Post by Admin on Aug 8, 2009 9:19:21 GMT -5
What We Are & What We're Not
Rian:
Rian hadn't slept very well at all. His dreams had been dark as usual but tonight they had been especially odd. He saw Bryan's face as he often did, the way it had been that night, half in shadow only the light from the very small window above Rian's head reflecting off the shot-gun Bryan would murder his family with and off of Bryan's eyes.
In real life those eyes had been full of sadness and pain, a clue to Rian that maybe Bry hadn't been controlled though he supposed he would never know the truth. But in his dreams the eyes had been crazed and gleeful...and red, bright red. And the longer Rian had looked at those eyes the more they were all he could see.
MURDERER. MURDERER.
Who? Bryan? Him? It had been scary to think that Rian had killed many more people than Bryan had. Not people, controllers. But that didn't make them any less dead did it? No.
It was war though. But was it? Or was it revenge. Revenge for what the yeerks and their invasion had taken from him.
"It will be nice though. Actually being able to hit back for once." Suji's words rang in his head echoing with his own. Was that what this was about? Getting some back? Repaying the yeerks for the pain and damage they had caused? Getting their city back. Their planet? Their bodies? In this case was revenge different than justice?
He walked down the hall peeking his head into rooms looking for the one Suji occupied. He had been serious about talking to her about her idea in the morning and it was morning. He wanted to hear what she had to say, and how she said it, before he called Raven. Maybe he had overreacted last night. It had only been a small look. Maybe it had been nothing.
But his gut told him that she was dangerous. As dangerous and uncontrollable in her own way as Luce was. He remembered how easily Luce had shot that boy on their first night here. His life had meant nothing to her or at least it had meant less than the risk he posed.
Luce was a killer. Maybe she hadn't been born that way but that is what she was now, her hands quicker to weapons than to anything else. And Rian didn't feel like he could control her, only point her in the right direction like one of the guns she loved so much.
Was Suji the same and if she was would she allow herself to be aimed in the same way? Maybe, maybe not.
Finally he stuck his head in the right door, seeing the sleeping form of Suji on one of the two queen sized beds in the room.
He knocked on the door frame. "Suji?"
Suji:
Suji hadn't been asleep when she heard Rian's voice. She'd be lying in bed, completely awake after coming out of another nightmare. Suji had no illusions about war: she'd had plenty of dark dreams in New York, but the ones after Chicago were different. Dreams were just another sign that you were ticking properly, that your subconscious was doing its job of analyzing stuff on the level that couldn't be done in your waking hours. That was fine with her. Dreams couldn't be controlled, but they could be rationalized.
But not lately. Lately her dreams had felt more real than they'd ever been before. And she wasn't alone in them, which was the worst part. There was always that lingering sensation of the Other, the Eye. In some of her nightmares she wasn't just killing Toby, or even Sophia. She was strangling Raven. Stabbing Riley. Ruining things, destroying things, becoming exactly the kind of threat that she'd put down herself.
And if that day comes? Suji thought to herself, eyes open and staring at the opposite wall. If the day comes when you're the threat, when you're the liability? Will you do what's necessary then too? Can you? She closed her eyes, steeled herself. The night's rest had done a world of good for her, better than any she'd been able to get in Chicago before heading out to Vegas. By the time she got out of bed and faced Rian, she looked completely normal. Maybe even felt more normal than she had for some time.
"Hey. Sorry if I overslept," she smiled, quickly rubbing her eyes. "Also... sorry about last night. Shouldn't have sprung that idea on you so late; I was pretty frazzled and tired after the trip myself. What's up?"
Rian:
"You didn't oversleep. We don't exactly have a set schedule here or at least most people don't. I, on the other hand, got to get beat up for an hour by your friend and call it training," he said sardonically as he stepped back into the hallway and out of her room which was hers as long as she was here.
"I was thinking we could get some breakfast. I can't make much but I can do eggs and might even manage to put some waffles in a toaster. And after breakfast you could fill me in on more of the details of your idea." His tone was light and it didn't sound like he wanted to talk about killing millions of defenseless creatures over breakfast.
Suji:
Suji smirked at the idea of training with Luce. She probably could have stood for more combat training, though she'd gotten decent with a dracon gun before leaving New York. Suji just assumed that if she was ever in a situation where her fists were her best weapon (and not her wits, or even her morphs) she was doomed anyway.
He proposed the idea of breakfast, and Suji's stomach did growl quietly. Ugh, she thought, embarassed. Stupid involuntary bodily functions. She laughed it off though, and nodded. "Trust me, it'll be gourmet compared to what I've been eating lately, which is a lot of energy bars and trail mix." Eggs actually sounded particularly wonderful: eating something that had an expiration date within this decade, let alone the next month, would be a nice change of pace.
"And sure thing about the plan." Suji was still dressed in her jeans and button-up shirt that she'd worn for the travel, though they were decidedly more rumpled now. "After you, Fearless Leader."
Rian:
Rian nodded and led the way down to the kitchen. He got the eggs out of the one fridge that still worked and set about making them. He also searched through the rest of their cabinets and came up with some other stuff. He had found that breakfast food was the easiest to store and come by. They had frozen waffles, eggs, a lot of oatmeal, some cream of wheat, boxes and boxes and boxes of cereal, and some milk to go with it all. They also had about a third of a box of three different teas so if you put it all together they had a box of tea the way Rian looked at it. No coffee which was not ideal. And not much meat since meat was hard to come by. They had some frozen sausages, again the store bought easy to cook variety, so he brought those out too.
Back in Chicago Rian had been a hopeless cook and Raven had been nice enough to give him some lessons which Matt kind of expanded on and Ember had helped out a bit too. Thanks to all his teachers Rian could now cook as well as a college student. Which meant it was edible and decent, if simple.
The Haunt had had a small kitchen and they'd only been able to cook one thing at once. But since this one kitchen had serviced the four now crushed restaurants out front it had enough burners and pots and pans and stuff that he was able to put the eggs and sausage on at the same time while trying to figure out how to toast waffles without a toaster (he had forgotten theirs was broken).
He turned up the flame and used a fork to put the waffle right on it like a mini campfire. The results were...interesting. He decided to save those for later. If he wanted to suffer through half frozen, half burnt waffles that was fine but he shouldn't impose them on a guest.
In the end he ended up serving the eggs he'd promised with sausage as a bonus and some water that was at least cold since they had ran out of juice.
"So, we have a dam problem. You had a possible solution?"
Suji:
The smell of the food alone was enough to reawaken parts of Suji that she'd forgot existed. All humans were creatures of wants, but it'd been such a long time since she'd been able to focus that desire on something tangible, something as basic and simple as food. She waited patiently making easy enough small talk. Some people hated it, but Suji found that even small talk could be impossibly important when instead of talking about the whether or you were talking about peripheral wartime information.
The first few bites were as delicious as the smell had promised, and Suji had to fight to keep from literally gobbling it all down. After taking a long swig of water, she nodded to Rian. "Destroying the dam itself might be possible, but dumping explosives into the pool-to-be would put enormous strain on the structure as well--more than the same amount of 'dry' bombs, if you didn't go about attacking the pool for whatever reasons." Reasons that could not be justified, as far as she was concerned, but she'd apparently played her hand too strongly last night.
"Bombing the water, as long as none of us are in it, is also safer for everyone on land. That includes maybe any Animorphs, maybe any bystanding Controllers or captured humans." She set down her fork momentarily, making eye-contact with this leader. "I know you didn't seem too thrilled with the idea last night, but if what you're saying is all accurate, bombing the pool..." Suji bit her lip for a moment. "The defenses around the dam won't be as routine and response-ready as they will be shortly after its opening, which makes this that the best time to strike. And the fact that they're bringing in what might be a couple million of fresh Yeerks... well that makes this possibly the only time you can strike. Time might be running out for Vegas if this thing succeeds."
Rian:
You think I don't know that? But the thought stayed a thought. This wasn't a friend that he could break down in front of. It was an animorph who was here at his request to help him bomb a pool. When had this become his life. It had all seemed to happen so fast that he hadn't had time to think in a long time. He used to spend entire nights just wandering the streets or the forests or the beaches where ever he happened to be. Just wander and let the night sing around him. But nights were hectic in Vegas and he spent most of them at his job, a job he'd taken to cultivate contacts in what passed for the underground here.
And now he was talking about bombing a pool over breakfast. When did it all stop? When did he get time to himself? He didn't of course. "If we pull this off we are going to be the most wanted outlaws this side of the Rockies," he said almost to himself staring at the food he was only picking at now.
He looked up at her. "If we do this we'll be killing millions. I notice you didn't mention that pretty fact. All your other points make sense. I know this is our last chance to hit the pool. I would actually like to hit the damn thing today before regular or party security go into effect. But we won't be ready in time. There are some things we have to take care of before we attack, one of them being making the bombs we'll need."
