Lattimore got in my face the instant I walked into the main tent. “Twelve people,” she said, her expression devoid of its usual detachment. “We lost twelve last night.”
Twelve? For a few seconds I fumbled with a response, unable to quite gauge that many deaths. “They were fine,” I said. “Well, not fine, but they were…they were all right…they were breathing?”
She looked past me and to Logan, and her brow furrowed, as if trying to work out who he was.
“This is Specialist Andrews,” I said. “Alyssa was his sister.”
“Alyssa,” she repeated.
She clearly had no clue who Alyssa was.
“She died last night,” Logan said.
“Oh. The one you always spoke to?”
I nodded. It wasn’t exactly what Alyssa ought to be remembered for, but at least she was remembered.
Lattimore drew herself up, her expression smoothing slightly. She was trying for a sympathetic gaze, something that must have become quite foreign to her over time as she tried to fight back against the inexorable tide of death that swept through her little medical complex. “I’m very sorry for your loss,” she said. She probably meant it, too—at least, as much as she could.
“I want her body,” Logan said.
The sympathy on Lattimore’s face, however forced it may have been, abruptly vanished, replaced by the coldly practical woman I knew. “She’s already been moved,” she said. “We can’t leave them around here. You know that.”
“I don’t care if she’s been popped or not. But the burnings and burials aren’t scheduled until later in the day. Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Logan set his jaw.
“Figure it out,” I muttered to Lattimore. “He won’t leave until he gets her.”
“I don’t have her. But he’s welcome to look out in back. I don’t know where they stash them…ask Pete.”
Logan stalked away. Maybe Pete could share some of his weed, too—the man needed it.
Lattimore’s attention fixed on me again. “I take it they were all right when you left.”
“I did my rounds. Sedated those I could. Only Alyssa was awake, and we talked…” I didn’t know why this was important; perhaps it wasn’t. But some part of me wanted Lattimore to know she had been awake, and talking, and the others could have been, too. “I knew she wasn’t doing well, but she was coherent. I went to Renati to get some more sedative, and we gave them the antibiotics—”
Her gaze hardened. “Antibiotics?”
“He had some in his lab.” Had Renati called it by name? I couldn’t remember.
Lattimore’s jaw fell open. “And you gave it to them?”
“What else was I supposed to do?”
She sputtered openly for a moment.
“You said we couldn’t help them. You were ready to give up on them.” I knew my tone had sharpened into something accusatory, but I couldn’t help myself. “Yes, Renati had another drug. What the hell were we supposed to do?”
“A lot of help your little drug did. They died, didn’t they?” She spun away from me, but not before I saw her lift her hands and clench them into fists. “Jesus fucking Christ, that little shit. That little shit. I’ll have him kicked out of the city, fed to the ghouls in the stadium—”
She paused, composed herself, and turned back to face me, her face now cold as opposed to flushed with anger. “So you gave them that experimental shit. Well, I trust you’re happy with the results. I was afraid he’d do something like this, but I needed a fucking medical professional in charge of this ward. How many people got the new stuff?”
Not all her anger was directed at me; that much I could see. Some long-simmering frustration with Renati, combined with the feeling of hopelessness that must have permeated her entire body of work these days, was about to blow up in my face.
“Everyone,” I said.
She paled. “Everyone?”
“It was the only thing we had left! They were sick. They were dying. We had to try something.”
“Yes, and instead you hastened death along for some of them.”
I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it.
“Your friend Alyssa included,” she added.
No. No, no, no.
“God, did you not even think? Renati’s predecessor was the chief of R&D. He cooked up some very very powerful drugs, yes, but did you even consider what a drug of that power would do to someone already weakened?”
I hadn’t.
It had never even occurred to me.
“That shit burned right through her body,” Lattimore went on. “Through all of them. Christ, we’re lucky they didn’t all die.”
“The doctor—”
“Renati is not a medical doctor! Not anymore! He’s a researcher. He thinks in terms of plagues and cures, not comfort and quality of life. He had no business giving them that drug, and he knew it.” Her eyes cut into me, and I wanted to shrink away, to turn my head from her rage and the shame building inside me. Should I have known? People had been murmuring about Renati for as long as I’d been working here.
She took a deep breath. “You thought you were helping. You thought, well, none of the other drugs work, so maybe this one will. Part of treating people is knowing when to use a scalpel as opposed to…to a buzz saw!”