I make my way out of what I learned was the City Council’s Executive Meeting Chambers and back into the main meeting hall, Chloe trailing just behind me. Giving the public a chance to speak has not mollified them in the slightest. If anything, the tension is thicker than pea soup, the pressure so intense that I’m surprised it hasn’t boiled over yet into actual physical violence.
At the speaker’s podium, there’s a man giving a passionate speech about responsibility. However, to my surprise, he’s not arguing in favor of responsibility to the United States, as I would have suggested. Instead, he’s arguing for responsibility for the community and one another over allegiance to a nationality or creed. That, rather than feeling obligated to support one side or the other based on some abstract sense of duty or morality, we should instead be taking a more consequentialist approach. What actions can all of us do in the here and now to minimize the number of lives lost in the wake of these new developments. And, in his
I… find myself nodding along almost imperceptibly to his words. It’s not something I’ve always been the best at. The Trolley Problem is a famous question of ethics for a reason. I’d say I’m no angel or saintess, but I am a [Mechanical Angel] and Chloe is a [Heavenly Saintess], so I guess that’s not an excuse. Still, I’m not confident that we’ve always chosen the best option in every situation. Just what we thought was best in the moment, including sometimes having to make tough decisions under heavy stress, with little time to weigh all the consequences to their fullest extent.
Most people aren’t in agreement with the man of about twenty-five. More than one person is outright jeering as he suggests that perhaps some sort of federation with the Legion is going to be beneficial for everyone in the long run. Still, his arguments make sense to me. Right now, while the world and humanity is at its precipice, we need as many strong fighters as possible to defend ourselves. We might not be allies with these individuals, but making an outright enemy of them is unwise. Particularly while we have so few capable fighters of our own, relatively speaking.
Of everyone in the chamber, it’s the Mayor himself who looks most haggard, sweat visible on the dress shirt underneath his gray blazer. He’s short of breath and he looks as though he’s about to doze off. At first, I’m worried he’s under the effect of some sort of disease or affliction, before I realize that he’s just under the effects of acute [Ether] strain. I suppose whatever he’s been doing to maintain some semblance of civility in the chamber is taking its toll on him.
“Alright, your time has expired,” one of the councilmembers says. “Please be seated.”
Two people call out ‘traitor’ and ‘no honor’ as he steps back into the overflow hallway, with another man taking the stage. He starts his speech with ‘My Fellow Americans’, particular emphasis on that last word, all of it spoken in such a thick southern drawl that I don’t know if it’s his real accent or one played up for the speech. Immediately, the gathered crowd in the audience goes wild.
For a bit, I don’t understand why there’s this much patriotism and support for the government of old. And then it hits me. This isn’t exactly a representation of our community at large. It’s overwhelmingly middle-age and older, with a great number of people dressed to the nines in suits, blouses, and other dress attire, rather than armor and Ethertech gear like Chloe and I are wearing. Even Nicholas had on some potent abjurations underneath his uniform.
All of their levels are low; I doubt any of them are even at Level 20, let alone past their first ascension. None of them carry with them the scars of battle, which seems to be why their posturing is so aggressive, so keen on provoking a conflict with a group that doesn’t necessarily need to be our enemy. It won’t be them, fighting on the front line. It won’t be them, faced with the burden of having to decide who lives and who dies. It sure as hell won’t be them petitioning for themselves to make sacrifices to make it any easier on those who’ll end up being conscripted into the actual fighting.
All in all, it makes me sick, hearing the appeals to patriotism and constant chanting from a group of people who had it so good in the previous world and are prepared to put other people’s lives on the line to get it back. And all the while, they’re patting themselves on the back because they are upholding the principles of ‘democracy’. Reminds me of the parable of two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.
Finally, the man— I hope he’s the last of them, for the sake of civility— finishes his speech, earning a maelstrom of applause and hooting and hollering. Every fiber of my being wants to fly out in front of the whole crowd and chew them out for being a bunch of damn chickenhawks. But, for the sake of civility and decorum, I hold my tongue for the time being, waiting until the proper time.
“Thank you,” the mayor says. “I believe that’s just about everyone who signed up to speak. Now then, I believe there are two other people who we need to hear from before we make a final decision. Would Seraphina Mortensen and Chloe Jacobs please come to the podium?”
This time, I let Chloe take the lead, following just behind her. The crowd is murmuring, questions about who we are and why we’ve been summoned here specifically. There are more than a few denigrating comments about how we’re ‘just children’ and don’t know what we’re talking about, about how we should let the ‘grownups in the room’ make the decisions. We’re ‘too young’ to make policy. But just the right age to fight and die for whatever decisions end up getting made.
