“Strange place for a meeting,” Baird said, entering the gloom of JD’s hospital room.
The lights were off, save the status indicators from the machines keeping James Dominic Fenix alive. Mina Jinn sat on the edge of JD’s bed, leaning over his prone form like a grieving mother. Her face was lit by the glowing screens on the machine beside him. Red, then white, then red, then white.
The shutters on the wall-length window had been opened, giving a view out onto the nighttime city. Until recently it had been a glittering jewel in the evenings. One of Baird’s favorite sights in the world, that skyline. But with the power rationing of late, most of the streetlights had been turned off, and the citizens were thus far complying with the voluntary effort to turn out unneeded lights in the evening, and virtually all lights at night.
All of which meant that, at this late hour, the only lights he could see out there were small pools of twisting, erratic beams, cast by the “eyes” of the robotic DeeBees that patrolled and maintained the curfew.
After a moment or two Jinn finally seemed to notice his arrival. She stood with an effort, one hand going to the small of her back while the other supported her abdomen and the child within. Once standing, she gestured toward two chairs in the corner of the room. Baird took one. Jinn sat by the window, her profile just a shadow against the night sky beyond. The idea of conversing with her without being able to read her facial expressions was disconcerting, but he decided to follow her lead and leave the lights off.
“The doctor says a normal routine can be important,” Jinn said, as if reading his thoughts, “hence the dark.”
“Works for me,” Baird lied. A silence stretched, and guilt welled up inside him. He began to really hate not being able to see her face.
“Look,” he said, “I can only apologize so many times. The situation out there, as reported… it was chaos. They were trapped. We were going to lose some of our best people. Friends of mine. Family, really. Not to mention all the evacuees they’d picked up. It would have been a massacre, one for the history books. So I…
“I made a choice, and I stand by it,” he continued. “At the time… it was the only call, Jinn. The only call, and I’d do it again. And… and I’m rambling, aren’t I?”
Her silence went on, just long enough to be at the brink of unbearable. He couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought she was still looking at JD.
“We’re well past apologies,” she said finally.
Baird decided it was his turn to be silent. He’d come here expecting a massive fight. Jinn had avoided speaking with him since the event, partly because of what had happened to JD, and partly because he’d unleashed a weapon she’d expressly forbidden him to use. Baird had put her in a tough position, and was prepared to face the consequences, whatever Jinn might eventually decide. Perhaps even a pair of handcuffs and his own robots escorting him to prison, accused of war crimes.
“In fact,” Jinn said, “I’m starting to fear we’re well past everything.”
“Meaning?” Baird asked, though he thought he knew the answer already. He stared hard at her silhouette, trying to glean anything he could from her posture.
“You said you made a choice,” she replied. “At Settlement 2. You made a choice to deploy the Hammer of Dawn. JD made a choice in asking for you to do it.”
“I don’t think he had any other—”
“We’re out of choices now, aren’t we, Damon.”
It wasn’t really a question. He nodded, unsure if she could even see that.
“We tried equipping the DeeBees, not just with knowledge, but weapons, too. The Swarm turned them into their own abominations. We tried the Hammer of Dawn, the result of which lies here in front of us.”
Baird swallowed, a fresh wave of guilt crashing down on his shoulders.
“We’re running low on a lot of supplies,” she added, gesturing to the dormant lights, “but there’s one commodity I’m most terrified of running out of, and that’s choices.”
“Unfortunately my factories can’t manufacture options.” He sensed a shift at that, a split second where she appreciated the gallows humor. “Be a good trick, though. Maybe I should work on it.”
“I would appreciate it if you could be serious, Damon.”
“You’re forgiven. Just for the joke, I mean. Not for destroying an entire settlement, and nearly killing a man who is like a son to me.”
Baird decided to hold his tongue there, too.
Jinn was right, after all.
She let out a breath, one that wavered slightly. There was fear in it, he thought, and that made him afraid, too. Afraid where Jinn was going with all this.
