14. RECKONING
The body count is in. 22 D-towners dead. Zero GeeGee. Four Bees. One Kylie.
Kylie’s death shouldn’t mean more than the other twenty-one, especially since I caused them all, but to me it does. It’s because I’m human. That’s what Kylie would have said.
The Ashram wall blurs in front of my face. I sit cross-legged, breathing in, breathing out, in ragged fashion. For as long as I can remember, there’s been a crater in my chest where my parents used to be. Even though it wasn’t always there, it colors everything, so when I look back on times before their death, the emptiness is in the memory.
The crater must be round, like all other things created by the GeeGee.
Kylie’s death cuts across the old wound in a ragged tear. I feel like I’m spilling out to ooze down my stomach and pool in the bowl of my crossed legs. I’m supposed to be focusing on my breath.
But like Kylie’s death meaning more, like threatening the guard with the gun—threats with a gun are not non-violent, whether you plan to pull the trigger or not—the fact that I can’t focus on my breath is just one more bit of proof that I’m a poor Bee. I allow my emotions to control me. I surrender to what’s expedient over what’s right. I can’t maintain stillness for any length of time. My desires are too strong. They eat me up from the inside, chewing their way free to wreak havoc in the world with me as their servant.
I might find peace with this, find my right place in the world, except if I don’t belong with the Bees, there is no place for me. I can’t fight; I won’t. I believe in non-violence. More so today than ever.
But in the oppressive loneliness of grief, it’s not the close companionship of my fellow Bees that I want, curled together like a pile of puppies. I miss being with Lawson. I wish to fall asleep on his…whatever Real Dealers sleep on. Bedrolls, probably, no matter how tough they seem. I ache to have him spooned around my back, his heat soaking into me. And I need more.
My breath gets my attention, coming faster, and Kylie should be here to tell me to stay still or to say I’m only human and make it okay for me to go to him.
Kylie’s gone. Sam won’t speak to me. The hard, cold floor is making my butt ache.
I drop into my body and breathe, and breathe, into all the little hurts. Beside the grief digging out my middle, all other pains are small.
“Aidan? Aidan!”
I straighten my spine and wipe drool off my chin. I long ago learned to fall asleep in slumped lotus position. Not a good quality in a Bee. Knowing how to stay awake would be better.
“Huh?” I wipe my hand on the knee of my jeans.
“Aidan, when did you eat last?” Lama Karen crouches beside me.
“I don know.” I’m still half asleep. “Whatsit matter? Fastin’s a long history for Bee—Buddhists.”
“Yeah, well, so’s eating.” Karen grabs my hurt arm—not very non-violent, or maybe the Lama doesn’t know the extent of my injuries—and drags me out of the meditation area.
I stumble along, blinking in the entryway’s bright light. It was barely dusk when I went back there, right after Karen told me about the upcoming vote to decide if I am still a Bee. I don’t get a say; Sam gets ten. How long have I been meditating? I must ask the question aloud, because Karen answers.
“Almost two days.”
“Slept some,” I mutter.
“Of course you did! Eat this.” Karen shoves a hot bowl of soup into my shivering hands. “Slowly, slowly.” The Lama grabs the bowl and pulls it back when I start to gulp.
I groan. Karen rubs my back and croons while I swallow tiny sips of salty liquid.
“Where’d you get miso?” I whisper. My jaw trembles like my teeth want to chatter.
“Donation.”
Sip, swallow. Sip, swallow. Sip.
“From the Real Deal,” Karen adds.
Pause. Swallow. Sip. Swallow. I hand the empty bowl to the Lama. “More.”
“In a minute…He’s outside. The Real Dealer guy. I promised to tell you.”
I crawl toward the bedrolls. Karen helps me unroll one—mine, not mine, I don’t care—and pulls back the top layer for me to slip under.
“What do you want me to tell him?” Karen asks.
My heart wrings itself out. “Tell him to go away and never come back and…thank him for the soup.”
