Paul Hardy - The Last Man on Earth Club

“Okay. I can see how you could draw that conclusion, Pew, but look at what’s going on here. The news media have been preoccupied with the attack ever since it happened. Is there any day in the last few weeks they could have released this and had anyone pay attention? So the Diplomatic Service has two choices. They can release the report and see it swamped with other news, or delay it and have people think they’re trying to hide something. And of course it’s difficult to find the report: it’s been difficult to find anything since the attack. You know that. How many hours did it take you to find the video you showed me last time?”

He stayed silent, but still angry.

“Now, I’ll put in an order to have the report sent to us directly. It’ll probably take a couple of hours and I’ll pass it to you as soon as it arrives. Is that good enough?”

“No.”

I was surprised. This wasn’t a petulant thing any more. This was getting cold, and dangerous.

“Then what would you like us to do?” I said carefully, keeping any trace of sarcasm out of my voice.

“Put them on trial.”

“Put who on trial?”

“All the people who are getting away with it.”

“Again, Pew, we don’t know if that’s the case—”

“And the Soo as well. I’ve got a right to make a representation to the ICT.”

“Okay. But…” How could I put this so his expectations would not be raised too high? “The thing is, I don’t want you to be… disappointed later on if it doesn’t go the way you want.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve seen our current report on the Soo. Did you know they’re listed as an endangered species themselves?”

“Good.”

“Hardly on the same level as you, of course, but their climate’s on a downward track and they don’t know how to deal with it without our help.”

“So?”

“I don’t know if the IU is going to issue sanctions against a whole species if it might mean they go extinct—”

He jumped to his feet. “It didn’t stop them letting my species go extinct!”

“Pew! Sit down!”

“They’re going to get away with it, aren’t they?”

“Pew—”

“They’re going to wipe us out of history and say we never fucking existed! ”

“Pew, will you please—”

He threw the coffee table over, scattering my tissue box and coffee mug. “ I will not sit down! ”

“Do I need to call security?”

That put a hold on him, as furious as he was.

“Sit down. Please.”

He sat down, arms folded, looking pointedly away from me.

“I understand you’re angry but I won’t permit violence. Do I need to treat you the same way I had to treat Katie?”

He didn’t answer.

“Pew?”

Still no answer.

“Okay. If you’re not willing to engage with therapy we’ll have to come back another day. I know you want something done but you need to co-operate with me if I’m going to help you.”

He still refused even eye contact.

“Or would you like to spend the rest of the session writing your representation?”

“Is it going to make any difference?” he muttered, still looking away from me.

“You won’t know unless you try.”

Grudgingly, he agreed to work on the representation. I shelved my therapy plan for the moment and helped him.

Liss had already written her representation when she came in for her next session, and we spent the first few minutes going over it.

“Not much to say, really,” she said. It wasn’t a lengthy document. As the sole legal authority on her planet, she ‘empowered the extraterritorial authority known as the ICT to investigate and render justice as it saw fit.’

“And you’re sure you don’t want to be involved?”

“Well, I want them to keep me in the loop…”

“But this is basically you giving them your job.”

“This is me passing my job on to people who can actually do it.”

“You’re sure?”

“I don’t know, let me think about it, oh, hang on, yeah, I’d have to launch an investigation across fuck knows how many universes, no clue who to look for, no way of bringing them to justice that doesn’t involve dropping a bomb on them which is probably going to get me prosecuted by your people so why the hell am I even supposed to consider it?”

“I don’t mean it like that, Liss. I just meant you could be more involved if you wanted to.”

“Yeah? How?”

“If your therapy goes well, I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t go to work for the ICT.”

She found that bitterly amusing. “What am I going to do, run their call centre? ‘Hello, you’re through to Liss, which genocide did you commit today?’ I mean, seriously?”

“They’re going to be taking on a lot of staff. You were an office manager — you must have administration skills. They’ll need people like you.”

“Why are you so keen on this?”

“Because you’re not.”

“Isn’t that my business?”

“Of course. But I think it’s an issue for therapy as well.”

“You’re going to hit me with the low self-esteem crap, aren’t you?”

“I don’t suppose I’m the first therapist to mention it…”

She sighed. “Only about the fifteenth.”

“I’m afraid I still don’t have your medical records — do you really mean fifteen?”

“Let me think.” She scratched her head and counted. “More. I don’t remember all the ones from when I was a little girl.”

“Well, I think this is an issue we have to address. While I’m waiting for your records, I’d be grateful if you could talk about it.”

She sighed again. “I’ve been over this so many goddamn times…”

“Well, the thing is, you don’t have that many therapeutic issues. You don’t have any PTSD symptoms. You’re depressed, of course, you’re going through a grieving process, but you’re coping very well, considering what’s happened to you. I think you’re the person here who’s most likely to be able to leave and start a new life, once the legal hurdles are cleared.”

“Great. That’s another power, I suppose. ‘Ability to cope with genocide’.”

“But there are still issues we have to work through. I think low self-esteem might be something at the heart of it. So I’d be really grateful if you could tell me what you went through, before the world ended.”

She flumped back into her chair. “Where the hell am I supposed to start?”

“How about I make you a cup of tea and you think about it? If one of your therapists had an idea, you can tell me that, if you like.”

I got up to make the tea, and Liss cast her mind back. “One of them said it was my parents’ fault.”

“The adventurers?”

“No, not them. The biological ones. Keff and Seelie were my foster parents. I was an orphan. I suppose that makes me an automatic fuckup, doesn’t it?” It took her a moment to remember I was an orphan as well. “Oh, uh, shit, sorry. I didn’t mean, I didn’t mean you, I just meant…”

She trailed off. For a moment, I couldn’t answer. The memory of the crowd came back to me: pressed together, all of them pushing me up, passing me along, a sea of hands pulling me away from my doomed parents. Dragging me away with their blessing. Dying so I would be safe.

I shouldn’t have been seeing those things. It shouldn’t have kept coming back. It faded, and I noticed Liss was frowning, worried she’d offended me. I smiled to reassure her. “It’s all right, Liss. It was a long time ago, but you’re right, it doesn’t make it any easier. I’d like to hear the theory your other therapist had.”

“Okay…” She went on, a little more carefully. “There was something about the daycare place my parents took me to. They had us hooked up to these weirdo learning machines to try and make us into superbrains or something. I guess it was some mad paediatrician. I don’t know if my parents knew what was going on. The therapist thought they did. I don’t know… I don’t know anything about them. I hardly remember them at all.” She drifted away for a moment, then came back to the present. “And then they died.”