Unity by Jeremy Robinson

the edge. The girl’s hard edge wavers.
    “Maybe Effie can shoot you,” Gwen says, “and we can share the guilt. That might wo—”
    “Okay.” The word is mumbled. Barely audible.
    “Louder,” Gwen says.
    Mandi purses her lips, crushing them white for a moment. “Okay.”
    “Okay, what?”
    “I’ll listen to you.” Mandi looks from Gwen to me. Her nose crinkles. “And Effie.”
    A good portion of Gwen’s mania slips away, like rain from a waxed surface. If it was an act, Gwen missed her calling as an actress. But I think she’s just satisfied. While Mandi’s acquiescence isn’t anything close to an apology, I suspect it’s the closest she’s ever gotten to one.
    Gwen takes Mandi’s right hand, lifting it up to reveal the brand. “You’re a Base, Mandi. You might get a chance to tell both of us—” She glances over at me. “—what to do. But only if you survive long enough.” She pulls the girl away from the cliff. “Stay away from the edge.”
    The scolded Mandi storms off. For a moment it looks like she’s going to leave the campsite, breaking protocol once again, but she stops at a hammock, climbs inside and lies back with her arms crossed.
    “You’re still holding your gun,” Gwen says.
    I look down at the weapon that very nearly took Mandi’s life. I holster it on my hip. “I nearly shot her.”
    “She’s lucky you didn’t. Most Points wouldn’t have hesitated.” Gwen puts her hand on my shoulder, turning me to face her. “Next time, pull the trigger.”
    “What?”
    “You didn’t know it was Mandi. Next time it might not be.”
    “I would have killed her.”
    She nods slowly. “But if someone kills you, the rest of us won’t last long.”
    I’m not sure that’s true. Gwen has shown herself to be equally tough, if not tougher and more resourceful than I am. The only reason I’m leading this bunch is because they’re insisting I do so.
    “I don’t think I could recover if I—”
    “We both know you could,” she says. “It’s part of what makes you a Point. You get the hard calls because you can live with them. Your job is sometimes heartbreaking, but...that’s nothing new to you, is it?”
    And there it is. Why I’m a Point.
    The fact that my life has been so miserable makes me the right person for a position that sometimes requires pulling a trigger without hesitation. And she’s right. I would have felt bad about shooting Mandi, but I wouldn’t have blamed myself. I’d have compressed the pain, locked it up in a box and filed it away to get lost in the mental warehouse of other bad memories.
    But I’m not as cold as they think, or as cold as I would like to be. Hutch’s death, despite the fact that I had nothing to do with it, is still nibbling at my psyche, like a rabbit with a lettuce leaf. Ceaseless munching.
    “Whoa!” Daniel’s exuberance seems undaunted by the drama that just played out on the cliff’s edge. When I see him and Gizmo standing at the ruined hut, pushing through fallen palm fronds, I wonder if they even noticed. The boys have an excited air about them, like they’ve just stumbled upon a magical land. And maybe that’s how they see it. All these hammocks. Signs of civilization. Of what should have been our welcome. There might even be an acoustic guitar hidden around here, with sticks and marshmallows and the lyrics for Kumbaya.
    As Gwen and I walk toward the pair, Daniel and Gizmo become a flurry of motion and words, totally focused on whatever it is they’ve found. I can’t understand a word they’re saying, but it sounds like sped up techno-babble. Daniel grabs several large palm leaves and lays them down on the ground, flattening them out into an even surface.
    “Here,” I hear him say as I approach. “Put it here.”
    Standing above them, I immediately recognize the device they’re pulling out of a thin, black bag. It’s a Featherlight.
    “Is it working?” Gwen asks.
    “We’re about to find out,” Gizmo says,