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When I look up, Katvar and his dogs are taking off with a sled. The tinkling of the sled bell and the yapping of exited animals spread flavours of fresh snow and cranberry jam on my tongue. I’m left to wonder how he managed to tame these fierce predators.
 

The image of Katvar with his rifle and his fierce expression flickers past my vision and I burst out laughing. Maybe the dogs have tamed
him
.

———

Runner appears rested today. There’s even a little colour in his face when he kicks the slush off his boots and enters the house.

‘I have another question,’ I say as he takes his sweater off.

‘Go on.’

‘Why did we come here?’

He stops, puts his sweater back on, and tells me to follow him outside. We walk a semicircle around the village until he finds a tree stump to sit on. He brushes the snow off and sits down. His breath comes hard; he’s in no shape to go on extended hikes. ‘You know that tuberculosis and cholera killed a lot of people.’

I nod.

‘The problem with tuberculosis was, and still is, that the disease spreads silently. Most people didn’t know they were infected until another serious disease hit.’

‘Cholera.’

‘Not in every single case, but in principle, correct. Tuberculosis weakens the immune defence and any other infection comes quicker, more severe, deadly, even.’ He looks at me. ‘We are still in the middle of the tuberculosis pandemic.’

I feel like he’s just poured a bucket of boiling hot water down my neck. ‘What?’

‘About eighty percent of humanity is infected. The majority has latent TB and will never notice it, nor die of it. But all have a risk to develop active TB, and about twenty percent does. Many of those who do are people with a compromised immune system, for example, from malnutrition. Some are too old or too young to fight off TB bacteria. Most of those who develop active TB, die.’

I remember the long and hard winters. The coughing that never stopped. The bloody mucous that told of death if you were too young or too old. I nod at my boots. ‘Are you infected? Am I?’

‘No.’

‘Are you not afraid to get the disease?’

‘I take precautions. We all do. Cacho tested you before suggesting you for an apprenticeship, and I tested you again in the woods.’

‘How?’

‘I took a saliva sample when you slept.’

‘That’s pretty—’ I start to protest.

‘Reasonable,’ he cuts across. ‘You let an infected man kiss you.’

I raise my eyebrows.

‘Ralph,’ he explains. ‘Do you believe I’d risk infection? The constant exchange of saliva with someone who has tuberculosis is too high a risk.’

‘I’m
not
planning to exchange saliva with you!
Especially
not on a constant basis!’ I protest and get a nonplussed stare in return.

‘You did already,’ he says with a shrug. ‘You drank from the cup I drank from, you drank from a canteen I drank from, you were breathing close to my face when I was injured, you used my fork and spoon several times. And vice versa. I’m asking you to not get too close to anyone you haven’t tested with a FireScope. Specifically, don’t let anyone cough in your face or kiss you, and don’t eat from a dirty spoon or similar. All Sequencers get tested at regular intervals. Everyone else doesn’t.’

Ralph. The thought of his stinky tongue makes me shudder. ‘You should have warned me earlier.’

‘The village we’ve been to is tuberculosis-free, as is Kaissa and her family. They know how to protect themselves from infection. I wanted to warn you before we reached this settlement here, but that didn’t work out as planned.’

‘How are your injuries?’ I ask.

‘The cholera pandemic burned itself out,’ he says, ignoring my question and staring into the distance.
 

‘What does that mean?’

‘Too few people left. There are local outbreaks that don’t justify the label pandemic. When cholera breaks out, it’s limited to a small number of people and they know how to contain it.’

‘But then all is good, isn’t it? Why did you say we only have ten years left?’

He shakes his head no. ‘This is a very complex topic. I have to show you data of what happened and is still happening, additional to predictive models to help you understand. For now, let us discuss your first question. You wished to know why we are here. We came to monitor the TB pandemic. A few years back, a Sequencer discovered these people…’ He points his chin towards the village. ‘…living with dogs. They regularly take puppies from wild dogs for their breeding program — mostly for good hunting, guarding, and sledding dogs. The Sequencer was surprised to see that the tuberculosis bacteria of the dog people are very different — they are bare of antibiotic resistance genes.’

I scramble through the mass of information I found in the books he gave me to read. The main problem with the Great Pandemic was that the miracle cure for bacterial infections — antibiotics — didn’t work anymore, because bacteria had learned to neutralise them, jotted that capability down in their genetic code, and then happily exchanged these genes with other bacteria, even across species that weren’t even distantly related. As if fish had sex with birds so they could learn to fly.

‘It wasn’t until we studied the dogs, that we found out why,’ he continues. ‘Wild dogs have TB, too. But somehow, the bacteria behave differently in dogs than they do in humans. During the initial phase of infection, tuberculosis bacteria grow much faster in dogs, but they also have a harder time settling in a dog’s lungs and lymph nodes. It’s as if they have to be quicker to not be killed by the immune system, and that’s how they must have lost their antibiotic resistance genes.’

‘I don’t understand. How’s this possible?’

He scratches his chin. ‘I have to shave this damned beard off. Picture a set of antibiotic resistance genes as a backpack filled with lots of useful things that give you an advantage for a long hike in the wild. Everyone else has no backpack, and soon, you’ll be the only one alive and well. But what happens when it comes to a race, for example, when a predator hunts you? Your once-useful equipment is a burden now. You have to get rid of it, or you’ll be eaten. The same is true for antibiotics resistance— it comes with a cost, because it needs to be synthesised and maintained.’

‘I didn’t know bacteria could rid themselves of genes.’

‘Oh, they can. Just as they can acquire genes from other bacteria or invent entirely new ones. They are actually quite…awesome.’ He grins like he’s in love with the little buggers.

‘So we came here because you monitor the spreading of the special TB bacteria?’

