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Writer's pictureJ. Joseph

Justifying Our Actions and Inactions

One should never doubt what, when any normal person is driven too far from their normal world, they are capable of doing. Capable of justifying. Not that we’re necessarily normal. I’d never deign to say that. But I feel, most of what we did is almost certainly the same or pretty darned close to what any normal person would do. Both before and after Mitchell’s ordeal. And I’d argue, most of it is perfectly justified. After all, we needed to do it all. For our survival, and to ensure everyone’s future.

Our whole world changed over the course of a few days, and it all started with the explosions. They were approaching us from the north and south, from the cities I’d guess, while I was hanging out with some friends at a weird frat party. Didn’t know the frat that well, but they had alcohol for us hot people. A bunch of the others in attendance, those people I barely knew, were fascinated by it, wanted to see what was happening. I had a bad feeling, a pit in my stomach. But, I was also very drunk at the time, so I kind of half attributed it to a bad drink mix and didn’t say anything as a bunch of guys and gals went to see the pretty lights. That was still when things were pretty close to my normal world. Because of that fact, I’m pretty sure some part of me blames myself for what happened to most of them. Which was a nice crisping. Sorry, I refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of certain things sometimes, they died horribly, likely from shock, as they were burned by the explosions expanding across the interstate and rail systems. Those of us who were more sensible, or weren’t feeling good enough to wander the several blocks over to where the booms were happening, were pretty confused. In our defense, we were college students and it was nighttime, very few of us were exactly in a sober state of mind. And so most of us went to sleep that evening in the dark, both literarily and literally.

The next day when I woke up without power and wandered around, I noticed a few things. Classes are cancelled when the power’s out for more than twelve hours, and I round up. But so, it seemed, did the staff. The coffee shop and the cafeteria were both closed. So a bunch of us wandered into town. That’s when people started to figure out what happened. At least a bit about it. And, of course, at the drop of a hat a certain group of students decided to take this as an opportunity to live out their fantasies of being a murderous conqueror of the peasantry, without a need to worry about silly laws. They grabbed whatever they could and each started to try singlehandedly slaughter the townies. I knew we would need to work together to succeed, but how was I going to pull that shit off? I also knew that, with the college kids attacking the townies (even if it’s only a certain type of college kid), it was probably only a matter of time before the freedom loving townies struck back. So I returned to campus to figure out how to get enough people working together to survive.

Here begins my justifications. I needed smart people, preferably at least some smarter than me, and athletes that could be relied upon not to suddenly decide to take part in that whole purging-the-poors lifestyle. And you see, my normal friends, I liked them well enough. But they weren’t really smart or athletic enough to be that helpful. I was a tutor, though, and a group of my tutees were on the basketball team. And, teaming up with a fellow tutor, I told her to bring her group of track stars tutees. Together, the nine of us went off into a frat house slightly isolated from the town and the middle of campus. One who’s actual residents I knew were off getting themselves killed playing Rambo. Anna and I got to work on making sure we were secure with fences and traps while the others gathered up as much food as they could.

It was a week or so in that we met with Tim. Also a tutor, we knew each other from those meetings. Not that we talked much. He’d had a similar idea, though he got a bunch of Ag students too. Tim is that kind of long-term thinker, and much less of a normal person than I am. And that’s saying something. His group were living out of a pair of RVs that they’d found. Whereas we had our traps and isolation for defense, he had the clever idea of scavenging the gear of the violent dead to help protect them. Which made the ten college kids living together in tight quarters on the campus’s central parking lot some of the most well-armed people in the area. We worked together for a while, separate but united, but eventually one too many stray bullets hitting their RVs made them decide to migrate to our house. And that made us the most secure square of territory on campus. We also got ourselves a small garden that grew some fresh vegetables for us.

As time passed, we turned away many people who would put too much of a strain on our food supply. When some engineering students came by, Tim gave me one of his looks. He had some insane idea. Then he nodded to Rob, who was on watch, and Rob let the group of kids in. Jalen began to show them around. Rob and Jalen may have originally been a part of my group, but by now we all saw Tim and I as equals. I led Tim into a side room and looked back at him, expectantly.

Tim looked around, to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “We need them, Louise,” he began, then explained himself, “When I went out last time, things were becoming more stable out there. But no less violent. While I love what you’ve done with the fence and the traps, I mean they’ve kept us safe thus far…”

“You’re afraid they won’t be enough?” I posit.

