Behind Our Walls (14 page)

She had even gotten used to the guard rotations. Every now and then, a small group would be seen peeking in through the gates into the parking lot. A few had even climbed up onto the wall, looking the place over but so far no one ventured any closer.

They conducted essential supply runs twice a month, and while there had been some close calls with rovers or rogue army units wandering the countryside, luck continued to be on their side. Departures for supply runs were only done at night to minimize anyone spotting activity around the stadium. Strict orders dictated that if they weren't able to return before the sun rose, they were to find somewhere to hide out and wait until the next night.

In a way, it did concern her to see people falling into such automatic routines. She worried if maybe they were just dulling themselves into a false sense of security and ignoring the threats out there. The committee did the best it could to keep people aware and alert, but at some point the trappings of a place like this made things difficult.

She looked up from her book at the sound of knocking at her door. Opening it, she found Rowen on the other side.

"What is it?" she asked. "The meeting isn't for another hour."

"I just wanted to talk for a minute."

"Okay." Sophie stood aside and let him in. "What's up?"

He stood there for a few moments, not answering but instead looking out at the kids playing. She thought he looked uncomfortable about something, but she couldn't imagine what.

"Hey." She grabbed his arm and turned him so that he would have to look at her. "What is it?"

"It's about Fiona."

Sophie dropped his arm, immediately annoyed. She didn't understand why everyone assumed that she had some kind of link with the woman.

Rowen picked up on her irritation. "Look, I know you don't want to hear it, it's just that—"

"You know, I get that she's a problem, I just don't see how everyone thinks
I'm
going to be able to do anything about it. You all know her just as well as I do. Lot has known her longer."

"I know."

"She just doesn't like people. She's a loner. What do you expect, do you think she's just going to change her entire personality for us?"

"I know."

"Honestly, if you're serious about making headway with her, you'd be better off going through Nairi, since she seems to be the only one that Fiona really cares about."

"We can try that." He said the words, but his tone didn't sound to Sophie like he agreed. She rolled her eyes and tried to slow down the judgment that rushed to her head.

"Okay, what? What's going on with her?"

"She doesn't contribute. She doesn't interact with anyone and when she does, it's usually to start fights. She takes offense to everything, even if it's just an offhand remark or someone glancing over their shoulder. A lot of people feel like she doesn't really want to be here."

"Maybe she doesn't."

"They why do you think she stays? It isn't like we force her."

"Maybe because it's even worse out there? Maybe Nairi doesn't want to leave, and she doesn't want to go off on her own? Take your pick."

Rowen shuffled his feet, and looked like he now wished he hadn't come up here.

"Look, is it even worth it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Let's say you guys sit her down and give her a good talking-to. What do you think is going to happen? You think she'll just roll over and apologize for how she's been acting? Maybe volunteer to start a glee club, or maybe arts and crafts night? Or do you think maybe she'll just get pissed as hell, stomp out of the room and now we've got an even worse problem on our hands?"

"I see what you're saying, but—"

"What harm is she causing right now? Sure, some people get their panties all bunched up because they think she isn't doing her fair share, but that's pretty much the worst of it."

"So what do
you
suggest?"

"Give her some space. If she comes around, great. But if she doesn't, and we try to pressure her, all we've done is seal ourselves in here with the angriest bitch you've ever met."

"I guess." His voice reminded her of a child who wasn't getting his way and she shook her head.

"I'm going for a walk. I need to clear my head before the meeting. Will you just give me some time to think things through? Just leave it alone and let me think it over."

Rowen nodded and stuffed his hands in his pockets as he turned to leave. She hated the sign of adolescent protest and marched out of the suite herself, turning to walk the opposite direction. Too much drama and too many problems. Now she was stuck with all of it, even the hostile bitch that no one wanted anything to do with.

-34-

The higher powers that controlled this place clearly wanted the confrontation to happen, as Sophie saw Fiona making her way up the ramp towards her. When the two of them made eye contact, she imagined that neither of them looked very excited about seeing the other, but she took in a breath and steeled herself for the conversation.

"What do you want?" Fiona asked, immediately picking up on, and feeding into Sophie's discomfort.

"Fiona, I'm sorry. I just needed to touch base and see if things were going all right for you."

"Why the hell wouldn't it?"

Sophie sighed, asking herself again why she continued to volunteer for responsibilities like this.

"Okay. Don't make this more than what it is, I just need to talk about some things. Some people are a little uncomfortable with how hostile you have been at times and we just wanted to make sure—"

"They can fuck off. I don't understand why I have to be so happy and friendly just to make them more comfortable. Why can't they just leave me alone?"

"Fiona, I understand and believe me, I have no interest in invading your privacy. But we live in a very delicate balance here. I'm sure you understand that. If there's dissension or bad blood between people, I just want to smooth things over. As much as I can anyway."

Fiona snorted. "Sure. Wouldn't want to disrupt your personal little paradise you've got going on here, would you?"

"I don't understand."

"Well let me make it clearer for you. How many people have we added to this community since we set up here?"

Sophie blinked. It was a direction she hadn't expected the conversation to go in. "We haven't let anyone in."

"Why not?"

"I don't understand. Who would we have—"

"The fact that
that
is your response pretty much proves my point, don't you think?"

