Arilia

  Refuge Ch. 7: Haven

  “Ok.” I made a stopping motion with my hands. “How many people on the list have actually shown up?”

  “Eighty-percent, just about,” Shandra replied, tapping on her tablet.

  The four of us had stormed into the security office to confront the official decision to kick out all the newcomers who weren’t on the list. We found Shandra at her desk. She was an athletic military vet I’d seen the night we arrived. A cap covered her short buzz cut, and she wore fatigues by day. The implication of martial w was palpable and uncomfortable.

  “So there’s room for more?” Lily said angrily.

  Shandra shook her head. “I’m not authorized to add people to the list.”

  Lily threw up her hands. “Well then, who is?! Where are they?”

  The security chief sighed.

  I took a deep breath to respond, but Shandra waved a hand to cut me off. Rude. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “If anyone was going to make it, they would be here already.” She looked over and addressed Lily. “Hell, you guys walked here. That’s not the problem.”

  She stood from her desk and went to a filing cabinet. Sorting through it briefly, she pulled out a manil folder from one drawer and dropped it on the desk with a thunk. There was an inch-thick ream of papers stuffed inside. I saw my name on the edge.

  “This is just yours alone,” she said and pointed to me. “VIP dossier right here in the main office, because of your medical background.”

  “That’s… more extensive than I expected.” I was taken aback. I’ve never seen a background check so deep. It felt kind of vioting, honestly.

  She shook her head. “Look, I understand where you’re coming from. What I’m saying is they had a whole team vet every single person who got in here. Every detail of your lives, even the…” she hesitated, “personal matters. With internet access we no longer have. Right down to the awards you won for middle school science fair.”

  She pointed to the door outside. “Can any of you say for certain no one from the new arrivals ever killed someone while driving drunk? Beat their spouse? Abused a child?”

  Julien and Kira sat down, while Lily started pacing, hands csped behind her back. I leaned against one wall. The silence stretched for a long minute.

  Kira spoke first. “What about letting in the children, at least?”

  Shandra sighed and sat back down in her chair. “If we let kids in without their parents, who’s going to take care of them? There’s eight of them, and one’s just eleven months old. What family are we handing them over to? Do you know how to care for an infant?”

  There was another lengthy pause.

  “Look,” she said in a gentler, weary voice. “I know the situation we’re in. I’m just a security guard who kept rich assholes from breaking shit when they got drunk at the resort. I wasn’t part of the CEO’s inner circle. I'm not opposed to the idea of changing his pns. We're missing some critical roles. Only two medical personnel, for example.” She nodded her head in my direction.

  “I just want you to consider the ramifications of what you're asking for,” she continued. “If you want to be part of the decision making process, the consequences will weigh on you too, for better or worse.”

  After a moment, I asked, “What was the original pn for making decisions?”

  “Follow the corporate structure,” Shandra replied. “Directives from the top.”

  “A dictatorship,” Kira muttered.

  Shandra shrugged her shoulders. “Call it what you want. Honestly, I just want to keep everyone safe, and make sure we don’t put our community at risk for the sake of naive altruism. It’s fucking horrific out there.”

  “Well you don’t have to sound so condescending about it,” Lily snapped. “But… I get your point.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Kira agreed, slouching back in her chair, visibly defted.

  “It’s a… difficult decision.” I agreed. “Maybe too much to weigh on one person’s shoulders. I think we should have input from multiple people.”

  “Well, we’re basically a small town, right?” Lily suggested. “Why don’t we organize things like that?”

  “A town council or something?” Kira added in.

  “Yeah.”

  “I haven’t ever worked in government,” Shandra sighed. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “I do, unfortunately,” Julien groaned in frustration. He’d been quiet until now. “Had to deal with them as a civil engineer.”

  “So like, elections or something?”

  He shook his head. “Not usually. Especially not for communities our size. It’s just a council comprised of the head of each municipal department. Sometimes rger cities might have a separately elected mayor, or appoint a professional city manager, to coordinate between departments.”

  “Well, we’re probably not big enough to need a manager.” I chimed in, then looked to Shandra. “How many people in total?”

  Shandra lifted her tablet and tapped a few times. “763 so far.”

  “Hm,” Jurien mused as he leaned back in his chair. “Normally that wouldn’t even be enough to incorporate a town in Washington State. Everything would be handled at a county level. That’s obviously not an option right now, though.”

  “How big normally?” Kira asked.

  “1500,” Jurien responded. “Large enough to ensure the town can provide for its own municipal needs, particurly utilities, infrastructure maintenance, that sort of thing.”

  I lifted my hands. “Ok, we shouldn’t get lost in the weeds. Let’s keep things simple. A council with someone from each critical area of operation needed for survival. Department heads can act independently, but any member of the council can call for a vote. Sounds fair?”

  I looked around the room, and everyone nodded assent.

  “Ok.” I turned to Shandra. “Based on the pns for this pce, what are the most important things needed to survive, especially if this sts longer than a few months?”

  “Security, obviously,” Shandra responded, then started listing off more things. “Power, food, water, shelter.”

