28
At her desk in the mayor's office with a cup of water and plate of hard bread, steamed potatoes, and vegetable and meat scrap stew, Rita hunched over her reports for the week, fighting to keep herself lucid until the morning's tasks were concluded. Whenever there was a pause in her document signing she kept her fingers interlocked so as to not reveal her less than ideal composure. This posture also helped her head stay upright, lest she doze off and bump it against the desk, causing unnecessary injury in addition to the sufferings she continued to endure; self-imposed though they were.
Restful sleep still eluded her, and while the medicine continuously proved its effectiveness in cleansing the worst of her nightmares, the substance, a kind of white powder, was almost exhausted. With no knowledge of what ingredients were necessary to replenish it, she was forced to accept the loss. As a child, Henning had always been reluctant to let her near when conducting his business, tenderly shooing her to go play. She could almost feel the warmth of his hand on her head on the occasions when he didn't, tussling her hair and telling her to fetch something for him that he needed and that it was alright if she couldn't find it. While putting him to death came with this unfortunate consequence, Rita held firm that it hadn't been a mistake. Though not everyone shared her sentiment.
To teach her a lesson because that's precisely the type of woman she was, Doris still refused to relinquish his notes into her custody. Under the law, by suspicion of its potential to aid Mathias' resistance, she could issue an decree and confiscate them, but had dismissed the idea because in lieu of everything, Rita still cherished her mother, and if there was even the chance for their relationship to remain intact, she'd take it. Even if that meant never talking to her again, content to have a soldier secretly watch over the apothecary to make sure she was safe at all times following an earlier incident her soldiers hadn't been able to stop in time. Instead she'd issued an official statement that if anyone was discovered about its perimeter they'd be fed to the Titan, no exceptions. This served the added benefit of preserving what little supplies which yet remained there. But she also wasn't insensitive. In the wake of her father's death the first thing she'd done was lift it temporarily to allow mourners visitation with her mother in her grief.
To fill the gap left by Henning's expertise she then assigned the medics from each squad to help whomever required medical attention; regulated to specific spots that were also used to note those who might be considered part of the resistance based upon their injuries. Although not perfect, so far it was working in her favor. Except, as the days stretched on, sooner rather than later she'd need more than just those notes from the apothecary, and her leniency did have its limits, even for family.
As for her own dilemma, she was rationing the powder now for only those nights when there wasn't any other method that brought her comfort. Once it was depleted and only when there was no proper substitute would she knock on her mother's door, seeking Henning's notes. Though, the longer these fits of hers lasted, and the greater these phantoms of the past kept haunting her, the less time she could rationally deal with Mathias or govern the district she'd vowed to protect. Which was why she needed to find him faster, because they were starting to become corporeal, absurd as it sounded, and, glancing to the side, Wilco sitting beside her, laughing about a joke only he understood, she blinked him away to see it was actually the young soldier who'd volunteered to taste her meals for poison, eating his fill.
The hallucination seemed so real because it
had been, once, during their trainee days together. His jokes had always been terrible and him being dead didn't change this, as Rita gulped audibly as if back in the mess hall trying to get him to take the hint and swallow her embarrassment before she moved aside another stack of reports and went about signing the next first.
Following several attempts on her life over the last few weeks, nobody had yet tried poison, but caution was still paramount. She'd come close to being cut down in the streets once already, the would-be assassin taking advantage of her impaired vision, prevented by the timely intervention of Nicholas. She'd been shot at twice, none near their marks, postponing her work several days as her soldiers scoured the immediate areas in both instances, checking every house, street by street, swiftly raiding the houses where it was pinpointed those shots originated, apprehending any inside, regardless of age or affiliation. In the end she'd cleared the majority, publicly executing those with prejudice against her. But a verdict of innocence didn't eliminate the possibility of guilt, so she didn't give those granted innocence true clemency, and arranged for the oldest to be scheduled every cycle of the Night Harvests until they relented to her authority. The few who survived swore to obey before her, the Titan at their backs for extra persuasion to the contrary. Yet, even then, there were always outliers. Even here in the district hall, with at least one guard posted at every door, two to the door to the mayor's office, and two more in the corridor beyond it.