He sat back in his chair and looked towards the back door they'd brought the bike in through last night. "How much would we need to do what you suggest? How many explosives? What type and how easy are they to transport? What would be the delivery system? Let's figure out if your idea is workable before we talk about should we do it. If we get that far then that is going to be a decision made by vote."
Suji:
Suji was irritated. "No, I didn't mention that pretty fact, for two reasons. The first being that it was obvious, and I assumed you had the mental facilities to see that much, and the second being: because this is a war. Something which I know people sometimes need reminding of, though I had hoped it wouldn't be a faction leader." What was he, going to sit here and act like she was a bad person for not spelling out the fact that yes, Yeerks would die? "And if you want to get pissed at someone for having that on your conscience, I'm out. I'm not going to be anyone's fall person, the person you can point to when it's done and say, 'it was all her idea!' so you can feel better about whatever goes down."
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, and they shocked her. Anger was an emotion she was used to feeling, but it was always manageable, hardly ever expressed, and certainly never so bluntly. This was why he'd been cold with her last night. Because the aliens enslaving their race might die. But now that anger, and all that weariness, it was bubbling up like grease-fire, and all her normal water-dumping methods weren't doing anything. "I'm not talking about bombing a fucking hospital, or a nursery, or a school. I'm talking about bombing Yeerks in their natural habitat, where--if we decide to do it at all--there will be an absolutely minimal human casualty ratio. You want to judge me for that? I had plenty of time to think about your reaction last night, and if you think this idea makes me ruthless or bloodthirsty or whatever, you don't know the meaning of the word."
And wasn't that true? If he wanted Suji to coddle him, Suji was prepared to walk. She was tired of leaders who--even when they saw what was necessary--got all mushy-mouthed and self-righteous. "And if we're not the biggest outlaws of the entire planet, that's a sign that we're not doing our job. We're not here to be cute nuisances, we're here to inflict damage, and save our own people." Her voice was at least more controlled now, though she made no attempt to hide her anger. At least he'd know where she stood, and she'd know if she'd been called out here to be nothing more than a bomb assembly line and moral scapegoat. "So I want you to level with me right now. Are you going to accept whatever moral culpability that goes along with this, or am I going to be the Vegas faction whipping girl for suggesting a strategic and deadly maneuver? There's no use even bothering with getting to the details if I don't know where I'm going to play into all of this."
She pushed her plate slightly away from her, appetite gone.
Suji felt strangely accomplished, and also mortified. It hadn't been collected or planned, but it'd been real. And she wasn't going to be pushed around. She wasn't going to let Rian, leader or not, dance around insinuating this kind of crap about her. As far as Suji was concerned, she'd done far worse that kill millions of Yeerks, and her patience for implications that she was some sort of cold-blooded monster because she was ready to attack and kill their One True Enemy in this war... well.
Rian:
Rian raised an eyebrow at Suji's outburst and a slight smile tugged at one side of his face. After she had been quiet for a couple of seconds and he was sure she was done he said, "You must have hated Chicago." He laughed a bit, he well remembered how he had chafed under Raven's pacifism, and picked up both their plates. He walked over to the garbage and got rid of the little that was left of the food and put the plates in the sink. He even began washing them because he knew himself too well, if he left them there now they would be there forever...or until someone else cleaned them.
"Look, the morals of this suck no matter what we do. We're terrorists, we're going to kill innocent people more than the ones who deserve it and I don't like that. And for the record, I understand where you stand on yeerks but the ones in their natural habitat are innocent people in my opinion, just so you know where I stand on that. But I also believe that they are fair game for dying. At first they will blame us for those deaths but, if we do our job right," he said using her words, "they will start blaming their own government for dragging them into the path of bad ass rebels such as I plan on being."
He had finished cleaning the dishes. It was kind of ridiculous that he was playing house and talking terrorism at the same time but he was quickly getting over how weird his life was. Aliens had invaded. Didn't get weirder than that.
"So," he said coming back over to the table and pulling his chair up, "what we have to figure out is if it is worth it. We shouldn't just go around killing innocents because they are there. Then their deaths are meaningless and all it makes us are murderers and bandits, not disciplined freedom fighters. What I'm wondering is 1) if the death of a million of their kindred will help our cause or hurt it and 2), is it feasible without killing ourselves."
Suji:
Suji actually felt nauseas when he called Yeerks 'innocent people'. Those 'innocent people' regularly infested the brains of those who were truly innocent. What, because they didn't launch the war, or weren't all leaders, that made them innocent? That was like calling slave owners in southern plantations 'innocent' because their culture had brought them up in a system of torture and debasement of others.
You could be as stringently morally relative as you wanted, but in the end being a slaver--like being a killer--of sentient beings precluded you from the 'innocent' category. They couldn't even be compared to regular citizens of countries during wartime, because regular citizens didn't kill or enslave the enemy.
If he wanted to see them as innocent people, but say that they were fair game for dying, that made him far more of a monster than Suji could ever hope to be.
"A million Yeerks dead is a million less hosts enslaved for the time being." Suji said, keeping herself blunt but without the anger from before. That at least was repackaged, put back away in its corner where it could be contained. However, she still felt like she was talking with someone who hadn't walked outside in a few years, let alone fought in the ongoing war. Yeerks did not repopulate nearly as quickly as humans did, and they themselves were not as populous of a race. However, it was likely that they were leaving much of the more destitute areas of the world unclaimed as of yet, so the Yeerk-to-First-World-Citizen ratio was a lot closer to even.
"And if someone could ever think that that doesn't help our cause, then they're here for the wrong reasons."
She settled back some. "But if we're done playing around with psuedo-philosophical quandries about innocence and death in wartime, I'm ready to discuss planning. The materials needed for bombs shouldn't be too hard to come by, though procuring them in bulk might be tricky. As for the actual plan: what were you thinking initially? I imagine I wasn't called up here to make bombs for a plan that hadn't already started forming."
Rian:
"This isn't a number game." He couldn't resist the urge to continue talking about the war. Her position made him a little angry but more importantly she had a position. Most people didn't think about this more than 'get through the day' or 'rescue my family'. He was a little bored of only thinking about these things himself and having no one to talk to about it. So maybe he shouldn't have been wasting time, they had little enough of it at their disposal as it was, but he kept talking.
"They come from off world so if we kill this many they are going to have a tough time replacing them. I think that is part of the reason they are building this pool in the first place. If I were them I would start turning as many watering holes and lakes into pool as possible so that they could really make this place their own and won't be vulnerable to this sort of attack. But I don't think this is about that. Yeerk vs Animorph, we're ridiculously outnumbered. But Yeerk vs Human we stand a chance. Thing is most humans think we've already lost. We are scattered around, hiding, just hoping that the yeerks won't find us and living day to day. But if we take out that pool...."
Now Rian was the one who looked gleeful at killing millions. He wasn't really looking at Suji anymore. He was seeing a future where the humans fought back, where he could stand on battlefields instead of shirking around in back alleys and hiding all the time. Where the lines were clearly drawn and he didn't have to worry about doing the wrong thing because killing the enemy would be the right thing and who the enemy was would be clear...wouldn't it?
MURDERER.
His dream of last night came back to him full force and when he realized how he felt he was ashamed of himself. It should never be easy to kill people. It should never be something he hoped for. He looked away until both the joy and the shame were hidden again and when he looked back at Suji only his eyes betrayed how much he wanted that pool gone. "If we take out the pool maybe we give people hope again. We can't fight this war on our own but maybe, seeing this, others will begin to fight. That's what I'm hoping anyway. But what I fear is that those million we kill will be turned into martyrs and Animorphs everywhere will be cast as Christ killers. No one will associate with us then and we'll become even more hunted than we are now. Right now we have moral superiority and we can't lose it."
Suji:
People could say it wasn't about numbers all they wanted. They could say that it was about feeling and heart and DOING THE RIGHT THING (and people that said those words, in Suji's opinions, were the first ones to admit they had no idea what that right thing was, or they were too busy hiding behind morality because they were too scared to actually fight). Not about numbers? When the stakes were this high? Bullshit. She wasn't talking about piddling around with freeing maybe one or ten or even a hundred humans. She was talking about making maybe a million (maybe more, she dared to hope) Yeerks forever incapable of infesting a million or more (depending on how many hosts they went through) humans.
That wasn't a pittance. That wasn't a drop in the bucket. That was maybe hundreds of thousands of lives that would be better if this worked. To say it wasn't about numbers was to act like that was inconsequential. And that angered Suji. What was Rian in this war for, if it wasn't to help save humanity? And the only way you saved humanity was by freeing humans--and in this case, preventing humans from becoming enslaved, in bulk. Thinking about it in terms of numbers didn't have to be the stereotype of the calculating war soldier. It could be thinking about just how much good you were doing. And in this case, it would be a lot of good.
