts, and the simple act of having to pause to find a tool in the unfamiliar cleaning kit had me gritting my teeth. I had to fight to reign in my impatience, and I probably wasn’t doing a very good job of it. As I demonstrated how to scrub out the barrel with a bore brush, perhaps a bit more vigorously than was strictly necessary, Liz paused her own cleaning.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?”
“Come on, I do have a bit of experience in this area, maybe I could help.”
Experience? Of course, I had almost forgotten. Not just a succubus, but a therapist, too. I had been an idiot not to realize what this was really about. I slammed the brush down on the table.
“I specifically said I did not want to go into this. What part of that sounded like an invitation to try this pretense?”
I wanted to storm out, but I couldn’t leave without finishing and reassembling my gun. That had probably been intentional, too.
“It wasn’t entirely a pretense,” Liz offered. “I really did need help. I just thought it might also give us a chance to have a talk. This situation has been difficult for everyone. There is no shame in needing…”
“Don’t tell me what I need!” I picked the brush back up and resumed scrubbing, more quickly now. “I’m fine.”
“Well, your hand is bleeding all over the table, and you don’t seem to have noticed.”
I cursed and grabbed a paper towel, blotting away the blood to reveal a small cut on the heel of my hand, probably from the where I had pinched it with the slide.
“Maybe if you weren’t distracting me,” I muttered.
“This isn’t really about me,” she resumed her cleaning with an irritating degree of calm. “It is obvious there is more upsetting you.”
“Of course, there is,” I snapped. “I am angry about a lot of things right now. Have been for days. Is that surprising, under the circumstances?”
“No, it isn’t. It is, of course, both understandable and reasonable. But, I think it goes deeper than that. There is something you are angry about, but you are ashamed to feel that way. I can tell you don’t want to talk about it, to admit it, but I think it would help if you did. If you stop trying to hide from it, you can move past it.”
“I don’t see how talking about it could possibly help,” I began to oil the barrel, eager to finish and leave this conversation. “It won’t change anything.”
“A lot is going to happen over the next day or so. You need to be at your best, clearheaded and firm in your resolve. I don’t think you can afford to have whatever this is, distracting you,” she gave me a pointed look. “And I think you agree with me about that, you are just too stubborn to admit it. Come on, just think of it as one more thing to prepare, an unpleasant task that is necessary to do your job. Like this gun maintenance.”
“You really aren’t going to let this go?”
She shook her head resolutely,
“Normally I wouldn’t press this. If you were a patient, I would give you space, and let you open up when you were ready. But this is an… unusual situation, and we don’t have that kind of time.”
“The ends justify the means, doctor?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Sometimes. When we first met, you held me at gunpoint. I am going to generously assume that you wouldn’t have done that under normal circumstances. So, I think you understand what I mean.”
I took a deep breath.
“Fine. You want to know what’s bothering me, doc? I’m angry. I’m angry at myself, but more than that, I am angry at him. At James. Idiot. But how can I be mad at him when he could be…” I shook my head. “It isn’t fair that I can’t be upset with him.”
“Why are you upset with him?”
“Why? Because this didn’t have to happen. He should have come with us. He should have let me stay. He should have let me go back for him!” I slammed the bottle of lubricant down, splattering drops across the table. “Why wouldn’t he let me help him?”
“He didn’t want to put you in danger. He cared… cares about you.”
“That wasn’t his choice to make,” I looked down, studiously lubricating the action, avoiding her gaze. “I get to decide if I want to take that risk or not.”
“No, this was his choice, Rayna. And what’s more, I don’t think you would have chosen any differently, in the same situation.” I could still feel her eyes on me, but I didn’t look up. “Think about it, would you have asked someone to go back for you?”
I snorted a breath through my nose but didn’t answer.
“That’s what I thought,” Liz replied. “Look, I get it, you think that if you take all the risks yourself, you can keep people safe. I’ve perhaps been guilty of the same, in the past. But you can’t force other people to let you endanger yourself, instead of them. They get to decide for themselves. And you can’t control everything. Sometimes, bad things are going to happen, despite your best efforts.”
“You don’t think I know that?” I wiped the outside of the gun down thoroughly, removing any residual lubricant. “How could I not, with everything that’s happened already? Too many people have sacrificed their lives, and everything we try just seems to make things worse. Is it worth the cost? Sometimes, I wonder what the point of it all is,” I rubbed my face with my hand and took a deep breath. “I don’t really mean that. It’s just… I’m just tired.”
“I can imagine. You haven’t slept much lately.”
“That’s not what I mean,” I struggled for the words. “It’s, well… I keep telling myself this will be over soon, but that isn’t right, is it? It will never really be over. We aren’t fixing anything; things won’t be going back to normal. No, what we have planned is more like tossing a live grenade into the middle of a room. The world is going to change, not gently and probably not for the better. I don’t know if I have it in me to deal with the fallout.”
“Maybe it won’t be over, but you should remember that it won’t all be on you, and the remaining Partials, anymore. Whatever ends up happening, this becomes the problem of the whole world. You will have given people the information they need, and after that, it is alright to step back, and let them make their own choices, with that information. You aren’t responsible for the fate of the world.”
I laughed,
“Yeah, it sounds a little egotistical, when you put it that way.”
“You have a strong sense of duty. That isn’t a bad thing. But accepting that there are things outside your control is important, too.”
“Alright doc, I’ll work on that, I promise. Can we be done, now?” I tucked my gun back in its holster.
“Ok, I think that’s enough for the time being. But, if you ever need to talk, I’m around. And you should really consider seeing someone, professionally, when this is over. I could give you the names of some colleagues…”
“I’ll think about that and get back to you,” I reached over and took her reassembled pistol, looking it over to make sure everything was properly in place, before passing it back. “But right now, what I really need is a hot shower. Any chance you could help me out with that?”
Liz rolled her eyes and tucked her weapon away carefully,
“Alright, I won’t press this any further, for now. Follow me.”