NOR IS IT UNOCCUPIED—FOR a woman has approached in the time it’s taken me to stand there; a tall woman with long, straight, black hair and eyes as white as her smock—a High Witch as far removed from the screamers as is a human from a chimpanzee. I train my weapon on her.
“Based on the fact that you have not yet incinerated everything,” she says, her voice calm, clear, mellifluous, “I’ll take it you are surprised.” Then she laughs a little. “What did you expect, a boiling cauldron?”
I look at her, saying nothing.
She adds, “I must say, I am surprised. By you. Some things never change. We still underestimate each other. Women and men.”
She moves the hair away from her eyes and regards me—coolly, clinically. “How did you know? The code, our very existence ... It seems, improbable.”
I gla
