“To save the city,” I said. “Not just for shits and giggles.”
She focused on me. At least, I think she focused on me. She had almost no pupils; just tiny pinpricks of blackness set against the icy gray that came with being dead. “I’m dead, not stupid.”
So her sense of humor had come back. That was good.
What’s it like? I wanted to ask. I don’t know who told her she was dead, or if she had figured it out herself. But I held my tongue. It just seemed…insensitive.
So I stood there staring at her.
“You’ll do fine,” she said. “You’ve done hard time in prison. That will…help you.”
She had probably meant that as sarcasm.
“I’m really sorry,” I blurted out. “For this.”
One side of her face twisted up into something vaguely resembling a smile. Okay, so motor control wasn’t exactly perfect yet. “Logan told me what happened,” she said. “Some of it. Not your fault.”
“How do you feel?”
She seemed to stare through me for a moment. Just looking at her made me uneasy.
“Tired,” she said. “But otherwise I feel…fine?”
Really? She didn’t seem entirely sure of it herself.
“It’s complicated,” she allowed.
“I’ll bet.” I would have freaked the hell out if I woke up and found out I was dead…or maybe I wouldn’t have. Alyssa seemed awfully relaxed about the entire situation. Maybe that was part of the…uh…transformation.
“But why are you standing here? You have things to do,” she said to me. “Good luck.”
“Where I’m going, I don’t need luck.”
I sounded tough. According to Renati and his books, that was apparently the only thing that mattered.
I stuck my fingers through the fence—something you should never do with a proper zombie, by the way—and said, “Be careful.”
“Dead already,” she said. But her cold fingers brushed mine.
In that moment, I dearly regretted pretty much everything I had ever done in my life, up to and including surviving the initial apocalypse, because damn if I wasn’t absolute crap at all this.
“Go be badass,” she said.
I pulled away, moved hastily toward the medical complex.
Renati was waiting for me in his lab, two backpacks open and medical apparatuses scattered around the room. “How is she?” he asked. He hadn’t elected to come with me, stating he’d already looked at Alyssa this morning and had nothing left to learn from her.
I think she made him uncomfortable.
“Talking,” I said. “She seems to be better? Will she keep improving until she’s…you know…”
“More lifelike?” He shrugged. “I guess we’ll have to see when we get back.” He meant if we get back, but of course he wasn’t about to say that out loud. “Now, moving on to the more important matters.” He gestured around the room, looking at its cluttered contents somewhat balefully. I don’t really know what to find for us. Gauze…bandages…painkillers…”
He was still thinking about helping people. How quaint.
“Scalpel?” I asked. “Needle?” I made stabbing gestures. “You know. For…that thing.”
“Yes…yes, of course.” He fumbled through several drawers, the devices inside clattering loudly. I watched him for a moment, trying to envision this slightly awkward, classics-spouting soul pulling off what was basically an assassination. I hope Logan’s a good shot. We don’t stand a chance of stabbing anyone.
Renati paused at another drawer, then pulled out several bottles of pills and stuffed them into his pack.
“More painkillers?” I asked.
“Something else,” he said.
“Hemlock?”
His bushy brows lifted, and the faintest hint of a smile smoothed his face. Despite our present situation, his smile put me more at ease than whatever happened to Alyssa’s features when she tried to convey emotion. “Hemlock. You’re a traditionalist, Vibeke. I like that. This is just…a backup.”
So he was bringing either poison or a sedative. How, exactly, we were supposed to get people to swallow pills while there was presumably crazy shit like gladiator battles and assassinations going down around them remained to be seen, but hell. I was willing to go along with it.
Most medical instruments can hurt you if you get creative with them. Tongue depressors can go into an eye or up a nose. I don’t need to elaborate on what a scalpel can do. But in truth, everything he was loading us up with seemed sad and flimsy. Keller and his friends had guns. They were professional soldiers who would probably knock us all down in a handful of seconds, if that.
Really, who the hell did I think I was? What the hell was I doing? Taking on a fucking dictatorship with nothing but a first aid kit, a researcher, and one grieving sharpshooter?
This was way out of my wheelhouse.
There must have been a way around it. I had talked my way into concerts—why couldn’t I talk my way to Keller, and maybe plead for mercy? I could try to sneak into his quarters to reason with him—great idea, Vibs, give him additional reason to skewer you—or I could…what, exactly?
Find another radio?
Run out of the city and find my way back to Hammond on foot?