Fortunately, however, I feel no compunction to effect their policy, and I can feel the disgust oozing off Chloe even without our bond coming into effect. At her unspoken insistence, I remain silent, allowing her to speak. And her words are spoken with a venom I don’t think I’ve ever heard from her.
“Show of hands,” she begins. “How many of you, sitting here today, have ever killed a person before? I don’t care if it was murder, manslaughter, justified self-defense, actions taken while in uniform— police, military, or otherwise— or anything else. I don’t care if it was pre-System or post-System. I won’t ask any of you to talk about the experience, nor will I ask anything else about the exact circumstance. I just want to know, how many of you here, cheering for war and violence and sending our soldiers out to fight and possibly die, have ever yourselves taken a human life.”
About a dozen hands go up.
“The rest of you, pipe down and shut up.”
A heckler starts clamoring at Chloe, and is promptly shut down as my girlfriend sprouts her [Etheric Wings] and hovers just off the ground. “When all of you are prepared to go out and fight the monster hordes, when you’re willing to put your lives on the line to defend everyone, rather than just ordering everyone else to, then I will give your words any weight. Until then, you are going to sit back down and be quiet.”
Chloe stares at a particularly foolish individual about four rows back, her chest glowing with a luster of gold. Immediately I step beside Chloe and take her hand in mine, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“You aren’t really going to use [Binding Soul Chains], are you?”
“No, but… damn me if I don’t want to. I think they were about to activate on my own not-at-all-buried desires though, my conscious decision not to be damned. So, thanks for stepping in.”
“Of course, love. I’m here to support you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for giving me the floor.” Chloe says, a gentle nod given to the members of the city council listening intently and a fierce glare for those in the audience who’ve not yet taken her words to heart.
“My name is Chloe Jacobs. If any of you here have been hospitalized in the past two months, or have had family members in one of the city’s hospitals, there’s a reasonable chance you’ve seen me running around, trying to use the healing magic I have to bring them back from the brink of death. Or perhaps, if you keep up with the local news, you recognize my partner, Seraphina, who was responsible for launching the final attack that destroyed the City Slayer a little over a month ago.”
I sprout my own wings, teal and mechanical. Immediately, the room breaks out into gasps. There are enough people with some sort of flight Skill that Chloe’s being about to sprout wings doesn’t immediately tip her off as my partner. But my wings have become something of a symbol, and their vibrant color makes them something of an anomaly among such abilities. Fitting, considering who and what I am. As such, the crowd immediately starts listening, realizing that there might just be a reason why the two of us had been summoned to speak here this morning.
“Let me tell you something,” Chloe says. “Fighting monsters out in the wilds, or over the streets… That’s hell. Going out there, knowing that you or someone you care about might not come back? I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. But fighting against humans? Taking their lives in the defense of your own or those of others? Somehow, that manages to be even worse.
“I’m not saying that those of you arguing for confrontation don’t have a point. I’m sure that tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, lost their lives in the events that happened in Washington and the surrounding area. There are no doubt millions more grieving sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, husbands and wives and partners, friends, and every other kind of family, biological and chosen alike. Were we in an ideal world, where justice was always served, where the righteous always prevailed and misdeeds were always punished promptly, then maybe we could talk about what that justice would look like.
“Time and time again, though, I have seen, and Seraphina here has experienced, that we do not live in that world. When you speak of justice, of punishing terrorists, that’s just wishful thinking. Not unless you are prepared to order tens of thousands of soldiers— people just like you, except they actually are fighting on the front lines so you can sleep peacefully each night— to try to bring about that end. Soldiers who are fighting day in and day out, risking and sometimes losing their lives against the monsters that are attacking our city each and every day. Have you stopped to consider what happens if they fail?”
She turns to the city council, staring directly at the mayor with a steady voice and pleading, passionate eyes. “Or what defenses you all will have, should you order these brave men and women two thousand miles away, likely with no hope of victory? All so you can preen about how patriotic you are?”
The crowd starts murmuring. Chloe isn’t convincing the entire crowd by a long shot. There are still plenty of people playing her words off, whispering about how allowing this injustice will only embolden the next. And I can’t fully dispute that line of argument, loath though I am to concede even the slightest point they make.
“So please. I know this world is unjust. I know this world is cruel. It always has been. Even if some of us, living in our privileged positions, have been blissfully ignorant of the injustices that have always plagued us. I beg of you, members of the council, Mr. Mayor. Please, do not compound one injustice with another. Do not throw more lives away in your grief, all in the name of a hollow justice that might not ever come.”