I laid in the chamber for a long time, my limbs fluid. The office was so quiet. I heard nothing but the sounds inside my own mind.

When I felt ready, I got up and hefted the radiation blanket back into its usual place, for the last time that evening. I grabbed my sweater and wrapped it swiftly around my shoulders, before I could start shivering. The heat always kicked off this late at night - Helen had the HVAC on a programmable timer, to save money.

I went back to my office to get my things, but I paused when I saw a light still on in the recovery room.

I opened the door and found Lisa sitting on the couch. Her pixie face peered out of a pile of blankets.

“Are you okay?” I crept inside and perched beside her, careful not to get too close. “Did your transport not come?”

“I turned them down.” Her voice came out scratchy and new.

“Oh,” I said, willing myself not to touch her. I wanted to, but I didn’t know what her mental state was, and I didn’t want her to lash out. “But you have to get back somehow. I’m the last one in the building, and I need to lock up.”

“I can stay.” She sounded dreamy, lost somewhere. “It’s nice here.”

“You can’t.” My own feeling of relaxation ebbed away, and I almost resented her for it, as panic rose in my chest. “This isn’t a medical facility. We need to get you back to someplace that has 24/7 care.”

Lisa looked right at me. She looked mournful, her cheeks and lips sagging. “I don’t mind being alone.”

“You can’t,” I repeated. I imagined it, locked in a struggle with her until dawn. Helen would find me in a pile on the floor, muttering to myself, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t. “We need to make sure you’re going to be okay.”

“Do you mean - am I going to kill myself?”

The question hung in the air. I was tired, wanted to sleep, and my training hadn’t prepared me for this kind of conversation. Despite being in my workplace, in the place where I felt like I should be an expert, I was not in my element. I rubbed my eyes. “Yes,” I said, softly.

“They thought I would, because I didn’t want the baby.”

I had a sudden picture of Lisa as a confident, strong woman, standing up in front of a board of directors or before a courtroom. I didn’t know what kind of job she did, but she had to be someone important. Although I hadn’t looked at her scans in detail yet, the high amount of frontal lobe activity showed that she was a sophisticated thinker. None of that matched the small woman sitting before me, buried in blankets, a threat and not a threat. “And because you weren’t talking,” I said.

“I didn’t want to say anything.” Her hands were under the blanket, but I could tell she was twisting them together. “I didn’t like the way I felt.”

Now we were getting closer to my training. I breathed a long sigh. “Do you feel better now?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Lisa burrowed down. “But I still don’t want the baby. I won’t... hurt him. But I want to go back to my old life.”

“Oh, honey.” I felt her pain, inside my core. I knew that feeling, that need to erase everything, to pretend what had happened had never happened.

“Maybe someone can adopt him. I’ll never be a good enough mother for him anyway.”

“You will be, if you want to be. You can do it.” It felt too late for a pep talk, though, and my words were hollow. I reached for my cell phone. “I’m going to call the transport. I’m sorry - I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

“That’s all I want,” she said dully.

I couldn’t tell if Lisa was a success for our program anymore. I certainly didn’t feel the way Helen had felt earlier. Doubt churned in my belly.

As we waited, Lisa stared at the recovery room wall. It was painted a calming, cheerful purple. A frame filled with a splash of colorful flowers dominated the side she stared at. I wondered if she was examining just one flower, or if they were all tumbling in her mind, along with all the other thoughts she must be thinking.

“Do you have children?” she said, as if she could hear me.

I shook my head.

“Why not?”

“I just... don’t.” I willed myself not to think of the reasons why. I was here with her. This wasn’t about me.

“You shouldn’t, then.” Lisa’s eyes were ringed with dark circles, the skin papery below her large pupils. She leaned forward. “No one tells you about this. The way it makes you feel. Like you want to cut yourself into pieces and then pulverize them till there’s nothing left.”

I swallowed. She needed to get back to the hospital.

“I mean... I want to live. But like I told you, I want it the way it used to be. This whole human race is bullshit.” Her hand snaked out from the blanket, long and wiry and tinged with blue. It really was cold down here. She pressed it against her face, then raked her nails down her skin - not hard enough to pierce it, but enough to leave white stripes along her cheek. “Why do you do what you do?”

I hesitated. “I like helping people.” It sounded so hollow, after her sweeping observation. Why would I want to help a bullshit human race? It was a good question.

“I used to,” Lisa said. She stared at me, the white lines still stark on her face. “But people are cruel.”

I knew that, better than I cared to admit. “I’m trying to make people better,” I said. “The DREAM is a revolution.” Maybe if I appealed to Lisa’s intellect, she might be able to detach from her emotion. She’d responded to the treatment - I could see it from her scans. And she was talking - that was a huge improvement over where she’d been. But I still had an odd sense about it all, as if she might leap up and freak out on me somehow.

“I did like that,” she said, dreamily.

Banging on the door outside. The ambulance had rescued me. I leaped up and ran to let them in. A big man and a lean woman maneuvered a stretcher through the basement warren of our offices. They knew where they were going. They had been here several times already, just this evening.

Lisa stood, the blankets hanging off her. “I believe these are yours.”

“We have some warm blankets for you,” the man said, pulling them off the bottom of the cart. “We’ll take good care of you, Lisa. Can you get on by yourself?”

She looked at me. “Can I come back here? Have that procedure again?”

I nodded. My gut twisted. “Anytime. Come back anytime, Lisa. We just want you to get healthy.”

Lisa ducked her head and smiled faintly. Then she climbed onto the cart, and the transport team whisked her away.

By the time I found my way to bed, it was nearly two in the morning.

My house was about twenty minutes from the office, and I drove home like a zombie, taking the twists and turns from my automatic memory. It was dark, and cold, and I was lucky I made it. My body filled with an inner melancholy, an emptiness I couldn’t understand.

I went in through the back door and laid my purse down in the kitchen. Searched my cupboards for a granola bar. Then I moved through the quiet house, up the stairs, and onto my mattress. I listened to the silence, trying to picture myself inside the DREAM, but it wasn’t the same. And I couldn’t fall asleep.

Next Chapter: Chapter Three - Miranda: Present Day