Neil nodded and suppressed a shaking sob. Mateo patted his shoulder again.
“She’ll be here soon, man. Really soon. You just hold on, ok? This first week, it’s always the worst. You won’t have to wait as long as some of the others. You don’t know how glad I am that we found you. I know it doesn’t mean much coming from me, you don’t know me from Adam, but Christ, I owe you a hell of a lot for what you did. Maybe the whole City does. Shay took the shot you gave her and— I don’t think anyone could have done your sacrifice more justice than she did. And you’re going to get to see it. No matter what you think about yourself, about what you went through, you hang on to that. She never forgot it. You and Cody. I hear about you all the time.” His hand pulled away, but it was distant, unconnected from Neil. Intense hope and deep grief overwhelmed him and he sat at the table alone for a long time. Eventually, the nurse came back for him, coaxing him back to his cot.
8
The heat in the tent when he woke was almost suffocating. It was late in the day. Most of the cots around him were empty and the tent was very quiet. It took Neil a few moments to remember where he was. Who he was. The disorientation made him uneasy. As if he were infected still, another slow slide into an odd twilight where time slowed and words lost their meaning. That happened, didn’t it? Just before the end of a long illness. Something like coherency and then you crashed again. For good. He sat up and spent a few minutes just staring at the rippling cloth of the distant tent wall, trying to convince himself he wasn’t losing his sanity again.
“Heard you had a late night.” Simon’s voice cut across the low drone of the cicadas. Neil looked up. The counselor wove through the cots toward him. “But I take it you got some good news?”
“Some. Some not so good.” He waited until Simon sat down on the cot across from him. “Does the infection ever come back? Maybe the cure didn’t take. I feel— slow. I can’t keep a full thought. Like I’m going to start tripping or slurring. That’s how it started before.” He scraped a hand down his cheek. “Maybe you should— I don’t know. Do whatever you do when the cure doesn’t work. Do it again? Put me down?”
Simon shook his head. “It’s what you’ve been through that’s making you feel this way. It’s a common response to deep trauma. It’s not disease.”
“You sure? Nobody ever regressed?”
“I didn’t say that,” Simon shifted uncomfortably, crossing his ankles and leaning forward on the cot. “But the people who don’t seem to respond to the antibiotic— it’s not the disease then either. Not the bacteria, anyway. Both the bacteria and the antibiotic are too new to see any sort of resistance forming. At least, not so far. If you’re worried that you’ll be reinfected or that this is some sort of lucid period before the disease resurges, you can trust that the Cure worked fully. The bacteria that caused the disease is dead. And your body has learned to fight it, as well. Even if you were to be exposed again you would likely experience only a mild sore throat at most. It takes several weeks to begin affecting your thinking and your immune system will beat it before it gets to that point. As for your previous infection— in cases of especially long exposure or in vulnerable populations, there is sometimes lasting damage to the brain. I don’t think that’s true in your case, however.”
“Why?”
“Frankly, because you’re speaking coherently and you hold eye contact and you aren’t shrieking or attacking people. It’s not always the same, everyone’s brain is different and some areas may be more affected than others, but the symptoms of the damage are close enough that we’re often pretty sure.”
“What— what happens to them? Do you put them into an asylum or something?”
“A few. When we can and when we have the space and personnel to care for them. But lifetime care for large sections of the population— we don’t really have that option anymore. It depends on whether we can find relatives or people to help physically care for them. That’s usually how the decision is made. We’ve been very lucky with this round. None of you have that kind of damage. Or— not to the extent that it will be impossible to support you.”
“Who decides when a person’s too damaged?” asked Neil, horrified at Simon’s placid tone.
“We don’t need to do th—”
“Is it you?”
