Saturday
They opened up the three larger conference rooms into one big room, a simple matter of removing a few dividers, for the first day’s programming. All the Chiefs were invited to sit in on what amounted to the keynote address – a summary of what the Chiefs in North America had faced up to this point while dealing with The Human Order in the last twenty-five years and a list of items that would be covered by the rest of the conference.
There were anywhere from two to five clans in each state, depending on the size of the clans and the size of the state. The Canadian Chiefs had been invited as well, all thirty-one of them, which brought their total up over two hundred, plus the Council members and a few other influential Chiefs had brought their wives, or in Charles’ case his daughter, to help run the conference, adding another dozen or more to the total head count.
They’d arranged a raised dais at the front of the room so the Council could sit facing the rest of the Chiefs and see most of the crowd. The front row was taken up by wives and speakers.
Remy stood near the back, watching the room fill up. Apparently leaving the seating plan open meant a power play for every chair. Sitting on the aisle was highly coveted as it meant you got to stretch your leg out. Sitting as close to the front as possible was also important for those who wished to show their wealth. But then sitting close to allies who could back up your claims or “hear-hear” your questions seemed to be more important to the lesser known Chiefs who didn’t have old money amplifying their opinions.
Marnie appeared at his elbow with two glasses of water. He scowled. “I could have grabbed those.” He reached down and took them from her. “Shall we find a seat?”
“Your mother taught you well but I’m not helpless.”
“My mother taught me well and she’s not helpless. So God help me if I don’t use my manners and she finds out about it. Where do you want to sit?”
“Not much space left and we need three seats.”
“Yes, where is Daniel?”
“Here,” Daniel said from behind them. “I’m right here. Grab us some seats or we’ll be left standing at the back and my knees won’t take that.”
They ended up seated in the last row about mid-way down on the left side. Remy, being as tall as he was, had no trouble seeing what was going on, but from the way Marnie kept shifting in her seat, she was having a much harder time. He resisted the urge to lean over and offer her a booster seat. He really didn’t feel like getting smacked.
“I’d like to call this conference officially to order.” Silence settled surprisingly fast over the room. The head of the Council, a man about Daniel’s age named Francis, stood at the front. “Thank you all for coming this weekend. I know it is always difficult for any of us to travel, but most especially for Chiefs. I thank you most graciously for agreeing to come over the full moon. We look forward to strengthening connections between chiefs and clans, and strengthening the ties between the Chiefs and the Council. But you didn’t come to listen to me pat people on the back, we did enough of that last night. There are many people to thank and I will take the time to thank them all before we all head for home. For now, I will let Andrew take over. He can bore you until lunch.”
There was a ripple of laughter and a few whispers and then silence settled again. Andrew was a bit younger than Francis and didn’t seem to take offence to the head of the Council calling him a bore.
“We’ve got a lot to cover so let’s get moving. We’ve faced controversy and hatred since we came out but The Human Order only first appeared in the early nineties, though I don’t think most people were aware of them until the birth of the internet. Since social media and free websites came along they have multiplied exponentially. Now, with the current national climate of bigotry and hatred, we’re at greater risk than ever.”
“The advancements of science are working against our anonymity as well. We’ve had reports of werebears being blackmailed because they had bloodwork done or were injured in some way. No, it’s not the doctors or even nurses in these cases – generally it’s lab techs, or someone a lab tech told.”
“We may reach a time when we will be required to list ‘werebear’ on our driver’s licenses, and that time may be a lot sooner than any of us feared or could have guessed. Already there is muttering in the government that we’re a threat, that a werebear pulled over at a traffic stop could assault an officer. They are also discussing how to update various criminal codes to cover how a werebear would be charged for committing a crime in animal form, and how they would be sentenced and imprisoned.”
“I could answer a few questions on that,” Marnie muttered.
Andrew managed to fill the three hours before lunch with more information on the status of the shifter laws, the current political climate, and statistics on crime rates among shifters – which was belong one percent over a ridiculously long period of time. He was thorough and long winded, but he was far from boring.
“That about sums up the current state of affairs that forced us to call this conference. And it’s about time for lunch. We’re due back here at one-thirty to look at how changing technology is working against us and how it can work for us. Until then, you’re free to eat where you please. For those who haven’t had a chance to explore, there’s a restaurant and a café attached to the resort and a few restaurants in town. They have room service here as well. Thank you.”
In addition to the options Andrew had listed, the resort staff put out a buffet in the dining hall. Daniel had decided to go lie down for an hour so it was just Marnie and Remy. “The Council is pretty damn full of themselves,” Marnie said. “They haven’t addressed a single one of my concerns. I’m not sure they’ve even listened to any of them. What was the point in sending out a survey asking people what they needed discussed if they were just going to ignore it?”
“Marnie, we’re halfway through the first day, not even. We’ve got all week.”
“Still, you have to admit, that room is stuffed full of rich, arrogant, old men.”
“And some poor, honest, middle-aged men,” Remy said, winking at her.