"Turned into martyrs by whom? Vissers? Of course they will be. Are you really ready to let something like that stop you? Because I'll tell you one thing, if we're going to win this war, it's going to be on the backs of humans, not Yeerks, and not because we played nice. Our species isn't in a prison where they let you off early for good behavior."
Suji regarded him for a moment. "What it comes down to is, are you ready, is Vegas ready, to cross the line from playing hide and seek with a few Controllers here and there--and don't take that personally, it's just the same in Chicago, and only a bit better in New York--to actually making a decided move in this war? You can say it's not about numbers all you want, but that amounts to a lot of humans that will sleep however many more days without slugs in their heads. If you're all ready to yes, deal with whatever moral implications this has, ready to knowingly do something that will respond in backlash, then this moment in the history of this war is the most critical one I've certainly witnessed."
"If you're not ready," Suji didn't sound condescending. Because maybe that's what this was all about. Maybe Rian wasn't ready. Maybe that's why he hid behind morality, while saying hypocritical stuff like 'fair game' to killing 'innocents'. And if he wasn't ready, his faction sure wouldn't be. And you couldn't force the hands of a bunch of scared kids. But maybe... maybe they had a chance to be more than that. "If people here are still more interested in surviving, still only looking out for their own necks, looking forward to nothing but maybe saving the occasional close friend or family member--then no, we won't be able to do this. If that's the case, fine. I won't judge anyone who isn't ready, and at least admits that, as long as they don't start judging someone who is."
Because, after all, you could lead a horse to water, right? This was their choice, and Suji in no way was going to suggest forcing anyone into this. But if she and Rian were speaking straight with each other, she wasn't going to sugarcoat what the results would be, if they succeeded: many enemies dead, many of their own likely saved.
"You and Vegas need to decide. Are you going to continue simply 'surviving', or will you fight, and accept the consequences that come with that?"
Rian:
Rian smiled but this time it was much meaner though his voice, when he spoke, was still calm. "Listen Suji, I've served in Chicago too. And I've served in Los Angeles. I've met the kids that do nothing but rescue brothers and sisters. And you're right, they aren't ready to go out and kill people. All they want to do is hide and maybe pull one of their family members into hiding with them. You may not judge them but I do. I think they are ridiculous and I have no time for anyone like that in my faction." He was surprising himself with how vehement he was. But she had opened a door he hadn't even known existed. He hadn't known how frustrated he was with this whole war effort, how angry it made him that they did NOTHING. Since becoming a faction leader he had done his best to change that and now here was some girl, showing up and looking down her nose at him and his faction from the position of a detached, calculating strategist.
But as far as he could tell she wasn't a strategist at all, she was a tactician and she was still mired down in small thinking about saving humanity. Humanity couldn't be saved. They'd been trying to save themselves for ages, long before the yeerks had shown up, and had been failing horribly. As they always failed. As they always would fail. To Rian it wasn't about saving the human race so keeping a million free vs. keeping a thousand free wasn't such a big deal to him. Humans were just another weapon to use and they happened to be the right one to save the planet, which was his concern.
And this war was just like any other. The only difference between this war and past ones were that there would be no easy way for one side to quit. If the yeerks lost they had to live as slugs. And if the humans lost they had to live as slaves. And the only reason Rian cared about that was to know how hard he had to hit to make them give up.
He had to make it so terrible to live on earth that the slugs would leave on their own because they wouldn't be able to keep them off the planet forever. They took down this yeerk pool but what about the next one? The animorphs couldn't secure every natural water source on the planet. As far as he knew they didn't even have factions in other countries besides for one in Vancouver and Canada hardly counted.
So the yeerks would be able to establish long term, large yeerk pools here eventually and the only thing they accomplished by blowing this one up was to set them back a year or two. "Now, I don't care about the morality of killing." He was depressed to realize it was true. "I care about what my people think about the morality of killing. If it was me I'd blow it up. But I don't want to lose the respect of my faction for it. I think maybe you've experienced what it is like when people start looking at you like a ruthless killer." He hadn't called Raven yet but he had seen the look in her eyes and she seemed awfully concerned about being judged. That tended to happen when you'd been judged already.
"And don't think for one minute that controllers are the only ones that will see us as murderers for this. The other animorphs, and the free humans might as well. So basically the question comes down to how can we kill them and make it look like an act of heroism instead of a war crime."
Suji:
I have no time for anyone like that in my faction. Suji arched an eyebrow. What was this guy playing at? Yeerks were innocent people, it wasn't about 'numbers' but apparently it wasn't about saving people you knew either, it was more justifiable to bomb the pool to give people hope than because it prevented a new stock of slaves... Usually Suji was good with placing people. But people's lines of thought generally followed predictable patterns. He wasn't a pacifist, because he was all right with killing, even 'innocent people'. He talked about moral superiority and not focusing on numbers, but said that he personally would judge people that did just that (ie: I can save the rest of the world later, I'm saving my brother/sister now).
There was a faint wondering if he was mildly psychotic. Or if he lived by some hodge-podge collection of quotable slogans that contradicted each other, but didn't in his mind. Suji found herself becoming even more quickly disillusioned with what her stay in this faction would be like. If there was some core tenet for his belief system, so far she'd missed it, or he was burying it in almost blatantly counter-intuitive jargon.
But he was right about the killer thing: and Suji had to bite down the urge to respond, 'Yeah, like the look you gave me last night?' The look that had judged her on the spot for what he was saying he'd do right now, by himself, without a heavy heart over the matter, apparently.
Then, at the last bit, she had to laugh quietly in pure disbelief. "Are you kidding? Free humans, save maybe for the ones that have willingly given themselves to the Yeerks, will not see it as murder." Suji shook her head. "And even if there were some humans somewhere in the world that might think there was a better way, they'd be in the vast, vast minority. I mean, do you even know what country we're in? Americans believe in the fight for freedom even when that's some abstract quality. You think they'll hem and haw about people fighting for their very real, very visibly tangible freedom? From fucking alien slugs? I mean hell, you just said it yourself: it would give people hope."
Suji snickered. "If you think that for a moment you'd have to justify this to the masses of enslaved humans, or the smaller groups of refugees, then you don't know people. As for the other Animorphs, that is a slightly trickier question. I still think if we succeed, the majority will have seen it as necessary--if not victory from on high. The others will either be people who are too afraid of the consequences, and shouldn't be fighting in this war anyway but maybe safeguarding some refugees, or they'll be the moral purists who somehow think that it's better to lose and become a race of slaves than to ever have to get your hands dirty."
Suji tilted her head to the side slightly, gauging him. "And those are not people you're going to be able to convince with some sleight of hand or fancy words. So you can't base any of this on whether or not you can hold on to your respectability--and to think that that's what's important in this war is selfish to the utmost degree. You base this on whether or not you and your faction members are ready and willing."
Rian:
Rian sat back and looked at the ceiling. Were his faction mates willing to do this? He had to wonder. And right now he had to wonder if he should be the one to lead them. He hadn't realized how much pure hatred he still had left in him. He felt like he had been drugged for the past couple of months or so. There had been so many things to deal with, going to LA, helping Matt set up the faction, finding new members. He had gotten caught up in all of it. And just when things had started to settle down he'd moved and it all started all over again, except with more intensity because now he was the faction leader.
But now, faced with the prospect of killing so many yeerks, he was remembering how much he hated them. And how much he hated the humans who he felt were almost worse. He was on the human side because what other side could he be on. But was he fighting this war for any other reason than it allowed him to fight, to kill, and blame it on necessity?
He wanted the yeerks gone for what they'd done to the planet, the pure destruction they had caused. But humans hadn't been much better so he had no illusion that when they 'won' this things would magically improve.
"I think people can believe a lot of contradictory things. No one out there wants to be a slave but they aren't going to look kindly on mass extermination either. You know why I think Cassie is the best leader for this movement? Because she is pure, at least in people's minds she is. Who knows what the reality is but people look to her and they think of her as a good person, and if you fight on her side then you are fighting on the 'right' side." Which is probably what I'm doing here. "Just look at most of the animorphs for your proof. Most of them are wanna be heroes. They are good kids. And I'm worried this will disillusion them about what winning might take. And maybe you think it is stupid but I would protect them if I could. I don't like the ones who are short sighted, but no one in my faction fits that description. And while I may not care about strangers or the 'million' you say might stay free, I care about the 8 people who are my responsibility." He held onto that. It made him human didn't it? If he at least cared about the people around him?