“Despite what happened out there,” she said, “I want you to know I still value your opinion. Which is why I called you here.”
“Happy to help.”
“You haven’t yet heard what I’m going to ask.”
“Good point. I retract my happiness.”
“Damon…”
“I know, I know. Serious face. It’s back on.”
She actually did laugh then, but it was the impatient sort of laugh. “As I see it, we have only two choices left to us.” She let that sink in for a second before continuing. “We either bring everyone we can here, to the city, or we scatter as far and wide as possible, in hopes the Swarm can’t track us all down.”
He’d spent a lot of time thinking about the same choices, and discussing them with Sam, Cole, and even Marcus to some extent. Baird leaned forward, organizing his thoughts with more care than he usually liked to use, before turning them into words.
“If we run,” he said, “we need places to go. You know more than I do how the rest of Sera is faring in this… outbreak.”
“Not well.”
“Some of us might survive, yes, but to what end?” he continued. “A few little hidden tribes in a world overrun with monsters? If that’s our future, then I say no thank you.”
She remained still, listening, so he went on.
“If we bring everyone here,” he said, “we’re setting up for a fight. Is it one we can win? I have no idea.”
“We can’t,” she said. “You and I both know that.”
“I was trying to be optimistic.”
“Just be honest. That’s what I need right now.”
Baird nodded, gravely.
“Okay, so it’s probably a last stand, but at least we go down fighting. Or, if I can sneak a bit of optimism in there, maybe it buys us enough time for a solution to present itself.”
“What kind of solution?”
He shrugged. “Maybe we come up with a virus that kills them off. Or a new tactic we haven’t thought of yet. Maybe we get the Hammer working properly—”
“You had me up until there,” Jinn said, “but I cannot believe you’re going to sit here and suggest that, after what happened.” The prone form of JD was all the punctuation that sentence needed. Baird nodded, almost ceding the point.
“Well, we’re not going to defend the walls with DeeBees,” he asserted. “If we’re going to stay and fight, and we can’t use the Hammer or the robots, then there’s only one choice left.” Jinn said nothing. He had, for the hundredth time it seemed, reached the line she refused to cross.
“Gears,” Baird said, pressing his luck.
Again with an effort Jinn stood, refusing the hand he offered her. She went to the window and looked out. It was perhaps the first time since he’d entered the room that she wasn’t looking at JD.
“If you’re going to double down on bringing everyone here,” Baird went on, “then you need to ask them as they come in the gate, ‘Can you shoot?’ If the answer is yes, you put a Lancer in their hands and send them up to the walls. That’s the only way we have a chance.”
“There is a part of me, Damon,” she replied, “that sees that as surrounding the seat of this government with armed Outsiders.”
“They aren’t the enemy, Jinn.”
“Not now, no.”
“Jinn… come on. This isn’t the time to be playing the long game, is it?”
She seemed about to reply, but went silent again instead.
“It’s like you said,” he added, “we’re running out of options. We need to take the ones we have left, before they’re gone, too.”
“They have no training, no discipline.”
He shrugged. “So we train them. The regimen Del and I created for the DeeBees can be adapted. It’s quick, too.” He left its ineffectiveness unsaid.
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves, though.” Jinn turned toward him. “First we have to convince them to come.”
“Kait seems the perfect ambassador to help with that.”
“Yes,” Jinn replied. “Well, I’d hoped JD would convince her, but now… and it doesn’t matter how many times I call her ‘Corporal,’ the honorary rank just slides right off her like a… like a bad smell.”
“Then what you need is some deodorant.” He held up a hand. “That didn’t come out right.” Jinn glared at him. Or, he thought she did. It was hard to tell in the dark. “Sorry,” he said again, “I promised not to joke around.”
“No,” Jinn replied. “No, you may have a point there.”
“I do?” When she didn’t answer, Baird felt his stomach tighten. “Why do I feel like I just gave you an idea that I’m going to regret?”
Jinn ignored that. Which was just as worrying.
“That will be all, Damon.”