The End of a Long Day
Leonard
Around 6:30, Jocasta wanders around upstairs until she finds Charley. "Hey, Charley, I'm heading back to Livermore. Can I give you a ride back to your house?"
Mel
“Yeah.”
Leonard
"I'm sorry I don't have my car today," Jocasta says as they walk out into the cool morning sunrise. "Just the clunky old URIEL van." Charley can see from the way it's riding low that the back of the van is loaded down with cargo.
"How have you been? It feels like we've been working on this Agrigenics case for ages. Thanks for helping me out last night — you did great."
Mel
Charley looks tired. "Oh, yeah, that went OK. You're welcome." She hesitates before getting into the van and then says, "I don't want to go home. I'll go to Livermore with you. I've got some work to do."
Leonard
"Oh, okay — that's fine. I guess I don't need to go home either, it won't be the first time I've slept on that couch." She pauses for a moment before speaking again. "Is everything okay? Anything I can help you with? Given that I'm hopeless with technology," she adds with a smile.
Mel
"What?! You can go home. I just want to work, think and be alone. Bernadette's burnt body was awful. I mean, did you see her? Oh my god … the more I learn about what we do, the less I like it. And the worst part is most of it is pretty pointless. I mean pointless in the long run." Charley looks down, takes a breath, and lets it go. Then looks at Jo as she searches for the words.
"Jo, do you know what to do about it? How to end this war?" Charley answers for her. "No. No, you don't. Not Marshall, Dad, Roger, or Mitch, not the gods above or below, not one of the mighty angles of the universe can tell me how to do it. Do you know why Jo?! Because I have to fricking figure it out for myself! For myself! If I want to save mom, you, myself, and the world, I have to figure it out."
Leonard
Jocasta is silent for a few minutes. She looks off — not at Charley, but at some distant memory as if it were being projected onto a nearby wall -- and fumbles in her clutch for a cigarette, rolling it absently between her fingers before deciding not to light it after all.
"No, Charley, you're right, I don't. And neither do any of the rest of us." She sighs heavily as they walk out of the building, towards the generic deli-ticket white of the van. "I wasn't supposed to do … any of this," she says, gesturing vaguely at the contents of the van. "I was supposed to be happily married, back at that cute house up in the pines, with my decorative degree and my ditzy friends, making caprese salads. Instead I got to know that there's a nightmare behind every square on the calendar."
"But do you know what I think? What I really think? I don't tell many people what I really think. Not your dad or Marshall or Mitch or even Roger. I think that this is a war that has lasted for...well, a thousand years, in the short term. In the long term … a lot longer. It's like a war against cruelty, or or fear, or something -- something that seems almost natural and inherent in human nature. We have to do something that's … maybe very brave, or maybe stupid, depending on how you look at it. Maybe both. We have to fight a war whose end we will never get to see. We have to sacrifice … so much … for a victory that's for our children's children's children."
She stops again briefly before opening the front doors of the van, as if she's trying to answer Charley, but also a different question by someone else, something she's been asked so many times by a questioner she can't be sure is real. "And here's something else I think. I think the only way we win, the only chance we have, is if we all find a way to work together. You and me and the Club, but also everyone, all the people who aren't … special, and who are so easy to fool. I think the idea that any of us is, is chosen by fate, is some elite above everyone else, and has the whole weight of the world on them to save everyone else — I think that's an idea the enemy put into us. Maybe the Enemy, maybe OZYMANDIAS or whatever we're calling them. I think they built you to think that way, and you have to fight it."
"Maybe I'm wrong," she says, sinking defeated into the driver's seat. "Maybe I'm just being manipulated, and maybe I'm stupid. Maybe that's just some silly hope I have left over from when I used to wear pillbox hats. But you asked me, and I'm telling you what I think is the truth. We have to keep fighting an enemy we can't even see, and we have to do it together. Otherwise, we lose, forever. Because that's the quality they're always trying to tear out of us."
Mel
Charley looks at Jo, her face red, hands clenched. "A war against cruelty and fear that we fight with brutality and fear? No, Jo, I don't think so. I'm sorry, but I don't agree with most of what you just said.
Geez, Jo! My wanting to help or save my mom or anyone wasn't programmed into me by the enemy!
I tend to forget this, but this isn't my first life. I have a mission, but it doesn't come from anyone but myself and my King!" Surprised by that last comment, Charley stops for a moment before she continues.
"Yes, well, and you know what? King Arthur and his knights couldn't finish the game, but I told Marshall that I believe magic is the power that everyone has. It's what the knights of the round table used. And it helped save humanity and will again. And to be clear, I'm not saying I don't want to work in the Club. I understand I can't save the world all on my own. But I know there is something I can do to end this; no one can tell me what that is. I have to figure it out on my own and make that decision for myself. Do I think we can end this war? Yes, I do! Why not? Just because that's not reasonable or hasn't been done before? No, it can be done and will be! Oh! And don't tell me I'm programmed, Jo! That chip in my head is deactivated! Besides, we are all programmed by our experiences, but I'm trying to break free! Okay, Jo?!"
Leonard
Jocasta drives in silence for a few minutes. Her face, too, has a sting of redness that she hopes Charley can't see. Something inside her is trying to bubble up, and she doesn't want it to. She opens the wing vent, hoping the cool air will clear her head, and lights a cigarette.
"You're right, Charley. I'm sorry." She takes a deep breath and tries to be focused. "I shouldn't presume to know you, or your life. I didn't mean to be dismissive. I guess in the end we all have to answer these questions for ourselves. I only … I just wish there had been someone to tell..." She pulls joylessly from the slender smoke. "Never mind. I'm sorry. Of course I think we can win. I wouldn't be here if I didn't." A few more mile markers pass quietly.
"Be careful about thinking that anyone knows how to make the future you want," she says, a cold calm in her voice replacing its warmth. "It never ends up looking the way you think it will."