Remainers

To Those in the Future, Part 14

John and Marianne agreed to meet in three days, hopefully with good news. Thankfully, they both managed to get their respective sides to agree to a meeting, which gave John some hope. Still, they needed a place and a time to have the meeting, and this was more difficult than either of them realized.

"I'm sorry, but Derrick's schedule is always full of meetings and briefings. It's hard for him to even find time to meet with me, let alone head out to a clandestine meeting."

"Well, there's not too much luck on my end, either. The resistance isn't particularly active, but Kath is expected to always be there to raise morale and rally the rebels. It's hard for her to step away."

"There's no chance she can explain that she's going to meet with the Ackertons to discuss a ceasefire. There are a lot of people in the resistance that straight up hate the Ackerton family. If she even brings up the possibility, there'll be hell to pay."

Marianne humphed as her brow furrowed in frustration. "What should we do, then?"

John sighed in response. "For now, get your brother to make some space outside of what's already established in his schedule, even if it's more than a week away. Once you have a date, it should be easier for Kath to come up with an excuse."

"How should I contact you then? It's a little inconvenient to have to keep coming back to this bar."

"Use this. I got it from Kath." John handed Marianne a mobile phone. "The Ackertons aren't paying much attention to their warehouses anymore, so we've been able to go in and out as we please."

Marianne took the phone and turned it on. "Wow. I haven't used something like this in a while."

"Not much of a need to. Things are different now, of course, so there's going to be a need for us to make contact. I've already put my contact info in there, so let me know when there's time to have a parley."

"Of course," Marianne nodded. "Hopefully, we can bring things to an end soon."

"Well, soon might be a bit of a long shot," John chuckled with some bitterness. "But I agree."

Marianne left, and John finished off the rest of his beer. He then got up and walked over to the bar, where Julio was chatting idly with some guests. He waited for him to finish his conversation, then waved him over.

"How's Marina doing? Is she okay?"

"For now. Those beta blockers you found in the infirmary are helping her. She's slowly getting worse, though. She's barely getting any sleep, and sometimes I'll find her just walking in circles. She's maybe a few steps from losing her mind."

"That's not good. How long has it been already? Three weeks?"

"Almost a month. She's hanging on by a thread at best."

A solemn silence fell between the two of them. Despite the hubbub of a lively bar happening around them, they could only think about their dear friend, who was struggling at death's door. For John, who was struggling to hold on to even the loosest threads of normalcy, losing her would devastate him.

Still, there was nothing he could do but ease her pain. A cure was far from the horizon, and this conflict would do little to speed things along. All he could do was keep her from harm, and even that felt like a nearly impossible task. He hadn't seen her in person in a while either; the guilt just ate at him too much for him to even look at her.

In the end, all he could do was hope for a miracle. In a way, managing to meet with an Ackerton sympathetic to his story was one in itself. Perhaps if God was willing, he'd throw him another bone. There wasn't much else he could hope for otherwise.