Simon sighed. “On occasion. We do all we can, Neil, before we make the call. If there is any way to bring them back or even just to make them— safe to care for, we try it. It isn’t an easy decision, but luckily, one I haven’t had to make in some time.” He stood up. “But this is all outside our scope for today,” he said briskly. “I came to talk to you about your plans. Nothing has to be concrete yet, you’re still getting your feet underneath you again, but I thought it might be good to start thinking about the future. I understand from Mateo that you are looking for a good number of people. So. Why don’t we go sit in the breeze and talk about how to find them?” He held out a hand to help Neil up. Neil was uncomfortable with the rapid shift in conversation, again feeling that he was somehow slower than he ought to be, as if what was wrong was just beyond his grasp, and he reluctantly took Simon’s hand and hauled himself up.
When they exited the tent, Neil had to shield his eyes for a moment. Several dozen skinny silhouettes waded at the lake edge. There were other Cured scattered over the grass, many paired with someone in a gray canvas uniform. There was ample shade, but very few people sat under the trees.
“What are they doing?” asked Neil when his eyes had adjusted.
“Most of them are completing interviews in preparation for the City. Where would you like to sit?”
Neil glanced at Simon. Sweat had already gathered on his face, though Neil only found the heat mildly pleasant after the stuffiness of the tent. It’s the fat, he realized. Got nothing to keep me insulated. Can’t be healthy. “Let’s go sit in the shade. It’s a little warm,” he said, taking pity on the counselor.
“Yes,” laughed Simon. “I always feel guilty hating this type of weather with the winters so hard since the Plague, but if I’m honest, I can’t stand the mugginess.” He led them to a large tree away from most of the other pairs of people and flopped down in the long grass. Simon unfolded a large, well-creased map. There was a large loop of shaded area with a few extra lumps of shaded pieces on the edges. Neil crouched down.
“What is this?” he asked.
“The City and everywhere we’ve cleared so far. Elijah said you were asking about the possibility of returning to your house, to see if your family is there.”
“Yes. Why? What’s wrong with that? He told me we weren’t under arrest or—”
“No Neil, you aren’t under arrest.”
“So I can leave then? Just like that? I may not remember everything, but I remember that I killed some people. I don’t know how many. And you’re just going to let me walk out of here?”
Simon pointed across the field toward the military trucks. “How many staff do you think are here, Neil?”
Neil shrugged. “I hadn’t thought about it. A hundred? Must be. I keep seeing new people. Guards and counselors and doctors and barbers and foodservice folk— there must be about a hundred.”
“There are fifty-two currently. And mmm— five extra people today. Couriers and scav team members mostly. And we’re a little heavy on staff this round. We were expecting about double the number of Cured. There are four hundred of you. Do you really think we could keep you here if you wanted to go?”
“They do in prisons. You’re armed, we’re not.”
“The weapons aren’t for you. And almost every one of them are dart guns. Loaded with the Cure, not bullets. You aren’t a prisoner. You can walk out right now if you want to, but I hope you won’t. I’d try my hardest to persuade you to stay. You wouldn’t get very far if you left. Not because of us. Because of your physical condition. And because it’s dangerous to be out there alone.”
“But— we murdered people,” Neil protested.
“I’m n
ot sure it could be called murder. At least, not for most of the Infected. There was no intent—”
“That’s bullshit. Yes, there was. I wanted to hurt the people I did. I was trying to kill them. I might not have wanted to do it before I got sick, and I certainly don’t want to now, but in the moment I did. And it doesn’t matter. Those people are dead whether I meant to kill them or not.”
“Yes,” agreed Simon. He leaned back against the tree, seeming to wait for Neil to continue.
“Shouldn’t something— happen?”
“Something has happened, Neil. What is it you think should happen?”
“Some kind of— trial? I know Elijah doesn’t think there can ever be justice but shouldn’t we at least try?”
