Deadline

by Mira Grant

  “Boo-hoo,” said Dr. Abbey. “Let me know when you people want to grow a pair and join the scientific community. We’re looking for answers. We’d love access to your lab equipment.”

  “You mean join the mad scientists,” spat Kelly, guilt turning into anger in an instant.

  “You say potato, I say pass the jumper cables,” said Dr. Abbey.

  Alaric looked at her thoughtfully. “You said Dr. Shoji left the mainstream medical community after the cross-infection trials. What made you do it? Why aren’t you working with the CDC, trying to take them over from the inside out?”

  “Simon Fraser University,” said Dr. Abbey.

  Kelly stiffened before sinking back into her seat and covering her face with her hands. Alaric’s reaction was nowhere near as dramatic. His eyes widened slightly, and then he nodded, sympathetic comprehension filling his expression. “Who did you lose?”

  Dr. Abbey looked down at Joe the mastiff. Maggie was stroking his ears, and he looked utterly blissful. “My husband,” she said calmly. “Joseph Abbey. He was a software engineer. I was still working for the provincial CDC back then, looking for solutions through ‘safe’ channels. I followed protocol, I maintained my lab at their professional standards, and I was stupid enough to think that meant something.”

  The name of the school was familiar, but it wasn’t connecting to anything, and for once, George wasn’t helping. “Somebody fill me in,” I said.

  “Joe used to give lectures to software engineering classes. They said it was good for the students to deal with someone who had ‘real-world experience.’ I always thought it was partially to remind them that there was a world off campus.” Dr. Abbey glanced my way. “Simon Fraser was a closed school. No student or faculty in and out during the semester. You came in clean, you stayed clean, you left clean. Pretty much the only risk of infection came from the outside speakers and the maintenance staff, and they were tested in every way possible. Joe used to say he couldn’t sit down for a week after he did one of his lectures.” She fell abruptly silent.

  “There was an outbreak,” said Alaric, taking up the thread where Dr. Abbey left off. “The security footage was mostly destroyed, but what we have indicates that it must have started in the gym. Maybe someone pushed themselves a little bit too far and had a coronary. We’ll never know.”

  “Oh, fuck,” I said.

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Dr. Abbey.

  An outbreak is never good, but an outbreak on a sealed campus is close to a worst-case scenario. The healthy would be locked in with the infected until someone could come and let them out, and the mop-up would probably take weeks, if not months, after which the school would almost certainly be decommissioned for several years while they waited for the hazard level to go down again. “What was the student body size?”

  “About eleven thousand,” said Dr. Abbey. “It was a larger school before they closed it to nonresident students. Add another three hundred or so for the faculty and staff.”

  “How many got out?” asked Maggie.

  “None,” whispered Kelly.

  “None,” echoed Dr. Abbey. “See, the outbreak started near the school walls, and they were located on a hill that made it difficult to get to the campus any way but via the main road. Whoever was in charge that day—whatever genius was at the switch—decided that it was too dangerous to try for an evacuation. That the infection was already too close to breaking out. So they called down the wrath of fucking God on that little school.”

  “I remember that,” said Becks, sounding faintly awed. “We studied it when I was in training. Almost all the security footage went missing, even the stuff that should have been beamed straight into the Health Canada and CDC databases. It was just gone.”

  “Except for the pieces that somehow ended up on private servers,” said Alaric. “I’ve seen some of the footage. It’s clearly an outbreak, but it doesn’t look…”

  “It doesn’t look that bad,” said Dr. Abbey. She seemed to have regained a bit of her composure. She looked challengingly around at our little group before she continued: “It looks like the sort of thing you handle with an insertion team and a general quarantine. Not by ordering a firebombing on Canadian soil. My husband was in that school. He called me fifteen minutes before they hit the news, and he was laughing. He said there was ‘a little ruckus’ near the track, and that he’d be home in time for dinner. Told me to get an ice pack ready for the bruises left by all those blood tests they insisted on running. Everything was fine, and that was after the outbreak started. But they treated it like the end of the goddamn world.”

  “So you went rogue?” I asked.

  “Is that what they’re calling it these days?” Dr. Abbey shook her head. “I tendered my resignation immediately. They refused it. Three times. Said that I was a ‘valuable researcher,’ and that they’d be happy to give me the time I needed to get my affairs in order before I returned to work. So I got my affairs in order. I packed my things, I emptied out my lab, and I left while they were still congratulating themselves on being so understanding in my time of need.”

  “You quit,” said Kelly.

  “You never started,” countered Dr. Abbey. “Don’t you look at me like that, you little Barbie girl with your big moral ideals that go out the window as soon as think you know best. My husband died because a bomb was cheaper than a cleanup squad. That’s the simple truth of things. Joe died because somebody didn’t want to pay the bill. His sister,” she jabbed her finger at me, “died because you people won’t do the research into the reservoir conditions that needs to happen if we’re going to survive this damn virus. As a species, and as a society. You may think you’re doing the right thing, and hell, you may even be right, but when you don’t let anyone watch over your shoulder, how the fuck are the rest of us supposed to know?”

  Kelly took a slow breath, visibly calming herself before she said, “I wouldn’t be here if I was still willing to play by their rules.”