"Fiona, what—"

"Why aren't we letting more people in here? Are we really that much better than anyone out there? You think there isn't anyone else who needs help?"

"I'm sure there are, but I don't know how we're supposed to find those people."

"Well, it's pretty simple. They come shambling past here, just about every day. I know you guys spot them while you sit up here, biting your fingernails and hoping that they don't figure out we're in here."

"And you think we should just put a big sign up, inviting anyone to come in? What do you seriously think would happen if we did that? It isn't like we can just support an infinite amount of people."

"First of all, that's bullshit," Fiona said. "You don't have to provide a steak dinner for everyone who walks in here. People are more than capable of going out on runs and foraging for what they need. And even if they didn't, have you paid any attention to what they've got going on down in the gardens?"

Sophie didn't know what to say. She was surprised that Fiona had been paying any attention.

"That guy Winston and his wife Sherrie? They used to teach classes on urban farming. Last I was down there, they had about two dozen growing boxes set up. Some of them were producing over a hundred pounds of potatoes.
Each box
. And that was just one crop. They had corn growing, beans, squash. There's no reason why we couldn't support more people."

"Okay, but—"

"And as for the rest, we can't just hide in here and hope that the bad people won't find us. I'm not saying that we should throw up a big spotlight inviting anyone within eyesight, but I think you'd agree that it's pretty easy to spot the bad ones."

Sophie took a beat and tried to compose her thoughts. She would have never expected such a reasoned argument to come from Fiona, or to find that she had invested such thought in it. She was clearly expecting some kind of an answer as she stood there though, staring and tapping her foot impatiently on the floor.

"Fiona, it isn't like I can just snap my fingers and make this all change. People have to talk it over."

"Right. I understand." Fiona sneered as she shouldered past Sophie, resuming her walk back to her suite.

"Fiona!" She cringed at the sarcastic smile on Fiona's face as she turned to face her. "I can't guarantee anything but I will at least bring it up with the committee and see what they have to say, all right?"

Fiona laughed and shook her head as she turned away. "Do whatever you want. I won't be holding my breath."

-35-

"So we had our first actual discipline case today," Lot said.

"And?" Rowen asked.

"I caught Jenny trying to steal batteries from the office. She lied about it at first, but I got her to admit to it eventually."

"What did you do?" Meredith asked.

Lot shrugged. "It's not like we're going to put people in jail, or give them a fine. She wasn't trying to hurt anyone, people just get a little stir crazy sometimes. I gave her some extra manual labor for a few weeks."

Sophie felt the general agreement and let her attention wander as she began pacing. After a few drawn out moments, she took a seat behind the giant desk. She began to doodle in the sand garden, half listening to the conversation as it droned on without her. It was several minutes before she realized that the room had suddenly gone quiet and everyone was looking at her. She shook her head to clear it.

"I'm sorry. What?"

Rowen smirked at her. "You had something to bring up?"

"Right. Sorry. Rowen talked to me about Fiona and as much as I wanted to just let things go, I happened to bump into her and talked a little with her."

She noticed the others let out a breath, as if they had all been privately worried that they would end up being the ones who would have to talk to her.
And they wonder why she acts so hostile
, she couldn't help but thinking.

"How did that go?" Lot asked, a smirk on his face like he thought he already knew the answer.

"Well she doesn't care much for most of us, I don't think that's a big surprise. I think that she can be overly confrontational, and I wish she would participate more in things but she does have some points that I think are reasonable."

"As in?" Meredith asked.

"She thinks that we need to be more open to new people coming in from the outside."

Lot shook his head and leaned forward to set his book down on the table. "We've been over this already."

"Yes, but I don't see how it can hurt to do it again. Some of us weren't that thrilled with the decision but we didn't want people to think that we weren't in agreement." Sophie wanted to have this argument, to hash everything out. If Fiona was going to continue being so aggressive on this point, she wanted to at least be able to give her better answers.

"Well why are we here to begin with?" Lot asked all of them. "Why did we
need
to retreat here? The world out there is rotten. And while I agree that there are still good people, it's impossible to tell the difference."

"Okay, but don't we owe it to ourselves to at least give people the benefit of the doubt?" Sophie asked.

"That sounds great, until someone wakes up in the middle of the night, breaks into your room and puts a knife to your throat."

Rowen put his hands out. "All right, can we maybe just bring it down a notch? Just take a breath and let's talk about this without all the histrionics."

"You know that if we had more people, there would be that many more who would be able to help protect us," Sophie pointed out.

"It also means that we have that many more people who we have to feed," Lot said. "And it isn't like having more people to guard the place is that much better, since we only have so many guns."

"But—"

"And you're out of your mind if you think I'm going to trust some random person, walking in here off the street with a gun. I have a hard time believing that you'd be comfortable with it either."

"So basically we've just brought back the gated community?" Sophie asked.

"Come on, that's not—" Rowen started to interject.

"You're missing the point—" Daniel said, at the same time.

"Shut up for a second." Lot silenced the both of them with a wave and turned back to Sophie. "Do you think I like living like this? You think I like not being able to trust anyone? I don't. All I'm saying is that we don't have much of a choice anymore. We need to be realistic and safe. You want to play around and take chances when we've got families here? We've all seen what rovers do to kids, they don't care."