There were parallels, Kait thought, between JD’s condition and the city of New Ephyra. Both were trapped between life and death, a state that was reliant entirely on external forces. JD on the medical team that seemed to be waiting, waiting…
While the city waited for the Swarm to come calling.
Sitting on a chair in JD’s hospital room, she had her legs tucked up, arms folded across her knees, chin resting on her forearms. She could sit like this for hours, she found, and only occasionally doze. Even then the sleep was shallow and furtive. It was a position her father had taught her when she was… what, seven? She couldn’t remember exactly. Those days of exploring the wilderness around Fort Umson were long, long gone.
JD just lay there, inert, as he had for two weeks. A machine hissed and clicked beside him, doing the work his lungs still refused to do. There was a thick tube in his mouth, and smaller ones in his nose. His right arm was completely covered in burn pads, and they’d shaved his head—the part where the hair hadn’t been singed off, that is—to better tend to his burns. Sometimes a team of nurses would come in to shift his body into different positions. “To prevent atrophy,” the doctor had said. Then they would wash him, feed him.
Everything except wake him up, or let him go.
“Just like this fucking city,” she said to herself, staring out the window.
“What was that, Corporal Diaz?”
Kait didn’t turn at the sound of Mina Jinn’s voice from the doorway. The woman liked to show up suddenly, not making a sound until she was already in the room.
“You know,” Kait replied, “I really wish you’d stop calling me that.”
“Forgive me.” Jinn stepped into the room. “A slip of the tongue. Or, perhaps, just wishful thinking.”
Kait couldn’t quite hold in her laugh. The COG First Minister had started this little head game—just one of many the woman engaged in at any given time—only days after Kait had first arrived in New Ephyra.
First the woman had met privately with JD and Del, forgiving their desertion and reinstating their ranks. A meeting, pointedly, that Kait had been left out of. After all, Jinn would have had a hard time convincing Kait to join up if her two best friends were in jail instead of in uniform. No doubt she didn’t want Kait there to argue for refusal, either.
Once Jinn had secured their cooperation, though, she’d tried to use them to recruit Kait, confident she’d follow her friends into the waiting arms of the COG.
But then Kait had learned of survivors in her village. Kids, in fact, left behind to fend for themselves against the growing threat of the Swarm. For Kait the decision had been an easy one, though it caught the rest of them off guard. She’d left. Snuck out of the city in the night, with a little help from Damon Baird and Marcus Fenix.
Kait had saved the kids in the end, even reunited with her Uncle Oscar in the process. And in the final skirmish against the Swarm, everyone had helped, even JD and Del. The band was, as it were, back together.
Jinn, it seemed, had taken every opportunity while Kait was off on her lone-wolf mission to “accidentally” call her Corporal Diaz. It was as if she thought saying it would somehow make it happen. Especially when she said it within earshot of others. The declaration of rank had indeed spread. Nurses called her by the title. Doctors, too. Even Baird had said it accidentally, once, not understanding what Jinn was up to. In the First Minister’s mind, it was a foregone conclusion that Kait would join the COG, the Coalition of Ordered Governments.
In Kait’s mind, that was far from the truth.
Especially now.
“Did you know he fired the first shot?” she asked.
Jinn took one of the chairs by the bed, her eyes on JD.
“I’m sorry?”
“You know what I’m talking about. Settlement 2.”
Jinn shifted, uncomfortable. She placed her hands over her pregnant belly. “What happened there was regrettable—”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“The situation was complicated, Kait.”
“Did. You. Know?”
The First Minister reached out and brushed JD’s cheek with the back of her hand. A motherly gesture if ever there had been one. Kait waited, watching, wondering if Jinn was really moved to have a tender moment with the wounded soldier, or just buying time to compose her answer.
“Of course I knew,” Jinn replied, her voice even, steady. “I gave the order.”
Kait hadn’t expected that. Her first instinct—one of rage—was quickly replaced by suspicion. She wouldn’t put it past Mina Jinn to lie, to say those words, if the woman thought it might mend the rift between JD and Kait. JD and everyone, really. Before she could decide what to say, a doctor entered. Someone probably interrupted his sleep as soon as the hospital registered Jinn’s presence.
“First Minister,” he said. He looked at Kait, and if he said “Corporal,” Kait thought she might leave then and there. “Ms. Diaz.”
“Any change?” Jinn asked, eyes never leaving the prone figure.