“Can I tell him why?”
I shake my head, pressing my face into blankets that smell of Kylie. “He knows why.”
Karen’s bare feet scuff the floor then pause. My shoulder muscles tense. Another scuff.
Just go, already!
I inhale, let go of the thought. Exhale. My shoulder muscles unknot as I breathe. I extend beyond my skin and click into place, like I have serrated edges that match, puzzle-perfect, with the edges of everything else. My breaths deepen into a tide that flows in and out of wide-open lungs. My eyeballs feel too big for their sockets, and the pain of grief peaks and valleys like waves of fire. My last day as a Bee, and I’m finally meditating properly.
The vote must not be complete, yet, but there’s only one way it can go. Inhale. Exhale. I release all thought.
Fabric rustles as someone sits beside me. Breaths sync with mine; that’s how I know it’s Sam. My eyes shoot open, but words hover out of reach. My breathing changes, though, and that’s enough for Sam.
“Sorry to disturb you,” Sam says. “The vote’s over.”
I wait.
“We voted to keep you.”
I thought I was free from tension, but the rest dissolves now, flowing out on a long breath. Then confusion twists my stomach.
“But…why?” I turn my head.
Sam faces straight ahead. “We—they forgive you your humanity. It’s—” The words stumble again, and Sam’s voice thickens. “—what Kylie would have wanted. I voted for you, all ten of my votes. No one thinks you would have pulled the trigger. We agree you were just trying to protect the Real Dealer, like he protected you.”
“But—”
Sam interrupts. “It wasn’t the right way. But an alliance with the Real Deal, lots of us think that’s a good idea. I don’t, but many do. Your staying, it’s not unconditional. I voted for the condition. I’m sorry but I feel like it’s best, you know, for you.”
“Spit it out, Sam.”
“Lama Karen, she says you told the Real Dealer to go away?”
I nod. “They’re not going to make me negotiate with him for this new alliance, are they? Because I really don’t think—”
Sam exhales. “Okay good, so Karen, the Lama, was right then. No, don’t worry. You just can’t be with him. I mean, you can talk to him at Council of course, or in The Dance, to be polite if you have to, but nothing can happen. You can’t even be friends.” Sam gulps a breath. “I’m sorry, but we really don’t think you have enough self-control.”
“I don’t.”
“He’s been sitting outside the Ashram, but Karen told him, and he went away.”
My chin jerks up. “He’s been sitting out there all this time?”
Sam’s eyes widen, and that one looks away. “I think he slept out there. Let it go, okay. I don’t want to lose you too.”
Even though you don’t forgive me.
Council gathers. D-towners crowd The Dance, but for some reason—probably because I’m to blame for the recent deaths—I have a place at the table. Not as speaker for the Bees. Instead I’m just…there. I’m staring at my folded hands when someone pulls out the seat beside me.
I glance up and meet Lawson’s hazel eyes. He pauses, one arm wrapped around his ribs, the other hand on the back of the chair for support. His half-smile falters, then drops as he searches my face. I clench my jaw and look away.
He sits down and leans closer. “What’s going on?”
Tanner, today’s speaker for the Bees, sits by my other side. He seems to understand my desperate look and we change seats.
“Aidan—sorry, man,” Lawson says to Tanner, but leans across him anyway. “Aidan,
I need to talk to you.”
I shake my head, refusing to look at him.
“Coward,” Lawson whispers.
Tanner bumps my shoulder—a show of support or a warning?—and whispers to Lawson, “Aidan was allowed to stay in the Bees on the condition of breaking up with you. Please understand, Aidan volunteered to do this.”
A chair scrapes back, feet clomp around the table, and Lawson settles gingerly into the spot right across from me. He rests against the back of the chair and crosses his arms. I become very acquainted with the scuffed texture of the sign-turned-tabletop, but his gaze calls to me. I bite down on my lip and find something else to look at.
