"Lieutenant Borelli, I told you to rest," Tamara Johansen, nurse and former Air Force officer, gently admonished.
"Sorry, ma'am, had to talk to these people," Borelli explained. Standing with the help of crutches because of a leg injury, he had been speaking to Jack O'Neill, Sam Carter, and three other men over sixty when Johansen had interrupted him. The civilians were wearing an armband to indicate they were part of the staff looking after the people during the attacks. Next to the group, big military cases laid on the ground. One was opened. Jack and Sam had a M4 in their hands. A staff sergeant with bandages around the forehead was standing behind the five civilians, on the verge of handing other M4 to the guys next to Jack and Sam.
All were at the Warren Horizons's headquarters in Colorado, in a reception hall beneath the surface. A board said "Welcome to Warren Horizons's Conference Center". Direction signs showed the way to conference and dining rooms. The latest conference, held the previous month, was about the impacts of A.I. on cybersecurity, as indicated by a sign on a wall. Today, this area beneath the surface was a shelter, people had been spread in the rooms. A part of the reception hall had been turned into a storage place for weapons and other equipment. Another part of the hall had been turned into an infirmary. Nurses and paramedics were checking wounded soldiers, firefighters, policemen, and civilians. Johansen had been doing that before noticing that one of the patients, Borelli, was away... With five older people, including two carrying weapons. Johansen couldn't help but give them a perplexed look.
Borelli looked back at O'Neill and Carter. "Ma'am, gentlemen... this is not your job..." he implored, ashamed that he couldn't do what he was supposed to do.
"Son, you lost many fellows and those who're still there are exhausted," Jack said, with a benevolent look.
Everyone glanced at the wounded guys. They were indeed exhausted and no longer in capacity to fight for a while. A woman and her daughter giving biscuits to them became their glimmer of light in the darkness. A man in a suit was wandering nearby, he seemed feeling completely out of place. Borelli recognized Richard Woolsey.
Jack continued, "I lost a friend, she – he tilted his head to Carter – has no news of her brother and his family, and they... – he glanced at the three other men – well, pretty much the same story. We're a bunch of Air Force…" Jack glanced at the man at the end of the row, remembering a detail. The man was wearing a U.S Coast Guard cap. "… and U.S Coast Guard veterans here," Jack corrected, which satisfied the other man. "No matter how old we are, we're here for each other," he ended, determined.
Sam nodded. "Always," she confirmed.
The other veterans, including Tamara, who better understood the context, nodded as well. They were determined to fight alongside the younger generations, Borelli realized. Jack looked at Sam. She gave him a soft smile. She was the head of R&D of a worldwide company. She could stay anywhere else, with important people. She had chosen to stay here and help. She was ready to fight instead of staying behind. She was definitely not the egghead that Jack thought she could be, and he liked this attitude... not to mention her smile... The chances that they could meet again were very low, not null. He just wished the circumstances were different.