He stood up and walked back to the refridgerator. She was hitting way too close to home. Not with her words exactly but the reactions the words were bringing up. Had he really fooled himself into thinking he was a good person for these past couple of months just because he was fighting the good fight. For the first time Rian really, really questioned his promotion. Had Cassie known who he was? Had Matt?
And what about Suji herself? Could she be trusted? Maybe more than him or maybe less. What he'd seen last night, it didn't sit well with him. He wasn't sure what atrocities he was capable of now that he had no one above him but Cassie but one thing he did know was that as long as he had someone to answer to, like Matt or Raven, he had followed the orders given. He may have chaffed under their leadership at times, what, like a rapid dog Rian, but he hadn't disobeyed them. But Suji was dangerous if only because she was uncontrollable or seemed like she might be. But maybe he was judging her too soon.
He brought out some more water since they'd kinda run through their original supply with all the talking. When he came back out he started over. "But I guess they don't need to be protected. They made the choice to become fighters so now they'll have to live with it," he said sadly. "So, I'll get you what need to make the explosives. And I'll give them the choice to participate in this."
And hopefully we can all live with ourselves after.
Suji:
" And while I may not care about strangers or the 'million' you say might stay free, I care about the 8 people who are my responsibility."
Cassie was an idiot for putting this kid in charge of anything. That's all there was to it. He couldn't hold a single straightforward thought in his head, didn't care about killing innocents, didn't care about saving them either. All he cared about was his own faction, and even then he denounced anyone who might be just like him, and care only about their own family and friends. He wasn't just stupid, or mildly psychotic, he was a liability as a leader.
But again, that was Cassie's fault. She'd only ever seemed to make leaders out of people who were more interested in protecting her own little Animorphs than really saving humanity. Maybe it was all she ever had to work with.
"I never said it was stupid to protect your faction mates, let alone to want to protect them. I wasn't the one who was judging people that were interested in holding on to their innocence, if that meant only fighting enough to save their friends and family." No, what she thought was stupid was that he was being blatantly hypocritical, and he didn't even see it enough to try to make excuses for it.
He walked away, and by the time he came back and spoke again, he sounded much more final about it all. Which in one way unnerved her: Suji felt deeply unsettled about the prospect of anyone following this kid (who apparently cared about very little in this war) into battle. At the same time, they hadn't been caught or destroyed yet, so maybe he didn't make bad calls, just had a philosophy about the war that sounded far too compromising, too selfish. On the other hand, she was going to be glad to be finished talking about the war at large, and start on the actual planning.
She was more than ready to be out of his company for now.
Rian:
Rian had given up on talking in the kitchen. The table wasn't big enough to be able to spread out the plans for the dam so that he and Suji could try to figure out where would be the best place to regroup after the yeerks brought in air support to take out Team 4 which would consist of her and Luce. Rian wasn't exactly sure who the other teams would be yet but he knew there would be at least two more of them, maybe three if he wanted to split the detraction team and the kadrona team in two.
They had avoided talking about war philosophies for the past hour or so. Mostly because it just made him pissed off and he had a feeling it made her pissed off too though he thought the person they might both be pissed off at was himself. He no longer knew what he thought about the war. He had a photo up in his room that he had dragged all the way from an abandoned house in Chicago that was supposed to remind him what he was fighting for. But he hadn't looked at the picture of his family in a long time. And what did it really remind him of anyway?
They were dead and he couldn't really fight for them anymore. All he could fight for was to avenge them and slowly, over the course of this past year, that is what he had begun to do. The war effort had turned into a vengence quest and he used every excuse he found to justify his actions whether they contradicted each other or not. He didn't want kids in his faction because they weren't good weapons. But he didn't want to disillusion them either because, again, they might not be good weapons.
He wanted the yeerks dead even though he could acknowledge that most of them were probably innocent bystanders. But those innocent bystanders, by being parasites and by coming here had started an war that had killed his family. He used his faction to cause damage, which he was growing increasingly good at, but he had completely lost sight of what he was fighting for.
He hadn't thought about it in so long, just mindlessly fought battle after battle, that it had just gotten lost somewhere. What did he believe? Were they doing something wrong by killing the yeerks in the pool? And did he care if it was wrong or not? He thought he did, he at least had that. He still cared whether he was doing the right thing even if he didn't know what that right thing was.
And more, who could he talk to about it? Matt wasn't here and he had aliented Ember so that pretty much left him friendless though it was hard to be friends with his faction anyway. They all saw him as the leader, as the responsible one. He couldn't, for one moment, tell them that he was having doubts about how they were fighting because then they would doubt every decision he'd make.
And he was resisting the urge to continue talking to Suji about it. Even though she was an outside element she still had to believe in him enough to follow through on the plan. Besides she didn't even know him.
He wanted Matt. He wanted Raven. He wanted Bryan. But none of them were here and he couldn't do anything about that. All he could do was fight the next battle. And that was something he was good at....maybe too good.
He stared at the map. "We should put you and Luce somewhere around here," he said pointing to the spot. "It was originally the place I planned on launching our attack from anyway. There is a cave like cliff there. It is really too shallow to be called a cave but the explosive can be stored there and it will provide cover for the ground team, hopefully enough that they won't be seen from the air right away. Once they call in someone to take you guys out, probably a bug fighter or something of similar size, you guys will have to make a run for it and leave whatever you didn't use because there is no way to carry it with any speed."
He pointed to the place where the yeerks had put their tower. "By that time, if everything goes according to plan this thing will be gone. But since nothing ever goes according to plan I'd fly a large circle around here if you can. We don't want some random controller getting a lucky shot off at you."
He turned his attention back to the dam itself. That was really the hard part. If he got what he wanted then it would be destroyed but he knew that to stay and try to take it out might be stretching their non-existent luck. "Do you think the explosions in the water would have put enough strain on the dam structure that a few well placed charges would take it down?"
Suji:
The conversation had taken a definite turn towards the better when they just got down to strict planning. Suji didn't have to worry about figuring out the puzzle that was Rian's morality (if it could even be called that), and could instead work with the puzzle that was envisioning a strong, feasible plan. She'd quickly dropped out of trying to figure him out, and got to work.
They exchanged ideas back and forth, and by now Suji had her own map drawn, a pretty accurate scale figure of the blueprints. She'd written down some of the notes that Rian told her from their recent patrols, as well as thoughts on positioning and timing. It was a lot of work, but it wasn't hopeless; quite the contrary, the longer they worked, the more confident Suji felt. The more the plan, the details, all starting singing to her again. If you wanted to see the big picture, you had to step out of the frame, and Suji was good at that. And the big picture, right now, for all its flaws (and she saw them clearly too) was heartening almost to the point of euphoria: they could do this.
Rian talked about leaving the explosives and flying an arc, and Suji nodded. Obvious things that he didn't need to tell her, but it was better to be on the same page anyway. Then he asked her a very good question, and Suji sat back for a moment, pulling her hair back and then rubbing the back of her neck. "The strain of all that water sloshing around with nowhere to go will definitely put it under a lot of pressure. I think that along with the charges, we would certainly be able to crack it. And even if that isn't enough to immediately bring the whole thing down--maybe it would take minutes, maybe it would take months--it would be enough damage that the Yeerks would have to double-time on repairing it if they wanted to rebuild in that same spot. But if we're bombing the pool anyway, I don't know how likely that is.
The short answer, is yes, I think it'd be enough. And it might also be the best way to cover our tracks, if we can manage to get clear enough before blowing the charges."
Rian:
"That's good. Now we just have to figure out how to get the charges in there. And of course we have to figure out all the ways this can go wrong and try to plan for them," he said motioning towards the plan they had just been coming up with for an hour. "Ok, so how about if we try to figure out all the ways the yeerks would protect this dam since they have to know we're coming."
He looked at the map but he wasn't really seeing it. "They'll definitely have teams on the dam itself. They are there already, we've seen them." He closed his eyes and tried to put himself in the other player's head as if he was only playing another Diplomacy game. "They'll have teams everywhere but if I was a yeerk how would I trap animorphs? We show up we....what? How would we attack? How do they think we'd attack? If they don't know we have access to eplosives we'd have to take out the people in charge of the project who would be on the dam. We'd also have to try to throw the floodgates, maybe drain the lake. So they'll have security on the flood gates which means a hell of a lot of back up to call on anyone who takes on the dam itself which will be team one. The next easiest target is the tower and the best way to get to the tower is through the air so they'll have some sort of air defense, sharp shooters on the upper levels maybe. So maybe we send in team two undercover. But they will be screening everyone. There is no way we'll-" he stopped and his eyes opened.
"We need to be there before the opening. We need to be inside already. If we take out the tower we'll have a second shot at the lake. A bad, most likely suicidal second shot but without a generator there is no yeerk pool so if all else fails we can come back another day and try again, if we survive the first one that is. But they'll have security all over the pool and there will be no way to fake having a yeerk if you don't actually have one."
