My own voices

22. The returning

It all made perfect sense. Her plan could be perceived genius in an alternate universe, well that didn't make O'Reilly a better person. Maybe the line between good and bad was way thicker than I had previously assumed.

Maybe, just maybe, her idea was actually clever - creating a universal pill that cures all illnesses. If I hadn't been one of her lab rats I could have had a prolonged conversation on the making of that pill and how she had been planning on developing it. Such pill would need a lot of work and tests which would mean a lot of fails too until she got there. The word "fails" in that previous sentence was what was worrying me-

I was forced out of my chain of thoughts. I looked back up to O'Reily who had made a throat noise to get my attention.

She had come back. Great.

I could confront her and try to get some clues on what on Earth was she actually using me for or... play dumb. Both had their pros and cons for if I played dumb then she would not know what I knew or at least assumed. The "assumed" part which was the disadvantage.

"How are you feeling?" she was smiling wide and there was that glint in her eyes. "Ready?"

Nevertheless, I wasn't in the mood to be the dummy.

"Probably a little better if you had previously told me what this whole thing is about."

She furrowed her eyebrows in distaste.

"It's part of the cure that we have been discussing."

"No. I am not taking it. I want information. What is this cure and what makes it so special that you had to make Alice bring me here." I rolled my eyes, maybe she'd get the idea this wasn't exactly what I had in mind as fun "...then have me captured and tied to a chair." she was about to open her mouth but I wasn't going give her the satisfaction of hearing her own voice so easily.

"I am certain it wasn't just to have nice and friendly talk."

"Since I am not the one tied to a chair, captive and unknowing, I don't feel the need to inform you." she said to herself more than to me.

"I hate to remind you but it is relatively barbaric and vastly borderline medieval to torture someone by injecting them with unknown substances without their permission." 

That psycho was just going to get the best of me.

"Otto Padilla. Always so sharp-tongued. It won't work to your advantage this time." she was trying to get that smile back on her face but it was obvious that she had been struggling.

"So what you're going to experiment on a bunch of people without anyone's consent whatsoever and probably kill them in the process but you're going to get away with it? How come do you think nobody will figure it out?" my anger was boiling and it was hard to keep my assumptions to myself.

I had to know. And as crappy as my life was now, I still wasn't going to give it away like that. And Alice...

"You know Otto, maybe I don't have the patient's consent but if I have the consent of their family I can do practically whatever the hell I want."

"No you can't, it's illegal" she wasn't making sense and it was scaring me even more. What if she really could do whatever she had in mind. This was getting just more dangerous.

"In theory, it is. But the process is a lot more complicated than you can imagine. I have been working with the government half of my life and we both agree that mental disorders are an ever-so-growing problem in our society and none of us is very happy with that."

Government? Could this go anywhere deeper?

"It is problem that is draining the budget of the healthcare department and needs to be dealt with. As I agree with that and I am a huge supporter, I have helped a lot through the ages so I get some perks."

I needed a moment to fully process what O'Reily had said and try to think of any way to use it to my advantage. But O'Reily still had the upper hand.

"Even if so, how does this relate to me in any way?"

"Very simple, I just had to ask my dear cousin to check you in the asylum that I run when you finally broke under all of that pressure. I asked her to sign a couple of documents which she gladly did just to get rid of the creature that she had been raising her whole life. Poor woman. Having to deal with you."

It was all too much.