The missing cache of rifles and ammunition would forever be her greatest blunder.
After all,
anybody could shoot a gun.
As a result, Thomas and Heinrich were given permanent wall duties, as far away from the streets as they could be assigned, helping to coordinate the shift rotations and the Night Harvests respectively, and, since her one-woman raid, Amanda claimed to be tracing another cache of weapons once hidden in the warehouse she'd rampaged through but had yet to come up with anything as to its whereabouts and perhaps never would, as the weeks went by. Coupled with the reports of Amanda's increasingly strange behavior, it was odd, but the least of her worries at current, with her greatest being Mathias and the food shortage growing severe.
Further compounding this series of headaches, once again refusing to eat more than her equal share, Rita wouldn't allow herself to live extravagantly in light of the populace she governed, that she'd put her fist over heart for, and, as she hoped, as she knew, because they were her soldiers and knew their duty, had given their vows just the same, her volunteer taster only took a sip of her water at a time, nibbling on the bread, slicing but small portions from the potatoes; intent on honoring the words she'd spoken half a year ago.
She was proud of his devotion.
His name was Samuel. She'd have to come up with an appropriate acknowledgment for him in the future, but recognizing his name in conversations was enough, for now, she felt.
Readily connecting someone's name with their face was one of the feats she'd regained since her blow to the head, and, to be perfectly honest, it was frustrating, really, as her thoughts drifted back to the image of her second in command barely exhausted, blood-drenched and covered in burns long shed, before the scene rewound itself in her mind in full and there they were again, amid that disastrous evacuation, removed from the chaos around them like it wasn't happening though any second they might be killed.
Steam coiling around Amanda's body, her swords lit aflame, ignited from sparks fluttering about the battlefield while covered thick as she was herself in Titan's blood, she'd ridden up and quipped about her repeated failed attempts in helping the man in pushing the horse's body off him. Immediately before then, she'd slide under a Titan's legs to reach him and his daughter. But, as luck would have it, as Amanda pulled her harshly by the collar of her uniform and threw her to the ground, roaring at her to forget the girl and run and how stupid she was for rushing ahead, looking back, Rita hadn't realized how close to death she'd truly been.
Seeing a Titan down on its knees, ankles cut deep, down to the bone, it'd been that same Titan she'd gone under mere moments prior. Despite its injuries, it'd been looking straight ahead, leering at them, and clumsily attempted to stand, only to crash, chin in the dirt, eyes still focused solely on them. That was until it started to use its hands to crawl towards them and in response Amanda told her to get the girl, positioning herself on its back and ramming her swords into its nape.
Rita could still hear the sound of the blades shattering into pieces from the force of her thrust and the Titan's otherworldly howls in its death throes.
Thrown from its back, Amanda had hit the ground, tumbling hard, her horse fleeing in the ensuing panic. Grotesquely wounded but not completely out of the fight, Amanda had continued to guard her as she'd foolishly insisted to at least save the girl, but soon even her immense strength faltered beyond the point of exhaustion, using her sword to swing at a Titan threatening to grab them, slicing through its fingers that were each as thick and wide as her entire body before it could touch either her or the girl, before she'd collapsed.
Three thoughts had run through Rita's mind, then.
First, as fingertips the size of clubs, all severed at the knuckle with blood enough to fill a bathing tub, seemed to crush Amanda as she was lost in the downpour, was that she couldn't have asked for a better companion.
Second, when plumes of steam immediately gushed forth from its stumps as the Titan reared, gazing at its missing fingers in child-like bewilderment and they'd felt the subsequent wave of heat from its cut appendages already regenerating, was that, without her, Rita wouldn't be the person she was today.