“I’m afraid not,” he replied. “There’s still significant brain activity, which continues to give us hope he’ll pull through this, but the rest of him remains entirely on life support.”
“And your prognosis, Doctor?”
The man measured his words. “There’s just no way to know. He could wake up tomorrow, or a year from now, or… never.” Before Jinn could press, he added, “In my experience, and from the scope of his injuries, the fact that he hasn’t woken up by now means he’s not likely to do so.”
Jinn said nothing. Her focus was entirely on JD.
Kait realized she’d been holding her breath. She let it out, slowly.
The doctor shifted uneasily. “First Minister, excuse me, but it may be wise to make a decision soon… To invest this amount of time and supplies in one man—”
“You can go now,” Jinn snapped.
The doctor nodded and, with a furtive glance at Kait, backed out of the room. Numb and exhausted, Kait kept quiet. A silence seeped into the room like a morning fog, absolute save for the wheeze and click of the life-support machine.
“I envy you sometimes,” Jinn said suddenly.
“Why is that?”
The First Minister turned her head slightly, casting a sidelong glance.
“Sorry, I was talking to JD,” she said. “The soldier’s life. Following orders instead of making decisions. I envy it, sometimes.”
Kait glared at her. “He still made a decision. He could have chosen not to pull the trigger.”
For a moment Jinn went tense, looking ready to debate the topic, but then her features softened. She turned back to the unconscious man, and stroked his cheek again.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said after a time. “Besides, taking James off life support is not my decision to make. It should be Marcus who decides. It’s his right.”
The unspoken accusation left Kait feeling even colder. Marcus had only visited his son once in the last few weeks, and even that had been brief. The worst part was, she understood why that had been. She’d felt the reluctance herself, and knew Del had, too. Jinn and Fahz had been the most diligent at keeping the vigil.
“At the same time,” Jinn went on, “I somehow feel responsible for him. It was my program that helped his mother Anya become pregnant. I was even there when he was born. I—”
That was it. Kait stood and left the room. At the hospital’s front entrance she ran into Del, who was coming up the steps.
“Any change?” he asked.
“No.”
“Jinn’s with him.”
“Ugh.” Del stared at the building’s facade. “Feels like every time I go up it’s either Fahz telling JD some war story, or Jinn leaning over him and whispering like she’s plying him with all her secrets.”
Kait grimaced. “I know what you mean. I just wish he’d wake up, so I can knock him on his ass.”
“Yeah, seriously.” He looked away from the building. “Maybe I’ll come back later, then.”
“Wise decision,” she replied, and started walking again. Del fell in beside her, and remained with her all the way to Baird’s mansion, where she was staying. At the gate she paused, turned to her friend.
“The doctor’s pushing to have him unplugged.”
Del didn’t seem surprised. It was something they’d all contemplated since returning from Settlement 2.
“What’d Jinn say?”
“She told him to get lost.”
At that her friend raised an eyebrow.
“Then she said it was Marcus’s call,” Kait added. “But then she started going on about how she’s practically JD’s mom because of the whole thing with Anya and… I just had to get the fuck out of there. The two of them deserve each other.”
“That’s kind of harsh.” At her withering gaze Del held up his hands. “I mean, I get where you’re coming from, but still…” He looked back toward the hospital. “Damn. Going to be interesting to see how Jinn’s kid turns out. She’d be an… interesting mom to have.”
She tried, but failed, to stop another laugh that bubbled out of her. This time, the laughter wouldn’t stop, and soon Del was laughing, too. It felt good, but it flooded her with guilt, too. Despite everything, ultimately this was JD they were talking about.
They lingered there on the sidewalk, the mood growing serious again as around them the citizens of New Ephyra went about their day. The place had changed in the last few months, now that the threat of the Swarm had become an undeniable thing, like a massive thunderhead on the horizon.
“Jinn told me she gave JD the order to shoot,” Kait said. Del, watching a patrol of DeeBees march by, grunted.
“And what did you say?”
“I told her he still had a choice.”
“That’s not how the military works—”
“I know, I know. But… fuck that,” she growled. “Seriously. Fuck that.”
Leaving him there in the street, she went off in search of Baird’s private gym, ready to take a few hundred swings at a punching bag until her body reached the verge of collapse. It was the only way she could get herself to sleep without the nightmares.
Which was probably why the nightmares had started to bleed into her waking hours, too.