I thought the old lady might have shrugged, but her movement was too restricted by her bonds to be sure. It was as much permission as I was likely to get, and I yanked down the edge of her rough black skirt and pushed the needle into the sagging flesh of her buttocks. I nodded at the others that they could leave us in peace. Intra- muscular drugs took some time to diffuse through the system, particularly ones that have to cross the blood-brain barrier. Ingo seemed happy enough to go, and Haru couldn't get out of the door fast enough, but Kelis and Soren both stayed.
'Could be at least an hour before we'll know if it's worked,' I told them.
'But you're staying,' Kelis said.
I shrugged. 'Someone needs to.'
'Then we'll keep you company,' Soren said, looking at Kelis and not me.
'You really think this will work?' Kelis asked.
I shrugged again. 'I think it might. And if it doesn't, that will tell us something as well.'
'Yeah, but what? What exactly is it we're waiting here to find out?'
I looked at her, casually picking her teeth with a fingernail, leg slung over one arm of the chair. The posture looked deceptively relaxed, but I could see that it kept the holster of her gun right next to her hand.
'I want to find out what's made these people sick,' I said. 'I think we need to find out, before it's too late. Because otherwise there might be nowhere in the world that's far enough to run to.'
She stopped picking at her teeth and sat a little more upright in her chair. 'You think we're looking at another Cull?'
Soren was watching me too, out of the corner of his eye, as interested in my answer as she was.
'Yeah, I think that's exactly what we might be looking at,' I told them, and it was pretty much the truth.
After that she lapsed back into silence, and I was free to study our captured Infected as the anti-psychotic spread slowly through her system. I looked at her eyes most of all. She was studying the room, looking for escape routes. Everything a normal person would be doing in her situation. That wasn't what interested me though. I was looking for something else, something I'd seen in my own eyes for the last five years.
There's a little game they make medical students play when they teach you about mental illnesses: Hearing Voices. One student interviews another – but the whole time a third student is talking in the interviewee's ear, just a stream of nonsense. It's supposed to give you an idea of what it's like to experience auditory hallucinations, and I guess it kind of does. But the most interesting thing is the expression on the person's face. Once you've seen it, you never forget it: the momentary distraction, the subtle blankness, the focus pushing to the horizon as the attention turns inward.
I studied the old woman but I just didn't see it. If the Infected was hearing voices, hearing the Voice, there was nothing on her face to show it. Still, because I was studying her so closely, I was able to see the moment when the anti-psychotic began to take effect. It wasn't difficult, because the moment the madness went, the pain came.
I'd been prepared for that. 'Does it hurt?' I asked her in my own broken Spanish.
'Si, senora,' she said, her voice little more than a whimper. 'Me duele mucho.'
I didn't need Kelis to translate that for me. The painkiller was lying ready and I injected that too. The relief washed over her face like a wave and I felt an intense stab of envy. I knew what that felt like, that wash of contentment, and not a day went by when a part of me didn't want it back.
'Better?' I asked, and this time Kelis translated for me.
The old woman nodded. She pulled feebly against the bonds, seeming puzzled by their presence. They looked cruel, now that she was just an old helpless woman with a wound in her body that would shortly kill her. But the anti-psychotics wouldn't last long and my nose was still sending regular throbs of pain to every nerve ending in my body. She stayed roped up.
'Do you remember how you came to be here?' I asked her.
I could see her thinking, her eyes clearing as memory returned. 'You captured me,' she said and Kelis translated.
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'We wanted to find out what was wrong with you,' I told her, 'and then see if we could cure you.'
'But I'm already cured.'
I shook my head. 'I've given you anti-psychotics but I'm afraid their effect is only temporary.'
Her face cleared, looking suddenly relieved. 'So… my mind will be better soon? This… feeling will be gone?'
Kelis and I exchanged a look over her head. 'You're saying you felt better before we captured you?'
'Of course.' Her eyes drifted out of focus for a moment. 'I was cured.'
'If you were cured, why were you acting the way you were? Why wouldn't you speak to us?' I gestured at my swollen nose. 'Why did you do this to me?'
She laughed. 'You were trying to stop me from doing what I had to do. I didn't ask you to attack me.'
'And now?'
'I don't…' She looked momentarily lost. 'I don't know what it is I'm supposed to do. And I… feel.'
'But you didn't feel before, did you?' I said. 'You felt no pain.'
'No pain,' she said. 'No guilt, no fear, no loneliness. That was the cure we were promised. The cure you can have too, if you want it.'
Ingo and Haru had re-entered the room as she spoke. I looked at their faces. There was a flash of something on Ingo's, I wasn't sure what, but I thought that maybe it was temptation. The death of feeling held some appeal for him. Haru just looked appalled.
'Who cured you?' I asked her. 'Who is it that can cure us?'
'The Leader. He plans to cure everyone.' And though I knew the anti-psychotics hadn't worn off, the mad light was burning in her eyes again, the bright light of absolute conviction.
'Where can we find the Leader?' I pressed. 'If we want the cure for ourselves.'
'The palace, of course,' she said. 'The Leader has always been in his palace. And he finds you – there is no need to seek him out. He speaks to anyone who wants to listen. Please, senora, I have told you everything I can. Please release me.' She was sweating, trickles of it running off her forehead and into her straggly grey hair. I thought for a moment that the painkillers were wearing off, but it wasn't that.
'Oh god,' she said. 'I remember. I don't want to remember. Jorge!' And then she was screaming, louder and longer than when we'd captured her outside.
'Jesus,' Haru said. 'What have you done to her?'
'Allowed her to feel again.' I said flatly. 'Who's Jorge?' I asked the woman, but I wasn't sure that I wanted to know what it was that had happened, that was pulling the terrible sound out of her. There was no reply anyway, just more piercing screams. Haru scurried out of the room as fast as he'd entered it, but Ingo stayed, staring at her. I wondered if there was anything hidden away inside him, some secret that made him want to scream the same way. There sure as hell was inside me.
I turned to Kelis, meaning to tell her to put the old woman out of her misery. But I closed my mouth as soon as I'd opened it. What, so I could keep my hands clean and keep kidding myself that I was someone who saved lives and didn't take them? No. I pulled out my own gun, turned my face away and put a bullet through the old woman's skull. There was only a very little blood.
We set out for the palace three hours later. The Leader wanted to cure everyone? That wasn't something even Haru thought we could ignore.
The walk through the streets of Havana was nerve-wracking. One of us might have hoped to slip through the shadows and side-streets unnoticed. Five of us? No chance. So we walked, calmly and quietly, as if we had every right to be there and knew exactly where we were going.
The first time we passed a cluster of the Infected I expected it all to fall apart. Surely they'd found out what we'd done to the old woman? But they just passed us by, not even sparing us a glance. Kelis let out a little huff or relief. Haru shuddered and wrapped his arms protectively around himself.
Next were the cameras, silent silver eyes on every street corner. All it would take was some simple face- recognition software. Soren ducked self-consciously as we walked past but I yanked on his arm and forced him to face forward. Conspicuously hiding from the cameras – there was software that could pick that up too. Either they'd