Third, using the chance to instruct the girl to run as it forgot they existed momentarily as she put up her own swords to finish it off, was that, when Amanda, alive, came flying through the air to deal the deathblow that she couldn't, cutting the Titan's nape and landing before them in a heap, deep down, even as she'd rolled over wheezing in pain, smiling nonetheless, looking at her just like that night in the cabin, Rita loathed her with her entire heart…
Because this is what frustrated her: Amanda was all that she wasn't, all that she wished she could be despite her resilience in suppressing it. That she relied on even when she thought otherwise. Until, ultimately, it dawned on her in these six months that her best friend's support was what made her weak. And not only in the perception of others when weighed against her, but of herself in her own mind, before it flashed forward to that morning meeting where she remembered struggling to catch every second word the boy nicknamed Weasel — who she'd appointed as her official interrogator — pronounced as he gave his updated report of the ex-Military Police officer still being held within their custody in the Garrison dungeons and Amanda's decision of caring not to listen to the important matters being discussed to instead gaze at the ceiling in boredom, leaned back in her chair disrespectfully, thinking it was about time she begin searching for a more qualified replacement because Amanda's candor was no longer needed. Far past due, in fact, and it was also around the time she'd gotten the report of the theft of some Vertical Maneuvering Gear which was obviously Mathias' doing, and gotten her mother, Doris, badly injured in the process that sealed this decision, or, another way of looking at it, the day that
she and not Amanda was the greater.
Rita herself had responded to the call, racing through the daylight streets at full speed to find her mother sprawled out on the ground outside a bakery which Henning and she sometimes visited and used as a place to help those in need as a sort of second makeshift apothecary and aid station.
Seeing her there unconscious, she felt again the deep rage which had swelled in her chest as she pulled Doris into her arms after ordering everyone else out of the way.
Doris's face had been covered in blood from a broken nose, twisted to such a degree suggesting a solid hit by a blunt object, her cheeks swollen and one of her eyes bruised shut, her right leg bent at an absurd angle; there when the break-in had taken place.
According to eyewitness testimony, she'd tried to talk the burglar down, he'd lashed out in response, and she'd snapped her leg in the fall. It'd been one of the other patrons who managed to get Doris out in the ensuing panic.
Astonishingly, the burglar had still been holed up inside.
Rita vividly remembered laying her mother back down, gently as she could, entering the bakery where the standoff was taking place, dismissing everyone until it was just her and a man who looked about thirty, his overgrown hair hanging straight down, occupying a corner of the room behind the counter, his back to the shelves and his arm around the neck of a young woman about her own age.
In his free hand, he'd held a knife, covered in a repulsive amount of sweat, nevertheless shivering and twitching his head in a shaking motion, mumbling about food. Of being hungry. How he wanted something to eat, always so starving, and a horse, because if he couldn't find anything here, he'd rather take his chances and leave Quinta behind.
She thought him so
selfish. That because of people such as him, good ones like Doris got hurt. Kids like Duccio ended up dead. Duccio… his head simply gone, his body rising into the air, falling slowly backward…
Multiple different scenes filled her current thoughts: the wagon being knocked into the sky, its occupants thrown free and slamming into the ground below with distinct, heart-stopping thuds and how, all at once, the Titans converged, blue painted red as the remaining wagons gave it a wide berth.
Where, in the middle of the carnage, a man trapped beneath the body of a horse and a girl cowering not far from the wagon, had somehow gone unnoticed by the monsters surrounding them. The girl, trying in vain to move the horse from the man — her father? — and one Titan as it reached for her, lifting the horse with ease, and how, instinctively, she'd hesitated before coming to the conclusion that it wasn't even something to consider and forced her body forward.
How, eyeballing around the Titan's nape, she steadied her aim then fingered the trigger, an anchor firing from the barrels slung around her waist immediately thereafter, only to reconsider at the last moment and dive under its legs instead.
How, faced not with a Titan but this man, this would-be murderer, that she hadn't hesitated when she saw her opportunity.
She remembered when her arm moved. Her hand as it clenched. Her fingers squeezing on the trigger, and the moment she'd fired an anchor from one of the cylinders on her waist just the same.
Oscillating violently, held fast by her belt, its wire cutting through the space separating them — only this time the point wasn't catching hold of a Titan's flesh and sinking deep but running straight through the man's chest, and, unlike the Titan which simply cocked its head and reached for the anchor attached to its neck, the man howled and the young woman he'd taken hostage screamed, too, narrowly avoiding being skewered herself — Rita remembered how, without another thought, she'd dropped in a crouch, planting her feet on the floor, reeling it in, an incredible speed exerting itself on the belt as she was pulled abruptly forwards and gave herself to the momentum, catching her breath as the world flickered around her not to propel herself rapidly at a Titan but the man's body leaping and slicing through the air, coming towards her along with the anchor as it receded while the young woman was knocked to the ground and she'd released it before they collided, pirouetting like a dancer and simultaneously positioning her blade not to slash at a Titan's nape like she'd practiced endlessly in training but to rip open this man's throat instead.
