It doesn’t matter, she thought. They can’t justify what they’re doing to those men in the basement. If these parents knew that living, breathing people were suffering like that, would they be so glad to see the cure? Would they even accept it? She wanted to tell them, to tell them everything, but she felt frozen.

Vale finished prepping the shot and turned to the parents, shooing them from the room. “Please,” he said softly, “we need a moment of privacy with your child.”

The mother’s eyes went wide in fear. “Will he be okay?”

“Don’t worry,” said Vale, “it will only be a moment.” They were reluctant to leave, but they seemed to trust him, and with a bit more gentle urging and another quizzical glance at Kira, they left the room. Vale locked the door behind them and turned with the syringe—not toward the infant, but toward Kira, holding it out to her like a gift. “I told you that I lead these people by giving them what they want,” he said. “Now I’m doing the same for you. Take it.”

“I don’t want your cure,” said Kira.

“I’m not giving you the cure,” said Vale. “I’m giving you the choice—life or death. That’s what you wanted, right? To decide for everyone what is right and what is wrong. What is justifiable and what is irredeemable.” He offered her the syringe again, walking toward her, holding it up like a grail. “Sometimes helping someone means hurting someone else—we never like it, but we have to do it because the alternative would be worse. I have destroyed ten lives to save two thousand: a better ratio, I think, than most nations could ever hope for. We have no crime, no poverty, no suffering but theirs. And mine,” he said, “and now yours.” He held out the syringe again. “If you think you know better than I do how to weigh one life against another, if you feel like you should decide who lives and who dies, then do it. Save this child or sentence it to death.”

“This isn’t fair.”

“It isn’t fair when I have to do it either,” said Vale harshly. “It still has to be done.”

Kira looked at the syringe, at the screaming baby, at the locked door with the parents on the other side. “They’ll know,” said Kira. “They’ll know what I choose.”

“Of course,” said Vale. “Or are you suggesting that your choice will be different depending on who knows about it? That’s not how morality works.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then make your choice.”

Kira looked at the door again. “Why’d you send them out if they’re just going to find out anyway?”

“So we could have this discussion without them screaming at you,” said Vale. “Make your choice.”

“It’s not my place.”