Outside Prague, Czech Republic
November 30
When he awoke, the Healer felt cold; much colder than he should have. He had trouble seeing in the darkness, but he noticed the brown spines of his tent above him, and eased back, calm again. There were voices next to him, laughing, happy, speaking in a language he didn’t understand. He turned his head stiffly towards them, pain shooting from his shoulder.
Anouma sat close by, smiling and putting beads and jewels in the girl’s hair, which shone a fiery orange and yellow, but black at the same time. The girl noticed him first, her expression changing from joy to anxious observation.
Then Anouma looked over, kept her smile, and nodded to him slowly, reassuring. She reached out to him, but he stopped her, catching her hand in his. Her skin was so soft, and he caressed her fingertips with his thumb… gentle… gentle…
He felt a sudden panic, jerked upright when he realized: he wasn’t wearing his gloves! He grasped at his chest, his arms… they were bare… his skin exposed, his body in the open air… he threw his head back, gasped madly, but the oxygen was tight, and he flailed against it, fought against it… but then… then the darkness swarmed over him again.
* * *
Anouma was checking his wound the next time he opened his eyes, her face so close to his, he had trouble telling if it was another dream. He moved his head slightly, and she recoiled, scared of him, but not running yet.
His shoulder ached with a strange dull pain he couldn’t pinpoint. He tried moving his arm to feel it, but realized his arms were strapped down… several straps around his forearms, his thighs and calves. He was trapped. He panicked, started to struggle against them.
“What are you doing?” he said, his mask making it hard to breathe. “Let me go!”
“You were flailing in your sleep,” she said, pushing a firm hand down on his bare chest, and it calmed him somewhat. “You had nightmares.”
“They’re done now. Let me go!”
“You said the same thing an hour ago,” she warned, pushing him back. “Lie still or you will tear the stitches.”
He obeyed, slowing his breathing, laying back again. The straps were tight and thin, cutting into his skin, but when he relaxed they were much less obtrusive. He stared up at the tent, the wind blowing it softly, and said nothing.
“You have lost a lot of blood” Anouma said, sliding closer again. “It was a gunshot?”
He nodded slightly.
“Your brother’s fault,” he said. “How did you find me?”
“I followed you as you left the hospital. You did not look well. I was not sure what I… what I would…”
“I did not see you,” he said, worry strong in his voice.
“I do not think you saw much. You should not be alive, with all that blood loss. The bullet did not do any major damage, but you will have to stay here for several days.”
“No,” he groaned. “There is no time. I must go by morning…” He checked the sides of the tent suddenly, back and forth, looking for a crack, for a hint… “What time is it?” he gasped. “How long have I slept?”
She pushed his chest again, and he stopped fighting, lay back again.
“The sun is still down,” she said. “But it would be foolish to go out there too soon. You do not know what might—”
“I have a schedule. It cannot wait.”
She nodded, said nothing for a moment.
“Whose mission is it?” she asked. “Are you helping my brother, or yourself?”
He looked away, his arms tensing against the straps.
“Neither,” he said, bitterly.
She sighed, reached over and pulled the gauze off his wound, checking it carefully. He groaned at the contact, but didn’t resist it.
“It does not hurt,” he said.
“That is the morphine. I found it in your pack.”
He stared at her, eyes wide behind his mask.
“What did you touch? What did you touch?”
“As little as possible. And I will keep the morphine, just in case.”
She sat back, pulled a needle from her pocket, stared at it guiltily. It seemed to weigh more to her than it should have.
“Why are you saving me?” he asked, voice flat.
“I… I do not know if I am, yet,” she whispered.
They sat in silence again, both staring at the needle.
“You must be shot at often,” Anouma muttered.
“People fear me,” he said, his voice stale.
She nodded.
“That is your nature. You bring fear and pain.”
His eyes couldn’t leave the needle. He strained against the straps again, getting nowhere.
“I do not bring pain,” he said, his temper rising. “The pain came before me.”
She looked at him again, her eyes were narrow, cold.
“Suffering comes before you,” she said, her voice filling with venom. “Death and agony come too. But you bring pain. You kill their hope when you enter the room.”
“They should not use rooms!” he spat, and her face twitched. “It is cruel and unfair.”
“Unfair? Unfair to whom?” she snapped. “The patient? or your sacred social order?”
“Both!” he hissed. “Neither deserve that fate!” He would have grabbed her if he could, but he was stuck there, a captive, awaiting his execution. His frustration boiled over: “We warned them. We told them to outlaw the machines before the damage was too great. They ignored us, and they are paying for their mistakes.”
“Those machines did so much good!” she argued. “The cure for AIDS—”
“They denied it to you! You defend them?”
“—many other great things as well! If it had not been for the incubators, where would humanity be now?”
“Alive!” yelled the Healer. “We would find the same cures, without the damage done! But their decisions left us with none! All my work, all my sacrifice, undone in a moment. All because of weak resolve. I will not let that happen. If they will not take care of themselves, we will do it for them!”
She stared at him, her mouth clenched shut.
“You cannot believe what you have done is right,” she said, and he focused hard to block the image of fire. “You cannot believe you are not guilty of murder.”