“I’d say that many of the aims of ‘justice’ have already been fulfilled. You’ve been Cured. You were not a murderer before the plague and you seem affected enough by your actions that you wouldn’t murder again. Of course, I can’t be sure of that, but nobody can, Cured or Immune. The point is, you’re unlikely to commit another murder now that your mind is free of the bacteria again. You’ve been effectively rehabilitated. Or— as rehabilitated as we could expect with the world in this state. All that’s left that a trial would address is some punishment or atonement for what was done. Revenge, in other words. For myself, I’ve never been a fan of that kind of ‘justice’. But if it’s your thing— what punishment did you have in mind? Prison? That takes too many resources. Execution? We tried that, before the Cure. Didn’t help us or anyone else. If people want revenge, unfortunately, nobody’s really going to stop them outside the City walls. And some people do. There are Immune murderers, too. The Cure is your trial, Neil. And ours. We have to live together. That’s the sentence. It can be punitive or we can— make life better for the people who remain. We do have a system of rules in the City and we do have consequences, but they are for our conduct from now on. Not the past.” He tapped the map. “Anyway, back to the matter at hand. Your family. Naturally, you’d want to go home first to check on them. Even now, it’s not an uncommon urge. But I want you to know what you’re getting into. And maybe offer you an alternative.”
“There’s no alternative. If I’m really free, then that’s the first place I’m going. And if I don’t find them there, then I’ll look in the next place. If I have to spend the rest of my life looking for Randi, then—”
“That’s what I’m talking about, Neil. An alternative way to find her, and the others you’re looking for. I’m not asking you not to look. Take a breath, and when you’re ready, I’ll show you how things stand. And then we can make a plan. Isn’t that what you’ve been asking for since you woke up? More information?”
“Yeah. Yeah, of course. I’m sorry,” said Neil, rocking back on his haunches.
“Understandable. You’ve been through a lot. I’m not— I wasn’t hiding things for any nefarious purpose. I’m just trying to ease you into this. But scaring the other patients half to death in the middle of the night—”
“I was just trying to recognize them! I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.”
“I know, I know, Neil, but their minds are as disoriented and frightened and grieving as yours. I have to protect all of you, you understand?”
“I get it.”
“So, I figured the best way to calm things down and to prove that I’m not trying to conceal things from you, is to give you what you want. Maybe then, you’ll trust that we don’t mean you any harm. And maybe you’ll be safer if you do go out there.” Simon bent over the map. He pointed to a small lump on the northeast edge of the shaded area. “This is where we found you. We’re approximately three miles closer to the City, here. Safer that way.” His finger slid closer to the coast. “Mateo says you were asking about the University hospital. That was cleared some time ago. It’s now behind the barrier wall. We use the building for— well, for the people you were asking about before. The people who no longer have the December Plague, but never recovered enough to live on their own. It is one of two such facilities.”
Neil was relieved to see it so far inside the shaded circle. “So they wouldn’t have been sick long, then. They would have been the first cured, right?”
Simon looked up from the map. His hand closed around Neil’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I thought Mateo told you. He said he told you about the library and I assumed… the hospital was cleared before the Cure was discovered. It was a high priority target, one of the few medical buildings that hadn’t been demolished during the initial outbreak. The City was overwhelmed and we didn’t know there was a cure yet.”
“Okay, well, where did you put the people until you found the cure then? You take them to another place? One of the dorms or something? There’s got to be a record once they woke up, right? My mom would have looked for Randi and then for me, first thing. It would have—”
Simon shook his head. “We didn’t know. Dr. Carton was still several months from isolating it. We didn’t have enough people to care for the Infected we found, even if we had known it could be cured at that point. We didn’t— we didn’t move the Infected. We had to defend ourselves, you understand?” He watched Neil for what seemed a long time.
A slow crawl of dread slithered through Neil, but he couldn’t seem to connect the source of it to what Simon was saying. “I understand,” he said anyway.
Simon shook his head and waved a hand to someone. “I’m going to get you some water. Sometimes you don’t know when you’re dehydrated. It takes your body a long time to get used to—”
“You let them loose then? So I should start looking in that area?” said Neil. It felt— almost triumphant, finally hitting on what he thought was the right idea.
