“It took some convincing, but my uncle gave me the communicator. I pushed the button and asked for you, and like magic, here you are.”
“Jacks . . . I . . .” I look around, wishing I had some privacy to speak with him. How do I explain how much I missed him and how often I thought about him? “I’m so glad you’re okay. I was scared you didn’t make it.”
“I had to keep myself safe. I knew it was my only chance of seeing you again.”
My face goes red. Everyone in the room is staring at me, listening. Brenna’s still bouncing up and down, asking to talk to him. “Jacks,” I say, “Brenna’s dying to talk to you. Hold on.”
I take the earpiece out of my ear to hand it to her, but my mother takes it from my hand and plugs a wire from her computer into it. “Speaker,” she explains. “Go ahead.”
“Jacks,” I say loudly, “Brenna is here too.”
“Jacks!” she shouts. “I’m really happy you didn’t die.”
“Me too.” He laughs. “I don’t know how things are there for you, but there are a lot of people here who are scared. We don’t have any food, and people are afraid to leave the walls.” He’s quiet for a second, then he asks, “Are you coming back, Amy?” There’s a hint of desperation in his voice.
“Jacks . . . I can’t.” I look at Baby, twirling her hair around her finger. She doesn’t tug it out, though. I can’t go anywhere. She needs me. “But you can come here. You can all come here.”
“Amy,” my mother begins, “I don’t know if we can accommodate—”
“We can make room,” Rice says.
My mother’s shaking her head. “But all at once? And who knows what kind of people they are. And the diseases—we’ll have to test each one to make sure they’re healthy. I don’t know if this is the right time.”
Brenna has turned on my mother, her expression darkening. “Whoa, whoa, whoa: ‘Who knows what kind of people they are’? What kind of people are you, lady?”
“Mom,” I say, stepping between them. But I feel as angry as Brenna sounds. “Are you hearing yourself? What, you’re worried they won’t live up to New Hope’s standards?” I give my head a sharp shake. “Yes, there are hard cases in Fort Black. Criminals, when it comes down to it. That useless vaccine that Doc was distributing didn’t help either; it made people more violent. But if they don’t have to fight to survive, they may not want to fight at all. If there are troublemakers, we can ID them, work with them. Jacks can help us with that. But I can tell you, there are a lot of good people in Fort Black. Maybe they’re hardened, but they had to be to survive.”
“I have to think about what’s right for New Hope,” she says, but softly, as if she’s talking to herself. I can see she’s hearing me, at least. Thinking.
“Of course you do,” Rice says quietly. “But we can agree that New Hope needs to change, can’t we?” When my mother nods, he says, “I think we need to open up to people, starting tonight. Now. Starting with this question, about bringing the Fort Black people in, helping them. Give people the whole picture, tell them what we think is the right thing to do.” He shrugs. “I think we can trust them to want to do it.”
“That’s asking a lot of them, isn’t it?”
She’s been insulated in her lab for so long, she has no idea what regular people are like, how they feel, what they’re capable of. I have to make her understand.
“Mom,” I say, “believe me, the people in Fort Black have dealt with a lot worse. And they still are. There are sick, frightened people there. We can’t turn our backs on them.”
For a long moment, my mother and I look at each other, into each other. And then she nods, just perceptibly. “We can downsize the Ward,” she says, “move people who need medical attention there. Start with them.” She nods again. “We can make this work.”
“The Guardians can run supplies out to Fort Black,” Kay says. “Any medical staff who wants to treat them. Then we can start shuttling people here.”
“How does that sound?” I ask Jacks. “Do you think people would want to come here? Do you want to come here?”
“I don’t know, Amy. . . . I haven’t left Fort Black in a long time. I . . . don’t know if I can.”
“Even to be with me?” I ask, uncertain. Rice gives me a sharp look, but I don’t care anymore who else hears. “I have to take care of my sister. You know that. But I want to be with you. If you want to be with me, it has to be here,” I tell Jacks.
There is a long pause. Then, quietly, Jacks replies, “Okay. I’ll come. But what about everyone else in Fort Black? What if they don’t want to move?”
“We won’t make them leave, but it’s safer here.” I look at my mother. “Or it will be. Won’t it?”
“We’re going to try.”