“You’re not middle-aged yet. I’m still middle-aged and I’m older than you. Looks like your friend Tara just walked in.”
Remy glanced up. Tara was headed for the buffet line and she was alone. He wasn’t sure if she’d seen him yet but he wasn’t waiting around to find out. He wiped his mouth with the napkin. “I think I’m going to head upstairs for a little R-and-R,” he said. “Daniel’s got the right of it. I’ll see you back in the conference room.”
“You aren’t staying?” Marnie called after him but he didn’t look back.
Tara came into the dining room, blissfully alone. Her father had been overbearing all morning and had tried to drag her along to a lunch with some of the council members. She wasn’t in the mood for more of those old men and their grandstanding. She spotted Remy seated with one of the female Chiefs – Marnie she thought her name was. She hurried to get her food so she could join them. The line crawled forward as people ahead of her loaded up their plates. By the time she had her food and turned around, Marnie was sitting alone.
Confused, Tara went over. “Excuse me,” she said. “Was Remy sitting with you?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “He went to lie down. You’re welcome to join me if you’d like.”
“Thanks.” She sat but her stomach was flip-flopping. She kept her eyes on her plate and ate even though she didn’t feel like it, acutely aware of Marnie’s eyes on her. She cleared her plate in record time, drained a glass of water, and stood. “Thanks for letting me sit here.”
“Of course. Any time.” Marnie smiled at her. “Perhaps you can join us for dinner one evening.”
“Perhaps.”
As she walked through the hotel, she pulled out her phone and sent Remy a text. “Missed you at lunch today. I wanted to speak to you.” She returned to her seat in the conference room and waited, looking at her phone every thirty seconds or so. Soon the room began filling up. If Remy came in, she didn’t see. Francis called the afternoon session to order so she put her phone away and forced herself to focus. Her father was speaking this afternoon and that meant more work for her.
Remy slipped into the back where he’d been sitting with Marnie and Daniel just as Charles got the meeting started. His phone was burning a hole in his pocket. He wanted to text Tara back, wanted to set a time to talk to her, but he wasn’t ready to face her rejection yet. It was pathetic, he knew that, but he’d been captivated by her from the start and had fallen in love too hard, too fast.
Marnie gave him a cross stare as he sat down but said nothing.
While Charles spoke, Tara flipped pages in her folder, keeping pace with his talking. Whenever someone asked a question about statistics or dates, Tara had the correct reference item at hand and passed it to him. She jotted notes in margins or on the pad of paper at her elbow.
The subject of the afternoon was the effective dispersal of information about werebears to counteract the propaganda that The Human Order was spewing everywhere. They’d agreed years ago on what information needed to be made public, the fact that they were not contagious being foremost, but their “marketing” campaign hadn’t kept pace with the times.
“That’s where the webpage comes in,” Charles was saying. “It’s a public and easily accessible place people can visit to get information about werebears. The billing information will all be listed under the name of someone who is already publicly known, preferably someone without children. We do anticipate this person becoming a target of The Human Order if they discover their identity because this person will be actively speaking out against misinformation and hate.”
That started up a discussion on using a fake name, or a front company to protect themselves. Finally Charles said, “Those are all good points and questions. We’ll direct them to the police officer who is coming to speak with us tomorrow so he can address them for you in his talk.”
One of the Chiefs drew Remy aside as the session was wrapping up to ask him about Brock’s run for Mayor and how having a werebear in local office was working out for them. When he finally made it to the restaurant, it was pretty crowded. Tara was seated near the window with an older lady, Marnie and Daniel were seated near the door and had saved him a seat – though they had ordered and started eating without him. Tara glanced up just as he came in and smiled.
He turned away and joined Marnie and Daniel at their table.
“What kept you?” Daniel said.
“Politics. Had to explain that the spotlight of public office came with as many if not more risks as rewards.”
“What did I say?” Marnie said, pointing her fork at Daniel. “Power hungry. I don’t like the way some of these conversations are going.”
“We’ll never get a werebear elected to anything higher than mayor,” Daniel said. “Too many people are worried about biased laws or letting ‘killer bears get away with murder’ or they’re just outright bigoted.”
Tara watched Remy walk in the opposite direction and sighed.
“What is it dear?” Mabel asked.
“Nothing. Just tired. It was a long day.”
“You did wonderfully. You’re such a help for your father. He must be quite proud of you.”
“Mmm,” she said. She wiped her mouth and dropped her napkin on her plate. “Excuse me, I think I’ll go up to my room for a bit.”
She left without approaching Remy but pulled out her phone as she walked. “Did I do something wrong? I really miss you. I’m going down to the pool if you want to join me. Promise I won’t try to drown you this time.”
Remy pulled his phone out and quickly read the message then tucked the phone away again.
“What’s up?” Daniel said.
“Nothing. So, tell me about the rebuilding that’s going on down there.”
Once Daniel got going on hurricanes, nothing could stop him and they passed the evening over dessert and wine discussing politics and infrastructure and the nasty string of storms that had recently been pounding the southern corner of the US.