Judgment Calls
They don't talk about it for an hour. Then it's all they can talk about, for the rest of the night.
Don is the biggest surprise. "They're right," he says, flatly. "I thought about suggesting it to you both, actually."
"You're horrible," Olympia says.
Don shrugs. "The sooner you do it the better. She won't remember any of this when she's six. Assuming she lives that long."
Tom sighs. "We'd already been talking about taking the deal with sealing up the basement," he says.
"We were talking about how much we hated that idea," says Felix, but there's little force behind the statement. Everyone knows they were always considering it.
"Sealing ourselves up means that we're basically prisoners," Don argues. "The kids would be blind, but they'd be free."
Jules snorts.
"What to do about the kids isn't our decision anyway," Tom says, shaking his head. "That's up to Olympia and Malorie. We got some good supplies out of the Bridges people, but we did without them before. We can do it again, especially now that we have the water filter and all the secured windows."
"Unless they try to take those back."
"If they do, there's not much we can do anyway." Tom shrugs.
Don seems to be thinking. "This decision doesn't impact just Olympia and Malorie," he says. "What if some of us don't agree?"
They all look at him. Malorie hates him a little for asking the question, but she can't blame him either. Depending on the decision, he could end up locked in a basement, or starving again.
"Speaking for myself," she says, because she's the only one who can, and she's a little sick of everyone talking around her and Olympia, "I wouldn't ask anyone here to imprison themselves for me. If it comes to it, I can always leave."
"No, Malory, you're not leaving. Neither of you are." Tom turns to Don. "Don, I'll call up Deadman. Just from the way Sam and everyone keeps talking, I'm pretty sure it's possible to ask to be transferred to a different Bridges house. Or, hell, if Sam had a surgery that blinded himself, then I'm pretty sure any of us could ask for the same thing and not have to be locked up."
Don starts to say something, stops, and frowns. That bothers Malorie more than anything. Don's never been one to keep quiet about his thoughts.
Malorie sees Olympia in the kitchen the next day, sitting in front of the window. It's one of the few windows left in the house that's only covered with a blanket, not with plywood.
Olympia's hand is toying with the corner of the blanket.
Malorie steps forward, carefully. "Hey, Olympia," she says softly. "What are you doing?" Olympia's baby is in her arms.
"You ever wonder, really, what they're like?" Olympia asks. Her voice is distant. "Like… something bigger than we can imagine. Wouldn't that almost be fascinating, in a way? Just to see something, beyond what we can even think about?"
"Olympia," Malorie says. "Just step back, okay?
Olympia drops the corner of the blanket and sighs. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me. I wonder… sometimes. That's all. I know I must seem like something of an airhead, but… I do think about things."
Malorie isn't sure how to respond to that.
Olympia looks down at the baby in her arms, and her face softens. "I can't take it from you," she says to the gurgling baby. "All the beautiful things in this world… I want to believe that someday, sometime, I'll see the sun again. And you will. I have to believe that; if I thought I'd never see a flower again, I…" She swallows and looks back at the window. "We've had so much taken from us already, I'm not going to just give up on the future."
Despite that conversation, Olympia doesn't come right out and say that she's giving the girl to the camp. Malorie gets the sense that while she strongly believes she can't blind the baby, she also can't bear the thought of being parted from her. And, Malorie suspects, Olympia's too tender-hearted to raise the subject of the housemates walling themselves in for her.
So Malorie does. "We need to make a decision," she says one night, toward the end of the month, as everyone is sitting around the living room. The Bridges group has a sort of radio station set up, and they've been listening to that in the evening. It has announcements—apparently contractors are moving into the town already, planning to secure the hospital. There are big changes coming, but even so Malorie can tell that no one's really listening to the radio, especially when they all immediately turn around and look straight at her.
"Olympia doesn't want to blind her baby," Malorie says, stating it simply as a fact. Olympia huddles over her child, but she doesn't contest the statement. "That phone—" Malorie points at the dreaded object in the corner, "—is going to ring probably in a week or so asking what we're going to do. So we need to figure it out."
Don speaks up. "What're you going to do about your baby?" he asks.
"That's a question for later," Tom says, before Malorie can answer—which is good, because she's not sure what she'd say. "Olympia, what are your thoughts?"
Olympia huddles over her child. "I can't ask you to… I mean, I don't…"
"Olympia." Tom's voice is gentle. He looks straight at her. "Just tell us what you've been thinking. Be honest. We'll work it out from there."
Olympia holds his gaze for a moment, and then nods. "…I don't want her to grow up without a mother," she says, looking down at the baby. "I mean, I guess she would have a mother there, but…" Olympia swallows without looking away from her girl. "…I don't want her to grow up without me. I don't want to let her go." She looks up, her eyes shimmering. "There. I said it. It's selfish, I know, but you asked."
Cheryl lays a hand on her arm. She doesn't say anything, she just lays her hand on her arm.
Tom nods, and looks around. "All right. Anyone else?"
"I don't want to be locked up for the rest of my life," says Don.
