Kelly gaped at her. Before any of us could formulate a response, Dr. Abbey was turning and striding off down the hall. Joe lumbered to his feet and went trotting after her, nearly knocking Maggie over in the process. The rest of us joined Kelly in gaping.

We were still staring when she shouted back, not turning, “I want you people out of my lab in ten minutes!” Then she was gone.

I glanced at Alaric. “I think I like her.”

I think I do, too, said George.

Becks eyed the rest of us with poorly restrained impatience. “Well?” she asked. “Now what the f**k are we supposed to do?”

“That part’s easy.” I smiled, slowly. “We have a conspiracy. Let’s go bust this f**ker open and see what comes tumbling out.”

But when the springtime turns to dust

(A thousand shades of blood and rust)

And everything is ash and stone

(Contagion writ in blood and bone)

Then what exists to have or hold?

(What story, then, has not been told?)

Let this be my sacred vow

(Oh Mother Mary, hear me now):

I will not fail, I will not fall

(Though Heaven, Hell, and Chaos call).

We are the children of the Risen.

This world our home, this prayer our prison.

—From Dandelion Mine, the blog of Magdalene Grace Garcia, April 16, 2041

I am officially tired of camping. I am tired of eating fish. I am tired of watching the boys wander around scratching themselves and pretending that we’re “roughing it” while living out of a van that’s better appointed than many mobile homes. I am tired of shooting zombie deer that wander past our safety zone. Well, okay. I’m not really tired of that part. That part is pretty cool. Suck it, Bambi.

So I’m going to do something else today. No, I’m not going to tell you what; you’re going to have to tune in and find out for yourself. But I promise you, you’re going to have a blast.

—From Charming Not Sincere, the blog of Rebecca Atherton, April 16, 2041

Twelve

Most major cities have their own CDC offices, although three out of four are just satellites, built mostly to keep people calm. The big offices are rarer, and they’re the ones with the real resources—they’re the ones where things get done. The nearest big office was smack in the middle of Portland, which conveniently put it less than an hour’s drive from Dr. Abbey’s lab.

Less conveniently, we couldn’t exactly pull up stakes and go running straight to the CDC to start shaking them down for answers. “They’re a government agency,” said Becks. “It’s their job to make things confusing.”

“Besides, if we just go charging in there, we’re all going to die,” added Alaric.

“I hate trying to argue with you when you use logic on me,” I said. The sun had dipped substantially lower in the sky while we were getting our Virology 101 from Dr. Abbey, and the shadows were long enough to have become menacing. Sunsets were considered beautiful before the Rising. Now they just mean night is coming, and staying out after dark is a good way to get yourself killed. “We need to get in there. We need to plant some bugs and see if we can knock the CDC off balance enough to tell us anything.”

“This isn’t a good idea,” said Kelly. There was no room for disagreement in her tone. “The CDC has the right to shoot first and ask questions later. All they need to do is formulate a reasonable case for you having been hreat.”

“Then I guess we’d better not be threats, huh?” I looked at her and shook my head. “We’re going in there, Doc. We need to.”

Seeing that Kelly still wasn’t following me, Alaric said, “It’s like putting together an academic defense. Sometimes you need to look for negative results, as well as positive ones. If we don’t learn anything from the CDC, we get footage of them outright denying what everybody will eventually know is true. If we do learn something, we’ve made progress.”

“And I need to know how much of the CDC is involved.”

Kelly looked between us, frowning slightly. “You’re all insane,” she said.

“Yeah.” I unlocked the van doors. “But look at it this way: At least you don’t have to come.”

Kelly snorted and got in.

Sadly, I meant what I said. No matter how pissed I was at Kelly, she was the one who spoke their language, and having her with us would have made things infinitely easier. But with Dr. Wynne assuming she’d died in Oakland, and everyone else believing she’d died in Memphis, we couldn’t exactly march her into the office and expect to get actual answers. Shot at, yes, but answers, no.

Alaric was the one to come up with the obvious solution: “It’s too late for us to do anything serious tonight. Why don’t we get a couple of hotel rooms, and then you can leave me and Maggie to babysit Dr. Connolly while you and Becks go off to wreak havoc.”

“I’m not normally in favor of splitting the party, but I have to say that Alaric’s plan is a good one. It also keeps those of us—namely, me—who don’t have much field experience from standing in the line of fire,” added Maggie. “I’d rather not have the CDC call my parents to report that I’ve come storming their castle.”

I nodded. “All right. Let’s get out of here. Of course, if there’s anyone who’d like to skip their all-expenses-paid ticket on the crazy train, you’re welcome to stay here. At that point, your options are going back to the lab and trusting Dr. Abbey not to turn you into her private Frankenstein, or staying out here and praying that whatever comes to find you is in a killing mood, rather than an infecting one.”