Reached

don’t know their allegiance, except that it’s to the Pilot. “You might see some improvement by the time of the second dose. If their rate of recovery is as quick as our initial subject’s was, they’ll start speaking and talking again after only a few hours, and walking within two days. But I don’t anticipate that rate of recovery here. Be sure not to waste any of the cure.”
    As if they need the warning. What we need are more flowers, and Cassia’s mother to come back. She was still for weeks, a lot longer than Ky was, and it’s taking her more time than it did him. The Rising has not yet been able to find her report on the rogue crops in the Society’s database, so we need her help desperately.
    Meanwhile, the Pilot has teams scouring the fields and meadows near the city of Camas, with instructions not to pull up everything so that the flowers can grow back in case we need them again.
    I wonder if they’ll be able to resist. It’s not exactly easy to save things for the future when the present is so uncertain.
    “You sound like you’re sure this will work,” one of the medics says. Their uniforms are dirty and they all look exhausted. I remember some of them from when I was here before. It feels like years have passed instead of weeks.
    “I don’t know how much longer I could have done this,” one of the medics says. “Now there’s a reason to keep going.”
    I wish I could stay and help, but I’m due back at the lab to oversee the Rising pharmics who are making more of the cure. “I’ll be back to check on the patients later,” I say.
    The medics start down the rows with the cures. I’m finished here for now, and I think I have just enough time to visit my old wing.

    Lei’s eyes are very glassy and she smells of infection. But she’s been turned recently, and her long sweep of black hair has been braided back out of the way. And the paintings still hang above each patient. The medics here have been doing their best.
    It doesn’t always come naturally to me,
I want to tell her as I inject the cure into her line.
Not right now. Please come back. If you were here, it would help.
    This is one of the cures I made in the village. I didn’t turn them all over to the research team trying to synthesize the ingredients in the lab. I saved some for her. She didn’t go down that much earlier than Ky, so there’s a chance. Of course, she didn’t have Oker’s medicine in the bags.
    I hear footsteps behind me and I turn to look. It’s one of the medics who worked here back when I did. “I didn’t know we were getting any of the new cure up here,” he says.
    “You’re not,” I say. “The group they’re using had to fall still within a certain time frame. She was just outside of it.” I finish emptying the syringe and turn to look at him. “But I had a few extra.” I hold several of the vials. “I might not be able to come here for a little while. I’m supposed to get back to work on making more of this.”
    The medic slips the vials into the pocket of his uniform. “I’ll give them to her,” he says.
    “Every two hours,” I say. I can’t seem to leave her alone like this. I know how Cassia felt in the infirmary. Can I trust the medic? I’m sure there’s someone else he’d like to cure if he could.
    “I’m not going to try to sneak it to someone else,” he says. “I want to see if it works first.”
    “Thank you,” I tell him.
    “
Does
it work?”
    “On one hundred percent of the first trial group,” I say. I leave out the fact that the trial group only included a single person.
    “I have to ask,” he says. “Are you the Pilot?”
    “No,” I say. I stop at the door for a second and look back at Lei. You’re not supposed to do what we’ve done with this cure and Ky and let one patient take on so much significance. It’s just one person. Of course, one person can be the world.

    We get the first set of data:
They’re coming back. They look better.
    According to the numbers, fifty-seven of the hundred can now track movement with their eyes. Three have spoken. Eighty-three patients total exhibit some kind of improvement: if not speech or sight, then better color, increased heart rate, and breathing that comes closer to normal levels. It’s taken them twice as long as it took Ky to exhibit these initial improvements, but at least the cure is working.
    “Seventeen aren’t responding at all,” the head medic tells me. “We think they may have been still