“Are you infected?” she asked. The word hit in the same place it always had back in Berlin—sirens and posters and drills. “Any Fieber, that does not go away? Skin lesions. Tremors. Schwarze Linien an den Adern—black lines on the veins. Augen, that look… cloudy.” She watched my face as she listed them. “Anything like this?”

“No,” I said immediately. Then forced myself to add, “Not that I know of.”

“Have you been around anyone with those symptoms?” she pressed. “Close. Same room, same air.”

“No,” I said. “I’ve barely been around anyone at all.”

The man spoke for the first time directly to me, voice rough but controlled.

“Bites?” he asked. “Bisse? Deep cuts from things you did not see clearly. Wounds that smell wrong. Flesh that would not close.”

I shook my head once, careful not to move anything else.

“No,” I said. “Just falls. Scrapes. I cleaned them. They healed.”

The woman gave a small nod without looking away from me.