The knock on the door came later than I had been expecting. For a moment, I had almost worried that he wasn’t going to show, but I had seen the look on his face back in the parking lot. He needed to talk; I had been certain. And it turned out that I hadn’t been wrong.

“You know the code,” I called, not much feeling like getting up from my chair.

A series of beeps sounded, and the door clicked opened to reveal Luke standing in the hall, as expected. For a long moment, he just stood in the doorway, silently, head hung low.

“Well, if you are going to come in, hurry up and shut the door behind you,” I instructed. “You’re going to let bugs in.”

Luke paused and glanced back at the sterile hallway in the underground military facility, then he looked back to me with a confused expression on his face.

“I was kidding,” I rolled my eyes. “Forget it. Just get inside.”

He nodded and shuffled inside, shutting the door behind him. I gestured him into the chair across from me and held out the bottle I had been drinking from.

“Here. You look like you could use this as much as I do.”

Possibly more, I reflected. Today’s events had clearly been difficult for him. He had hardly even spoken since we got back. It wasn’t uncommon for new recruits to be a bit… off after a first mission, though. The adrenaline comedown alone was a kick in the teeth, but I thought, or maybe hoped was the better word, that there was more to it with Luke. It looked like I was about to find out. He took a long pull from the proffered bottle, as he dropped into the chair. After a moment, he lowered the bottle and studied the label with furrowed brows,

“Where did you get a 10-year-old cognac?” he asked.

“Took it off Wallace’s desk,” I shrugged.

“You stole it?”

“Wouldn’t be the first thing I’ve stolen today,” I held out my hand for the bottle. “Definitely the easiest, though.”

Luke chuckled faintly at that,

“Yeah…”

“You doing ok, kid?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Not really,” he admitted. “I’m kind of struggling with something right now. I… do you have a minute to talk?”

“I’m not exactly booked up at the moment,” I took a swig of cognac. “What’s on your mind?”

Luke fidgeted with his shirt cuffs for a minute, seemingly having trouble deciding what to say. Finally, he managed,

“Maybe now isn’t really a good time. I know today wasn’t easy for you, either,” he cleared his throat awkwardly. “I’m sorry about your friend. About Liz. I didn’t know her for very long, but she seemed like a good person.”

I allowed myself a brief smile. A person.

“She was. And I got her killed. Now I am just going to have to find a way to live with that. Maybe it is at the bottom of this bottle.”

“Why did you do it? Call her in, I mean. Tom seemed to think you knew what would happen.”

“I didn’t think they would let her walk away, but I didn’t think they would kill her like that. I mean, they run a prison facility, surely that would have made more sense? I thought… I thought I had more time to come to terms with it, I suppose.”

“Come to terms with it?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, frankly that is why I am a bit surprised that you seem bothered by all this. This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“What? No! I only ever wanted to protect my family. I never wanted to hurt innocent people. I never wanted to watch someone die like that. She didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

“That’s not the party line around here though, is it? I thought that all ubarae need to die? Even the ones that don’t deserve it. That is what you all signed up for, right?”

“I suppose it is,” he chewed his lip, mulling over his real question at last. “Are we… are we doing the right thing, Ray?”

I laughed at that.

“The right thing? Who even knows what that is anymore?”

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I needed to know what he really thought, before I said too much.

“I don’t know. But I do know that I’m not alright with how this all played out today. Liz helped us, we couldn’t have done this without her, and when she was dying I just… let it happen. Because Tom said so. Because it is what I was expected to do. But it doesn’t feel right. I have been trying to shake this feeling since I got back. The feeling that I betrayed a person who was nothing but kind to me. And I just watched her die. I’ve never seen someone die before. I don’t think I ever want to see it again. But in that case, what the hell am I doing here?” Luke rubbed his face with his hands. “I know I am rambling, but I guess what I am really asking is, am I being a coward who is just afraid to do what is necessary? Or are we on the wrong side of this whole thing?”

“That’s a good question. You want to know what I think?”

“Yes. Of course I do. That is why I came.”

“I think that you need to stop being so easily led, Luke. The stakes here are too high for you to just go with the flow. You need to decide for yourself what you think is right. Not what Wallace says, or even what I say. What do you think?”

