Chapter 142: Motion Two

Nia woke Mr. Norton by taking his glasses out of his hand.

And the moment he did, the old man instantly came up out of the chair with the reflexes of a man who’s spent thirty years being woken for emergencies, said, "What’s bleeding?!" and then saw the front room, and all of us in it, and the stove, and sat back down.

"Nothing," Nia said, and handed his glasses back. "Nikki wants to talk."

"At this hour."

"He promised somebody," she said, and looked at me, and the look had a lot in it.

So there we were. Past midnight in a stranger’s front room with the women asleep upstairs and the snow ticking against the window, six of us and a cat, and I did what I’d said I would do back at the construction site, which was to tell my own people the truth and let them shoot it down.

I told them about Harlan.

All of it. The fort, the drones, the twenty at the plant and the fourteen at the site, the radio, what the roofs would say when the helicopters came asking. The plan, three in the morning, over the wire, hands on airframes and gone before anybody heard a thing, sixty percent left standing so the corridors kept running and nobody could be spared to chase one man west.

And the toys. I said it out loud because Nia had made me say it once already and I’d found I couldn’t unsay it.

"Just imagine an Apache with a token in it. O-or a tank... and a bunch of trucks... Look, I want them. That’s a huge part of it. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t."

Nobody said anything for a bit.

Leo asked two questions, and they were the ones I’d have asked. How many people lived inside that wire? What happened to a rescue corridor when the bird flying it disappeared? I answered both honestly, and my answers didn’t help my case.

Kara, from the arm of the couch: "You’d be starting a war with people we’re driving away from. On purpose."

"Maybe."

"Not maybe."

Nora looked at Leo and said, "Leo," which was her whole vote.

Mr. Norton cleaned his glasses on his shirt, put them on, and said, "No."

And then, because he’s the kind of man who tells you why: "Not for them. For you."

Nia said aye. She also said, in the same breath, that it was a stupid idea and she wanted it noted she’d said so, and that she was voting for it anyway because it was the only plan on the table that dealt with the sky.

Four to two.

Tikki, from Kara’s lap, made a noise that could have been anything, and Nora ruled that he’d voted with the majority.

"Motion fails," Kara declared.

And it did. And I felt it go.

Took less than I expected, honestly.

Nia shrugged at me from the window like she’d already spent the disappointment on the drive up.

While Leo waited until it was quiet.

"Last time," he said, and he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at his own hands. "I lost to your face after you’d done it... This time I won before."

"Yeah." I tilted my head, bought a little something from the System, and held it out for him. "Here’s your cookie."

His ears immediately went red, but still, as though trying to prove a point, he snatched it out of my hand and chomped down on it hard.

Then I said the second thing, which was the one I’d actually stayed up for.

"There’s another motion."

Kara’s eyebrows went up a little. Nora sat forward.

"We’re not leaving tomorrow... Or the day after. We stay, and before we go, I turn this place into something those men can’t take." I looked at the ceiling, at thirty-one people asleep above it. "Walls... Water... A real gate. A prototype for the fortress I’ll be building at Leo’s place..."

Kara instantly asked, "Why?"

And I could tell she wanted the real answer, not the nice one, so I gave her all four.

"One. I’ve got the credits, or enough of them... Nia’s clock can take the hit. Not forever, but it can take this one."

"Two... It’s practice. I’m going to build something a lot bigger at Leo’s place, and I’d rather find out what goes wrong on a farm that isn’t his mother’s."

Leo’s head came up at that. I kept going.

"Three," I said this one slower, because it was the one I’d been carrying since Vera said the number at the junction. "... Thirty-one people walked out of that basement, and they all went west because I said one sentence... I didn’t even mean it as help. It was just what came out. And they did it because I said so... They walked seventy kilometers. Two of them got bit, and Ruth put them down herself... If the Infected or a bunch of creeps finish what the mafia started, after all that, that’s on me... And I’m not having that on me."

Nobody said anything.

"Four," I said, and this was the quiet one. "It’ll make you lot happy. "

I looked at Nora, who was already nodding, and at Kara, who wasn’t nodding but had that crease gone from between her brows, and at Leo, and at Mr. Norton. "And I’d like you to be happy. That’s a reason too."

That was the vote. Nobody even raised a hand. Nora said "yay" at about a quarter of her usual volume because the house was asleep, and then said it again louder anyway.

Kara nodded once.

Leo said, "Right."

Mr. Norton said, "I would like a medical bay," in the tone of a man placing an order.

"There’ll be a medical bay."

"With a proper table."

"With a proper surgical table, sterile gurneys, emergency meds, heart monitors, and absolutely everything in between..." I promised him.

I had already opened the System interface in my mind, watching the Credit costs for advanced medical facilities actively tallying up.

It was going to cost me a small fortune, but keeping Mr. Norton fully equipped was absolutely non-negotiable, even if it was just for three days. Besides, he and I can have a little trial run for the perfect medical bay. After all, it needs to be able to handle not just injuries but medical emergencies too.

"I would like the truck stop~" Nia said cheerfully.

"Absolutely not," I shut her down instantly.

"Later, then~"

Later, then. I didn’t say no to that one. She noticed.

The porch was cold enough to hurt after the stove. The truck was gone from the end of the drive. Just snow and the fence and the darkness of the moonless night.

Leo came out a minute after me, walking the careful way he’d walked all day, and stood at the rail with one hand on his ribs.

For a while neither of us said anything. Then he did.

"The building..." He didn’t look over. "The mafia one."

"Yeah." I replied without looking over, "It’s gonna take three days here, give or take... But if we leave now... we’ll be at your place in two. You okay with risking you folks like that?"

"I’m not. I’d rather we left now because even if my people are alive... they’re..." he swallowed hard.

"Say the word, and we leave..."

"No. This is important enough to take that risk..."

And I looked over at him for the first time since he arrived at the porch.

"Why?" I couldn’t help asking.

"Because my mother would be proud."

"When it’s my place..." he said after a bit. "I’ve been thinking about the road in. It’s just one road. You could put a gate across it and... you can also see everything coming for two kilometers... And there’s the creek on the east side. Nobody’s crossing that in winter."

He was building it in his head. I could hear him doing it.

"Good..." I smirked. "Watch what I do here, and steal all of it. I’ll build you a dream house... consider it Nora’s dowry."

"Right."

His ears went red again. Second time in an hour. I let him keep it.

And after a few seconds of awkward silence, he went in.

I stayed out a while longer, and did the accounting I’d been avoiding all night, the one with the walls and the water and the gate in it, and the number at the bottom was not small. I thought about a hundred and fifty million credits and twenty-two days, and I knew how I’d handle it.

I slept about four hours.

By first light I was at the back of the house with my sleeves pushed up and the Ascender’s driver’s door off its hinges on the snow beside me, a Crafting panel open in front of my face, arguing with Nia about whether a bullet hole counts as one hole or two if it went in one side and out the other.

Which is why neither of us heard the engines at the gate.

Three of them.