Chapter 225 B4. 17.3 – Some Sense of Normalcy

Professor Gallagher discussed a topic I hadn’t considered could be a problem in the Madagascar situation—who would take the refugees? What were their rights and so on? I couldn’t recall any movie with Purple Blooms that deals with refugee issues. Mostly, refugee camps were just sites of more Adumbrae attacks.

“There is a balancing act here,” said Professor Gallagher. “The countries involved are signatories to the Convention on Refugees—countries of the Central African Union, the RSA, Madagascar, and France. However, all of them have reservations when it comes to Adumbrae-related refugees.”

“Reservations, professor?” asked Frank, the male news anchor for XYTV’s Good Morning California. “Can you tell us in simple terms about what this is?”

“A reservation is essentially a caveat to a treaty, in this case, the Convention on Refugees. This is a UN multilateral treaty. Sets out the rights of refugees and responsibilities of nations accepting them. However, almost all signatories have a reservation when it comes to REAs or ‘refugees escaping Adumbrae’.”

“And why is that?”

“The prevailing thought back then,” Professor Gallagher animatedly answered with his hands in gesturing in the air, “that continues to present times, is that people seeded by Adumbrae don’t have human rights. If refugees flee from an Adumbrae-ravaged country, it’s likely a number of them have been Seeded. Surrounding countries, intent on self-protection, wouldn’t want their hands tied in weeding out possible sources of Seeding outbreaks. Thusly, each country crafts its own rules to deal with this issue. And that’s where the problem comes in.”

“The problem of human rights,” Cecilia muttered.

“You wouldn’t know anything about human rights,” Deen snapped.

“I do,” said Cecilia. “I ignore them when science so dictates.”

“Quiet, you two,” I said before shoveling a slushy pile of ice cream into my mouth. Deen and Cecilia needed to stop bickering like children and behave as adults.   

“On one hand,” Professor Gallagher continued, “we have the CAU taking in the majority of refugees from Madagascar. Within the Union, they have their own procedures to reduce the possibility of a seeding outbreak. Just reduce. It’s almost a given that there will be Adumbrae among the refugees, as I’ve mentioned.

“The CAU’s stance is that refugees impliedly agreed to these procedures when they crossed the borders into mainland Africa. They didn’t have a choice, mind you. Where else would they go? On the other hand, we have the French accusing the Union that their procedures are too harsh.”

“There are claims that refugees are summarily executed,” said Lisa, the other news anchor.

“What choice did the CAU have?” Cecilia asked, gesturing with her beaker at the TV.

“They can choose not to kill innocents,” Deen said. “They can choose to save lives instead of ending them.”

I almost did a double-take at Deen. At this point, I was wondering if this was a comedy sketch she was doing. Couldn’t she notice the irony in her words and previous actions? But she seemed completely serious.

“I won’t deny that there might be innocents among those killed,” said Cecilia. “Collateral damage is unavoidable. Consider this—the military detects an Adumbrae in a crowd. The military couldn’t tell the Adumbrae to politely move away so they could kill it without any human casualties. Strike immediately before the Adumbrae realizes what was happening.”

“I know that,” Deen said. “But there has to—”

“You guys can’t really quiet down, huh?” I pretended to type some notes to appear more responsible than Deen. I should’ve watched the news in my room, free from distractions caused by a blonde hypocrite and a cannibal mad scientist.

“The League of European Nations has its own rules for REAs,” said Professor Gallagher, “and France wants to implement them in processing refugees from Madagascar. The French government asserts that since Madagascar is a French Protectorate, they have control of its foreign interactions. This is a very tenuous argument as the concept of protectorates hasn’t been historically extended to policy in relation to refugees, be it from war, political persecution, or Adumbrae attacks. And the more important consideration is that this is the territory of the CAU. State sovereignty, and so on.”

What do I say here? I loudly tapped my fingers on my laptop’s keyboard, a reminder to Deen and Cecilia to shut up. I understood the basics of what Professor Gallagher was talking about, but I didn’t know enough about the topic to delve into the legalistic side of it. 

Should I research the Convention on Refugees since we had the whole day to work on this assignment? Of course not. I wasn’t going to put that much effort into getting a good grade when I didn’t even know if I’d make it to the end of the semester.

So many people wanted me dead.