  “And again bullshit.” Dr. Abbey slid off the desk, taking a quick step forward. “You don’t make them, but you’re sure as shit defending them, and it’s time to stop. Because if you’re far enough off the reservation to be sitting here, they’re not going to let you come back. It’s cheaper to drop the bomb than it is to offer medical assistance, remember?” She leaned in until her face was almost up against Kelly’s, and said, voice suddenly soft, “I was you, once upon a time. Remember that. I was you, and the organization you still believe in made me who I am now. They’ll do the same to you, if you don’t get smart in a hurry.”

  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 fuck are we supposed to do?”

  “That part’s easy.” I smiled, slowly. “We have a conspiracy. Let’s go bust this fucker 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, 204
1

  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.”

  “Actually, Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster,” said Maggie. “Common misconception.”

  “Way to ruin the moment, Maggie.” I walked over to the bike, picking up my helmet. “Everyone cool?”

  “I still say this is a very poorly conceived idea,” said Kelly. “I mean, maybe you’ll get lucky. Maybe the CDC will let you walk out alive. But I wouldn’t place bets on it.”

  “Maybe you’ll get lucky and they’ll let us leave,” I corrected, gently. “Becks here may be the one voted most likely to point a gun at somebody’s head just for kicks, but Maggie…”

  “They’ll never find the body,” said Maggie. Her tone was blithely chipper, like she was talking about the latest fund-raiser for the Bulldog Rescue Association. That made it worse. “Not that anyone’s going to be looking, since you’re legally dead, but even if they looked for you, they’d never come close. All I’d need to do is call my father and tell him I finally had a problem he could fix. You could be the best Father’s Day present I’ve ever given him. He’s so hard to shop for.”

  Kelly’s eyes widened, fear flickering in their depths. “Is she serious?”

  “Almost certainly, but I wouldn’t worry about it just yet,” I said. “Come on, crew. Let’s find us a hotel.”

  In the end, we wound up checking into the first hotel we found in downtown Portland, a nondescript little Holiday Inn whose front door boasted about their recent security upgrades. I was barely picking up any wireless frequencies, which meant “recent” was probably more like ten years ago, but that didn’t matter. Their clearances were up-to-date, and the local review sites said that the rooms were generally clean. We didn’t need five-star accommodations. We just needed a place to stash our semi-hostage and regroup without being attacked by zombies.

  We got two rooms, one for the boys, one for the girls. If Alaric was uncomfortable about rooming with me—and hence with George—he didn’t say anything about it. He just started hooking up his equipment and plugging things in to recharge, while Becks marched Maggie and Kelly into the room across the hall with all the tenderness of a drill sergeant. Maggie took the barked orders gracefully, while Kelly just looked unsettled. I found myself feeling sorry for her, even after everything. After all, I liked her before she told me what the reservoir conditions really meant. It wasn’t like she designed the disease.

  She’s out of her element, said George.

  “We all are,” I muttered. Alaric glanced my way but didn’t say anything. He just kept connecting cables, getting the mobile office of After the End Times up and online.

  The message boards had been busy while we were off gallivanting around the Pacific Northwest, harassing mad scientists, and uncovering corruption in the CDC. I skimmed the comment feeds as I waited for my mail to finish downloading. The usual cadre of trolls, assholes, and conspiracy nuts were out in force, almost drowning out the more reserved forum participants. Mahir and the rest of the Newsies had them essentially under control. Technically I’m in charge of the site, but it can be easy to lose track of how big we really are these days. It used to be me, George, and Buffy. Now it’s dozens of people, half of whom I’ve never met and probably never will. Thank God for Mahir. Without him, we’d fall apart, becoming another fringe site clinging to the edges of extinction. He manages the marketing and merchandising that George used to handle, and somehow all the bills get paid. Even the ones relating to ammo supplies for the Irwins, which I know from experience can get pretty damn expensive.

  “Anything on fire?” asked Alaric.

  “Not as such, but that’s okay. I’m sure tomorrow’s field trip will supply us with plenty of matches.” I put my laptop on the bedside table, stretching until I felt my shoulders pop. “For right now, I’m going to see about catching a little sleep before I go back to
professionally risking my life. You have things under control on your end?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to write up a few articles on medical ethics and the lack of high-level oversight; I figure Mahir should be up by the time I finish, and I want to check in with him before I crash.” As the head of the Newsie division, Mahir was Alaric’s direct superior and the one who actually approved his articles. They worked together well, which was a relief. I don’t know how I would have dealt if they’d hated each other. Probably by punching the walls until the two of them settled down and said they’d play nicely.

  You never did have any people skills, said George, tone managing to be dry and fond at the same time.

  “You’re one to talk,” I mumbled, and closed my eyes, sinking into the too-soft hotel mattress. The sound of Alaric typing away was soothing, helping me relax even further. George and I shared a lot of rooms exactly like this one, one of us dozing while the other kept working, the staccato click of keys providing the white noise that meant it was safe to sleep.

  Hush, chided George. You need to get some rest. You’re running yourself too hard.

  “I learned from the best.” I sighed, letting out my breath in a deep, slow exhalation. Somewhere in the middle of breathing out, the world slipped away, and I slipped into sleep.

  In my dreams that night, George had coppery eyes that she didn’t need to hide behind her sunglasses, and we walked in the sunlight, and we didn’t have to be afraid. Everything was perfect. Those are the worst dreams of all, because in the end, I can’t stay asleep forever.

  I woke to the sharp, sweetly metallic tang of gun oil. It had managed to perfume the entire room, overwhelming the less-intrusive smells of toast and greasy hotel turkey bacon. I scrubbed my eyes with the back of a hand, clearing the gunk away before sitting up and squinting at the figure perching on the end of the bed.