Felix gives a little snort. "Whatever, man. Everytime we've unlocked that door, you're the one who's been saying it should stay locked.
"It's a valid feeling." Tom says, before it can turn into an argument. "And Don's probably not the only person feeling it. The last thing any of us should be wanting is to wind up stuck in a basement with someone who was too embarrassed to say they hated the idea."
"I don't like the idea," says Jules. He bites his lip. "I mean, I don't know what we'd do with Victor, for one. But…" he shrugs his shoulders. "I also don't really know what else we're planning to do, here. Like, long-term, what's our plan?"
"That's not the point," Don argues. "The point is that we currently have the option of coming up with a long-term plan. This'd be giving that away. And anyway, even if I didn't mind the idea of locking ourselves up, I really don't like the idea of someone else locking us up."
Malorie hates it, a little, when Don makes a good point.
Cheryl looks over at Tom. "Did you talk to Deadman, about the options?"
Tom nods. "It's possible for people with clerical or computer skills, to apply to be sealed in the underground vaults." He doesn't say it, but Deadman did mention that Tom, as a teacher, would be a very welcome addition to the vaults. "But that's essentially the same situation as Don was complaining about before—being locked in, just in a bigger cell. It's also possible to get the surgery and become a porter or some sort of outside worker. I mean, assuming you handle the whole 'being blind' thing well."
"There's your answer, Don." Felix says. "You thought blinding the kids was such a great idea, after all."
"Man, shut the fuck up," says Don. "The whole point was to do it early so they could learn to deal with it better."
"Please just listen," Tom says. "They do also deliver people to other houses. They wrap you up in a body bag and Sam transports you to a freelancer site with other people."
"What other people?" asks Don.
"The sort willing to take you in," Tom says, shrugging. "They probably do some sort of phone-interview process. I don't know, apparently people don't do it very much."
Malorie looks at Don. It's clear he doesn't like that idea either; but he doesn't say anything. For now.
"Do they deliver mothers that way?" Olympia asks.
Tom looks at her. "No," he says. "They consider it too dangerous."
Don snorts.
"What is their deal with that?" Felix asks. He's not really addressing anyone, he just says it in a sort of amazed, wondering fashion.
"Essentially, babies are at a premium right now." Tom's mouth gives a little twist. Malorie can tell that was a very deliberate choice of words. "A lot of people died. Strand sees herself as some sort of future-builder, apparently, and the whole of the Bridges organization is obsessively devoted to treating babies like raw uranium." Tom hesitates. "Deadman—briefly—mentioned that they might be… farming them, sort of."
"Farming… babies?" Olympia questions.
Tom doesn't answer.
Malorie doesn't want to think about that yet. "So," she says. "Olympia doesn't want to give up her daughter, or blind her. She can't leave the house. Don doesn't want to be locked inside the house, and I'm guessing he doesn't want to leave either." Don growls but doesn't disagree. "What about the rest of you?"
"I'm not sure that voting really works in this case," Tom says, slowly. He sighs. "The bunker is probably the safest option. I'll admit I don't like it, but I agree with Jules that I don't know what else we're planning to do, long term. It just feels, though, like settling on doing nothing. On never doing anything, ever again. Up here…" he grimaces and looks around at the boarded-up windows. "…well, I guess we always figured we might go and do something eventually." He starts to say something, stops, then shrugs and says, "I guess I just don't like the idea of not being a part—not an active part, anyway—of what's going on." He looks up suddenly. "But I think the household should take the bunker option. For myself, I've been considering getting… blinded."
Everyone is quiet.
He swallows. "It's… hard to think of, but… well." He shrugs.
Felix sighs. "I don't mind the bunker idea," he says. "So long as they really do expand the cellar—it's not big enough for all of us to live in, right now."
"Sam said they'd probably dig a second bunker in the backyard and then connect it to the current basement." Tom nods his head. "No knowing how long that'd take, but it'd be a bit more space. Maybe they could even add more as time went on."
Jules grunts.
Cheryl is running her fingers through her hair distractedly. "Okay, fine, I'm just going to say it," she says, in an anxious burst. "Say Malorie and I get locked up in a bunker with you three guys for the rest of our lives. Then what?"
There is a long, uncomfortable silence.
"I'm not the only one who's wondered about this, right?" Cheryl demands.
There's some muted muttering. Even Don seems reluctant to admit to it. Malorie doesn't want to admit to it either, if only because on some level she knows exactly what (or rather who, she thinks with a blush) she'd do.
"Um… you could apply to be sent elsewhere," Tom suggests. "Or… if they're building a secondary bunker, maybe… maybe you and Malorie could live in one while…"
"I'm not really sure that'd be better!" Cheryl says. "I mean… I dunno. I'm not sure what I mean." She looks away. "I just… I've wondered."
And that sums up a lot, really. They're wondering. They're all wondering. Because whatever way they go, these decisions are big, and final, and utterly unknown. Each decision puts them firmly, irrevocably, in a strange new world with strange new challenges. And no one wants to finally commit to one.
She swallows. "We need to decide…" she starts to say.
And that's when the phone rings.