Anyway, I had an idea of how Professor Gallagher’s mind worked. I was certain that he didn’t actually care if we gave a law-based analysis since we hadn’t discussed this in class. We were just supposed to give our impressions anyway. Recalling how he liked my no-nonsense response about Corebrings not being bound by the law, in practice, I decided to go that route and provide a ‘realistic’ reflection.

An hour later, I had a big pile of word vomit, hot and fresh from the oven. Essentially, I discussed some stuff about the Union being the one taking in the refugees, so their land, their rules. A childish answer, but that was oftentimes the case in International Law. 

The thing was, even if a country did the wrong thing, other countries couldn’t do anything. Impose sanctions, and it’d make the situation worse. Moreover, it wasn’t like the complaining countries would accept the refugees.

I also pointed out that the League would have a very different view if the Purple Bloom cropped up in Europe—it’d also implement draconian measures as well, especially if the Purple Bloom hadn’t been found in nearly a month already. Incredibly basic, but this was the type of realistic discussion Professor Gallagher wanted to read instead of something legalistic.

Proofreading. Some cosmetic touches.

And send.

“Are you done?” Deen asked.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “How did you know?”

“You’re eating ice cream while watching a movie on your laptop. As if you could make it even more obvious.”

“Hey, it’s not that obvious. What if I’m resting my brain while watching a movie? And don’t peek at other people’s screens. That’s an invasion of privacy.”

“Erind, we should take our studies seriously,” Deen said, donning a motherly frown. “Our real life anchors our humanity. If we give it up—”

“I know, I know,” I cut in, not wanting to hear another lecture from her. “Why are you bothering me? You don’t know what to write?”

Deen sighed. “I’m drawing a blank.”

“Don’t force yourself to write if you’re not in the mood. Continue that later. Think of something else. Hmmm… What if we did some planning for our to-dos? Wait here.” I rushed to my room to get my empty corkboard. Then I got my notepad and some pins. “Gather ‘round, gather ‘round!”

“What is that?” Deen asked, closing her laptop’s lid.

“A corkboard,” I said.

“What for?”

“I figured that we need some organization in our lives. What’s our most immediate goal? Hunting the PCM cop, right?” I scribbled on a pink note and pinned it on the upper left corner of the corkboard. “And to do this, our first step is to visit Marlon later for information. What other things do we need to do?”

Cecilia raised her hand. “Return to my lab at Barstow. Body maintenance. Also, I’ll analyze your Cores and make a sufficient covering for them.”

“We’re making good progress on our list,” I said, writing on another note. I really wanted to fill up this corkboard with plans.

“Can we buy burner phones on the way to Marlon?” Deen asked. “We should be able to contact each other when doing separate missions.” She was probably miffed she couldn’t check on me when I went to the roost.

I added more and more notes to the corkboard. I tasked Cecilia with looking for information about the Project Defiance that Agent Matt, the four-armed BID agent, had mentioned. It may be connected to Dario’s organization. We’d also ask Marlon about this later.

“He’ll ask us for information as payment,” Deen said. “What will we tell him?”

“Just spill about the artificial Cores,” I suggested. “That’ll make Marlon interested enough to help.”

For our plans regarding the 2Ms, I chose to write with a red pen. I’d cut some strings later to connect related notes, like Dario’s organization fighting the 2Ms. We discussed how to find Red Island, hence the red ink.  

“Why do we need to look for the Red Island?” Deen asked. “We have left Dario’s group—”

“Dario doesn’t know for sure just yet,” I chimed in.

“—and haven’t attacked the 2Ms since the docks,” Deen continued.

“Not counting last night,” I said. “Killing a client of the 2Ms probably counts as an attack.”

Deen grimaced, glancing at the fridge. She found the Adrian popsicles while looking for ice to put in her fresh fruit juice. “My point still stands. The 2Ms’ fight isn’t with us. If we look for Red Island, we’ll be the ones starting an unnecessary fight. Restarting the fight. What do we stand to gain here?”

“We might find some stuff on Red Island,” I said, “that can help Cecilia invent the cure to seeding.”

“Possible, possible,” said Cecilia. “I’m open to taking inspiration from the work of others. Furthermore, I’m extremely curious as to the processes employed by the scientists on Red Island to control seeding. I conjecture there’s a powerful Adumbrae like Euphonia assisting them.”

