Another week passed with no change in JD’s status.
The Swarm continued to harass settlements, Outsider villages, and anyone else they could find. With each day, like some creeping vine, they were getting a little closer to New Ephyra. Kait could feel the tension in the city, and something else now, too. The respect and admiration she so often saw in the eyes of people she passed in the street. It was eroding. A look of hope turning to despair and even accusation.
It was a look that said, “Why are you here? You should be out there, fighting them!”
There was only one honest reply, but it wasn’t one even Kait could bring herself to give.
“It’s no use.”
And then, of course, anyone who did know her would have something else on their mind.
“How’s JD? Any change?”
Any change. Any fucking change. How sick she’d grown of that question. She’d shake her head. She’d move on.
Kait spent most of her time now in Baird’s compound, avoiding the questions or the looks of the people. Avoiding Jinn. Avoiding everything, really, except the one thing she couldn’t get away from. Her nightmares.
The only thing that worked was total exhaustion, so she’d spend her time exercising. Lifting weights, sparring with Del or Cole or Marcus, running endlessly along the paths through Baird’s “yard,” which was more like a small forest.
This had given Baird an idea.
Kait and Del waited as he made the final preparations. For Del’s part he looked bored, still half asleep. Kait had been up before dawn, though, and had an idea of what Baird was planning. She stretched as he talked, shaking the fatigue from her arms and legs. Rolling her neck as far as her armor would allow.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said finally. Baird pointed to the landscape. Two ponds, a half-dozen copses of trees, hedges, grass, and off to one side his “shed” that was the size of a small warehouse. Among all this, new as of this morning, was a training course. Beams of wood to climb over, or under. Ropes on which to swing across muddy pits. The works.
“I’ve enabled sensors in your armor. Biometrics. You two are going to be the benchmark, so I need your best effort. Once the course is optimized, we’ll recreate it in several places around the city, so those who wish to help out can be evaluated.”
“By ‘help out,’” Del said, “you mean fight.”
Baird spread his hands, smiling. “Such a smart guy! Well done.” The smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Yes, to fight. The DeeBees aren’t cutting it.”
“Understatement of the year,” Kait muttered.
“Jinn’s cool with this?” Del asked, pointing at the course. “Seems, I don’t know, contrary to her policies.”
“Let me worry about Jinn,” Baird replied. “Okay. Kait, you’ll be setting a time for women and men. Del, you’ll set the benchmark for children and the elderly.”
“Very funny.” Del wasn’t laughing.
Kait did, though. A little bit.
“GO!” Baird shouted.
Instantly she turned and launched into a sprint, then realized what she should have noticed five minutes ago. Del was only pretending to be tired. He already had a full stride on her as they reached the first obstacle: a single rope suspended over a mud puddle twenty feet across.
“It’s not a competition!” Del shouted over his shoulder, and she could hear the glee in his voice as he leapt for the only way across the thick muddy patch.
Del caught the rope and swung.
If Kait waited for the rope to swing back, this would be over before it even really started. So she launched herself forward and up, legs and arms stretched out in front of her. The mud exploded around her feet when she hit, sending a huge spray up into the air, her face, and under her armor.
Kait knew this yard well, though, and she knew how Baird and Sam cared for it. She doubted he’d dig too deep in creating a mud pit, and she was right. It was perhaps six inches to the bottom. Still a total bastard to get through, but not the waist-deep slog it was meant to look like.
By the time she came out the other side her boots were full of the muck, though, and weighing her down. Kait kicked them off and hopped as she pulled her socks away, too, tossing them aside. Free of the encumbrance she raced on, already ten steps behind Del. Barefoot, though, Kait Diaz could practically fly.
Especially on a well-maintained lawn.
The countless hours she’d spent jogging around this place were about to pay off, she hoped. Kait turned slightly and hurdled a low hedge, bypassing a tight curve in the trail. Del, who’d followed the path like a good sportsman, threw a glance over his shoulder when he realized she’d closed half the gap in only a few seconds.
“Already resorting to cheating?” he asked. “I should have known!”
Kait threw all her energy into the rise and fall of her legs, the placement of her steps, the rhythm of her arms.
“Baird… never said… to stick to the path…”
Del grunted.
They were neck-and-neck when they reached the climbing wall. At the top, though, Kait stopped. There were DeeBees coming in through the back gate, and several Gears in armor, too. Del didn’t see them, and kept on going. He jumped down, rolled, and was halfway to the next obstacle when he realized Kait had stopped.
“Giving up already?” he asked, panting, hands on his knees. Then he saw where she was looking and turned to face the group coming up the path. “That’s never good,” he said, just loud enough for Kait to hear.
She jumped down from the climbing wall and came to a stand at its base, waiting. One of the Gears marched up to her. He looked her up and down, then shrugged.
“Kait Diaz?”
“Uh-huh.”
“First Minister Jinn would like to see you.”
Kait eyed him, then matched his shrug. “Tell her I’ll be there in an hour. I need to get changed.”
