hand in more of them? Ash wants to replace humanity with the Cured. It's genocide. Worse than that – the destruction of an entire species. Your species. Why would you help him with that?'
His eyes burned into mine, the first emotion I'd ever seen in them, a fierce certainty. 'Because I lived twenty years, and I saw nothing in humanity that was worth saving.' He left before I could say anything else, locking the door behind him, and I didn't know what it was I would have said anyway. That humanity was worth saving? I wasn't sure I really believed that any more.
Except, damn it, humanity might not be worth saving, but I'd met individual humans who were. Kelis was worth saving, and she was somewhere in this town, or this hotel, having god knows what done to her.
I paced the room, twenty paces along one wall, thirty another, weaving between the gaudy furniture. There was no balcony here. The windows were closed and locked. When I swung my fist in despair against the glass it bounced back harmlessly. I guess too many people came up here after a bad night at the tables and thought about ending it all – but dead people didn't pay bills. The only way out was through the door, and Ash's guards were outside.
On a sudden impulse I switched on the television, knowing that the signal had died long ago. The dead static flickered into the dark room and I felt another flickering, deep inside my head; the edge of madness coming to claim me. This time I knew there was no defence against it. My medicines had been taken when I was brought here. I couldn't even dull it with a good strong dose of opiates. The craving for them was the strongest of all, the urge to just stop caring.
Listen to me, the Voice said. Listen to me! I wanted to refuse it but I had no choice.
I can help you, it said. I'm the only thing that can.
And I didn't know if it was because I was already halfway down the slope that led to the place where Ash was, but I believed it. Listening to the Voice had brought Ash here, to this position of power. Letting the Voice speak through him had brought him his army of believers. If I wanted to fight him, I had to become him.
Yes, the Voice said. Yes. Let me lead you.
OK, I told it, with every ounce of strength left in my mind. But only on my terms. As cautiously as a bomb expert defusing a nuclear device, I took down the defences it had taken me five long years to build. I could feel the monumental weight of the madness, dark and unknowable, massing behind the barriers, but I wouldn't let it all through. Just enough. Only enough to do what needed to be done.
No! the Voice screamed at me, a deafening roar now that I had given it a clear path through to my mind. Let me through! Let all of me through. It pushed its weight against my mind and I could feel my sanity bending, bending… With an effort of will more intense than anything I had ever experienced, I pushed back. There was a moment when everything was in perfect balance, the unstoppable force and the immovable object – until, millimetre by painful millimetre, I beat the Voice back. I could feel the sweat dripping from my body, every muscle in me corded with strain. But I wouldn't lose, I couldn't lose. I took what I needed, the knowledge and conviction that the Voice gave me – and then I slammed the door in my mind shut behind it.
Finally, I opened myself to the part of it I'd let through – knowing that there was a risk that I'd already surrendered too much.
The feeling was amazing, my mind clearer, more focussed, than it had ever been. I felt strength flowing through me, a tide of well-being stronger than any opiate rush. I felt absolutely certain that I knew what to do. A part of me questioned this new certainty the dangerous lure of it, but I pushed that down too. I had to do this.
I banged on the door five times before the guard answered it. She was small and dark-skinned with wide-set eyes. Her fingers were a little tentative on her gun as she turned it on me. 'It's OK,' I said, holding my hands carefully in front of me, 'I'm not going to try anything.' Although a part of me felt that if I did, I could take her on – I could take them all on.
'What do you want?' she asked after a moment. I looked in her eyes and read everything I needed there. These people weren't like the zombies of Cuba. They could listen to reason.
'I want to talk to you,' I told her. 'I've got something to say that you're going to want to hear.' My voice resonated with my conviction. She would want to hear what I had to say.
'I'm not supposed to talk to you.'
'Did Ash tell you that?'
She hesitated a moment before answering, and I knew that she hadn't received any orders directly from him. 'No,' she said eventually. 'But you're to be kept locked up. You're a prisoner.'
'And did Ash tell you why I'm a prisoner?'
She looked away, I already knew the answer. 'Seems like he doesn't tell you very much, does he?'
'He tells me enough.' She set her mouth into a thin, determined line. I was only a few words away from being pushed back into the room and having the door locked on me.
'Did he tell you I'm Cured, too?'
She tried to hide it, but I saw the slight flutter of the pulse at her throat, the nearly imperceptible tightening of the muscle in her jaw.
'It's true,' I told her. 'I knew Ash years ago, back before the Cull. We studied together, worked together – and developed the Cure together. Then we tested it on ourselves.'
'That… that can't be true,' she said. 'He told us he was the only one.'
I nodded. 'Yeah, that's what he thought. He thought I was dead and so he came here and set about breeding this race of half-Cured children. Like the one you're carrying inside you. How many months gone?'
'Five,' she said, the words dragged reluctantly out of her. 'Five months.'
'Four more till he's born. That's pretty amazing – carrying one of the first of a new race.' Her smile was cautious. 'Although not really an entirely new race, I suppose. He'll be more of a half-breed, won't he?'
And the smile was entirely gone.
I ploughed on relentlessly. My voice was soft, persuasive. 'All the children here, they're only half of what Ash wanted. You can guess why he wants me here, can't you? Maybe you've seen the women downstairs, the ones he's keeping in a coma. He doesn't need their minds – all he's interested in are their wombs. I think you know what he's planning to plant in them.'
Her face told me that she did.
'Our children, mine and Ash's, now they'll be the real thing,' I continued relentlessly. 'The first of a new race. The culmination of all Ash's work, ready to start creating his brave new world. I wonder what place your child will have in that world.'
'Ash would never…' Her voice was too loud and I saw her make an effort to quiet it. 'This is his son too, he'd never do anything to hurt him, or us. He loves us.'
'Yes,' I said. 'Yes he does. It's just that he loves me and what I can give him more.'
'I could…' she swallowed. Her hand was shaking. The barrel of the gun she'd raised to point straight at my heart was shaking too. I could feel it brushing up and down against the material of my t-shirt. 'I could make sure there are no full-breeds.'
I should have felt afraid. The tightrope I was walking had no net beneath it. I'd locked my fear away along with the Voice, and that alone made the bargain worthwhile. Everything you used to be and value isn't that high a price to pay not to have to live in fear anymore. Queen M's press gangs, the zombies of Cuba, the new serfs of Oklahoma, the Party People – they could all tell you that.
'He'd never forgive you,' I told her. 'And he'll know it was you. Who else could it be? But if you let me go he'll never find me – then you and your sisters can have him and his children all to yourselves.'
'Why would you do that?'
'Because if I stayed they'd be his children, not mine. I'm nothing but a brood-mare to him. But I won't be subordinate to anyone, not even Ash.'
She must have heard my absolute conviction because she finally lowered the gun and stepped back. 'He'll know this was me too. He'll punish me anyway.'
I shook my head – then, before she could react, I swung my fist straight into her face, twisting my hips to put the full weight of my body into the blow. She crumpled with only a small whimper of pain. I'd broken her jaw and my knuckles were bloody and torn from where they'd broken her teeth.
Nothing in me cared. I pulled the gun from her slack fingers and walked away, down the long, quiet casino corridor. My footsteps were muffled by the red carpet which was the exact same colour as her blood.
One objective achieved, my mind was straight onto the next: find and release Kelis and Haru. There wasn't
