14 Sylvia and Jiho Make Plans

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After their meeting with Taylor and the girl's arrival expected at anytime, Conrad convened a meeting at their usual booth with his three remaining followers - Pinky hadn't return his calls.

Meg took their orders and walked away. Sylvia looked over at Fletcher and Jiho and turned to him. "OK, Conrad, what do we do?"

Fletcher said, "My group, they're sure a meeting will be called…and…"

Jiho broke in, "Are we just going to go? Really just go?"

His friends were getting nervous. The girl was on her way. Others had made it known to him, they went out of their way to make it known to him, that she had left Seattle. He could be wrong, and this could end badly. If a lot of bad were to come his way, he did not want to drag these three down with him for something he had started. "My friends." They stopped their cross talk. "There is the possibility that this girl will come and do exactly what they say." He held his hands up. "Hear me out. If so, I do not want you to suffer for what I've done, what I started. Therefore." He stopped Fletcher who was about to say something. "Therefore, going forward, I will be the only one to refuse to reap. If I prevail then you three can rejoin the cause…"

Jiho shook his head.

So did Sylvia. She said, "You started it, but I'm not backing off. I won't let one person die that doesn't need to." She looked around the booth table.

Both Fletcher and Jiho nodded. Jiho said, "I feel the same way. You know, Conrad, when I stopped that first death…it was the most powerful feeling of grace that came over me. Our cause is just. We can remake this world. We…" Jiho seemed overcome with that grace thing. For a big man his emotions bubbled up easily. The others looked back to Conrad.

Fletcher said, "I agree." He looked around. "Now that's settled, what are we going to do?"

Conrad narrowed his eyes. "Well, my friends, we need to convert this so-called terminator girl to our cause."

Jiho said, "I know. They say we're going to be called to a meeting, right?" He paused. "It would seem reasonable that we get to have our say. Maybe we can use this as a forum to not only convince this girl, but also others to the cause."

Fletcher added, "Let's line up our arguments. They have to let us talk, right? We each will get our say. I'm not suggesting a filibuster, but we'll be able to have our full say, about why we choose to save people and why no one needs to die. You know, it's like slavery. Once the immorality was explained, then it was doomed. It withered away."

Conrad was about to say something about that when Jiho started his own response. "It withered away? Wasn't there…"

Conrad put a stop to the digression and said, "OK. OK. Let's each pull together our best arguments to convince the others. We'll practice and then decide the order in which we speak." He paused and then continued, "I believe that they have to let us speak, they have to show we're wrong in front of all these reapers, or they lose. It's that simple. Violence really doesn't solve anything. It never has and it never will. Everybody knows that. This could be our chance to really kick start this revolution and spread it." Conrad liked that thought. He continued, "Yes, this could work in our favor."

After a little more discussion Conrad announced, "My friends, I have a rendezvous with someone still among the living and whom I will make sure stays among the living."

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Sylvia watched Conrad leave. Fletcher and Jiho were chattering on about their ideas for some silly speech or whatever. She interrupted, "In my experience…" The two, the diminutive former college instructor and the hulk, turned to her. She continued, "In my experience words often fail to prevent violence. That's how I ended up dead, and a reaper."

Jiho nodded. "I didn't want to disrupt our Conrad's enthusiasm but based on what I've seen in India I would have to say the highest and purest motivations sometimes need a little boost in order to advance even the purest and most virtuous of goals."

Fletcher looked from her face to Jiho, disbelief evident. "What?" He focused on her. "What is it you want to do?"

She said, "My boss approached me too. He wants me to back off before it's too late. He also told me that this little girl not only left Seattle with her boyfriend, but three other family members."

Jiho asked, "Living?" He thought about something and continued, "You know, it's odd."

Fletcher asked, "What's that?"

"All this talk about transgressions and how dangerous what we're doing is, but in Seattle it seems the rules don't apply. How is it this reaper is so close to the living and seems to break rules right and left and nothing happens to her?"

Sylvia had wondered along the same lines. "I have never seen this Dark. And I'm skeptical there's any ability to terminate someone already dead."

Fletcher turned to Jiho. "Jiho, when did you die?"

"Hmm. About three months ago."

"And you Sylvia?"

"Four months, maybe. Time flies when you're having fun." She smiled.

"Well, isn't it possible there's a lot more to this afterlife fate we've been assigned than we know about. I mean, the ones who've been doing this for decades all say we need to back off. My boss told me too about Ice, and he says he's seen this Dark portal himself many times. He thinks it's the gateway to Hell."

Sylvia couldn't help roll her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I've been told the same."

Fletcher squirmed in his seat. "What about Pinky? She saw that girl dust two reapers just last year."

Sylvia put her hands up. "That girl runs when she sees me. Fuck her. OK. OK. Let's have a Plan B if Conrad's ideas don't work. I mean we can try something a little less on the Gandhi side of holy and from what I'm hearing, this girl, will be offering choices. If we fail we back off. No harm done."

Jiho's eyebrows perked up and the big man leaned forward. "Like what?"

Sylvia put her finger to her chin. "I was considering a little pressure perhaps using those family members she's bringing."

Fletcher opened his mouth, closed it and shook his head. "No. No. Not a good idea. I've got a bad feeling about anything like that. Our goal, our purpose is to save people not…pressure them."

Sylvia let that go. Fletcher was better left out. Jiho, outside of Fletcher's line of sight, met her eyes and slowly nodded his head. It would be fine to let Conrad have first crack at convincing this girl supposedly coming to give them a choice, and if he failed, well, in her experience everyone had a weakness that could be exploited. Conrad had started something truly grand, the eradication of violent death throughout the world. She believed in it. She believed in Conrad, but she was enough of a realist to know that sometimes the original innovator was not always the best man to carry the new idea through to the good end. And sometimes in order to achieve good ends one had to use some unpleasant means. Jiho she could tell understood this simple truth well enough. Fletcher would better be left out.