My Pleasure, Darling

5: Risk, part I

The headline is big and black and bold, and it's accompanied by a picture. A grotesque, horrible picture. Of a man, in a hateful uniform, on a balcony, holding something high in the air. It's indistinguishable, in black and white, if you don't know what it is. But I know. I know it's a head. I know whose head. Not because you can see the face. But because I know the balcony – seen it many times on TV – and because I know what happened that night. In more detail, probably, than most of the journalists who wrote today's paper.

She sees my preoccupation and pulls a paper from the rack to show me. "Dreadful. Absolutely dreadful. Those poor people."

I flip it immediately, so Andrea doesn't really see it. "What's that total? With the paper?"

She seems to understand that exposing the tiny girl to this is not the most pedagogically sound concept. That's nice. This is a nice lady. I like her. In another life, I think we'd get on famously. She taps on her till. "Four twenty-two."

I pay with credit. I intend to pay with credit until somebody hunts down the cards and blocks them. And in the meantime, drain what I can from the debits in cash.

"Let me carry that out to your car for you."

"Aw, thanks." I take up the bags – letting Andrea take one herself, which she has to hold in the crook of her elbow to hold the weight – and lead the girl out as she hawks my huge camping kit out to the car.

Something in me says I should have bought some Bablets. It's not that we don't have enough, but stocking up isn't the worst idea. I didn't see any, though, and I feel like asking out of nowhere would be suspicious. Especially considering how lovely everything has been here. She slides the box into the passenger's seat, and I dump the bags on the floor before I help Andrea up into the back seat.

She's exhausted. She's being brave about it, but it's clear. I strap her in carefully, my voice low. "If you need to relax a little, that's alright."

I don't use the words sleep or nap. I'm not stupid.

"Alright well, if that's you, good luck, drive safe!"

"I will, thanks again!" I wave at the lovely human girl as I get in. She traipses back into her station. Something tells me she's the last really nice conversation I'm going to have for a while. It must be nice, to live inside her head, where Royal Family Slaughtered is just some horrible headline in the new evening paper, where she can go about her daily life and never know anything has changed, where her world has not crumbled around her.

I'm on the highway again before these thoughts really sink in deeply. We're losing light as we speed along. I'm more confident, at least, when I'm at a pace on a straight road like this. But the new calm, unfortunately, gives my brain time to work. Time to establish. Time to process.

The mountain won't be surrendered yet. It's not been twenty-four hours. But I can see Genn's face, staunch and angry in uniform, her shoulder up the butt of a missile launcher. I can see her boyfriend, Karl, several paces down the wall, similar, but with his watchful eye on her. Tibith and Paul will be there too, twins, side by side, till the bitter end. They'll be smiling and laughing. They'll be the only reason half of them hang on for dear life. They'll be the cheer in the gloom for everybody fighting to defend her, they will keep morale up. It's a kind of unspoken rule that they do so.

I know Genn will cry. I know the Chancellor will march up and down the wall behind them, for encouragement. He will stop to speak to them. It will be the worst, and the best thing, he could ever do. The best, because they know they are not alone. The worst, because he will not be in dress, but in combat uniform, and they will know they are going to die.