Fallback by Lori Whitwam

what if he ain’t who he says he is?” Gil Traynor asked. He sounded crankier about the situation than I thought he should be. Maybe it was because he’d been named to the radio post when Isaac was injured, but Marcus wasn’t letting anyone but himself near the radio until we got wherever we were going, leaving Gil nothing to do but find things to be unhappy about.
    “Hey, you haven’t been around that long, either, Traynor,” Theo said, his dark eyes flashing. “Where do we draw the line? How long do we have to wait, how many questions do we have to ask, before we take a chance—with some precautions, of course?”
    Gil didn’t have an answer for that, so the conversation continued. I glanced over to where Melissa and Faith were sitting on the porch steps, Skip between them. They were listening intently. Melissa . She was my priority, my perspective. I realized I had to factor what was best, what was safest for her, into any decisions. That would be my guideline.
    Javier Alvarado spent a lot of time in the countryside as a scout, and he raised another concern. “What if he’s a plant? What if the marauders have people scattered around, small groups, and when they see a chance, they drop one or two for us to find? Get on the inside, tell them where we’re going? Their best chance to take us is to hit us on the road.”
    “Well, he doesn’t know where we’re going, does he?” said John Kim, our other radio guy and security expert. “I don’t even know, and neither do you. Only Marcus does, and the escorts.”
    I looked at Marcus and saw him absently put one hand on the leather pouch hanging at his belt. I hoped nobody else had noticed. I suddenly had a strong feeling that’s where he had the map showing our destination. I trusted these people, I truly did. Mostly. It wasn’t smart to trust anyone completely these days. What if someone just got curious, but then got snatched by marauders? Anybody would tell what they knew, given the right motivation, whether pain or reward.
    The debate raged on for another half hour. Opinions ranged from Tyler being only slightly short of a messiah, destined to bring strength and prosperity to our group, to something in the neighborhood of the antichrist, there to rain death and destruction down upon our heads. Maybe he was the one who slaughtered a village somewhere.
    Things were getting ridiculous. Honestly, I thought some of the younger and more shit-stirring members of the group were throwing wild scenarios out there purely for entertainment purposes. It wasn’t like we had cable anymore. We were living the ultimate reality show.
    I scooted over to Melissa and Faith. “What do you girls think?”
    Melissa pushed Skip off her lap and pursed her lips, her gray eyes thoughtful. “I’m not sure. I mean, we can never be sure, can we?”
    “No, honey, we can’t.” It sucked, but there it was.
    Melissa looked at Faith, who gave her a nod. “I say he comes with us.”
    I hadn’t had any predictions of her reply, but wanted to know more. “Why?”
    Melissa met my eyes, something she once hadn’t been able to do with anyone. “He’s not familiar, but that doesn’t mean he’s bad. He can’t help it if he’s on his own. He’s not familiar to anybody anymore. Doesn’t mean he should be left by himself to get killed.”
    I nodded, considering. “That’s true. But if we don’t know he’s bad, we don’t know he’s good, either.” I didn’t think he was bad, but I was playing devil’s advocate. I suspected I needed to hear evidence laid out for myself as much as for the girls.
    “You’re right,” Faith chipped in, blonde head bobbing. She adjusted her slightly crooked wire-rimmed glasses on her nose before continuing. “But in the world before…before it got like this, do you think there were more good people or bad people?”
    Interesting question. Where was she going with this? “Good, I hope,” I said. “Bad things happened, but there were more good