Deen groaned. “Great! Another strong Adumbrae as our enemy. I vote against looking for Red Island.” She gave me a thumbs down, as if she were an emperor of Rome judging a gladiator’s performance. I saw that in a movie, though I had read that the thumbs sign was actually a recent thing.

“Your vote is noted,” I said. “We’ll discuss this in the future. Here’s the pin holding up the Red Island note. And here’s another pin, signifying we’re putting a pin on this.”

I had resolved that I didn’t want to be cured. But I wanted to find Red Island to learn how the 2Ms turned people into Adumbrae. If Red Hood were to become a major player, a major threat to both Adumbrae and Corebrings, then I should be able to make minions.

For now, all I could manage was pretend I had a large organization. I wanted to make it a reality. With Cecilia’s help, I’d have Adumbrae of my own.

I’m really committing to this, aren’t I? I could rationalize this was for my survival. That I was forced into this situation by the dangers around me. Probably true. In the end, I just thought this would be fun.

And wasn’t that what mattered? 

I posted another note.

Deen squinted as she read, “Capture an Adumbrae in La Esperanza. What’s this about?”

“We need to find out what’s causing the continued Adumbrae attacks,” I said. “Is this the next phase of the 2Ms’ plans? Did this have something to do with Cecilia’s pills?”

“Or Red Hood might be involved,” Cecilia added.

I shrugged. “We’ll know once we capture an Adumbrae.” This was part of my plan to make my own Adumbrae.

“An Adumbrae in La Esperanza?” Deen disbelievingly asked, her voice rising. “Where BID agents and Corebrings are? This is another insane plan. Why do you care about the origin of these mystery Adumbrae?”

“You don’t?” A rare moment I could stand on the moral high ground and scoff at Deen below. “If we knew where they came from, we could stop them. Are you saying we’ll just let people die?”

“This isn’t our job,” Deen said. “Leave it to the BID agents.”

“But they don’t know about Cecilia’s pills,” I said.

“We’re not certain that I’m at fault,” said Cecilia with a flat tone. Part of her probably suspected she caused this.

“We can give an anonymous tip to the BID,” Deen said. “Nothing more. I won’t allow returning to La Esperanza unless we’re a hundred percent sure we’ll be safe.”

“I’m going to put a pin on this, too.” I fixed a yellow pin on the note.

Our last topic was Euphonia. We all agreed that we shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves, given that Euphonia thought Red Hood was her enemy.

“Can we do something that’ll make Euphonia think Red Hood did it?” I wondered. “Cultivate their enmity?”

“That counts as drawing attention to us,” Deen said. “What we’ll do is find the PCM cop.”

“And we circle back to our first note. I need to buy strings to connect these notes.” That was what I did. I had my mini-project, decorating my lovely corkboard, while Deen finished her paper.

Come evening, we headed to the Understrip to meet with Marlon. But we couldn’t immediately enter his clinic because he already had a visitor. We waited across the street until it was our turn.

“A member of the Tea Party,” Cecilia muttered, subtly nudging her head toward the man who had just left Marlon’s place.

The man’s metallic fists at the end of his leather sleeves glinted under the LED lights dotting the street. A metal mask shaped in a bear’s snout, with bared teeth carved on the sides, hid the lower half of his face. Looked very cool. He stomped away as if he owned the road.

“Have you met him before?” Deen asked.

“This is the first time I’ve seen him,” Cecilia replied. “But that type of mask is the garish fashion style of many members of the Tea Party.”

“Kind of weird,” I said. “How can they drink tea if they’re wearing masks?”

Deen looked at me. From the movements under her own masks, I could tell she was trying to suppress a smile. I doubted she thought that my little joke was funny. She probably thought my little tangent was adorable. She headed to the clinic, withholding any comment.

“What can I help you ladies with?” Marlon asked, twirling his chrome fingers. “I didn’t expect that you’d be back so soon.”

“I’ll start,” I said. “What did the Tea Party guy before us asked you?”

Marlon tutted. “You know I can’t divulge that. I value the privacy of my customers, including yours.”

“Well, thanks for that,” I said. “But you see, I have a feeling that we hold the answer to the Tea Party guy’s question. Yes. Red Hood is the start of it.”