This is going to be one hell of an interview, of that I'm sure. I still remember what it felt like to lose Andy, even though I'm separated from the pain by more than a decade. The unreality of it all still infects my mind like a hot whisper of doubt. Many mornings I've woken up and reached out to the pillow beside me expecting cheerfully to find Andy's comfortable bulk to be there hogging the blankets. Other mornings I wake up knowing that I won't find him laying next to me ever again. There won't be any more kisses, or arguments, or sunsets to watch with him. And now I'm in many ways responsible for inflicting the same pain on another woman, all because I wanted closure for my own dead husband.
"Thank you for agreeing to see me on this occasion Ms. Guevara." She keeps her eyes neutrally on the bruised desk in front of her, her dark hair falling across her brow. "I know this isn't the most fortuitous circumstance for me to ask for a meeting with you." Her eyes flit up to my face and she carefully searches the ebbs and planes of it.
"Please Senator I need to get back outside. What can I do for you?" I can hear every hour that she hasn't slept in the gravel of her voice. She wants to escape, but she doesn't know what she's escaping from, or where she's escaping to.
"I know what it's like you know. Nearly a decade ago I lost my own husband Andy, and it still frightens me. Some mornings when I wake up I roll over and expect to find his head on the pillow beside mine, but there isn't anyone there. Other times I wake up knowing that I won't find him beside me, ever again. It never really leaves you, but it does become easier as time passes by." Her eyes remain dull, neutrally unimpressed.
"Thank you for your concern." She wants me to leave her alone but I know that it isn't always best to leave a woman alone with her thoughts, not always.
"Please Ms. Guevara, Max, please listen to me for a minute. I pushed her away when she was born, my little baby Elizabeth. The moment she was old enough I shipped her off to boarding school in England, and saw her a few times a year on holidays. I was never there to talk her through her first crush or her problems at school. I sent her away because I couldn't bear to look at her and see Andrew's eyes staring back at me. I know that I don't have any right to expect you to listen to me, but please for the sake of your child, don't shut her out of your life." Her face freezes like ashen marble and she gives me a look as impenetrable as glacial ice.
"Is that all?" I mentally prepare myself for what I'm about to do.
"It is my fault partially for what happened on that island. All that I wanted was closure for myself and instead it nearly lost me my daughter. Consider your service to me ended. I consider it a privilege to continue to champion the transgenic cause. If any of your people wish to remain in my employ I will gladly keep them on at board wages. You are free Ms. Guevara. I hope that you use the time to get to know your child."
When I finally look up from the desk, Max has risen from her chair and is about to leave through the door. The flawless impassivity of her face gives nothing away, but I know that I've gotten through to her. As she leaves, so faintly that I almost could have imagined it, I see her shoulders begin to shake.
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With a pent up sigh of long suffering, I strip off the ridiculously uncomfortable black high heeled shoes and throw them behind my desk. I will never forgive Naia for convincing me to wear the stupid things.
Now comes the worst part of this day, the autopsy. I've heard that in the outside world, autopsies are performed before the funeral, but I thought it wiser to wait until after the mourners have said their goodbyes. The procedures which Manticore follows are much more invasive than those carried out by a regular doctor.
"Jack! Jack stop playing with the scanning resolution and get your butt over here." Ever since that boy met little Miss English School Girl his head has been a mile high in the clouds. At the moment I need his head on the ground. He isn't going to like helping me in this task, he used to hero worship Alec just as many of the other young boys did. Still that's what Manticore was all about, doing the things you'd rather not do.
Chastened slightly, Jack walks into my office and waits with unnatural patience for my instructions. "I've already laid out your surgical kit Ma'am." His voice breaks a little bit at the end of the sentence and I take pity on his youth.
"I'll do all of the heavy work Jack, I just need you to run the tape recorder and manage the lights. After we're done I'll let you have the afternoon off and you can go visit with Elizabeth before she and her mother leave." His eyes brighten for a moment but then flare out again, I find it comforting rather than disturbing that he cares so much for his compatriots. "Now go scrub in while I get started." He nods and runs out of the room. Meanwhile I turn to the task at hand.
Slow and clinically detached, that's the only way I'll get through this. I flick on the overhead light and turn my head away as I pull back the sheet. I know that I saw the body at the funeral but seeing him laid out on a cold slab is different, more chilling.
Jack comes back into the room holding his scrupulously clean hands out for inspection. I nod them over and then hand him the tape recorder, which he flicks on with unfortunately practiced ease.
"Subject X-5- 494, age 22 years, height 1.83 meters, weight 72.58 kilos." The process begins to relax my shot nerves as I quantify the person that I knew into a series of numbers that have no face.
First I need to perform an inspection of the outer surface of the body. There are various bruises and contusions that I associate with several weeks of fighting and running. Max had mentioned before we went chasing him to the island that many of his wounds had been healing at an unusually slow rate and I should check them now to see if I can find the cause.
I flip open the chart at the end of the slab which has his neatly kept medical records to find the exact location of the bullet and knife wounds. I move my hands to his lower abdomen where the most recent knife contusion was. The skin is smooth as marble in that way that only death can achieve, a state that makes previous wounds stand out brighter against the flesh.
The wound is gone. Not healed because even a transgenic would have a patch of the pinky raw new flesh that replaces an injury, but gone as if it had never been there. My breath quickens slightly as I move on to the upper arm but the bullet injury is also completely gone.
"Kate? What's wrong, you don't look so good maybe you should sit down." Jack is suddenly at my elbow guiding me into a chair in the outer room. The idea is ludicrous, but no stranger than many of the things that I've seen in my short albeit adventurous life. There's only one way for me to be sure.
"Jack I need you to warm up the MRI and PET scanners for me. No questions please just do as I ask." Jack's mouth snaps shut and whatever comments on my sanity that he had planned on making remain unspoken. In the meantime I need to go through the disks which Dix recovered from Manticore and find Alec's older medical records.
It's possible that his transgenic healing had miraculously healed over the injuries of battle of the past few weeks, but I know one place to look for conclusive evidence. The wounds left by psy-ops leave marks on the brain which don't ever mend.