“But I don’t know. How can I?” he groaned. “It’s all so complicated. When I met Vicki, I was sure that this was what we had to do. That they were too dangerous, too cruel, to be allowed to live. I would certainly feel safer if she was dead and buried. But Liz wasn’t like that. She took a lot of risks for us, just because you asked her to. She helped me, when she didn’t have to. It wasn’t like with Vicki, she wasn’t getting anything out of it. Her death seems so wrong, so unfair. So, which one is real, then? Vicki or Liz? Which one do I use to make my decision?”

“Both,” I shrugged. “That is, I suppose, the heart of the problem, isn’t it? Wallace isn’t precisely wrong. Ubarae can be everything he has told you they are. They can be manipulative, cunning and cruel. Vicki isn’t even the worst of them. She is actually a pretty middling threat, honestly. Driven only by her baser urges. She had the cruelty in spades, don’t get me wrong, but the truly dangerous ones are much more calculating, much more ambitious. Carmine and the Domini spent years gaining our trust, just to betray us in an attempt to enslave humanity to their whims.”

“So, Wallace is right, then? We have no choice?”

“I didn’t say that. If someone judged humanity only by our worst, they might come to the same conclusion about us, and I think we would argue that the best of us shouldn’t be judged based on the worst, wouldn’t we? Those like Carmine are in the extreme minority. And, fact is, there is a lot of good on the other side. Generally, ubarae are kind and open with others, extremely empathetic and attuned to emotions. Most just want others to be content, as it makes them happy as well. Perhaps it is a bit self-serving, in the way that basically all living things are, but it is hard to argue that it is evil.”

“But if both things are true, then what are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, Luke. I mean, I understand why people fear them, I really do. I have seen ubarae do truly horrible things to humans. I’ve watched friends die. But… I also think that, as humans, we have a tendency to react to fear with inappropriate levels of violence. It is hardwired into us somewhere, that if we see something as a threat, we have to destroy it so we can feel safe. But safety is rarely found in a war. And that is what they are planning for, here. An all-out war. A lot of people will die. A lot of humans. Possibly more than would ever have been killed by ubarae in the first place. To say nothing of the innocent ubarae that will be caught in the crossfire. Is that safety? Is the prize, if it is even attainable, worth the cost?”

“But what is the alternative?”

“Same as before, I suppose. You deal with the dangerous individuals as exactly that: individuals. Identify the threats and deal with them appropriately but leave the innocent alone.”

“It didn’t exactly work before.”

“That’s not true. It worked for hundreds of years. One little snag doesn’t change that. And without all the secrecy, it should work even better. I always felt that hiding things like we did was… morally dubious. People had a right to know.”

“Even if all that accomplished was making them afraid?”

“I don’t think that is all that was accomplished. Give people a little bit more credit, we are more adaptable than you think. I believe that people can come to terms with the new state of things, and we can all find a way to coexist. At least, I want to believe that.”

“If that’s true, then why are you here?”

“Because Tom asked me to come, and I wanted to consider another point of view. And really, I am still not entirely convinced that I am right, and they are wrong. So, for the time being, I am going to follow Wallace’s lead. Until I can be sure of what I need to do. And you should be doing the same. You need to decide, before things go too far, what you are willing to kill for, to die for. Because I suspect there is going to be plenty of both, in our near future, so you had better make sure you are on the right side before it starts.”

“And if I’m still not sure what the right side is?”

“Join the club, kid,” I sighed.

“I wonder if I should talk to Tom about this?” Luke mused. “He seemed upset when he was leaving Wallace’s office today. And he knew Liz before, right? Maybe this also wasn’t what he thought it would be.”

“Nah. Tom was pissed because Wallace wanted to speak to me alone. He’s always been a bit of a teacher’s pet, and he doesn’t like to share. Don’t worry about that. That is between him and me. And you absolutely should not talk to him about this. In fact, you need to be very careful who you bring this sort of thing up with at all. For your own safety. And by the same token I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention this little conversation to anyone else, huh? I doubt Wallace would take my views too well, either.”

“Probably not,” Luke nodded slowly. “Right. I will be careful.”

“Thank you,” I offered a smile. “Look, I can’t decide this for you, this is a choice that only you can make. But maybe I can help a bit.”

“How?”

“People make decisions based on information. And the problem is, you and your fellow recruits have precious little experience with ubarae to draw from. So, what if I told you about some of the ubarae I have known, good and bad, and maybe that will help you make your decision?”

“Alright. That sounds good to me. Where do you want to start?”

“Well, for obvious reasons it has been on my mind lately, so how about I tell you about how I first met Liz?”