“No, Teresa,” he’d said. “It’s nothing like that. I just want you here, safe and sound. And, besides, it would be one less thing to worry about.”
Again, she’d given him a long, searching look, but he’d been careful to keep his features kindly and bland and his voice even and she’d finally shrugged again, knowing something was wrong but with no idea just what, and had gone off to sulk. Justin felt bad for her and wished that he could just blurt it out and tell her all about his fears and misgivings, especially about her specifically, but this was neither the time nor the place for such things. Not when they were so close. And so he’d had to let her sulk.
Once they had determined who was going, they’d spent another whole day planning how they wanted to proceed. Through most of this discussion Justin had paid little attention but had, as the voice of cooler heads, spoken up whenever there was talk of killing or violence. Finally several of the group had thrown up their hands at his incessant, meddling objections.
“Jesus Christ, doc!” Lumler had said, exasperated. “Whattaya want us to do, walk up and tickle ‘em? Maybe engage ‘em in a nice pillow fight? These are heavily armed men, trained to kill! And they will not hesitate to blast you right the fuck in half, doctor or not. Understand? You, the Old Man, me, anybody! Like in the old western movies, shoot first an’ ask questions later.”
“Yes, I understand that,” Justin had nodded. “But surely we can try to keep casualties to a minimum, can’t we? After all, you’ve said yourself that we can’t take on the whole armed forces of New America. Perhaps we can rely more on stealth than force?”
“I agree,” Shipman had said, surprising Justin. “We’ll all get wasted if we go in guns blazin’. We gotta make this a sneak attack.” He’d turned to Lumler and Santiago. “Don’t you guys got any non-lethal arms? No tasers or beanbag guns or nothin’?”
Lumler had shrugged and nodded reluctantly. “Yeah,” he’d allowed, “we got that kinda shit. Gas, rubber bullets, net guns, zappers. But I for one ain’t goin’ in there with nothin’ but some gas grenades an’ a measly net gun!”
“Course not,” Shipman had said. “That’d just be stupid. But we can try to use the non-lethals as much as possible. You gotta admit, they sure as hell keep the noise down!”
Lumler had grumbled and fretted the issue, but in the end had ceded the argument. Justin got the feeling that the man was only giving lip service to the whole idea, but had had to content himself with at least getting him and the others to consider it. Maybe some lives could be spared.
After that, they’d gone into a whole lot of little details; which guards would be on duty, where and when they would patrol; how they would be armed and what exactly were the layouts of the buildings they had to infiltrate. Justin’s attention had again waned and he’d been almost dozing when the high scratchy voice of the Old Man, sitting at his side, had broken in.
“Think this is gonna work, doc?” he’d asked quietly, out of one side of his mouth. “Think we can really swipe this guy’s plane? Fly to Frisco?”
Justin had looked over at him and made a wry face. “I certainly hope so, sir,” he’d said quietly. “But then, these people seem well-acquainted with this sort of thing, so maybe we stand a chance. And, if we do succeed, well, in theory we would be in San Francisco in a matter of hours.”
The Old Man had been about to go on, but Justin, not wanting to disturb the others, had waved him gently to silence. Quietly, he’d gotten up and slowly wheeled Lampert’s new chair (courtesy of the Council) out of the room and into an empty cafeteria room next door. The Old Man, nicely recovered from his bout with the common cold, had looked up at him, his eyes their usual crystal blue but somehow softer and less piercing, and shaken his head.
“Stealin’ a plane?” he’d said. “And flyin’ to Frisco? I dunno, doc… but then again, I guess it’s no crazier than tryin’ to drive to California in some big-ass RV, is it?”
Justin had made a face. “Touché, sir. And believe me, I tried to get them to think of some other way. I asked if there maybe wasn’t another plane somewhere we could use, I asked if maybe we couldn’t just use another car or some other, safer transportation, something that wouldn’t involve storming an armed compound, but no. Problematic as this plan is, I have to concede that it seems the most likely to succeed.”
“Huhn, I guess,” the Old Man had wheezed. He’d paused for a moment before shaking his head ruefully. “Damn, you have been through some shit, ain’tcha doc? Gangs, chemical spills, nuke plants, wild animals, more gangs, fucking Christian cannibals and freaky mutant mole people and that horrible Johnson creep, not to mention the source of all this misery, the goddamn Plague itself, surviving that and not goin’ crazy. I mean, Jesus Christ on a scooter, doc, you been to hell an’ back!”
Justin had just sighed and nodded; nobody needed to tell him about what he’d been through. “Yes. It has been a long trip. And we’ve lost a lot of good people along the way.”
“That’s the hell of it, ain’t it? I mean, here there are only what, like twenty, thirty thousand people left in the whole goddamn country? And what do they do? They go around killin’ each other over a couple tanks o’ gas or a package o’ them crappy Krillo-bars! Shit. So what is that, Doc? Irony? Or tragedy, or what?”
“I have no idea,” Justin had owned. “Maybe it’s a bit of both. All I know for certain is that we’re closer than we’ve ever been to getting you to California.”
“Mmm hmm,” Lampert had said. “And then what?”
“What do you mean?” Justin had asked. “When we finally accomplish our mission and have you safely in San Francisco, we’ll make a vaccine, of course.”
“No, I mean after that,” the Old Man had persisted. “Say you do accomplish your mission and you get me there and make a vaccine and save the world. Then what?”
Justin had blinked and frowned, realizing that he’d never given this a single thought. The very idea that they might beat the odds and somehow succeed had been enough to ask for and the idea of a future beyond had been too much. At the time, he’d had to shrug and admit his loss.
“To be honest, sir,” he’d said, “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“Aw, come on, doc,” Lampert had smiled. “What about you an’ Teresa? Don’tcha wanna settle down with her, get yourself a nice place to live, maybe raise some brainy, tough-as-whipcord little kids?”
“Maybe,” Justin had said desultorily. “But then again, who can say? It just could be that she and I aren’t exactly right for each other.”
“What?!” the Old Man had almost yelped. “What the hell kinda talk is that? Not right for each other? Shit, doc, she’s smart, she’s tough, she’s funny and pretty and she’s got a body that any man who don’t like other men would kill to get their hands on! Plus, she’s crazy about you! Any fool can see that, just the way she looks at ya. So what’s your problem? You gone gay or somethin’? Or are ya just stupid?”
“I don’t know,” Justin had frowned. “Maybe I am stupid. Maybe that’s the trouble, I don’t know. I think that it’s just that she’s so inured. So used to this terrible world and all of its violence and brutality. I’m just not sure that I can get used to that side of her personality.”
Lampert had laughed wheezily. “So yer upset ‘cause she’s normal? Because she’s strong enough to survive? Shit, doc, you can hardly fault her for that! Besides, where would we be right now if she wasn’t as tough as she is? Killed, chopped into patties, and eaten by fat men in cop suits, that’s where!”