“She said… uh… she said to escort you to Government House… right away.” A clump of mud fell from her armor just then, splashing onto the ground between them.
“Ah yes,” she said. “Government House. Marble floors. Nice carpets. Right, then, lead the way.”
The man hesitated, eyes on the splash of fresh mud on the grass at their feet. Caught in that space between following an order and following common sense, he did what she knew he would. Turned and gestured for her to come along.
* * *
If Jinn cared about her appearance, she kept it well hidden.
The First Minister did, however, ask her to come out onto the balcony. They stood side by side at the railing there, looking out over the city. It gleamed in the morning light, Kait thought. As if nothing was wrong. Sunlight danced off roof tiles. The trees along the main avenue swayed slightly in a warm breeze.
Jinn had her hands on her belly, a pose she took more and more often as her pregnancy progressed.
“I’m getting impatient,” the First Minister finally said, and Kait knew immediately what this was about. It wasn’t JD. That, she supposed, was good.
“I suppose,” Jinn went on, “I’ve finally come to realize that calling you Corporal isn’t going to make it be true.”
“Sheer force of will only goes so far,” Kait commented, stalling for time, still not ready for this.
“You need to decide, Kait.”
So much for stalling. Kait tried, though. She watched the city below. The silence became a tangible thing.
“Perhaps you’re wondering, why now?” Jinn added. “What’s changed?”
“I wasn’t, but now that you mention it… why now? What’s changed?” And then it hit her. “JD’s woken up. Or… no… is he… is he gone?”
Before she finished Jinn was already shaking her head, though, and she even put a reassuring hand on Kait’s arm.
“No, nothing like that. There’s been no news from the hospital.”
Kait nodded, easing herself back from the swell of emotion. A part of her, a small part, wondered if Jinn had done that on purpose. To see her reaction. To find out if she still cared. Kait found that she desperately wanted to change the subject.
“So, why then? What has changed?”
“Strategy,” Jinn replied. “I’ve been consulting with Baird, with Marcus. My advisors and staff, the leadership of the city itself.”
Kait hadn’t felt as if the city had any leadership other than Mina Jinn, but she let it go.
“It is time we start bringing people here, to New Ephyra.”
“You mean, whether they want to come or not.”
Jinn nodded. “Some have taken the invitation, some have been forced here by circumstances, but many more have held out. Refused, even.”
“That’s their right,” she said, an old anger flaring up inside her.
“Under any other circumstances I’d agree with you.” Jinn seemed to steel herself for what she wanted to say next, which to Kait was a rather remarkable achievement. She’d never met anyone as stern.
“I would still prefer, of course, that those still outside the walls—”
“Yes, the Outsiders specifically. I would still prefer that they choose to come, and if nothing yet has convinced them to make that choice, perhaps one of their own could do it.”
“Ah,” Kait said.
“Especially if that person was an example of what integration can look like.”
“A corporal, let’s say.”
“And yet also an Outsider. A path for them to follow.”
Kait said nothing.
Jinn turned to her. “After Settlement 2—”
“If you want my help,” Kait snapped, “I highly suggest you don’t bring that place up.” But Jinn, hardened steel that she was, did not flinch.
“After Settlement 2, I am convinced that the only real option left to us is to gather inside these walls. There is strength in numbers. Real strength.”
“The Outsiders will see it as a prison camp.”
The First Minister dipped her chin, an acknowledgement so quick and perfect that Kait realized this conversation had gone exactly how the woman intended. Kait folded her arms, immediately defensive and also immediately wondering if that, too, was what Jinn expected.
Two can play at that game.
“Why bring them here, though?” Kait said.
“What do you mean?”
“Why save the Outsiders at all? They’re a threat to everything this place stands for. And, Jinn, let me tell you, if you thought you had a riot on your hands in Settlement 2, wait until there’s a bunch of freethinking survivalists inside your walls. Even if I could convince them to come here—and I’m not saying I will—controlling them after that point… well, let’s just say that after Settlement 2, I think I see the sorts of tactics you’ll use to accomplish that. Why you think I’d bring people here to face the end of a gun, well, it’s beyond me.”
“Not the end of a gun,” Jinn said. “The stock.”
At first Kait imagined Outsiders being clubbed into submission by DeeBees, but then something Jinn had said earlier finally registered, matching the tone of the woman’s words.
“‘A path for them to follow…’” Kait repeated. “‘An example of integration.’ You meant that literally.”
Jinn simply waited.
A wind kicked up, cold and stiff. Kait shifted, heard the cracking of the mud that had dried and hardened on her armor. Clumps fell to the immaculate tiles at her feet. Outside muck in a manicured place. She shook her head.
“Can we agree, then,” Mina Jinn asked, “that concentrating our population here is the best—perhaps only—option left to us?”
No matter how hard she tried, Kait couldn’t find a convincing argument to the contrary. She nodded.
“And can we agree,” the woman went on, “that of all the people currently here, you are ideally suited to be my ambassador on such a mission?”