He paused, tried to control himself.
“I am not answerable to you,” he said, and she gripped the syringe tighter, looked away.
“No…” she said quietly.
He sighed loudly.
“And you? Are you a murderer?”
She met his eyes, then held the needle up before her, turned it slightly, as if contemplating.
“I cannot tell. Is there such a thing as a necessary evil?”
He rolled his head back, slammed it against the ground, agonizing.
“Stop trying to be a hero! We are all killers, here!”
She shook her head slowly.
“I am not. Not yet. And I cannot tell… if taking one life to save another—”
“The hundredth is the same as the second. Or the first. Be done with it! Whatever you wish, do it!”
She lowered the needle, but didn’t put it away.
“You are wrong. There is a difference between the one and the many. You are guilty of far worse, and you know it.”
He barely flinched.
“Our hospitals,” he began, quietly at first, “they help broken bones and pregnant women. Yours are like funeral parlours staffed by doctors. Our children wear masks for colds, not to survive. You live in a pandemic day after day. To us, it is a distant nightmare.”
She sneered at him.
“A nightmare black with ashes,” she intoned.
“We made sacrifices. We saw the future and stopped it before it killed us. It hurt us far more than it hurt you to watch. It was the only way to survive. In eight months, we were safe; yet you have worked for five years with no progress, no victories. Society rotting from all sides. We contained our tragedy. You wallow in it.”
She looked at her hands on her lap for a few moments, her fingers unmoving, curled slightly, and he said nothing, let her be. Her weapon rolled between her palm and her fingers, gently.
“Society is not the sum of its people,” she said, talking more to herself than to him. “It is not something you protect at the expense of its parts. You see a man with a diseased leg, you do not kill him because the effort to save him is too great. You treat him, you fight for him, you save him and if you cannot, you give him hope in his last days.”
“Hope is a luxury you cannot afford,” he replied.
“You sound like someone I know,” she sighed.
“The older man? The doctor?”
She nodded.
“He thinks hope is dangerous, too,” she said. “Hope and trust.”
“He has seen things you cannot comprehend.”
“And what about you? How did you deal with those things he saw? You were there, were you not? You saw what happened there—”
“An entire generation of medical genius, destroyed,” he interrupted.
“By a set of plagues so much simpler than the ones we fight now.”
“He learned from his mistakes,” he said. “Some of them, anyway. We did our best to contain it. But without the social structures being enforced, it means nothing. Your doctor saw that. Noble intentions count for nothing if you fight a blaze by spitting at smoke.”
“This is not your battle—”
“It’s not your battle! You are not even from here! What did they say to convince you to risk your life for them?”
“I could not let them die like this—”
“No? They had no trouble leaving you at the mercy of Tuberculosis, Meningitis, AIDS… We would never abandon our allies. If we did, we would be alone in the world.”
“You are. You lost the last of your friends the day you set those towns on fire.”
He said nothing, turned his head away.
“You dream of them,” she said, guilty almost. “They haunt you.”
He looked back, tired.
“You know nothing about it.”
She nodded, turned the needle over in her hand again.
“There is enough morphine here to stop your heart,” she said, morose. “And I cannot think of a reason not to use it.”
She met his eyes — or his goggles — with a sad stare.
“And it is wrong, is it not?” she asked.
He said nothing.
“You would kill my brother,” she said. “You would kill him and anyone else you choose, all to keep a schedule. A schedule! These are people you are hurting, but they are just names on a page to you. Another job to finish before the time is up.”
“I have no choice. It is my duty.”
“And what if you fail? What happens if you just refuse? What if you say: ‘Enough is enough. I will not do it anymore’?”
“That is not my choice,” he sighed. “I cannot stop.”
“Why not?”
“I cannot fail them.”
“Why not?” she yelled.
“Because they would send me back home!” he boomed, fighting against the straps and sending pain shooting down his arm. “They would send me back and I cannot go back there!”
Neither spoke for a moment.
Finally, she nodded, carefully held the needle to his arm, and he felt the prick, a warm sensation creeping up and through his body, and he gasped, closing his eyes, letting it carry him. He felt the straps come loose around his arms, falling to his sides. The pain slipped away, and he realized… slowly… that he was not dying.
He looked over at her, slow, uncertain, and she shot the rest of the morphine onto the ground, threw the needle there.
“You do have a choice,” she said to him solemnly.
He said nothing, stayed still, watching her pull her knees up, hugging them gently, resting her head there, quietly distraught.
“You will save my brother, and you will wipe his disease from the face of the Earth. And then, when you place another check mark next to your list of accomplishments, you can make your choice.”
She wiped a tear from her eye with her sleeve, took a shaky breath. Then, he found himself reaching a hand out, touched her arm, and she didn’t recoil.
“This nightmare,” he said softly, “it ruins your soul.”
She choked on a sob, shook her head.
“My soul is broken already,” she said. “I have blood on my hands. Each one of the lives you will take today, those are all my fault. I could have stopped you here, tonight, but I refused.”
She looked at him, eyes full.
“I am not scared of hell,” she said. “I am terrified of the company I will have to keep there.”
