“That was the house with the crying baby, then?” Titouan asked.
“Yes,” I said.
I told them that we already knew what Kelley’s motivation was. Rescuing Bob. The guy at the house was a bit harder to understand and explain. To regular people, the notion of sacrificing your life because of honor seems so ridiculous. Yet history is rife with examples of people dying (and killing) because of it. Before the world fell, people of religious fervor killed out of honor way too often. Think about the Bushido Code samurais lived by. They would rather fall on their own swords than dishonor themselves and their families. I tried to explain how I thought the guy in the house kind of fell on his own sword.
The next bit was incredibly challenging to explain and understand. It showed humanity at its darkest. I thumbed the radio absently, as Sam looked on, trying to find the right way of explaining the next events. Kelley didn’t specifically tell me the things I was about to say. Still, I felt confident about my conclusions.
“These people are monsters,” I finally said. Sam began to say something, but I stopped him and my fidgeting with the radio. I needed to get through it.
At some point, Kelley must’ve gotten a message that said the Order was moving the Grays to Miley’s. I believed that’s the message that came when I first heard the cell phone buzz. Kelley then, I believed, pretended to feed the baby to stall for time until she told them not to move. Kelley was of lower authority, so I don’t believe she was able to stop the initial phase of the attack. I heard instances of glass being broken and other noises. They had learned to move the Grays without the sound devices.
By the time I had gone out and tried to find a path back to the building near the airport, Kelley had given up on stopping the attack. At that point, I think she had gone full rogue with the Order. She had probably challenged the authority a little too much, which is one of the reasons she decided to talk, I thought. I also thought Kelley had probably already poisoned the child to keep her from crying, so I guessed the bruises we saw were from the pinching… causing her to cry.
“Christ,” Sam said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“I guess I don’t understand why the Order didn’t just attack Miley’s? They allowed him to escape,” Titouan said.
Much of what I said was conjecture, as Avery would say, but Kelley did tell me that she let the leadership know she was imbedded with us, and that she was going to kill Miley once she got inside. That was enough to make them pause the operation or test or revenge or whatever they were calling the impending attack on Miley’s office building.
But I don’t think the hesitation was just because of that. Kelley was quick to talk about how complex, shaky, and outright fragile the leadership was. Very few of the people in the Order knew each other. So, Imagine, I told everyone, waking up one day to find out someone who you never met previously could command you to take your own life, and you would have to obey. What if you thought that person was beneath your station? Kelley said she believed that there were people taking leadership roles who were commoners, which I left alone because there was not enough time to delve too deeply into their very convoluted ways.
“I’m just not sure I understand why Bob and Kelley would go from willing to die before they talked to telling you everything they knew,” Tish said. “And, how can we trust what they told you? They’re our enemies.”
“Like I said, Kelley committed about as much treason as they would allow. I think she knew her days in the Order were over. But not only that, she did give us the code for her phone.”
“Okay, but Bob told you things, too, and he was determined not to. If these people are as brainwashed as you say, why would both be so easy to crack?”
Tish was right. On the one hand, it really did seem they were unflappable in their allegiances, but Tish didn’t know what else I knew, which showed another side of human nature: biological loyalty. “I used the one thing they both cared about more than the Order.”
“Which was?” Tish asked.
“Kelley being pregnant,” I said.
“How in the Sam Hill did you know ’at? She didn’t look ’at way at all,” Sam said.
“Her silent pleading to Bob. The way she kept looking at her belly and then at him. He was an idiot, of course, and didn’t notice. It wasn’t until she said whatever it was she said in Korean, and after his face turned ghostly white, that I knew for sure.”
“So, two babies died back there instead of one. Great,” Tish said.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “Yeah.”
“Wait. Wait a minute. You’re mad at William?” Titouan asked.
“I don’t know what I am right now. But whatever it is I feel isn’t any of your business,” Tish said.
Titouan began to say something, but I stopped him. “Now’s not the time for fighting. I understand that there are going to be all sorts of feelings about what happened back there. I know firsthand how that’s true, but we can argue about them later. Right now, we have other things to deal with. Fighting with one another is only going to make things harder than they need to be.”
Titouan nodded. Tish, meanwhile, sat back hard in her seat but was content to keep further feelings to herself.
“I know everyone is uncomfortable with what I did, but I’m telling you right now. If I have to do that over again to save any of you, I won’t hesitate. All of us are going to have to make hard decisions. I want everyone to think about that and what that means.”
I awoke to loud snoring. I looked to Sam in the driver’s seat, but he shook his head. “Ain’t me.” He flicked his chin back towards the rear of the vehicle. “Damn Tit kept me from fallin ta sleep. Prolly a good thang. Somebody has ta watch over you idiots.”
There were three rows of seats in the Ripsaw. Two rows of two captain’s chairs and a bench seat in the very back. Titouan had moved to the bench seat and was snoring to beat hell. Tish and Avery were in the captain’s chairs directly behind the front seats, and they seemed to also be fast asleep.
“Looks like it’s just us, now,” I said.
“Look at the clock, son. You was sawin logs yourself for about an hour.”
“I’m exhausted like I’ve never been in my entire life. You have to be tired, too?”
“Nah. I walked ’round outside a bit… cleaned the body parts off the windshield. I’m good.”
“Sorry you had to do that. I think we’re safe here for a while. This would be a good time for you to get a few winks.”
“You really reckon we ever gonna be safe?”
“Probably not.”
“You ain’t never ’is lost for words.”
I tried to laugh. “I keep hoping I’ll wake up to something different, but every short nap I get, I wake up to the same bullshit. It’ll take the long-windedness right out of you.”
“I don’t wont ta sleep ’cause I see Tom’s damn gray face starin at me. Why would people do ’is, William?”
“Why do people do any of the stupid shit they do? Is this really any different than going into a village and chopping everyone up because they’re a different ethnicity? Or a million or more people dying over the right to keep humans as property? We’re humans, Sam. We do all kinds of stupid shit, and we justify it in innumerable ways. This is no different. If there is a difference, it’s that we’re not reading about it in a book. We’re living it.”
“You know how ta make me feel a whole lot better.”
“You wanted me to talk more.”
That got a chuckle from him. His mirth didn’t last long, though, as he asked, “Are you okay?”