Rian:
Rian hadn't slept very well at all. His dreams had been dark as usual but tonight they had been especially odd. He saw Bryan's face as he often did, the way it had been that night, half in shadow only the light from the very small window above Rian's head reflecting off the shot-gun Bryan would murder his family with and off of Bryan's eyes.
In real life those eyes had been full of sadness and pain, a clue to Rian that maybe Bry hadn't been controlled though he supposed he would never know the truth. But in his dreams the eyes had been crazed and gleeful...and red, bright red. And the longer Rian had looked at those eyes the more they were all he could see.
MURDERER. MURDERER.
Who? Bryan? Him? It had been scary to think that Rian had killed many more people than Bryan had. Not people, controllers. But that didn't make them any less dead did it? No.
It was war though. But was it? Or was it revenge. Revenge for what the yeerks and their invasion had taken from him.
"It will be nice though. Actually being able to hit back for once." Suji's words rang in his head echoing with his own. Was that what this was about? Getting some back? Repaying the yeerks for the pain and damage they had caused? Getting their city back. Their planet? Their bodies? In this case was revenge different than justice?
He walked down the hall peeking his head into rooms looking for the one Suji occupied. He had been serious about talking to her about her idea in the morning and it was morning. He wanted to hear what she had to say, and how she said it, before he called Raven. Maybe he had overreacted last night. It had only been a small look. Maybe it had been nothing.
But his gut told him that she was dangerous. As dangerous and uncontrollable in her own way as Luce was. He remembered how easily Luce had shot that boy on their first night here. His life had meant nothing to her or at least it had meant less than the risk he posed.
Luce was a killer. Maybe she hadn't been born that way but that is what she was now, her hands quicker to weapons than to anything else. And Rian didn't feel like he could control her, only point her in the right direction like one of the guns she loved so much.
Was Suji the same and if she was would she allow herself to be aimed in the same way? Maybe, maybe not.
Finally he stuck his head in the right door, seeing the sleeping form of Suji on one of the two queen sized beds in the room.
He knocked on the door frame. "Suji?"
Suji:
Suji hadn't been asleep when she heard Rian's voice. She'd be lying in bed, completely awake after coming out of another nightmare. Suji had no illusions about war: she'd had plenty of dark dreams in New York, but the ones after Chicago were different. Dreams were just another sign that you were ticking properly, that your subconscious was doing its job of analyzing stuff on the level that couldn't be done in your waking hours. That was fine with her. Dreams couldn't be controlled, but they could be rationalized.
But not lately. Lately her dreams had felt more real than they'd ever been before. And she wasn't alone in them, which was the worst part. There was always that lingering sensation of the Other, the Eye. In some of her nightmares she wasn't just killing Toby, or even Sophia. She was strangling Raven. Stabbing Riley. Ruining things, destroying things, becoming exactly the kind of threat that she'd put down herself.
And if that day comes? Suji thought to herself, eyes open and staring at the opposite wall. If the day comes when you're the threat, when you're the liability? Will you do what's necessary then too? Can you? She closed her eyes, steeled herself. The night's rest had done a world of good for her, better than any she'd been able to get in Chicago before heading out to Vegas. By the time she got out of bed and faced Rian, she looked completely normal. Maybe even felt more normal than she had for some time.
"Hey. Sorry if I overslept," she smiled, quickly rubbing her eyes. "Also... sorry about last night. Shouldn't have sprung that idea on you so late; I was pretty frazzled and tired after the trip myself. What's up?"
Rian:
"You didn't oversleep. We don't exactly have a set schedule here or at least most people don't. I, on the other hand, got to get beat up for an hour by your friend and call it training," he said sardonically as he stepped back into the hallway and out of her room which was hers as long as she was here.
"I was thinking we could get some breakfast. I can't make much but I can do eggs and might even manage to put some waffles in a toaster. And after breakfast you could fill me in on more of the details of your idea." His tone was light and it didn't sound like he wanted to talk about killing millions of defenseless creatures over breakfast.
Suji:
Suji smirked at the idea of training with Luce. She probably could have stood for more combat training, though she'd gotten decent with a dracon gun before leaving New York. Suji just assumed that if she was ever in a situation where her fists were her best weapon (and not her wits, or even her morphs) she was doomed anyway.
He proposed the idea of breakfast, and Suji's stomach did growl quietly. Ugh, she thought, embarassed. Stupid involuntary bodily functions. She laughed it off though, and nodded. "Trust me, it'll be gourmet compared to what I've been eating lately, which is a lot of energy bars and trail mix." Eggs actually sounded particularly wonderful: eating something that had an expiration date within this decade, let alone the next month, would be a nice change of pace.
"And sure thing about the plan." Suji was still dressed in her jeans and button-up shirt that she'd worn for the travel, though they were decidedly more rumpled now. "After you, Fearless Leader."
Rian:
Rian nodded and led the way down to the kitchen. He got the eggs out of the one fridge that still worked and set about making them. He also searched through the rest of their cabinets and came up with some other stuff. He had found that breakfast food was the easiest to store and come by. They had frozen waffles, eggs, a lot of oatmeal, some cream of wheat, boxes and boxes and boxes of cereal, and some milk to go with it all. They also had about a third of a box of three different teas so if you put it all together they had a box of tea the way Rian looked at it. No coffee which was not ideal. And not much meat since meat was hard to come by. They had some frozen sausages, again the store bought easy to cook variety, so he brought those out too.
Back in Chicago Rian had been a hopeless cook and Raven had been nice enough to give him some lessons which Matt kind of expanded on and Ember had helped out a bit too. Thanks to all his teachers Rian could now cook as well as a college student. Which meant it was edible and decent, if simple.
The Haunt had had a small kitchen and they'd only been able to cook one thing at once. But since this one kitchen had serviced the four now crushed restaurants out front it had enough burners and pots and pans and stuff that he was able to put the eggs and sausage on at the same time while trying to figure out how to toast waffles without a toaster (he had forgotten theirs was broken).
He turned up the flame and used a fork to put the waffle right on it like a mini campfire. The results were...interesting. He decided to save those for later. If he wanted to suffer through half frozen, half burnt waffles that was fine but he shouldn't impose them on a guest.
In the end he ended up serving the eggs he'd promised with sausage as a bonus and some water that was at least cold since they had ran out of juice.
"So, we have a dam problem. You had a possible solution?"
Suji:
The smell of the food alone was enough to reawaken parts of Suji that she'd forgot existed. All humans were creatures of wants, but it'd been such a long time since she'd been able to focus that desire on something tangible, something as basic and simple as food. She waited patiently making easy enough small talk. Some people hated it, but Suji found that even small talk could be impossibly important when instead of talking about the whether or you were talking about peripheral wartime information.
The first few bites were as delicious as the smell had promised, and Suji had to fight to keep from literally gobbling it all down. After taking a long swig of water, she nodded to Rian. "Destroying the dam itself might be possible, but dumping explosives into the pool-to-be would put enormous strain on the structure as well--more than the same amount of 'dry' bombs, if you didn't go about attacking the pool for whatever reasons." Reasons that could not be justified, as far as she was concerned, but she'd apparently played her hand too strongly last night.
"Bombing the water, as long as none of us are in it, is also safer for everyone on land. That includes maybe any Animorphs, maybe any bystanding Controllers or captured humans." She set down her fork momentarily, making eye-contact with this leader. "I know you didn't seem too thrilled with the idea last night, but if what you're saying is all accurate, bombing the pool..." Suji bit her lip for a moment. "The defenses around the dam won't be as routine and response-ready as they will be shortly after its opening, which makes this that the best time to strike. And the fact that they're bringing in what might be a couple million of fresh Yeerks... well that makes this possibly the only time you can strike. Time might be running out for Vegas if this thing succeeds."
Rian:
You think I don't know that? But the thought stayed a thought. This wasn't a friend that he could break down in front of. It was an animorph who was here at his request to help him bomb a pool. When had this become his life. It had all seemed to happen so fast that he hadn't had time to think in a long time. He used to spend entire nights just wandering the streets or the forests or the beaches where ever he happened to be. Just wander and let the night sing around him. But nights were hectic in Vegas and he spent most of them at his job, a job he'd taken to cultivate contacts in what passed for the underground here.
And now he was talking about bombing a pool over breakfast. When did it all stop? When did he get time to himself? He didn't of course. "If we pull this off we are going to be the most wanted outlaws this side of the Rockies," he said almost to himself staring at the food he was only picking at now.
He looked up at her. "If we do this we'll be killing millions. I notice you didn't mention that pretty fact. All your other points make sense. I know this is our last chance to hit the pool. I would actually like to hit the damn thing today before regular or party security go into effect. But we won't be ready in time. There are some things we have to take care of before we attack, one of them being making the bombs we'll need."
