She exhaled slowly.
'Well. My childhood makes a lot more sense now, at least. When I was little, everything was so perfect. But then, soon after I turned seven, something changed. He and my mother started fighting, more and more, then almost every day. And when they weren't screaming at each other, there was this cold suffocating silence all around the house. I didn't know what was happening, or why. I thought that, somehow, it was my fault. But it wasn't.'
She looked at Mickey, then at me.
'Because if what you say is true, that was the time when he started working for the PA. That was what they were fighting about. It fits.'
Mickey frowned.
'You didn't know? That he was a Protector?'
Tanya shook her head.
'They divorced when I was eight. I stayed with my mother, and he went to live on his own. He would visit, first once every couple of weeks, then once a month, then once every few months. It was his work, you see. He told me that he was very busy, that there were people depending on him. I thought he was a doctor. A pediatrician. His patients were his life. I was actually envious of them, can you imagine? Those other kids, someone else's kids, whom he loved more than me. I wished them all to die. I wished that I was ill too. Then maybe he would spend time with me. I even faked it: stomach aches, headaches, puked all over the house. Drove my mom crazy. But now I know that I would have had to have a different kind of sickness to get his attention. Right? Because he was only really interested in the Disease.'
She sighed.
'Then I became older, angrier. I stopped caring so much. We grew even more distant. It hurt him, I guess. I didn't care. The last time we talked, I was close to graduating college. He came to my apartment one evening. Said he was going away for a while. I said, "Okay, whatever." He said, "I hope one day you'll understand that everything I did, I did for you." I said, "Sure, that's cool, dad. I'm kinda busy now."
She turned away, looking in the window.
'And I never saw him again.'
She tried to sound indifferent, but her voice faltered.
Mickey reached over the table and hesitantly touched her shoulder.
'If you're blaming yourself, don't. Blame the fucking PA. They're the ones who took him.'
Something didn't add up, though.
She looked at him, surprised.
'What do you mean?'
'I mean, they're the ones who took him away from you. Even if he had the Disease, it...'
'Who said that he had the Disease?'
Mickey blinked.
'I never said that. When he came to see me, he was perfectly healthy. No symptoms. No one had taken him away, either. He just... disappeared.'
'Wait, that doesn't make any sense. One day I came to take the test, and he just wasn't there. What else could have happened?'
She looked at him for a long time.
'Why, you thought he wouldn't leave you? That he cared? That he would say goodbye, take you with him to wherever he was reassigned?'
Mickey's face became gloom.
'Hey, I might not have been his child, but I was his ward. He was looking after me for four years. He fucking cared.'
'He left his own daughter. Why wouldn't he leave you? My father might not have been a bad man, but he was obsessed with his research. In the end, that was the only thing that really mattered to him. You think they took him to the Farm? Have you ever stopped to think that, maybe, no one took him there?'
'What are you saying?'
'I'm saying that he went to the Farm of his own free will, to work there. What better place to conduct his research?'
'No, he wouldn't do that. Slaughter his own people? No. That doesn't make any sense.'
'It makes more sense than the idea that he somehow managed to survive six and a half years with the Disease.'
'Shut the fuck up!'
Mickey's sudden outburst made Tanya recoil. He looked at us, fists clenched, shaking.
'You don't know what you're talking about. He wasn't this kind of a person. I know him!'
Tanya shook his head.
'No one really knew my father.'
'You're wrong.'
Through all of this, I was thinking. Trying to get the thing that was nagging me to form in a cohesive thought.
'You said that he was obsessed with his research. What research?'
She shrugged.
'I don't know. Back then he just used to talk about some medical research of his. I thought it was something like flu vaccine or autism therapy. But I guess it must have been the Disease. The PA must be studying it.'
I nodded, slowly. Finally, I started to understand what part of her story was bothering me.
'So no one from the PA had come to you these past two months?'
'No.'
'And no one is following you. Why? If they're hunting Zero... your father, wouldn't it be logical to watch your every step? Why aren't they?'
Mickey scowled.
'Because he destroyed his file when he fled from the Farm. They don't know shit about him. Or maybe she's just lying!'
Tanya gave him a cold look.
'I'm not.'
'How do we know?!'
'If you don't believe me, come to my house. I'll show you.'
I considered it. It wasn't such a bad idea, and I needed time to think about everything I had just heard anyway. I said:
'Okay.'
Then I stood up to leave.
'You two stay here for a bit, until I and the Protectors tailing me are long gone. Then leave separately. Mickey, I want you to go home, cool off a little. I'll get in touch with you tomorrow. Tanya, I'll come to your house in a few hours.'
Mickey nodded grimly.
'Fine. I don't want to go anyway.'
He looked like a sullen little kid.
'Mickey. Behave while I'm gone.'
He looked at me, brows furrowed.
'Matt. Go fuck yourself.'
I smiled, gave him a thumbs-up, and left.