The spoon clacked against the rim of the bowl. Donald set the utensil down and gripped the tray with both hands to keep them from shaking, to keep them from forming fists.
‘You know,’ Donald hissed, teeth clenched together. ‘You know what we did.’
Thurman showed his palms. ‘We did what had to be done.’
‘No. Don’t give me that.’ Donald shook his head. The water in his glass trembled as if something dangerous approached. ‘The world…’
‘We saved it.’
‘That’s not true!’ Donald’s voice cracked. He tried to remember. ‘There is no world any more.’ He recalled the view from the top, from the cafeteria. He remembered the hills a dull brown, the sky full of menacing clouds. ‘We ended it. We killed everyone.’
‘They were already dead,’ Thurman said. ‘We all were. Everyone dies, son. The only thing that matters is—’
‘Stop.’ Donald waved the words away as if they were buzzing things that could bite him. ‘There’s no justifying this—’ He felt spittle form on his lips, wiped it away with his sleeve. The tray on his lap slid dangerously and Thurman moved quickly — quicker than one would expect of a man his age — to catch it. He placed what was left of the meal on the bedside table, and up close, Donald could see that he had gotten older. The wrinkles were deeper, the skin hanging from the bones. He wondered how much time Thurman had spent awake while Donald had slept.
‘I killed a lot of men in the war,’ Thurman said, looking down at the tray of half-eaten food.
Donald found himself focused on the old man’s neck. He closed his hands together to keep them still. This sudden admission about killing made it seem as if Thurman could read Donald’s mind, as though this was some kind of a warning for him to stay his murderous plans.
Thurman turned to the dresser and picked up the folded report. He opened it and Donald caught sight of the pale blue smudges, his ice-tinged tears from earlier.
‘Some say killing gets easier the longer you’re at it,’ he said. And he sounded sad, not threatening. Donald looked down at his own knees and saw that they were bouncing. He forced his heels against the carpet and tried to pin them there.
‘For me, it only got worse. There was a man in Iran—’
‘The entire goddamn planet,’ Donald whispered, stressing each word. This was what he said, but all he could think about was his wife Helen pulled down the wrong hill, everything that had ever existed crumbling to ruin. ‘We killed everyone.’
The Senator took in a deep breath and held it a moment. ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘They were already dead.’
‘You’ll never convince me. You can drug me or kill me, but I promise you, you will never convince me.’
Thurman studied the report. He seemed unsure of something. The paper faintly shook, but maybe it was the vent overhead. Finally, he nodded as if he agreed. ‘Drugging you doesn’t work. I’ve read up on your first shift. There’s a small percentage of people with some kind of resistance. We’d love to know why.’
Donald could only laugh. He settled against the wall behind the cot and nestled into the darkness the top bunk provided. ‘Maybe I’ve seen too much to forget,’ he said.
‘No, I don’t think so.’ Thurman lowered his head so he could still make eye contact. Donald took a sip of water, both hands wrapped around the glass. ‘The more you see — the worse the trauma is — the better the medication works. It makes it easier to forget. Except for some people. Which is why we took a sample.’
Donald glanced down at his arm. A small square of gauze had been taped over the spot of blood left by the doctor’s needle. He felt a caustic mix of helplessness and fear well up inside him. ‘You woke me to take my blood?’
‘Not exactly.’ Thurman hesitated. ‘Your resistance to the meds is something I’m curious about but the reason you’re awake is because I was asked to wake you. We are losing silos—’
‘I thought that was the plan,’ Donald spat. ‘Losing silos. I thought that was what you wanted.’ He remembered crossing silo twelve out with red ink, all those many lives lost. They had accounted for this. Silos were expendable. That’s what he’d been told.
Thurman shook his head. ‘Whatever’s happening out there, we need to understand it. And there’s someone here who… who thinks you may have stumbled onto the answer. We have a few questions for you, and then we can put you back under.’
Back under. So he wasn’t going to be out for long. They had only woken him to take his blood and to peer into his mind, and would then put him back to sleep. Donald rubbed his arms, which felt thin and atrophied. He was dying in that pod. Only more slowly than he would like.
‘We need to know what you remember about this report.’ Thurman held it out. Donald waved the thing away.
‘I already looked it over,’ he said. He didn’t want to see it again. He could close his eyes and see the desperate people spilling out onto the dusty land, the people that he had ordered dead.
‘We have other medications that might ease the—’
‘No. No more drugs.’ Donald crossed his wrists and spread his arms out, slicing the air with both hands. ‘Look, I don’t have a resistance to your drugs.’ The truth. He was sick of the lies. ‘There’s no mystery. I just stopped taking the pills.’
It felt good to admit it. What were they going to do, anyway? Put him back to sleep? He took another sip of water while he let the confession sink in. He swallowed.
‘I kept them in my gums and spat them out later. It’s as simple as that. Probably the case with anyone else remembering. Like Hal, or Carlton, or whatever his name was.’
Thurman regarded him coolly. He tapped the report against his open palm, seeming to digest this. ‘We know you stopped taking the pills,’ he finally said. ‘And when.’
Donald shrugged. ‘Mystery solved, then.’ He finished his water and put the empty glass back on the tray.
‘The drugs you have a resistance to are not in the pills, Donny. The reason people stop taking the pills is because they begin to remember, not the other way around.’
Donald studied Thurman, disbelieving.
‘Your urine changes colour when you stop taking them. You develop sores on your gums where you hide them. These are the signs we look for.’
‘What?’
‘There are no drugs in the pills, Donny.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘We medicate everyone. There are those of us who are immune. But you shouldn’t be.’
‘Bullshit. I remember. The pills made me woozy. As soon as I stopped taking them, I got better.’
Thurman tilted his head to the side. ‘The reason you stopped taking them was because you were… I won’t say getting better. It was because the fear had begun leaking through. Donny, the medication is in the water.’ He waved at the empty glass on the tray. Donald followed the gesture and immediately felt sick.
‘Don’t worry,’ Thurman said. ‘We’ll get to the bottom of it.’
‘I don’t want to help you. I don’t want to talk about this report. I don’t want to see whoever it is you need me to see.’
He wanted Helen. All he wanted was his wife.
‘There’s a chance that thousands will die if you don’t help us. There’s a chance that you stumbled onto something with this report of yours, even if I don’t believe it.’
Donald glanced at the door to the bathroom, thought about locking himself inside and forcing himself to throw up, to expunge the food and the water. Maybe Thurman was lying to him. Maybe he was telling the truth. A lie would mean the water was just water. The truth would mean that he did have some sort of resistance.