He turned the gun back to Arlys, cocking his head. “Think about what the demons might do to a young, pretty woman like you. Do you want to risk that?”

“I don’t believe in demons.”

“You will.” He turned to the camera. “You all will, when it’s too late. It’s already too late. This is Bob Barrett, signing off.”

He put the gun under his chin, pulled the trigger.

Blood splattered, a shock of warm and wet, on Arlys’s face even as Bob fell back in the coanchor chair.

She heard—that same bad connection—Fred’s scream, the shouts. For three banging seconds, her vision grayed.

She lifted a trembling hand. “Don’t cut the feed.”

She felt Jim’s hands grip her. “Come with me, Arlys. Come on with me.”

“No, no, please.” She tipped her face to his, saw tears sliding down his cheeks. “I need to … On me, Steve,” she told the cameraman. “Please. Bob Barrett built an illustrious, admirable career as a journalist with his ethics, his integrity, his no-bullshit style, his dedication to serving the ethos of the Fourth Estate, to serving the truth. His son, Marshall, was … seventeen.”

“Eighteen,” Jim corrected.

“Eighteen. I didn’t know Marshall had died, and can only speculate how Bob suffered with his great, personal loss in the last several days. Today, he succumbed to his grief, and we who try to serve the truth, who try to mirror his ethics and integrity, suffer a great, personal loss. He shouldn’t be remembered for his last moments of despair. And even in them, even in them, he showed me I still have a long way to go to reach his level. In tribute to him, I’m going to serve up the truth.”

She knuckled a tear away, saw the red smear of blood, let out a breathy moan.

“I have to.” She looked directly at the camera, hoped—prayed—Chuck was watching. “I have information from a source I consider absolutely reliable. I’ve had this information since early this morning, and I withheld it. I withheld it from my boss, from my coworkers, and from all of you. I apologize, and offer no excuse. Contrary to the information and numbers given to the media by the World Health Organization in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, the death count as of this morning from H5N1-X is more than two billion. This is one-third of the world population, and does not include deaths from murder, suicide, or accidents connected to the virus.”

Under the desk, she forced her hands to release their fists, continued to stare into the camera.

“Again, contrary to what is being reported, the progress on the vaccine has stalled as the virus has, again, mutated. There is no vaccine at this time. Moreover, the virus itself has not yet been identified. Previous reports categorizing H5N1-X as a new strain of avian flu are false.”

She paused, fought to find her center. “All evidence indicates that only humans are affected. Recently sworn-in President Ronald Carnegie contracted H5N1-X, and succumbed to it yesterday. Former Secretary of Agriculture Sally MacBride has been sworn in as president. President MacBride is forty-four, a Yale graduate—summa cum laude—and prior to accepting the cabinet position had served two terms in the United States Senate from the state of Kansas. President MacBride’s husband of sixteen years, Peter Laster, died in week two of the pandemic. Her two children—Julian, age fourteen, and Sarah, age twelve—are reported to be alive and in a safe location. I can’t, at this time, verify the veracity of that information.”

She reached for the water bottle she’d set out of camera range, look a long drink. She saw Carol weeping silently, Jim’s arm around her. Fred stood beside them, a hand stroking Carol’s back as she nodded at Arlys.

“I have further information that military forces—I can’t verify under what authority—have begun sweeps to find those of us who appear to be immune, and to quarantine the immune in unspecified locations for testing. This will not be voluntary. It will be, essentially, martial law.

“I don’t believe in demons. That isn’t a lie. But I have seen what was once the unbelievable. I’ve seen the beauty and the wonder of it. I believe what we’ve termed the Uncanny—there is light and dark in them, as there is light and dark in all of us—will also be swept up and detained and tested. And, I fear, that what H5N1-X leaves us, all of us, will not destroy us, but the fear and violence it breeds in those of us who give in to it—the forced restrictions on freedom—could.”

She paused, took a breath, looked over at Jim, gave him a signal to be ready to cut the feed. With a nod, he murmured to Carol. She shook her head.

“I’ll do it,” Carol murmured, walking off to go back to the booth.

“I held this information knowing if and when I broadcasted it, it would very likely be the last broadcast from this station. That I would endanger my coworkers. And further, I let myself lower the bar on my expectations of the human race. I told myself it wouldn’t matter if you knew, if I told the truth. I apologize for that. And I commend everyone with me in this studio for risking everything to get the truth. To all of you, don’t give in to fear, to grief, to despair. Survive.

“I’ll find a way to reach you again, with truth. For now, this is Arlys Reid, signing off.”

She sat back, hitched in a breath. “I’m sorry, Jim.”

“No, forget that.” He moved to her when she looked over at Bob, slumped in his chair, blood soaked through his shirt.

“Oh God. Oh God.”

“Come away now. I’ll take care of him. I’ll take care of him.”

“I had to do it.” Shaking, quaking, she let him steer her away. “Bob killed himself. He was wrong, he was wrong, but he was right about the lies. I was part of the lies. I couldn’t keep lying after … Now they’ll shut us down. You did so much to keep us up, and—”

“It was going to happen sooner or later. You got the truth out before we go dark. You need to go, Arlys. If you go home, they’ll likely come for you there.”

“I … I have a place nobody knows about.”

“All right. What do you need?”

“I need to destroy the computer I’ve been using. My source told me how.”

“All right. Do that. Fred, get Arlys some supplies.”

“I’m going with her,” Fred told him.

“Enough for two then,” Jim said without missing a beat. “Fred, you can get both of you some clothes out of wardrobe.” As he spoke, Jim unbuttoned the blood-spattered jacket Arlys wore. “I’ll take care of the rest. We probably don’t have a lot of time.”

Arlys went straight to the computer, her hands shaking. She couldn’t destroy her notes, just couldn’t, so she stuffed them into her briefcase before following the steps Chuck had outlined.

Basically, he’d explained, she’d give the computer a virus, and everything on it would be wiped away. Then she was to remove the hard drive, and … smash the shit out of it, in Chuck’s words, with a hammer.

Even with that, some genius cyber freak might dig out something, but—according to Chuck—by then it wouldn’t matter.

She had to change her shirt—more of Bob’s blood—clean off the blood and the TV makeup. Fred rushed in, snagged some eyeliners, lipsticks, mascaras.

“Nobody’s going to use it around here so we might as well take it.”

“Really? I think pretty faces are going to be the least of it.”

“Pretty’s never least.” Fred stuffed makeup in her pockets. “Jim says we should hurry, we should go.”

She grabbed her coat on the fly, found Steve waiting. He offered two backpacks. “These got left behind when people stopped coming back.”

“Thanks.” Arlys shrugged hers on, looking over at Jim and Carol. “Come with us. You should all come with us.”

“I’ve got things to do here. If they come before I’m done, I know ways out.”

“I’m with Jim,” Carol told her. “We’re going to close down right.”

“I need to go home. I’m going to give them a hand, then I’m going home. Good luck.” Steve offered a hand.