Today’s facilitator is a Logic. He wears eyeglasses too small for his face; they’re probably the pair he came to D-town with as a child. His dark hair is hacked off and sticks up in messy clumps, but the Logic, of all the tribes, cannot be judged by appearance.
“Tara will present the evidence we gathered,” he says.
The Logic leader shakes out her coal-colored dreadlocks and looks down at her notes.
“The GeeGee appeared to be under orders not to interfere with us and not to use force unless attacked,” she says. “That’s where we went wrong. It’s possible that if we had let them take Real Dealer Lawson peaceably, they would have left the rest of us alone. However, guards were stationed at the Boundary concurrent with the installation of the Demolition sign. They clearly infiltrated D-town itself sometime after that. The A and the Real Deal searched The Dance before Council, so it is unlikely there are any guards in here now, but it is a possibility we must bear in mind. What is more likely is that they have planted listening and video devices to monitor our activities. We must consider that these devices have been in place for a long time, possibly since the beginning.
“We believe that the GeeGee is ready to make its move against D-town. We believe that this move was coming regardless, but that this week’s shooting moved up the timetable. We believe they mean to kill us or absorb us into their society. We agree that both alternatives are unacceptable. We support stopping them by any means necessary.” Tara steeples her hands and sighs. “But we also agree that this is stupid. The odds are against us, and logic suggests we should come up with a plan for acceptable surrender. The Logic is prepared to draft such a plan for Council approval if the other tribes move not to fight.”
A hush falls over the table.
Then the speaker for the A leaps to his feet and opens his mouth. His face grows redder by the moment, but he catches himself in time to frown at the facilitator, who waves a hand in permission.
“Odds aren’t the only thing that matter,” the A exclaims. “This is our city, the only place we have left. Let’s show them they can have it over our dead bodies!”
“That’s exactly how it will happen,” Tanner mutters. He flicks his fingers, asking for the floor.
But Lawson already has the speaker’s attention. Lawson rises laboriously, and the A nods and sits back down. “The Real Deal concurs with both the Logic and the A. We must fight whether we can win or not. Honor demands it.”
Smooth, how he did that. Making it seem like the Logic and the A said the same thing when they didn’t. Hopefully Tanner noticed.
“The Real Deal is unanimous in favor of fighting back,” Lawson continues. “We have already supplied both our tribe and the A with weapons.”
A murmur rises in the room.
Lawson ignores it. “There aren’t many, but they’ll help some.”
“What kind of weapons?” the facilitator asks.
Lawson frowns, obviously not wanting to answer. “Guns.”
“Do you yield the floor?”
Lawson sits carefully and, at another nod from the facilitator, Tanner rises.
“The Bees oppose violence, even in defense of D-town. We believe violence begets violence. See what happened here.” He gestures between Lawson and me.
Muttering grows louder, and the facilitator makes a shushing motion.
“That Bee blew up the rest of the weapons,” someone hollers from the gathered crowd.
“The speaker for the Bees has the floor,” the facilitator says. “Hold your peace.”
“We believe we should occupy The Dance,” Tanner says. “Chain or tie ourselves together and refuse to move, no matter what.”
Yeah, but I blew up the chains.
“And when they shoot at us?” someone calls.
“We haven’t voted on it, but I think putting together a surrender plan is a good backup. Maybe we can get D-town to be declared its own city, kind of like the old Native American reservations.”
A Love Child waves her hand, but speaks before being called on. “Those treaties were a joke.”
The A speaker shoots to his feet at the same time and roars, “Never plan for surrender!”
“Our own city,” the facilitator scoffs. “You fools can’t even handle Council.” He stomps away from the table in frustration.
At that point, the Witch and Cross Bearer speakers start shouting at one another, arguing about “An ye harm none” and “Turn the other cheek” and why they don’t apply. They seem to agree but, since they’re Witches and Cross Bearers, it turns into an argument anyway. Clamor rises as chaos takes over, and the crowd absorbs the rest of the tribal speakers.
I duck outside for some air.