He sat back in his chair and looked towards the back door they'd brought the bike in through last night. "How much would we need to do what you suggest? How many explosives? What type and how easy are they to transport? What would be the delivery system? Let's figure out if your idea is workable before we talk about should we do it. If we get that far then that is going to be a decision made by vote."
Suji:
Suji was irritated. "No, I didn't mention that pretty fact, for two reasons. The first being that it was obvious, and I assumed you had the mental facilities to see that much, and the second being: because this is a war. Something which I know people sometimes need reminding of, though I had hoped it wouldn't be a faction leader." What was he, going to sit here and act like she was a bad person for not spelling out the fact that yes, Yeerks would die? "And if you want to get pissed at someone for having that on your conscience, I'm out. I'm not going to be anyone's fall person, the person you can point to when it's done and say, 'it was all her idea!' so you can feel better about whatever goes down."
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, and they shocked her. Anger was an emotion she was used to feeling, but it was always manageable, hardly ever expressed, and certainly never so bluntly. This was why he'd been cold with her last night. Because the aliens enslaving their race might die. But now that anger, and all that weariness, it was bubbling up like grease-fire, and all her normal water-dumping methods weren't doing anything. "I'm not talking about bombing a fucking hospital, or a nursery, or a school. I'm talking about bombing Yeerks in their natural habitat, where--if we decide to do it at all--there will be an absolutely minimal human casualty ratio. You want to judge me for that? I had plenty of time to think about your reaction last night, and if you think this idea makes me ruthless or bloodthirsty or whatever, you don't know the meaning of the word."
And wasn't that true? If he wanted Suji to coddle him, Suji was prepared to walk. She was tired of leaders who--even when they saw what was necessary--got all mushy-mouthed and self-righteous. "And if we're not the biggest outlaws of the entire planet, that's a sign that we're not doing our job. We're not here to be cute nuisances, we're here to inflict damage, and save our own people." Her voice was at least more controlled now, though she made no attempt to hide her anger. At least he'd know where she stood, and she'd know if she'd been called out here to be nothing more than a bomb assembly line and moral scapegoat. "So I want you to level with me right now. Are you going to accept whatever moral culpability that goes along with this, or am I going to be the Vegas faction whipping girl for suggesting a strategic and deadly maneuver? There's no use even bothering with getting to the details if I don't know where I'm going to play into all of this."
She pushed her plate slightly away from her, appetite gone.
Suji felt strangely accomplished, and also mortified. It hadn't been collected or planned, but it'd been real. And she wasn't going to be pushed around. She wasn't going to let Rian, leader or not, dance around insinuating this kind of crap about her. As far as Suji was concerned, she'd done far worse that kill millions of Yeerks, and her patience for implications that she was some sort of cold-blooded monster because she was ready to attack and kill their One True Enemy in this war... well.
Rian:
Rian raised an eyebrow at Suji's outburst and a slight smile tugged at one side of his face. After she had been quiet for a couple of seconds and he was sure she was done he said, "You must have hated Chicago." He laughed a bit, he well remembered how he had chafed under Raven's pacifism, and picked up both their plates. He walked over to the garbage and got rid of the little that was left of the food and put the plates in the sink. He even began washing them because he knew himself too well, if he left them there now they would be there forever...or until someone else cleaned them.
"Look, the morals of this suck no matter what we do. We're terrorists, we're going to kill innocent people more than the ones who deserve it and I don't like that. And for the record, I understand where you stand on yeerks but the ones in their natural habitat are innocent people in my opinion, just so you know where I stand on that. But I also believe that they are fair game for dying. At first they will blame us for those deaths but, if we do our job right," he said using her words, "they will start blaming their own government for dragging them into the path of bad ass rebels such as I plan on being."
He had finished cleaning the dishes. It was kind of ridiculous that he was playing house and talking terrorism at the same time but he was quickly getting over how weird his life was. Aliens had invaded. Didn't get weirder than that.
"So," he said coming back over to the table and pulling his chair up, "what we have to figure out is if it is worth it. We shouldn't just go around killing innocents because they are there. Then their deaths are meaningless and all it makes us are murderers and bandits, not disciplined freedom fighters. What I'm wondering is 1) if the death of a million of their kindred will help our cause or hurt it and 2), is it feasible without killing ourselves."
Suji:
Suji actually felt nauseas when he called Yeerks 'innocent people'. Those 'innocent people' regularly infested the brains of those who were truly innocent. What, because they didn't launch the war, or weren't all leaders, that made them innocent? That was like calling slave owners in southern plantations 'innocent' because their culture had brought them up in a system of torture and debasement of others.
You could be as stringently morally relative as you wanted, but in the end being a slaver--like being a killer--of sentient beings precluded you from the 'innocent' category. They couldn't even be compared to regular citizens of countries during wartime, because regular citizens didn't kill or enslave the enemy.
If he wanted to see them as innocent people, but say that they were fair game for dying, that made him far more of a monster than Suji could ever hope to be.
"A million Yeerks dead is a million less hosts enslaved for the time being." Suji said, keeping herself blunt but without the anger from before. That at least was repackaged, put back away in its corner where it could be contained. However, she still felt like she was talking with someone who hadn't walked outside in a few years, let alone fought in the ongoing war. Yeerks did not repopulate nearly as quickly as humans did, and they themselves were not as populous of a race. However, it was likely that they were leaving much of the more destitute areas of the world unclaimed as of yet, so the Yeerk-to-First-World-Citizen ratio was a lot closer to even.
"And if someone could ever think that that doesn't help our cause, then they're here for the wrong reasons."
She settled back some. "But if we're done playing around with psuedo-philosophical quandries about innocence and death in wartime, I'm ready to discuss planning. The materials needed for bombs shouldn't be too hard to come by, though procuring them in bulk might be tricky. As for the actual plan: what were you thinking initially? I imagine I wasn't called up here to make bombs for a plan that hadn't already started forming."
Rian:
"This isn't a number game." He couldn't resist the urge to continue talking about the war. Her position made him a little angry but more importantly she had a position. Most people didn't think about this more than 'get through the day' or 'rescue my family'. He was a little bored of only thinking about these things himself and having no one to talk to about it. So maybe he shouldn't have been wasting time, they had little enough of it at their disposal as it was, but he kept talking.
"They come from off world so if we kill this many they are going to have a tough time replacing them. I think that is part of the reason they are building this pool in the first place. If I were them I would start turning as many watering holes and lakes into pool as possible so that they could really make this place their own and won't be vulnerable to this sort of attack. But I don't think this is about that. Yeerk vs Animorph, we're ridiculously outnumbered. But Yeerk vs Human we stand a chance. Thing is most humans think we've already lost. We are scattered around, hiding, just hoping that the yeerks won't find us and living day to day. But if we take out that pool...."
Now Rian was the one who looked gleeful at killing millions. He wasn't really looking at Suji anymore. He was seeing a future where the humans fought back, where he could stand on battlefields instead of shirking around in back alleys and hiding all the time. Where the lines were clearly drawn and he didn't have to worry about doing the wrong thing because killing the enemy would be the right thing and who the enemy was would be clear...wouldn't it?
MURDERER.
His dream of last night came back to him full force and when he realized how he felt he was ashamed of himself. It should never be easy to kill people. It should never be something he hoped for. He looked away until both the joy and the shame were hidden again and when he looked back at Suji only his eyes betrayed how much he wanted that pool gone. "If we take out the pool maybe we give people hope again. We can't fight this war on our own but maybe, seeing this, others will begin to fight. That's what I'm hoping anyway. But what I fear is that those million we kill will be turned into martyrs and Animorphs everywhere will be cast as Christ killers. No one will associate with us then and we'll become even more hunted than we are now. Right now we have moral superiority and we can't lose it."
Suji:
People could say it wasn't about numbers all they wanted. They could say that it was about feeling and heart and DOING THE RIGHT THING (and people that said those words, in Suji's opinions, were the first ones to admit they had no idea what that right thing was, or they were too busy hiding behind morality because they were too scared to actually fight). Not about numbers? When the stakes were this high? Bullshit. She wasn't talking about piddling around with freeing maybe one or ten or even a hundred humans. She was talking about making maybe a million (maybe more, she dared to hope) Yeerks forever incapable of infesting a million or more (depending on how many hosts they went through) humans.
That wasn't a pittance. That wasn't a drop in the bucket. That was maybe hundreds of thousands of lives that would be better if this worked. To say it wasn't about numbers was to act like that was inconsequential. And that angered Suji. What was Rian in this war for, if it wasn't to help save humanity? And the only way you saved humanity was by freeing humans--and in this case, preventing humans from becoming enslaved, in bulk. Thinking about it in terms of numbers didn't have to be the stereotype of the calculating war soldier. It could be thinking about just how much good you were doing. And in this case, it would be a lot of good.