‘Yes and no. I mainly wanted us to encounter a pack, see how you are holding up, and then visit this place to analyse samples because we are in the area. The elders here know that Sequencers come each winter to analyse samples of the wild dogs people have shot during the cold season. They always keep a small piece of lung. The snow preserves it.’

I think of the dented FireScope that rattles every time I pick it up. The thing is only good for decoration. There’s no way Runner can analyse samples now.

‘I’m sorry I killed your FireScope.’

‘Don’t worry. It can be replaced.’

I cock my head. ‘But…you gave it to me to keep it safe. I thought it was extremely valuable.’

He picks up a handful of snow and forms a tight ball. ‘I gave it to you to keep
you
safe. The SatPad can show you where you need to go, but together with the knowledge of satellites and the FireScope in your possession, it shows that you’ve already been accepted as an apprentice. One of the other Sequencers would have taken you. …can take you.’

I watch him smoothing the surface of the snowball. My brain is rattling. ‘Why the test with the pack if you’d already decided to take me as an apprentice? You told me about satellites the night after we took the train.’

‘I already knew you’d make a good apprentice. I just wasn’t sure to whom I should transfer you.’ He throws the snowball. It hits a woodshed and explodes.

‘You never wanted me as your apprentice?’
 

‘I haven’t decided yet.’

I shuffle my feet in the snow and chew my cheeks, feeling as if I’ve failed.

He pokes his elbow to my ribs. ‘What I do is dangerous. What many of the others do isn’t. If I take an apprentice, I risk her life, or worse.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘I can tell you what I’m not doing. I’m not monitoring the spreading of tuberculosis or the loss of antibiotic resistance genes.’

‘But…’

‘Change of topic, Micka. Ask about something else, if you have to ask at all.’

I stand and walk around the stump, undecided if I should go back inside and let him sit here and rot. Trying to not look as if I agree with his game, I remain standing, arms crossed over my chest. ‘Our physician, Zula, had antibiotics in a small vial. I’ve never seen him use it. So what does it help if the dogs and this one village have special tuberculosis that can be cured with antibiotics, if we only have a tiny amount of the stuff?’

He shakes his head. ‘We have thousands of tonnes of antibiotics available, but they are the old-fashioned ones. The few grams your village physician has are of a special and very rare kind — one that bacteria haven’t yet learned to neutralise. But…’ He lifts his hand to stop my next question. ‘The wild dogs help us spread this ancient, this curable form of TB. That’s one of the things the other Sequencers do: spread disease. They spread the one they can cure to outcompete the one they cannot cure. Only then can they use antibiotics to fight it. But it only sounds good. The whole process takes much longer in humans than in dogs, and the effort might be in vain.’

I’m hit by a memory. Groaning, I bury my face in my hands. ‘I kissed a dog.’

‘You did what?’

I’d rather not explain the whole business, so I say the first thing that comes to my mind. ‘The white dog licked my face on our first day here.’

‘Dammit,’ Runner grumbles. ‘I’ll test you as soon as possible.’

‘What happens if I get infected?’

‘You’ll be quarantined and receive antibiotics for six months. Success rate is over ninety percent.’

Relieved, I decide to push the infection issue aside until Runner tests me. ‘How long is an apprenticeship?’ I ask, trying a stealth approach to the question that bugs me the most.

‘Five to seven years, depending on the type of…job you’ll do. With me, it would be seven.’

‘What will we be doing, Runner?’

He squints up at me and shakes his head no. ‘I cannot give you this information, Micka. You are not my apprentice, not yet, if ever. You have to accept the possibility, or rather, likelihood, of being transferred to another Sequencer. We will talk only after you’ve written your letter to your parents and cut off all contact to your home. I can understand if you decide against an apprenticeship under these circumstances. It’s okay to say no. You’ll be taken back to your village then.’

He places a hand on the stump, pushes himself up, and walks back to the house.

I watch the glittering snow, wondering why Runner behaves as if I’m the lamb led to the butcher’s block. That man certainly has a melodramatic streak.

I’m sitting on my bed, bent over a small notebook, pen in my cramping hand, and I have no clue what I should write. “Thank you for having me” doesn’t nail it.
 

I touch the scars on my left forearm, then the ones on my right. I don’t blame my parents for this anymore. My own hand did it, holding my own knife. Even blaming my father for cutting a word into my back would be pointless. I would never get anything in return, no apology, nothing. In my family, we never apologise. Saying “I’m sorry” means admitting a mistake.

So what is one supposed to write to parents who don’t seem to care whether one exists or not, as long as one exists quietly? I remember the surprise I felt when they wept at my brother’s funeral. I had no idea they could feel the loss as deeply as I felt it. They pulled themselves together soon enough, though. We are not a family of weaklings.

I kept telling myself that it’s love that forbids me from asking why they treated their kids the way they did. Now I’m old enough to admit it isn’t love. It’s fear of being all wrong about it, of being unable to remember correctly. I know that Mother would say I made it all up, that they never raised a hand against their children, that it was my fault Karlsson died, that Father never whipped the shit out of us, that he never beat me unconscious, and I never woke up with
DIE
screaming from my back. Mother would convince me they’d poured out buckets of sweet love on us. Then, I would lose my memories, my pain, myself. I’d cease to exist.

My legs tremble. My body wants to curl up protectively around my heart, make it feel like an embryo in a loving mother’s womb.
 

My vision floods with saltwater. I hear myself crying when I run the sharp point of the pen into my forearm. Once, twice, three times. Beads of blood mix with ink. I take a deep breath. My heartbeat grows calmer.

The paper before me is perfectly white. A very capitalised “YOU HURT ME!” wants to be there, right next to a “I think I’m stupid enough to love you, but maybe not, because I don’t even fucking know what love is!”