How, watching in the briefest of moments after as his eyes went wide in disbelief, half-mad with pain, flailing his knife about frantically, before the light left his eyes and he spiraled limp, crashing over the counter of the bakery and tumbling halfway out the door, she'd stood there looking back, flicking the lock on her anchor, almost as if it were all a dream, not seeing a dead man lying there but herself, sprawled out on the ground spasming in pain and letting out a senseless wail after the Titan had stood up and swatted her aside, like an insect.
And his blood dripping from the end of her blade, when she'd raised her head upon hearing a scream, just like back then, before bending forward, her shadow stretching above the doorway and across the ceiling as a Titan might obscure the sun, about to grab its newest plaything, a familiar voice had stopped her dead and she'd slowly turned her head to Amanda with her boot upon the dead man's back, his blood pooling and seeping into the ground about her as she inclined her head at the sword still held tight in her grasp.
And all at once Rita had been woken from her daze, realizing that some of her soldiers were also there as well as a crowd that'd formed outside, all of them peering through the entrance to see her flecked with the blood of this man, this criminal, and had witnessed justice being done.
She'd straightened herself. Amanda and her shadows battled upon the walls. In the end, hers had been the greater, eclipsing her best friend's for the first time, and, until that moment, perhaps there'd been a tendency of everyone to view her lightly. That she only brought her hand down to issue the final word rather than with a stroke of her sword. That they'd doubted her competence. Her commitment. Her vow. Her duty. This was the moment all of that changed. Not a speck of uncertainty remained, their eyes carrying a look of fear; the same present in those waiting to die to the Titan chained in the plaza.
And, again, it felt…
tremendous.
Except for one obstacle. One person. The only who truly mattered.
Amanda had simply stared, before quietly ordering two of the frozen, frightened soldiers to start dragging the man's body away and another to tend to Doris while their eyes had met and she'd sheathed her sword in silence, the man's blood still upon it, and Amanda had shaken her head, not bothering to salute nor giving parting words as she turned on her heel and left, when something clicked, deep within Rita's heart. Like a lock setting itself in place.
She heard this same sound every time this scene rewound itself in her head: it was the gates of Quinta, shutting them in for good. Keeping them safe.
And Rita at last held the key.
Her mind fully back in the present hours later, Rita made a mental note to mix more powder into her medicine tonight, while looking at one of the countless reproduced exchanges between Bernhardt and Weasel, written in Eugene's hand. It was, yet again, a report that went nowhere as Bernhardt danced circles around his interrogator to, where, somewhere in the middle here
he was the one questioning Weasel and Weasel was answering him.
In the beginning she'd hoped that her efforts in humiliating the ex-Military Police officer, this Bernhardt, would eventually wear him down and he'd break, reveal his true reason for his interest in the cellar, but it was clear to her then and especially now as more and more of these "interrogations" reached her desk that this man was no ordinary soldier. He was overly familiar to extended periods of torture and that alone made him dangerous without mentioning all his other feats observed over his long tenure as a prisoner. It was no longer viable to keep him alive, lest he manage to escape and join forces with Mathias and his resistance not according to her design. But, she wasn't about to just outright execute him, either.
Not yet, anyway.
She still wanted to continue using him as bait to draw out Mathias, wait until the two of them were together again, then close the net and take them both out at the same time. Though, she dare not speak of this plan aloud, for she knew there was a traitor among her soldiers — perhaps more than one — and her eyes briefly flickered over to her taster again, before she dropped this latest transcript of Bernhardt's clever tongue into the burn pile and pulled in a second mountain of reports, these being grievances of the people Eugene had brought her, under the wavering candlelight, completely aware that it was unbecoming of the acting commander to skim these reports while also taking a moment to bite on a piece of her bread, dirtying them and her uniform in crumbs.