"Turned into martyrs by whom? Vissers? Of course they will be. Are you really ready to let something like that stop you? Because I'll tell you one thing, if we're going to win this war, it's going to be on the backs of humans, not Yeerks, and not because we played nice. Our species isn't in a prison where they let you off early for good behavior."
Suji regarded him for a moment. "What it comes down to is, are you ready, is Vegas ready, to cross the line from playing hide and seek with a few Controllers here and there--and don't take that personally, it's just the same in Chicago, and only a bit better in New York--to actually making a decided move in this war? You can say it's not about numbers all you want, but that amounts to a lot of humans that will sleep however many more days without slugs in their heads. If you're all ready to yes, deal with whatever moral implications this has, ready to knowingly do something that will respond in backlash, then this moment in the history of this war is the most critical one I've certainly witnessed."
"If you're not ready," Suji didn't sound condescending. Because maybe that's what this was all about. Maybe Rian wasn't ready. Maybe that's why he hid behind morality, while saying hypocritical stuff like 'fair game' to killing 'innocents'. And if he wasn't ready, his faction sure wouldn't be. And you couldn't force the hands of a bunch of scared kids. But maybe... maybe they had a chance to be more than that. "If people here are still more interested in surviving, still only looking out for their own necks, looking forward to nothing but maybe saving the occasional close friend or family member--then no, we won't be able to do this. If that's the case, fine. I won't judge anyone who isn't ready, and at least admits that, as long as they don't start judging someone who is."
Because, after all, you could lead a horse to water, right? This was their choice, and Suji in no way was going to suggest forcing anyone into this. But if she and Rian were speaking straight with each other, she wasn't going to sugarcoat what the results would be, if they succeeded: many enemies dead, many of their own likely saved.
"You and Vegas need to decide. Are you going to continue simply 'surviving', or will you fight, and accept the consequences that come with that?"
Rian:
Rian smiled but this time it was much meaner though his voice, when he spoke, was still calm. "Listen Suji, I've served in Chicago too. And I've served in Los Angeles. I've met the kids that do nothing but rescue brothers and sisters. And you're right, they aren't ready to go out and kill people. All they want to do is hide and maybe pull one of their family members into hiding with them. You may not judge them but I do. I think they are ridiculous and I have no time for anyone like that in my faction." He was surprising himself with how vehement he was. But she had opened a door he hadn't even known existed. He hadn't known how frustrated he was with this whole war effort, how angry it made him that they did NOTHING. Since becoming a faction leader he had done his best to change that and now here was some girl, showing up and looking down her nose at him and his faction from the position of a detached, calculating strategist.
But as far as he could tell she wasn't a strategist at all, she was a tactician and she was still mired down in small thinking about saving humanity. Humanity couldn't be saved. They'd been trying to save themselves for ages, long before the yeerks had shown up, and had been failing horribly. As they always failed. As they always would fail. To Rian it wasn't about saving the human race so keeping a million free vs. keeping a thousand free wasn't such a big deal to him. Humans were just another weapon to use and they happened to be the right one to save the planet, which was his concern.
And this war was just like any other. The only difference between this war and past ones were that there would be no easy way for one side to quit. If the yeerks lost they had to live as slugs. And if the humans lost they had to live as slaves. And the only reason Rian cared about that was to know how hard he had to hit to make them give up.
He had to make it so terrible to live on earth that the slugs would leave on their own because they wouldn't be able to keep them off the planet forever. They took down this yeerk pool but what about the next one? The animorphs couldn't secure every natural water source on the planet. As far as he knew they didn't even have factions in other countries besides for one in Vancouver and Canada hardly counted.
So the yeerks would be able to establish long term, large yeerk pools here eventually and the only thing they accomplished by blowing this one up was to set them back a year or two. "Now, I don't care about the morality of killing." He was depressed to realize it was true. "I care about what my people think about the morality of killing. If it was me I'd blow it up. But I don't want to lose the respect of my faction for it. I think maybe you've experienced what it is like when people start looking at you like a ruthless killer." He hadn't called Raven yet but he had seen the look in her eyes and she seemed awfully concerned about being judged. That tended to happen when you'd been judged already.
"And don't think for one minute that controllers are the only ones that will see us as murderers for this. The other animorphs, and the free humans might as well. So basically the question comes down to how can we kill them and make it look like an act of heroism instead of a war crime."
Suji:
I have no time for anyone like that in my faction. Suji arched an eyebrow. What was this guy playing at? Yeerks were innocent people, it wasn't about 'numbers' but apparently it wasn't about saving people you knew either, it was more justifiable to bomb the pool to give people hope than because it prevented a new stock of slaves... Usually Suji was good with placing people. But people's lines of thought generally followed predictable patterns. He wasn't a pacifist, because he was all right with killing, even 'innocent people'. He talked about moral superiority and not focusing on numbers, but said that he personally would judge people that did just that (ie: I can save the rest of the world later, I'm saving my brother/sister now).
There was a faint wondering if he was mildly psychotic. Or if he lived by some hodge-podge collection of quotable slogans that contradicted each other, but didn't in his mind. Suji found herself becoming even more quickly disillusioned with what her stay in this faction would be like. If there was some core tenet for his belief system, so far she'd missed it, or he was burying it in almost blatantly counter-intuitive jargon.
But he was right about the killer thing: and Suji had to bite down the urge to respond, 'Yeah, like the look you gave me last night?' The look that had judged her on the spot for what he was saying he'd do right now, by himself, without a heavy heart over the matter, apparently.
Then, at the last bit, she had to laugh quietly in pure disbelief. "Are you kidding? Free humans, save maybe for the ones that have willingly given themselves to the Yeerks, will not see it as murder." Suji shook her head. "And even if there were some humans somewhere in the world that might think there was a better way, they'd be in the vast, vast minority. I mean, do you even know what country we're in? Americans believe in the fight for freedom even when that's some abstract quality. You think they'll hem and haw about people fighting for their very real, very visibly tangible freedom? From fucking alien slugs? I mean hell, you just said it yourself: it would give people hope."
Suji snickered. "If you think that for a moment you'd have to justify this to the masses of enslaved humans, or the smaller groups of refugees, then you don't know people. As for the other Animorphs, that is a slightly trickier question. I still think if we succeed, the majority will have seen it as necessary--if not victory from on high. The others will either be people who are too afraid of the consequences, and shouldn't be fighting in this war anyway but maybe safeguarding some refugees, or they'll be the moral purists who somehow think that it's better to lose and become a race of slaves than to ever have to get your hands dirty."
Suji tilted her head to the side slightly, gauging him. "And those are not people you're going to be able to convince with some sleight of hand or fancy words. So you can't base any of this on whether or not you can hold on to your respectability--and to think that that's what's important in this war is selfish to the utmost degree. You base this on whether or not you and your faction members are ready and willing."
Rian:
Rian sat back and looked at the ceiling. Were his faction mates willing to do this? He had to wonder. And right now he had to wonder if he should be the one to lead them. He hadn't realized how much pure hatred he still had left in him. He felt like he had been drugged for the past couple of months or so. There had been so many things to deal with, going to LA, helping Matt set up the faction, finding new members. He had gotten caught up in all of it. And just when things had started to settle down he'd moved and it all started all over again, except with more intensity because now he was the faction leader.
But now, faced with the prospect of killing so many yeerks, he was remembering how much he hated them. And how much he hated the humans who he felt were almost worse. He was on the human side because what other side could he be on. But was he fighting this war for any other reason than it allowed him to fight, to kill, and blame it on necessity?
He wanted the yeerks gone for what they'd done to the planet, the pure destruction they had caused. But humans hadn't been much better so he had no illusion that when they 'won' this things would magically improve.
"I think people can believe a lot of contradictory things. No one out there wants to be a slave but they aren't going to look kindly on mass extermination either. You know why I think Cassie is the best leader for this movement? Because she is pure, at least in people's minds she is. Who knows what the reality is but people look to her and they think of her as a good person, and if you fight on her side then you are fighting on the 'right' side." Which is probably what I'm doing here. "Just look at most of the animorphs for your proof. Most of them are wanna be heroes. They are good kids. And I'm worried this will disillusion them about what winning might take. And maybe you think it is stupid but I would protect them if I could. I don't like the ones who are short sighted, but no one in my faction fits that description. And while I may not care about strangers or the 'million' you say might stay free, I care about the 8 people who are my responsibility." He held onto that. It made him human didn't it? If he at least cared about the people around him?
He stood up and walked back to the refridgerator. She was hitting way too close to home. Not with her words exactly but the reactions the words were bringing up. Had he really fooled himself into thinking he was a good person for these past couple of months just because he was fighting the good fight. For the first time Rian really, really questioned his promotion. Had Cassie known who he was? Had Matt?
