Terry had been watching Ellie talk with the operations centre. He seemed to be becoming nervous. He seemed to be wondering if he’d made the right decision.
“You said you’d help us,” he said to her, when she broke the comm connection.
“I know,” she said.
“You said you’d help us if I helped you.”
“Yes, I know. I’m working out how much I can help.”
Terry just looked at her. He seemed a little disappointed.
“This is different to what I thought,” Ellie said. “An attack, involving one of our own. That’s bad.”
“Yes.”
“It’s far worse than I thought. It’s worse than a random kidnapping.”
“It is. That’s why we need your help.”
“I’ll help,” Ellie said. “I’m helping. As much as I can. I’m just working out how much that is.”
“But…” Terry said.
“Quiet,” Ellie said. “Let me think.”
Behind Ellie, Sameh said, “We need to secure this area.”
“I know,” Ellie said.
“We need to move, to go after the kid.”
Ellie nodded.
“We need to go now,” Sameh said.
“Yes,” Ellie said. She knew. They had to move, but first Ellie had to decide what to do with Terry and his friends. She couldn’t just leave them here, able to contact the rest of their organization and pass on warnings. Or to make trouble for the next debt recovery team that came along. She needed to do something with them, but she wasn’t sure what. She either had to have them all arrested, which they wouldn’t like, or she had to kill them, which they really wouldn’t like. She was stuck, though. She couldn’t see any other possibilities.
“Here’s the problem,” Ellie said to Terry. “You’re hostile, and I’m badly outnumbered, and I need you contained while we go after this kid. So I really need to call in backup and have you all arrested.”
Terry looked at her. “You promised…”
“I said I’d help,” Ellie said. “I didn’t promise.”
“This isn’t helping.”
“It’s that or kill you all,” Ellie said. “Which would you prefer?”
He didn’t answer.
“Seriously?” Ellie said, a little surprised.
“You said you’d help,” Terry said.
“This is me helping. Arrested isn’t the same as dead.”
“It might as well be.”
Ellie wondered about that. She thought, then realized. “Oh,” she said. “Because you all have some pretty serious debt by now?”
Terry didn’t answer, but she could see it on his face.
Ellie sighed. She understood. Everyone in Terry’s group would have debt, either because they’d joined the group in the first place fleeing it, or because they’d incurred it after joining to make a point. They would all have debt, which meant everyone in the group would be heading to forced-labor workhouses if they were arrested.
She understood why he was upset, and she could see it was a concern for him, but she also didn’t especially care. She needed to worry about her own operation.
“Your debt is really your problem,” she said. “I’ll try. I’ll do my best, but there’s a limit to what I can do.”
“You don’t have to arrest us. You could just leave us here and go.”
“I can’t.”
“You could leave that drone to watch us.”
“I’m going to,” Ellie said.
“So then leave it here, and go. Instead of bringing in the recovery corporation to arrest us.”
Ellie shook her head. “I need longer. I need days. I need to get to Los Angeles and find the kid. The drone gives me hours, but sometime pretty soon, like in the next few hours, you’ll work out how to disable it, or how to get someone out past the sensor net to start warning your friends.”
“Not in hours.”
“Then in days. But eventually you will. And it doesn’t really matter how long it actually takes because I can’t take the chance, anyway.”
Terry nodded slowly. “Is it worth saying I’ll give you my word we’ll stay here and not move?”
“Word is word,” Ellie said. “It doesn’t mean very much, does it?”
“Mine does.”
“Says you.”
“Miss, I’m telling you I’ll keep my word, and I’ll make sure the others do too.”
“I want to trust you,” Ellie said.
“You can.”
Ellie thought. Behind her, Sameh was probably glaring at the back of her head, but Ellie didn’t turn around to check.
Ellie thought, then she shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I want to, but I can’t believe you. I need to protect my operation. It’s difficult, but this has to be better than being killed. Arrest is…”
“Arrest and slavery.”
“Yes. But arrest, and you live. That has to be better than dead.”
Terry looked around at the other militia. They all looked at each other.
“Kill us,” someone said. “And we’ll die heroes…”
“Don’t be an asshole,” Ellie said to him. “I’ll kill your families too.”
“All the same,” that man said.
“I’ll kill you if you really want me to,” Ellie snapped at him. “But just you. You personally. Otherwise quiet down.”
She looked back at Terry. She thought. She didn’t especially like this either, but she couldn’t see another way.
“It’s up to you,” she said. “Which do you prefer? Arrested or dead?”
Terry opened his mouth. The man who wanted to be a hero did too.
“Actually,” Ellie said tiredly. “Don’t answer that.” She had a nasty suspicion what they might say.
Terry shrugged, but stayed quiet. He seemed resigned, perhaps a little hopeless.
“A workhouse isn’t that bad,” Ellie said. “You’ll be released eventually. And the debt-indenture system could change, so that’s something to hope for.”
“It won’t,” Terry said. “It hasn’t in years.”
Ellie sighed again. She was just trying to help, but she supposed he was right.
She looked at Terry and thought. This was all starting to get very complicated, and the complications here were clouding everything else she needed to do.
“I’ll kill you if you truly want me to,” she said. “I will. You just need to say. But think for a while before you go saying that, because it’s a pretty final decision.”
Terry nodded slowly.
“I mean it,” Ellie said. “Say so and I will. Because believe me, it would make everything easier for me, as well.”
Terry thought about that, and Ellie watched him, thinking herself, trying to decide what to do.
She had a plan. She had a better plan than she’d had until now, because she finally had a way to get what she actually wanted. What she wanted wasn’t a successful retrieval operation. That was only her short-term focus. What she really wanted, what was most important, was to get her daughter back.
Ellie wanted Naomi back, and now, finally, she might have the leverage to do it.
If she wished to use it, she had leverage.
She hadn’t actually found the missing kid yet, but now she knew where to look. And at the moment, right at that moment, she was the only one who did.
That was why she hadn’t mentioned Los Angeles to the operations center. That was why she’d been glad the comms were silent.
Right now, she was the only one who knew where to find the missing kid, or at least, the only one who wasn’t a part of a debt-resistance militia, since Terry and his group knew too.
Ellie had thought about that. She was still thinking about that.
Right now, for a short time, she had intel that no-one else had. She had it until the backup teams began to appear, and the interrogation of Terry’s people began.
Then she lost her leverage, and was back to begging for Naomi’s life.
She didn’t have to let that happen, though. She had a way out. If she killed all of the militia, and burned the compound, silencing everyone else who knew and destroying every trace of evidence, then she would have a great deal more leverage, for a great deal longer.
It was what she ought to do.
It was the sensible, practical, rational thing to do, and she was wondering if she should. She was thinking hard, feeling guilty, trying to talk herself out of it, and into it as well, and Terry and his friends nagging her about how death was better than debt-servitude, that really didn’t help.
She should kill everyone here. She knew she should. She should use the leverage she suddenly had, and get Naomi back. She didn’t know why she was hesitating.
She knew why. It was an awful thing to do, to murder all these people.
It was awful, but she might actually have to do it.
This wasn’t about fairness and kindness any more. This was about family, and what she owed Naomi, and that she ought to try and save Naomi at all costs, no matter the price other people had to pay.
Because if Ellie was the only one who knew where the kid had gone, and who knew what the kid was planning, then she could probably get Naomi back.
So she stood there, thinking, trying to decide if she could actually do it.
Sameh could. Sameh would, if Ellie asked her to, Ellie knew that.
Sameh would, but Ellie wasn’t sure she wanted that. So she thought, wishing there was another way.