Several of the reports were marked with black-red stains. They'd begun to run out of ink and lead and were resorting to dotting their fingertips with their quills and broken pencils. Despite all of her devotion and hard work, the influx of residents who chose to act out of self-interest was endless. People who hid precious livestock, or lied about their age to be excused from the Night Harvest, were the most common she encountered. Their neighbors or family had turned them in. Those who resisted were beaten, dragged out into the streets or behind closed doors during the interrogation, and while it wasn't behavior she welcomed, it was a necessary evil; taking a page from Suzanne's stories about The Great Panic.
There was a knock at the door.
She and her taster looked up sharply. It was darker than it was before. The candle was but a pathetic wisp of smoke burned to a snub. His job, she realized then, had been completed a long time ago. Engrossed with the reports and not to mention her own thoughts, it'd slipped her mind to dismiss him.
"Come in," she said as she weighed the decision to do so or not, as the face of one of her soldiers, shortsighted and wearing glasses, poked through the gap. Like Duccio, and definitely more so than Amanda, he was a hard worker and she'd come to value him lately after the rumors involving her best friend, and what he was likely here to report on, as he stood at attention and saluted.
"Reporting in!
Eugene has confessed to plotting treason!"
She took a moment to process his words.
… Eugene.
Among the soldiers left, Thomas and Heinrich reassigned and Nicholas excluded, she'd made him third in rank after herself and Amanda in the hope that he might replace Duccio in time, but it appeared that nobody would now.
Disappointing.
Of course, she didn't let it show because her duty should come before her personal feelings, and said, "I see. That's unfortunate."
But, she of course couldn't have this show, and said, "I see. That's unfortunate."
"Yes, ma'am, it is," the bespectacled soldier said. His name, coincidently, was also Thomas.
And yet it opened another door, another doubt, another seed, as it'd been Amanda who first recommended him. Which only put her best friend under greater suspicion herself again. Which Amanda had undoubtedly considered beforehand, and perhaps even reveled in; the thought that she couldn't be trusted. A feral thrill of living on a knife's edge, knowing that not even her status as her second in command would prevent her own interrogation if proved that she, too, was conspiring against her.
It was just like her, and as Rita's demeanor only darkened her taster shifted uncomfortably by her side.
He seemed unsure whether to leave or even if he were allowed to ask if he should, but she instructed him to stay longer because she wanted as many of her soldiers as possible present to witness firsthand how she dealt with conspirators, crooks, swindlers, and thieves, no matter how highly regarded.
"Names of traitors within the military. Did he provide any?"
"I… don't think so."
His eyes moved nervously — maybe admonishing himself for having come in to report without obtaining all of the facts — and to help save him face gestured for Eugene to be brought in.
"Yes. Right away."
He saluted and bounded out of the room. Rita caught a fleeting glimpse of Nicholas standing guard and his look of worry, as the other boy guarding the door, another fellow graduate from her year named Boris, nodded then shut it.
They waited until multiple footsteps approached and there was another knock at the door.
On her acknowledgment it was flung open.
Two soldiers came in, dragging Eugene with them, his legs completely limp, as his boots scraped over the floor. One of them, Elias, the muscle, was big for his age, bigger than both Nicholas and Boris, while the other was Weasel. Elias still bore his youth though his features showed beginning signs of the cragginess of a man's, paired perfectly with Weasel's slier face befitting his name. Still seated, Rita moved her attention towards the space in front of her desk and motioned them to bring him closer.
Effortlessly tugging him by the arms, Elias forced Eugene forwards.
From a glance she guessed they'd also broken one of his arms which dangled in comparison to the slack of the other. The tips of the fingers on the same hand were also wrapped in layers of cloth, stained and dark, suggesting they'd removed his fingernails.
Over excessive, cruel for cruelty's sake, and though she'd never truly acknowledge it, Amanda's way was the only way for now, so she pretended not to notice but couldn't help but feel a ping of remorse because though he was a traitor, again, he'd been a promising replacement, and he was just a boy still; though she wasn't, again, about to allow such weakness show, not now, not while she still had her duty, and ordered them to hurl him to the floor and hold him up for her to see clearly.
