The Deathless Trilogy

3.19. Bow Down to Gunther Quail

This morning there was a riot in the cafeteria. The Deathless may be a family, but we're dysfunctional. A group of the new Deathless from the estate marked the Originals' uniforms with orange asterisks, which sparked a fight and brought the entire cafeteria into the chaos.

The soldiers gathered up the instigators, and now Mom, Declan, and I face them in the emptied cafeteria.

"Legislator Blume, we were only trying to stand up for you, for what happened to you," Jane says. She is among the perpetrators of the riot, as is Meg. "Isla, you know what we were trying to do. Right?"

All eyes zip toward me. "I know what you were trying to do Jane, and I appreciate it."

I can tell that Mom and Declan tense at this. I don't agree with them letting the Originals back on the Immortal, but the anger has passed. I have to stand with them now.

"But marking the Originals and starting a fight over it is unacceptable." One of the first things Dr. Patel ever said to me pops into my head. "The Deathless doesn't harm survivors."

Jane appears hurt, like I've betrayed her. Meg butts in, "I need to trust the people I fight beside."

"And you will. You didn't trust me at first either, Meg."

My mom hits her metal arm against the table where we sit. "It doesn't matter. The war isn't about me or Isla, it isn't about you, it isn't about the Originals. It's about all of us if we aren't together, we will fail. The fighting amongst ourselves stops now. You will learn to trust each other or you will be the reason we lose."

Her words echo over the empty room before Declan pushes his glasses up the slant of his nose, and says, "This is a warning for all present. If you continue to fight, we will be forced to take drastic measures. Legislator Blume is right, we have to be together on this." He passes his eyes over the crowd of Deathless, some with orange asterisks on their uniforms, and some without. "Continue to your normal posts. We don't want to hear about any more trouble from any of you."

The rioters hang their heads and skulk out of the room. As she passes, Jane says me, "The mark. It's a tiger lily. For you. We're your army, Isla."

"Thank you," I whisper in reply.

Once they've cleared the cafeteria, my mom whispers to Declan and me, "We need to talk. Let's go to the Captain's dining room." She marches off, and Declan and I hurry behind to keep up. She locks the huge wooden door behind her, and we sit on the sofas in the corner of the room, surrounded by Declan's painted words to calm me.

Mom holds her new arm to her chest and catches her breath. "Right here, right now, we are going to get everything out," she says, "whatever is bothering us, whatever we're going through. No judgements, no anger, just honesty. That's how we work and we're not leaving this room until we are all honest with each other."

We sit there in the locked room, without anyone to look to us and without anyone in our heads, and allow ourselves to speak honestly with one another.

Declan finally allows himself to cry openly for Hugh. He talks about his fears for leadership, his still dominant assumption that he isn't good enough to lead, and about how this assumption keeps him from truly embracing his position.

Mom opens up about what she said about her arm when she was loopy from her medicine. She talks about how the world's end has tried to take nearly everything away from her, and now, she's even losing control over her body. She's angry and upset, and she's out for blood.

And then I admit to everything that's going on in my brain.

For the first time since before we went to the bunker, when we were just a Botanist, his trainee, and a mechanical trainee, we are just three people sitting together and sharing. Friends share stories, and we as a group, return to our core: friends and family members.