The Ascent

Chapter 35

Seeing Isaac's mood rapidly decline, Jasmine was fervently searching her brain for something comforting to say.

She came up with nothing.

There were moments in a person's life when no words could change anything. They couldn't heal the festering wounds nor lift the mood that had fallen into the abyss of sorrow. No matter how powerful the words could usually be, this time, Jasmine failed to find a way to use them effectively.

"Give us some guns," Jasmine blurted out to Dereck in a desperate effort to change the subject.

The moment the words came out, she realized that she should have worded them more carefully because, in trying to distract Isaac from his pain, she forgot that being human didn't work like that. Most people were uncomfortable with directness, and when you needed something from them, you had to build up to it, something Jasmine wasn't good at even before everything turned so utterly bad.

"Excuse me?" Derek asked distractedly, as he was half participating in the conversation and half checking on the idiots that he was stuck with so they wouldn't make any critical mistakes.

"I mean, it sure would be helpful if you guys could spare my little group some guns," Jasmine said, trying to remember how persuasive people talked as she was never one of those. "After all, there are more children than adults, and we sure could use any type of protection we could get."

Even though she was only speaking the truth, Jasmine felt uncomfortable. It was like she was using the children to get what she wanted, like she was being dishonest. It reminded her of what her family used to do when trying to convince her to do something. It wasn't something she ever did.

"Won't you come to your niece's birthday party?" her mother said disapprovingly. "She will be so disappointed that her favorite aunt doesn't consider her birthday party important enough to come. It will crush her that you chose to spend time with other people's children and not with her."

"But, Mom, spending time with other people's children is my job," Jasmine said, desperately trying to explain herself, to justify her absence. "I can't just leave my job whenever I want, even though I really wish I could spend the birthday with Monica."

"Very well, crush the little girl's heart," her mother said dramatically. "It wouldn't be the first time you do something like that."

"I am sorry, but I can't do that," Dereck said carefully. "There might not be a government to answer to, but I still can't go around giving weapons to civilians. What if you turn them against us? Besides, we barely have enough weapons to go around because the main military forces took a lot of guns with them, not sure what they thought they would accomplish. It didn't do them any good."

His words snapped her out of her short but painful dive into the past, cutting at her hope like a knife.

That day with her mother, she allowed herself to be manipulated because she didn't want to fail them, almost losing her job. This time, Jasmine was unsuccessful even after using her mother's manipulation tactics. It was like no matter what she did, she was destined to fail.

"But aren't you supposed to protect us?" Isaac, who had been quiet until that moment, asked. "Isn't that like your job description or something?"

"Yes, kid, it is, but when we signed up to be reservists, no one mentioned any aliens," Dereck responded angrily. "We didn't anticipate this would happen, and now that it did, we need to think of our survival first."

"That's selfish and cowardly!" Isaac exclaimed vehemently. "I am sure that the A team would have helped us!"

"Maybe you are right kid, but we can't save you," Dereck said, sighing deeply. "I am not sure we can even save ourselves."