Weasel grabbed him by the hair, made him lie on his side, and yanked his head up, while Elias stood behind keeping a watchful, frightful eye, and it was obvious to her which one had done the beating and which one had simply stood mouth agape, in silent horror.
Before examining Eugene anew, Rita swept her eyes over her desk and nodded at the taster, who was still seated next to her. He scrambled to take away the plate and cup, and only once he was finished and hurrying out the door, did she take in the severity of Eugene's swollen face with her full attention: his eyes were puffy and almost fully closed, blood streaked his cheeks and jawline, swabbed unceremoniously away from his nose and lips. He didn't appear to be breathing, until his eyelids fluttered, indicating that he was, in fact, conscious, and his mouth then opened a tad, rasping out words that she strained to hear.
Rita leaned forward, hands together atop her desk. "Once you've told us everything you know, I will help you."
"But I… haven't…" Freckles of red splattered on his cheeks upon raising his voice, and she heard him swallow, before he continued, or tried to, best as he was able. "I… I…" he repeated. "Please, Commander, I—"
But she didn't want to hear anymore. Couldn't. Else she… "Proceed," she said to Weasel, still holding him by the hair, who moved in and stomped down on one of his toes, breaking it with a crack.
A cry issued from Eugene's mouth. Tears trickled down from the slits that'd been his eyes.
"Any other traitors?"
No reply.
"What information did you leak?"
Nothing.
"How have you assisted them?"
Silence.
For each question unanswered, Weasel stomped down on his toe ─ again and again and again, putting all his weight on it each time.
After the third Eugene squirmed, screaming in agony and sending more crimson spit into the air, then cowered into a slobbering ball. Shivers ran up and down his frame.
"Please!" he wailed, forcing his eyes open.
"
Information."
"I…"
This time Weasel stepped on Eugene's knee and slowly started applying pressure.
Eugene spasmed violently. "P-Patrols, guard details!"
"And your contact?"
"Never… never the same person. Th-They came to me!"
"What else do you know about them?"
Eugene's pupils were darting around. "What… I know…" His face was covered in an oily sweat. It mixed with the dried blood already there.
Rita met the gaze of the boy she'd known, pushing past Duccio's memory in her mind, because duty was all she had, in the end, and nodded at Weasel, and, taking her meaning, he began to unsheathe the sword at his waist. There was the shrill sound of metal scraping against metal. Reflecting the candlelight newly lit, the blade cast fleeting sinews of light over the walls and the ceiling.
"M-Mathias! Mathias Kramer!" Eugene screeched.
Rita's hands squeezed into fists. She felt as though her blood had frozen and boiled over at the same time.
Mathias. Her friend, her childhood friend, who'd killed Duccio. She'd known from long ago that he led the resistance. It was nothing new. Yet to hear the name again, and in this fashion, shook Rita to her core. She'd also known, long ago, that Amanda had taken one of his hands, in retaliation for that fateful night. How he fought her even now, with such a loss, and the odds stacked against him, she wondered if he still expected her to be his kind Rita. And she was let down, because he was smarter than that. Should known better; her, better. Or, no, perhaps he'd never really known her at all… Much like she barely recognized what she'd become herself. Because duty was all she had anymore… or so she continued to tell herself.
"Commander!"
The urgency of the voice pulled Rita out of her moment.
Eugene had somehow struggled to his feet.
He'd shaken off his captor's hold with an incredible display of brawn for his slight frame and was charging at her, awkwardly, kicking the floor and soaring over the desk and extending his mangled hands for her throat until, suddenly, he halted a hair's breadth away from touching her, in midair, as though time had begun to run in reverse and he was jerked back, colliding into the two soldiers as he rolled and writhed, groaning, blood seeping out from a hole in his tattered uniform near his buttocks as Amanda, ever at the last moment, in perfect timing, stood in the open doorway in a slouch, one of her anchors aimed in Rita's direction.
Ordering the two soldiers to take Eugene away, as they rushed to restrain him, Rita mulled the entire time it took them to do this and leave, of why now? Why attempt to strangle her, when he'd neither the will nor the strength to resist any further, when Amanda finally strode up, narrowing her eyes in disgust and telling the other Thomas to get out and shut the door behind him.
"Don't think you're overdoing it a little?" she said when they were alone.
