“I couldn’t agree more. I guess I’m wondering why her. I imagine she’s not the only illiterate person here.”
Taylor gives me a peculiar stare. “I enjoy her company. She likes to talk and does not require me to respond.” She strides past me to the door. “Now let’s go, princess. We have a meeting to attend.”
“You want me to come to the meeting?”
“Yes. You bring a perspective I do not possess.” Taylor licks her lips and lifts her eyes to me. “Maybe you will have something of note to contribute.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. Even a broken watch is right twice a day.”
“Jerk.”
11
Turns out, war planning is almost the most boring thing in the whole world. It does not differ greatly from Papa’s meetings with his subregion leaders, where people vie to be heard and no one listens to each other. Taylor sits at the head of the table, demeanor calm. To her left is Mason, off and on rolling his eyes at the antics of these zealous Order generals. To her right is Delilah, corralling everyone’s loud opinions. I am seated to Delilah’s right, next to another Order member not familiar to me but hopefully not actively seeking to capture me for twelve million dollars.
“We don’t have the soldiers!”
“We have enough. One of us is worth ten of them.”
“Forget Detroit—we need Chicago!”
It’s a mess, so I tune out. Our meeting room is a library, books lined floor to ceiling inside wooden shelves. Green velvet chairs are tucked into cozy corners, next to twentieth-century lamps and side tables. Behind us, bay windows gleam in between wood-paneled walls, looking out onto a misty training field. An unrelenting odor of sweat and carpet cleaner fill my nostrils, butevery so often the nostalgic aroma of books permeates the stale air.
When I tune back in, a woman from Illinois is shouting at a man from Ohio. Taylor stands from her seat and raises her hand. Despite being probably about thirty years younger than the mean age of those around her, the room grows quiet.
“Theia and I understand your concerns. Our manpower is not what it could be with our efforts in the Southeast being stalled by local militia.”
“You mean those goddamn militants,” a man says.
“I meant what I said, thank you. The most current intelligence suggests Nathan Dunn is shaping up to be the leader of the Dusters in the wake of Thorne’s death.”
Taylor places her watch on the table and uses it to create a three-dimensional hologram of the city of Detroit that hovers above the table.
“He was Thorne’s highest in command and, allegedly, the architect behind many of Thorne’s merciless laws. Resistance will be powerful and ruthless. As such, neither Theia nor myself believe we have an adequate number of soldiers to take this city by typical means. So, our solution is this: we will bomb the warehouse district that currently houses a significant number of Dusters, as well as one of their major weapon caches. With their troops dwindled and supplies disrupted, we will be in a better position to negotiate with Dunn to surrender. This scales down our engagement here, and frees Order soldiers for deployments to your cities.”
The green holograph zooms in on the district, and the buildings turn dark red. A ring in a lighter shade of red encircles the debris, indicating collateral damage. Silence hangs heavy. Shock is plain on some, contemplation on others.
Delilah grips her pen and speaks quietly. “Those warehouses buttress the residences of many Underclass factory workers.”
Taylor faces her, solemn. “We know. The explosions should only level the buildings, but there is no guarantee the close proximity residences won’t be affected. Ideally, we would discreetly evacuate any citizens before the bombing. It may prove problematic, as our scouts report citizens are being impressed upon to quarter Dunn’s soldiers.”
“Bomb how? We can’t fly no planes,” an older man rumbles from his seat. He’s got a regal mane of curly gray hair flowing past his thick neck. Rosy red cheeks and a lustrous beard and mustache combo give him the appearance of a grizzled Santa Claus, with piercing black eyes like my father. “We waited months for Theia’s orders and all she came up with was slash and burn?”
“It is hardly slash and burn,” Taylor replies with an air of condescension. It isn’t Taylor’s voice—low, raspy, and warm. It’s her Eos voice—detached and robotic, confident. “Fifteen warehouses, controlled explosions. I project only five or six other buildings will suffer as a result.”
“Five or six buildings with hundreds of people in each.” Santa’s cheeks redden as he stands from his seat to address the rest of the group. “Like I said before, we should launch a five-prong assault. If we come between the main streets, like spokes toward the hub of a wheel, we cut them off.”
“It is too risky,” Taylor interjects. “The most generous estimates put us outnumbered six to one. Dunn cannot know this, so we must limit his interactions with our troops.”
“This plan is suicide,” he says, rising from his seat in dramatic fashion.
Taylor shrugs. “For me, perhaps.”
Santa gruffly slams his fist down. “And who are you? Theia sends a child with no experience to lead us. We’re the ones with experience! We’ve been in the trenches for decades.”
“Trenches for decades,” I sneer from my seat. “Sitting on your hands for thirty years hardly counts as experience.”
