In the last month, since the Watchdogs raised violent objections to the Asgardians literally making their new home out in the Pacific and turned Los Angeles into a war zone, with the National Guard coming in, only to discover a large part of their ranks and the LAPD were also Watchdogs, they’ve come to the Church because it has armed guards, one of them wielding Fistigons, plus a literal alien and a human-alien hybrid, who can actually keep them off the grounds. They left their own refuge because, Karolina said, there were a bunch of people needing protecting, and now they’re probably going to have to smuggled out of the country when this is over.
Services are going on right now. Leslie never attends anymore. Everyone’s stopped asking. As she sits in what was once Jonah’s room, nursing the second child he got her with, she can hear the Coruscation as if from a distance. It almost drowns out the far more distant sound of gunfire-not near the Church, she thinks, at least not today.
Her son finishes nursing, and goes to sleep. His face glows slightly, though it doesn’t change color. Leslie fears it’ll be impossible to keep his abilities concealed from the authorities. Back when Karolina was a kid, noone was looking.
He’s sleeping soundly in his crib when the din’s died down, undisturbed even when there’s a quiet knock, and Vaughn softly calls out her name. Leslie takes a deep breath, steeling herself to leave the peace of her chamber.
Aura and Frances both died with the crowd, but they’ve been replaced by two women that seem so much like them Leslie has to repeat their names to herself: Katherine and Olga. They’re with him, holding a lot of papers. “Finances? Supplies?” Leslie guesses. “Give me the sum-up.”
“Money’s not the problem,” says Vaughn, “getting things here is. We’ve got so many people now staying on Church grounds some of them are going to be sleeping out in the hallways. We could afford to feed them all pretty generous rations, except Katherine here did some calls and nobody in this area is open. The Guard’s pretty much gotten the northern part of the city under control, but unless they can bring an end to the fighting here within the next four days, we’re going to be in the trouble.”
“And that’s if we keep getting running water,” Olga adds. “There’s a man came in today saying the Watchdogs are looking the cut that off in parts of the city.”
“How far north?” Leslie asks. At least it sounds like the Guard’s making genuine progress.
“Top of Brentwood and Bel-Air as of the morning news,” Vaughn answers. “But it doesn’t sound like they’re going to be down here much before next week at best.”
“Let me look at the numbers.” A few minutes of perusing the papers, and she says, “We’re going to do stricter rationing, enough to last us at least six days. If it doesn’t look like the Guard is going to bail us out by then, we’re essentially going to have to assemble an armed party to go out there and forage for whatever large caches of edible material they can find.”
“If I may,” Vaughn ventures, “we have four people here with experience at that sort of thing…”
“No,” Leslie cuts him off. “I’m not sending the kids out there. It’s bad enough Molly keeps sneaking out to fight Watchdogs on her own.” She’s not sure how old Xavin is, or how long it takes her species to mature, but she too seems too young in her behavior.
“You let them defend the grounds,” Katherine points out. “You even let Gert keep her fancy hand blasters…”
And that’s something that helps keep her up at night. “I…we really haven’t had a choice there; the Watchdogs have kept their distance recently because Karolina, Xavin, and Gert intimidated them enough. There hasn’t even really been the opportunity to get anyone else trained up in the use of the Fistigons; they’re trickier than they look.” That last sentence isn’t the entire truth, but she’s not going to tell these women what Gert truly thinks of them and everyone else who works for the Church, to the point that she refuses to share.
“And we may not have a choice here, either,” Vaughn says gently. “The truth is, Mrs. Dean, your kids spent months out on their own. They’ve got experience in doing things the rest of us don’t. You know they’ll probably want to go, too.”
And not necessarily come back one day, if they keep doing it. Leslie knows they’re not going to stay here forever; it’s too late for that. But if she’s going to lose Karolina for good soon, that’s not how she can bear to do it.
Even if, in the end, she may have to agree to it, Leslie refuses to today. “Let’s start seeing who among the adult professionals are willing to do this first. Also, I want to take stock of our bottled water, and also our batteries and battery-powered objects; the Watchdogs already knocked the power out in this city once, after all.”
“Also,” says Vaughn, “there’s one more thing. Right after the Coruscation, I got approached by a guy who says he wants to talk to you. I’ve never seen him here before, and he’s got what looks like some sort of really high-tech bionic eye. He says his name is Mike Peterson.”