And what about Suji herself? Could she be trusted? Maybe more than him or maybe less. What he'd seen last night, it didn't sit well with him. He wasn't sure what atrocities he was capable of now that he had no one above him but Cassie but one thing he did know was that as long as he had someone to answer to, like Matt or Raven, he had followed the orders given. He may have chaffed under their leadership at times, what, like a rapid dog Rian, but he hadn't disobeyed them. But Suji was dangerous if only because she was uncontrollable or seemed like she might be. But maybe he was judging her too soon.
He brought out some more water since they'd kinda run through their original supply with all the talking. When he came back out he started over. "But I guess they don't need to be protected. They made the choice to become fighters so now they'll have to live with it," he said sadly. "So, I'll get you what need to make the explosives. And I'll give them the choice to participate in this."
And hopefully we can all live with ourselves after.
Suji:
" And while I may not care about strangers or the 'million' you say might stay free, I care about the 8 people who are my responsibility."
Cassie was an idiot for putting this kid in charge of anything. That's all there was to it. He couldn't hold a single straightforward thought in his head, didn't care about killing innocents, didn't care about saving them either. All he cared about was his own faction, and even then he denounced anyone who might be just like him, and care only about their own family and friends. He wasn't just stupid, or mildly psychotic, he was a liability as a leader.
But again, that was Cassie's fault. She'd only ever seemed to make leaders out of people who were more interested in protecting her own little Animorphs than really saving humanity. Maybe it was all she ever had to work with.
"I never said it was stupid to protect your faction mates, let alone to want to protect them. I wasn't the one who was judging people that were interested in holding on to their innocence, if that meant only fighting enough to save their friends and family." No, what she thought was stupid was that he was being blatantly hypocritical, and he didn't even see it enough to try to make excuses for it.
He walked away, and by the time he came back and spoke again, he sounded much more final about it all. Which in one way unnerved her: Suji felt deeply unsettled about the prospect of anyone following this kid (who apparently cared about very little in this war) into battle. At the same time, they hadn't been caught or destroyed yet, so maybe he didn't make bad calls, just had a philosophy about the war that sounded far too compromising, too selfish. On the other hand, she was going to be glad to be finished talking about the war at large, and start on the actual planning.
She was more than ready to be out of his company for now.
Rian:
Rian had given up on talking in the kitchen. The table wasn't big enough to be able to spread out the plans for the dam so that he and Suji could try to figure out where would be the best place to regroup after the yeerks brought in air support to take out Team 4 which would consist of her and Luce. Rian wasn't exactly sure who the other teams would be yet but he knew there would be at least two more of them, maybe three if he wanted to split the detraction team and the kadrona team in two.
They had avoided talking about war philosophies for the past hour or so. Mostly because it just made him pissed off and he had a feeling it made her pissed off too though he thought the person they might both be pissed off at was himself. He no longer knew what he thought about the war. He had a photo up in his room that he had dragged all the way from an abandoned house in Chicago that was supposed to remind him what he was fighting for. But he hadn't looked at the picture of his family in a long time. And what did it really remind him of anyway?
They were dead and he couldn't really fight for them anymore. All he could fight for was to avenge them and slowly, over the course of this past year, that is what he had begun to do. The war effort had turned into a vengence quest and he used every excuse he found to justify his actions whether they contradicted each other or not. He didn't want kids in his faction because they weren't good weapons. But he didn't want to disillusion them either because, again, they might not be good weapons.
He wanted the yeerks dead even though he could acknowledge that most of them were probably innocent bystanders. But those innocent bystanders, by being parasites and by coming here had started an war that had killed his family. He used his faction to cause damage, which he was growing increasingly good at, but he had completely lost sight of what he was fighting for.
He hadn't thought about it in so long, just mindlessly fought battle after battle, that it had just gotten lost somewhere. What did he believe? Were they doing something wrong by killing the yeerks in the pool? And did he care if it was wrong or not? He thought he did, he at least had that. He still cared whether he was doing the right thing even if he didn't know what that right thing was.
And more, who could he talk to about it? Matt wasn't here and he had aliented Ember so that pretty much left him friendless though it was hard to be friends with his faction anyway. They all saw him as the leader, as the responsible one. He couldn't, for one moment, tell them that he was having doubts about how they were fighting because then they would doubt every decision he'd make.
And he was resisting the urge to continue talking to Suji about it. Even though she was an outside element she still had to believe in him enough to follow through on the plan. Besides she didn't even know him.
He wanted Matt. He wanted Raven. He wanted Bryan. But none of them were here and he couldn't do anything about that. All he could do was fight the next battle. And that was something he was good at....maybe too good.
He stared at the map. "We should put you and Luce somewhere around here," he said pointing to the spot. "It was originally the place I planned on launching our attack from anyway. There is a cave like cliff there. It is really too shallow to be called a cave but the explosive can be stored there and it will provide cover for the ground team, hopefully enough that they won't be seen from the air right away. Once they call in someone to take you guys out, probably a bug fighter or something of similar size, you guys will have to make a run for it and leave whatever you didn't use because there is no way to carry it with any speed."
He pointed to the place where the yeerks had put their tower. "By that time, if everything goes according to plan this thing will be gone. But since nothing ever goes according to plan I'd fly a large circle around here if you can. We don't want some random controller getting a lucky shot off at you."
He turned his attention back to the dam itself. That was really the hard part. If he got what he wanted then it would be destroyed but he knew that to stay and try to take it out might be stretching their non-existent luck. "Do you think the explosions in the water would have put enough strain on the dam structure that a few well placed charges would take it down?"
Suji:
The conversation had taken a definite turn towards the better when they just got down to strict planning. Suji didn't have to worry about figuring out the puzzle that was Rian's morality (if it could even be called that), and could instead work with the puzzle that was envisioning a strong, feasible plan. She'd quickly dropped out of trying to figure him out, and got to work.
They exchanged ideas back and forth, and by now Suji had her own map drawn, a pretty accurate scale figure of the blueprints. She'd written down some of the notes that Rian told her from their recent patrols, as well as thoughts on positioning and timing. It was a lot of work, but it wasn't hopeless; quite the contrary, the longer they worked, the more confident Suji felt. The more the plan, the details, all starting singing to her again. If you wanted to see the big picture, you had to step out of the frame, and Suji was good at that. And the big picture, right now, for all its flaws (and she saw them clearly too) was heartening almost to the point of euphoria: they could do this.
Rian talked about leaving the explosives and flying an arc, and Suji nodded. Obvious things that he didn't need to tell her, but it was better to be on the same page anyway. Then he asked her a very good question, and Suji sat back for a moment, pulling her hair back and then rubbing the back of her neck. "The strain of all that water sloshing around with nowhere to go will definitely put it under a lot of pressure. I think that along with the charges, we would certainly be able to crack it. And even if that isn't enough to immediately bring the whole thing down--maybe it would take minutes, maybe it would take months--it would be enough damage that the Yeerks would have to double-time on repairing it if they wanted to rebuild in that same spot. But if we're bombing the pool anyway, I don't know how likely that is.
The short answer, is yes, I think it'd be enough. And it might also be the best way to cover our tracks, if we can manage to get clear enough before blowing the charges."
Rian:
"That's good. Now we just have to figure out how to get the charges in there. And of course we have to figure out all the ways this can go wrong and try to plan for them," he said motioning towards the plan they had just been coming up with for an hour. "Ok, so how about if we try to figure out all the ways the yeerks would protect this dam since they have to know we're coming."
He looked at the map but he wasn't really seeing it. "They'll definitely have teams on the dam itself. They are there already, we've seen them." He closed his eyes and tried to put himself in the other player's head as if he was only playing another Diplomacy game. "They'll have teams everywhere but if I was a yeerk how would I trap animorphs? We show up we....what? How would we attack? How do they think we'd attack? If they don't know we have access to eplosives we'd have to take out the people in charge of the project who would be on the dam. We'd also have to try to throw the floodgates, maybe drain the lake. So they'll have security on the flood gates which means a hell of a lot of back up to call on anyone who takes on the dam itself which will be team one. The next easiest target is the tower and the best way to get to the tower is through the air so they'll have some sort of air defense, sharp shooters on the upper levels maybe. So maybe we send in team two undercover. But they will be screening everyone. There is no way we'll-" he stopped and his eyes opened.
"We need to be there before the opening. We need to be inside already. If we take out the tower we'll have a second shot at the lake. A bad, most likely suicidal second shot but without a generator there is no yeerk pool so if all else fails we can come back another day and try again, if we survive the first one that is. But they'll have security all over the pool and there will be no way to fake having a yeerk if you don't actually have one."