The next morning, it took longer for Zero to gather his shattered mind into a cohesive person. He spent a long time staring into nothingness before finally speaking:
'When I started showing symptoms, the Generations Program was already losing its battle to the Silent Genocide. There was a demand to solve the problem, and all we have achieved -- more than anyone in history had -- was to define the problem itself. A breathtaking breakthrough, and yet a failure in the eyes of the weak-minded majority. We negotiated, we pleaded, we begged, but no one listened. The paradigm was too old and too vast to shift. They refused to change to give us more time.'
He sighed heavily.
'I wasn't the first of the Second Generation to succumb to the disease. But when I did, it became apparent that we needed to act, while we still had time. And there wasn't much time left. Diplomacy had failed to produce results, and that left us with only one choice. Do you understand what that choice was?'
Mickey grinned and opened his mouth to say something, but I interrupted him.
'That's great, Zero. Everything you told us is mind-boggling, and grand, and incredible. But you still haven't told me what happened to my mother, and now it feels like you're dodging the question.'
He looked at me, shadows under his eyes.
'So before you continue your fascinating story, you're going to answer it. You're going to answer it now.'
Zero straightened in his chair, looked away, then back at me.
'Alright, Matthew. That's fair. I wanted you two to understand the... the why of what we did at the Farm, before telling you what really happened. First of all... first of all, you need to understand that everyone we used in our trials was a volunteer, your mother included. It might be hard to believe that we went out of our way to make sure that every subject was there of his own free will, but we did. Every wraith at the Farm knows that they're on their way to death, and you'd be surprised how many of them were eager to give that last journey meaning. And what greater meaning there could be than making sure that their children, possibly, won't need to walk that path themselves?'
I imagined my mother as she was the last time I've seen her. How could she give consent to these experiments, half-mad and disoriented? Was it true, or just a pretty fairy-tale Zero spun for my sake -- or his own?
'What exactly did you do to them?'
He hesitated.
'All sorts of things, Matthew. We needed to understand how the Disease works, how it affects our biology. And later, which wraiths are more resistant to the damage of the Ability, which permutations of the Disease are more effective. We did... we did a lot. Some of the things we did were harmless, some were... horrible. But it was all in the service to the greater good. And every subject volunteered, whether... whether they remembered it by the end or not.'
So they tested them. Cut them. Vivisected them. I struggled to breathe, with terrible pictures spinning in my imagination.
Zero continued:
'I'm so very, very sorry, Matthew. I got to know your mother well, in my days on the farm. She was very brave, until the very end. I made her a promise that her sacrifice won't be in vain, and I intend to keep that promise. For her, and for you.'
I felt an incredible weight crash down on my shoulders. I knew she was dead, of course. I knew that her death wasn't easy. But actually hearing it, actually knowing it was so terribly heavy.
I looked away, not wanting them to see tears in my eyes.
'I have questions.'
Zero nodded.
'Of course.'
'Was she treated well?'
He shifted, remained silent for a few long seconds.
'Yes. As well as we could, considering her condition.'
'I packed her some things when the Protectors took her away. Was she allowed to keep them?'
He raised his eyebrows.
'What? No, of course not. The Farm has strict security protocols.'
And just like that, the pictures I hold in my mind for years to give me some semblance of comfort - pictures of her dying comfortably, holding on to her favorite things, listening to music, looking through the photos of our life together - were shattered. I bit my lip, shaking.
'Did she remember me, in the end?'
'Yes. She never stopped thinking about you, Matthew. That's how I knew to come to find you. We talked a lot, your mom and I. About our children, about their future. You gave her strength, I think. And she was very, very strong.'
I had to gather my courage to ask the next question.
'How... how did she die?'
'It's a... a hard thing to describe, I'm afraid. The testing was... rigorous. And her Disease progressed, making it harder for us to contain it. The security measures had to be adjusted. In the end, her organism just went through too much stress, and it... shut down. At that point, she was far too gone to feel anything. It was painless.'
I slowly nodded, blood draining away from my face. Well, this was it. I asked my question. I knew the truth now. Did it make things better? Did it make me lighter? No. No, just as I presumed, it just broke me all over again, just added to my despair, put more coal in the furnace of anger that burned deep inside my heart. But, mostly, it made me feel even more alone.
'Was she alone when it happened?' I asked, quietly.
Zero lingered before answering.
'No. There were... people with her.'
'Were you there?'
He nodded.
'Yes, I was there too.'
Mickey put his hand on my shoulder.
'I'm sorry, man. I'm really, really sorry. It's... it's going to be okay, trust me.'
I slouched in my chair, concussed. I felt empty. More empty than I did before. The guilt and sorrow that filled me were gone now. And I was hollow.
But Zero was there to fill this hollowness with purpose. He leaned forward, his blue eyes peering into our souls.