Tim nods. “Not right now, of course. They should be enough for a good bit. But tracking the visiting groups numbers and frequency, I don’t think there will be anyone not working with one of the so-called warrior groups, or for, or whatever is happening in those crews. Not about four months.”

I nod back. “And once that happens, they’ll turn their attention to either us or the townies.”

“Townies have been stiff competition for them thus far. While we are mostly the nerds they knew back in the day. Unless we make this place look intimidating to attack at.”

His logic made sense. It generally does. Mathematicians tend to be pretty good at logicing out problems. And so, over the course of the next couple weeks, our house became a castle. Not a great, scary looking castle. Hell, not even a particularly strong and reinforced castle. But it still looked scary and secure enough to make people hesitant. And, because of the protection provided, our garden expanded a little larger, which compensated okay for the extra four kids. All in all, a good investment. That was how I was thinking about saving people’s lives. That it was a good investment.

Then came Mitchell. I can’t say everything that happened. Alison, one of those engineering kids, left to get us all a much needed new source of coffee. Instead, she came back with some weird, malnourished kid who didn’t seem like he’d talked to anyone in ages. Tim deescalated and welcomed Mitchell. Who proceeded to continue not talking to anyone. He went into the garage and started to make something. Tim knew him, but I didn’t. So I kept an eye on him. Because he might do something that got us in trouble, I told myself. Everyone else probably thought he never left the garage all those months. But he did. Late at night he would sometimes slip out the back and head into town. Coming back with scraps, or tanks of gas, or some tools, he’d slip right back into the garage and keep doing his work. I didn’t exactly trust him, but he seemed intent to make whatever it was he was making.

Then he was done. He went to the attic and started to install his device. Connecting it to wires in the house, sticking something out the window. I had a suspicion what he was doing, but I had an idea. If that was what I thought it was, and everyone else around knew we had it, they might come after us. But then I started thinking like I figured Tim would think. We could hold them back when they came. Then it was only a matter of time before they would come to us as allies. No, not allies, something closer to um, what’s the word Anna used to say talking about history shit? Vassals. And so, I let it happen. Mitchel lit the spark of revolution, showing the world that we could turn the lights back on. Tim smiled, encouraging him. I gave Tim a nod. He clearly also saw what this could mean.

Before retiring for the evening, I made some time to talk to Tim. “You knew this would happen when you let him in, didn’t you?” I asked, though it was almost more of a statement than a question.

“Not this, no. Mitchell’s smarter than he even knows, though, and he survived all on his own for a month without leaving a trace, so I figured he’d do something.”

“Did you know about this?” I said, gesturing above me towards the no longer lit but still warm lights.

He smiled his cheesy grin and shrugged. “Today. But we needed them all to see it. To see that it was a possibility.”

I smile slightly, sigh, and nod. “I have to agree. Hopefully the hope of a future closer to the past will get those murder-crazed people out of power.”

“And help encourage everyone to work with us to craft a future.”

I shake my head at that. “Not just a future. Our future. A better future. That future you’ve been seeing since you were holding up in a couple RVs.”

“Exactly,” he says with a smile. And we went to rest the night. Because, like it or not, the moment we’d let Mitchell turn those lights on, we weren’t just a pair of tutors any more. We’d, in that momentary decision, turned ourselves into what we’d hated and fled from earlier. Sure, we probably weren’t going to try to kill as many people as they had, nor were we going to like it at all, but that doesn’t change the simple, irrefutable fact: in that moment, we decided to conquer this town. Oops.

Then the attacks began.Two groups came after us. We managed to drive them off, only killing a couple of people. Both were people I recognized as original agitators, so I told our shooters not to feel bad. Those were bad people that we’d stopped from killing more people. We then stripped them of weapons, ammo, and anything else useful, in case of another attack. But none came. Not against us. For months, we could hear the explosions and gunfire through the days and nights as all the informal alliances and warrior groups shattered. And they killed one another. Hundreds and hundreds dead, because of the revolution I, in part, let begin. And I felt no guilt about it. Because we were so far away from our normal world, it wasn’t our fault. It was their own fault. They made the decision. We simply were trying to bring things back to normal. Whatever it took, the consequences weren’t our fault. Because we were no longer just students, just young adults trying to live our lives. We were heroes of this land now. And heroes can’t be blamed for how others react to their heroics. Right?

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