Again Kait nodded. It was true.
Didn’t mean it was right.
But then, she supposed, nothing was right anymore. Only the bad options remained. A memory came to her, unbidden. Camping with her parents, she was maybe six years old.
* * *
In the night they were surrounded by wild beasts, though Kait couldn’t tell what sort of beasts. All she saw was their glowing eyes. All she heard was the hungry growls. Even in that moment of danger, her parents sought to teach her. It was the whole point of those trips, and they weren’t ones to waste an opportunity.
“Learn to spot the leader,” Reyna whispered to her as she unsheathed her dual machetes and shifted into an attack stance. “It’s the leader you need to take out first. The rest will usually scatter.”
Kait, tiny and—though it was tough to admit to herself—quite terrified, stepped closer to the center of their camp as Reyna angled herself toward her chosen target. She backed into her father, as both parents instinctively put Kait between them. Protective, even when teaching her to survive.
“Dad,” Kait whispered, gripping the leg of his trousers. He had his own machete in hand by then, and spared a glance down at her. He put one arm in front of her, easing her back behind him.
“When there are no good options,” Gabe said, “start with the one least likely to get you killed. Work up from there.”
They moved at the same moment, but in very different ways. Reyna darting out, blades slashing, going for the beast whose eyes were highest from the ground, and who made the most menacing growl. Gabe, by contrast, suddenly kicked out. He’d shifted a log from the fire onto his foot, and his motion sent it flying, a trail of sparks and embers in its wake, into the face of the nearest animal.
Without hesitation he threw his machete at another. A small one. Timid. Already backing away. It fell with a yelp. Before Kait could even gasp, her father had drawn an old pistol from his rucksack and fired a shot into the air. The deafening sound sent the rest of the animals scurrying back into the darkness.
All save two. The one at which Gabe had thrown his blade, and the leader. Reyna stood over that monster, now just a pile—a frighteningly large pile—of gray fur and limbs in the dirt, blood pooling around it.
“See?” Reyna asked.
“See?” In the same moment her father asked the same.
* * *
Funny, Kait suddenly thought, how each of them had seen their tactic as the only option. Which proved they weren’t the only options. And each had, in their own view, made the right choice. Or, rather, the “least wrong one.” She hadn’t been old enough to spot this contradiction then.
She’d just marveled at them both.
Not long after that, Gabe had passed on, and so it was Reyna’s teachings that eventually became ingrained in Kait Diaz. For better or worse, she was her mother’s daughter.
“I can’t help you, Jinn,” Kait said. “I’ll give you the armor back, if you need me to, but after learning what your orders did to JD at Settlement 2, I’m not interested in being ‘Corporal’ Diaz. I’d appreciate it, by the way, if you stopped ‘accidentally’ calling me that.”
She turned away then, figuring there was no need to wait to be dismissed. Kait walked through Jinn’s gleaming office, bare feet making a slapping sound on the clean floor, leaving a second trail of mud and grit. She made it to the door before Jinn called out to her, stress evident in her voice.
“Do you plan to leave before he wakes up?”
Kait stopped dead, the door handle grasped tightly in her fist.
“It wouldn’t be ideal,” Jinn added, more calmly, “but if I can’t have you acting as official COG ambassador, could you still be an independent voice? As we both agreed, getting people here is the important thing. The rest can be sorted out later.”
Hackles raised and blood in her ears, Kait wanted nothing more of this verbal swordfight. She left without answering.
But she knew Jinn was probably right.
* * *
By the time Kait strode into the vast lobby of Government House, most of the mud had shaken loose from her uniform. She took a little bit of perverse pleasure in imagining the cleaning efforts that would result from her visit here today.
Yet as she crossed the great chamber she saw that the floor had already been cleaned. A little robot with a broom attached to an articulated arm rolled slowly along one wall, scooping up the last remnants of the mud she’d left on the way in.
Ringed with great pillars that lined an inner space lit by shafts of golden sunlight streaming in through a glass ceiling, the space never failed to cause the breath to catch in her throat. Kait tried to keep her eyes forward this time, and found it nearly impossible.
“Ms. Diaz?”
The voice came from off to her right somewhere. A deep, sonorous voice. One she didn’t recognize and yet felt she’d heard before. Turning, she slowed, then stopped. In the shadow between two pillars was a man. He sat in a wheelchair, yet even half-hidden in darkness he somehow gave off an air of strength.
“Do I know you?” Kait asked.
He wheeled forward, slow but steady. The man was very old, but sat straight in his chair. He wore a uniform that seemed practically covered in medals.
“We haven’t met,” he replied, “but I knew your father. A long time ago.” As Kait stood in stunned silence he wheeled over to her and held out a hand. “Colonel Hoffman,” he said. “Victor Hoffman. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Kait.”
It took her a long second before she remembered to reach out and take the offered hand.
“I wonder,” he said, “if you could spare a few minutes and wheel me around the plaza?”