  “Water and power are both provided by the dam?”

  “Yeah.” She addressed Julien, “You’ve been a lot of help checking it for damage. Thanks for that.” He nodded in response.

  I mused, “We could group those under one department, such as Utilities.”

  “Makes sense,” Lily agreed.

  Shandra scrolled through a document on her tablet. “Then there’s medical care… and in a worst-case scenario, most residents are actually assigned to agriculture and ranching next year, in the rger valley downstream from us.”

  “Wow.” Kira was a little taken aback. “I hadn’t even thought about that.”

  I shook my head and added, “Yeah it’s… a bit scary to consider we might need to start farming.”

  “How long will the existing food supplies st?” Lily asked.

  Shandra tapped a few times on her tablet. “With the current popution, about 17 months. There were tentative pns to chopper in more supplies, but we don’t have contact with anyone to coordinate that. I’m reserving our limited fuel supply for emergencies.”

  “Makes sense.” I nodded. “Hm… 17 months, is that good or bad? I don’t know anything about farming.”

  “We should definitely include an agricultural expert on the council, just in case,” Kira mused.

  “Okay.” I said, summarizing on my fingers, “So we have: security, utilities, medical, and food supply. Or just supply?”

  Julien shook his head. “Even number.”

  “Yeah, ties would be bad,” I agreed. “How about mental health and community cohesion? We won’t make it if we’re all driving each other nuts, or fragmenting into factions like Lord of the Flies.”

  “Could call that just… community?” Lily offered. “I suppose in a regur town it’d be Parks and Recreation, but we don’t have parks. And ‘recreation’ sounds kinda silly for a department name.”

  “Community sounds good to me.”

  We discussed ideas for a little while, then split up to continue the conversation with other people involved in various aspects of running the town.

  Everyone agreed with the idea of a 5-person town council. Council members had to be at least 25 years old. Each was chosen by the people in their department, however their teams saw fit. Counselors could manage their own teams autonomously, but any counselor could call for a full-council vote on topics that affected multiple departments. Votes were determined by simple majority, or ranked-choice voting in the event of more than two options.

  The first council consisted of:

  - Community: Dr. Miyano Kunie, Psychologist

  - Food: Arthur Lloyd, Ecologist

  - Health: Navalea Venator, Paramedic

  - Security: Shandra Solomon, Private Security

  - Utilities: Julien Navarro, Civil Engineer

  Julien wasn’t happy to be included on the council. However, as the specialist with the most experience with hydroelectric power pnts, he was the best choice for making decisions about our critical dam infrastructure. He reluctantly accepted the role.

  I was surprised my name ended up on the list too. Dr. Lathwal knew far more about medicine as the chief surgeon of Swedish Medical Center in Seattle. However, when I brought up the subject of the council, he turned it down.

  He was tired of dealing with politics from his time in the hospital system. He also pointed out I had more experience with the sort of in-the-field emergencies we’d likely encounter. I agreed to defer to the doctor regarding all matters of patient care in the infirmary, and he’d let me handle the big picture stuff.

  Once everyone settled on how to make the decision, it came time to actually make the decision.

  Julien suggested we hold the council session in the mess hall where everyone could watch and participate. However, Dr. Kunie pointed out it might be better to deliberate in private, then provide a unified front to the community, to avoid factionalism and widespread arguments. Julien agreed, so we met in the office in the administrative building that had originally been set aside for the CEO.

  As a first order of business, the council unanimously agreed to have Dr. Kunie and Dr. Lathwal evaluate the mental and physical health of anyone before they’re accepted into the community.

  Then we nominated three possible outcomes for the newcomers:

  Accept no one. Accept people who could fill critical missing roles. Accept everyone, but adults have to contribute to the community somehow.After ranking our votes and going through a round of elimination, the “accept everyone” decision came out ahead with 3 votes. Shandra and Arthur were concerned about precedent if other, rger groups of refugees arrived, but agreed to the council’s decision.

  We didn’t announce anything right away. The doctors wanted time to complete the health screenings first. We also needed to figure out how to house everyone.

  We unanimously agreed to modify the cabin policy to only prioritize those with privacy concerns or high-stress roles: families with children, doctors, and department heads. This meant if Julien and I left the council, our household would probably have to move to a bunkhouse. It seemed like a fair sacrifice for the sake of the families. Cabin leaders could optionally invite others to join their cabins.

  Anyone else would be chosen for private housing on a case-by-case basis. The VIPs who purchased their way into cabins would be re-assessed. Dr. Kunie voiced concerns their preferential treatment would eventually cause animosity from the rest of the town, and we agreed. They didn’t have much legal recourse to appeal beyond the council, and Shandra didn’t consider them a physical threat.

  All the newcomers thankfully passed the health evaluations. With that out of the way, we finally informed the community in an impromptu town hall session in the mess hall.

  Several hundred people showed up!

  The mood was quiet and calm, with just a few grumbles (basically a best-case outcome), and audible relief and joyful crying among the refugees.

  A few newcomers who didn’t have families started asking around for any cabins they could join. That was when… well, that’s how I met Ceana.