Rita took notice that Amanda was eating her previously uneaten midnight supper, one hand holding the plate while the other rested on her Vertical Maneuvering Gear. Did she bully her taster to get it?
"They don't tell the truth otherwise."
Setting the plate on the edge of the mayor's desk and dipping what was left of the bread into the soup, Amanda regarded her in silence before giving a shrug. "If you think so. Aren't you just making them say whatever it is you want to hear?"
Rita regarded her coldly. A look which went completely ignored by her best friend. Because that was who she is. Amanda: never thinking twice about speaking her mind, regardless of whom she might be addressing or seemingly aware of the consequence. As a result, people tended to believe she wasn't two-faced, but Rita… Rita knew better.
"Maybe it's putting the screws like this," Amanda continued. "It's turning people against the military and giving rise to an organized resistance. Sound familiar? You're just giving them more reason to hate your guts." She took a bite of the potato, then promptly spit it out on the plate, cursing.
"I disagree," Rita countered without a pause. "If you aren't strict with them, people degenerate."
Amanda took up the soup and slurped some of the broth. "Yeah, but corner the poor shits and they'll take extreme measures. Again: what just happened is a perfect example." Then, "You ate all the meat, didn't you?"
Rita shook her head. "You're wrong. He wouldn't have told the truth if I'd been compassionate. He would have continued to leak inside information, degrading the whole situation in Quinta. I need to ensure that doesn't happen."
"Right. As if things weren't fucked already," Amanda said, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. "If I was you, I'd have everything packed up and left at the start. Take my chances out there. It's a mistake to try and keep everyone here against their will, and you know it."
"So why haven't you? I'm not doing anything wrong. I've decided our best course of action is to stay put and build something new. Something better. I'll make this a place where nothing like Shiganshina happens. And I'll do whatever I must."
Amanda shrugged again, her expression unchanged. In one ear and out the other. "Yeah, well, you're the king of these parts. I'll do what you tell me. So guess I'll be going then," she announced curtly, turning her back to leave… only to stop at the door. She waited there for what felt like forever, then said, "More patrolling. Your call?"
Delinquency towards duty aside, Amanda was still her best friend, and dear to her, much as Doris still was, abandoned by both of them she may be and her to them in kind, and… though they both knew the real reason she continued to stay… neither of them could admit it out loud, so instead Rita surveyed the office.
Eugene's blood and tears stained the floor.
"… Yes," she finally said. "… Take care."
"Yeah, you too."
With that, Amanda left, her footfalls heavy.
"Commander," the other Thomas said, coming in again.
"Yes?"
"What should we do, regarding Eugene?"
"Complete his interrogation. If you don't mind, I'm going to take a little rest. You know what to do. Once it's finished." She heard him gulp. Saw his eyes drift in the direction of the plaza, and, suddenly interested, asked, "Who tipped us off about Eugene?"
"Oh," he hesitated. "From Eugene's year. They'd been in the same squad since the beginning and were close, it appears."
"I see."
She slumped back a little. Again, she'd valued Eugene. Even granted him a large mansion for that reason. It was possible his friend had become jealous. Perhaps that was why he'd jumped at the chance. But no — she was wrong to look for malice. Whomever this soldier was, he'd fingered his friend out of a genuine sense of duty. A solemn wish to uphold order. Moved, by her principles, and, so, she made another decision, to uphold them.
"Eugene's mansion," she began. "Have his family moved out. Put them somewhere else, somewhere safe, under guard, and have the soldier who turned him in take residence in his place. Tell him that he may bring in his own family to stay, if he so ch—"
There was a chaotic rush of footsteps, and another soldier burst into the room. It was Thomas. The
other Thomas.
"What is it?" she started, slightly irritated at the interruption.
"Intruders at the east wall! I don't have the details. But apparently fighting has broken out!"
"Understood. I'm leaving this place in your hands," Rita told this Thomas as she headed towards the door. "Show me."
It would be another long night, and as she left the door ajar behind her, gathering up and fastening her cloak in the process, noted that Amanda had left the plate behind and the only thing on it was a half-eaten steamed potato and ink spilled by Eugene covering the desk, staining it completely black, just the same as her heart, and the fist over it.