“No, Neil. We couldn’t let them go. They’d attack us. Are you truly starting to remember anything of how you were the past several months or do you just think you remember because of what the other Cured have told you?” Simon’s hand squeezed tighter on his shoulder. Neil was certain he meant it to be comforting, but it felt as if his bones would grind to dust under Simon’s grip.
“I remember enough.”
“So you know, then. There was no reasoning with you, was there? No way to stop you from attacking anything moving? I said Immunes had killed people too. We had to stop them, Neil. Most of us looked at it as stopping the suffering of the Infected. They were— they were shot. We had no choice. Not then.” He waited. Neil could hear the grass rustling loudly as someone approached.
“You mean— all of them? My mom was kind. She wouldn’t—” He felt like he couldn’t catch his breath.
“I’ve met a lot of kind people since I started doing this, Neil. It didn’t matter while they were Infected. They weren’t really in control. That’s why things like a trial or ‘justice’ don’t work for this. Your mom could kill, and likely did.”
“And my daughter? She was just a little girl. How can you kill a little girl?”
Another arm wrapped around him and held him still. “Have some water, brother,” said Elijah, a bottle appearing before Neil’s face.
“No, I don’t want—”
Elijah’s arm tightened slightly as Neil tried to thrash. “Have a mouthful, at least and listen. Just for a minute.” The bottle tipped up and Neil obediently accepted the water. “We don’t know that she was in there. Last you knew, she was in the library. That’s what you told me. The library had survivors in it. Look at the map.”
Neil took a rasping breath and watched Simon point down at the map. “Here,” he said, “See these orange dots? Those were areas outside the City center where Immunes were rescued. That means we don’t scavenge those buildings. If your daughter was there, there’s a good chance she’s in the City.”
“But I don’t know if she was still there, I have to know!”
“I understand that,” said Simon, “That’s why I’m showing you this. So you can see that the best way to find out is to come to the City after you’ve recovered. And then, if you can’t find them in our regist
ry, you can—”
“But that’s weeks away. You told me the camps don’t move for over a month—”
“It has been two years,” said Elijah, his grip still tight, as if he expected Neil to fly away if he were released. “Wherever she is, whatever’s happened, it’s done. If she’s safe, she’ll be waiting for you in the City. If she was in the university hospital— she’s gone, Neil. Nothing can hurt her now.”
“And if she’s in neither spot? If my wi— if Joan took her home? Or somewhere else? Maybe she thought it’d be safe up north. Near her parents. Fewer people so—”
“You think you’re going to fight off Infected in the state you’re in now? You can’t even fight me off, and I’m not trying that hard to keep you still.” His fingers dug in a little tighter at Neil’s shoulder to prove the point and then loosened and released entirely.
“You’re not the first Cured to want to go off searching. Not by a long shot,” said Simon gently. “Not even the first in this batch. But you don’t know what’s out there. It’s not just the Infected you need to worry about.” Simon pushed the map across the grass toward Neil. “Show me where your house is, where you think your daughter might be.”
Neil followed the old highway out to the suburbs where his apartment had been. “Won’t be at mine,” he realized. “Her mother’s house is here.” He found the street. It was far out of the shaded bubble, near the corner of the map. Not so far, he lied to himself, even on foot. I can still make it there in a few days. Just follow the highway until—
“We’ve had scouts out that far,” admitted Simon, “but not many. There are a lot of hazards between here and there. If you can wait until winter, we might be able to send scav teams out almost that far. Give you a better chance of reaching that neighborhood.”
“Winter? There’s no way I’m waiting another four months to—”
“It’ll take care of some of the Infected,” said Elijah. “Sad as it is, there’ll be fewer of them if you wait until it’s cold. It’ll also make it easier to get there. Skis and sleds can go over most obstacles with enough snow. And there’s been a lot of snow past couple years. No plows to clear it.”
Before The Cure (Book 2): The Infected Page 8
