by Shanon Hunt
“That girl killed a police officer and probably killed Austin Harris,” Nick said. “She’s the linchpin of the entire story. I have no doubt that now she’ll be scared up from wherever she’s hiding, and we’ll finally get the truth.”
He was so stunned when the chief didn’t cut him off midsentence that for a moment he thought the lunatic might be considering that he was right.
But the man leaned over his desk and rested on his knuckles. “I know you’re the one who’s been writing the virus series in that damn conspiracy blog.”
Shit. He hadn’t been expecting that. He played dumb. “What?”
“Pen name Aeger Caedis. Every reporter has a writing style. You think I wouldn’t recognize yours?”
Nick shrugged. He didn’t have any proof. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He picked up a notebook. “ ‘Did the lyssavirus really come from China?’ by Aeger Caedis, an article about the mysterious missing patient zero.” He tossed the notebook across the desk so Nick could see that he’d recorded every one of his virus articles. “Millions of dollars have gone into tracing the early deaths, and thousands of scientists agree they started in China—yet you say that because no one has found patient zero that it must be a huge government conspiracy.”
“I never said it’s a government conspiracy. I said it’s interesting that they didn’t trace it back that far. It’s like they gave up ten feet from the finish line. Who are they protecting?”
The chief flopped back into his chair. “You’re a goddamn disappointment.”
Nick flinched and immediately hated himself for it. Those words stung, even as a grown man, but he didn’t want the chief to know it.
The chief turned his monitor back to its original position. “I’m reassigning you to local news.”
Oh god, no. That was not an acceptable outcome. “You’re sending me to beat? Come on. You know I don’t belong with those guys. That’s not even journalism. It’s NPR, for chrissake.”
“Get out of my office.”
“Listen, you’re making a mistake.”
“Out of my office!” He swung his arm at the door with the dramatic flair of an umpire calling a strike. Oh, the fun of being a prick with a live audience. Then he settled into his chair and went back to work as if nothing had happened.
Nick stood paralyzed as adrenaline coursed through his veins. He was by far the best investigative reporter the paper had ever had, even at his age. No one chased the facts like he did. No one had his persuasive charm, which was necessary to get to the truth. And sure as shit no one had his work ethic.
This was purely personal.
He looked down at Osborne, who pretended to be falling off his chair laughing.
Fuck it. No better time than the present.
Nick’s legs finally moved, and he slammed both palms onto the chief’s desk, delighting in watching the man shrink back. “Who are you really working for? Who bought you that fancy house in Fountain Hills? Because it sure as hell wasn’t this paper. You buried the Malloy case, and then you buried the real story behind the virus. Someone paid you off.”
Come on, psycho, say the magic words. You know you want to.
He pushed harder. “No one bothered to find out who made the warning video or where he got that restaurant picture. I’m the only one who investigated the story, found dozens of holes, but you couldn’t shut me down fast enough. Hundreds of thousands of deaths, yet no one pursued how it spread so fast. Not a single paper in the country. You don’t think that’s strange? Of course not, because whoever paid you off paid off every other paper.”
The chief’s mouth twitched, but still, he didn’t swing the ax.
Nick gave him one last shove. “You’re not just a prick, you’re a pathetic sellout. And that’s why Mom walked out on you.”
Nick wanted to laugh at how crimson red the man’s face turned. He hadn’t seen that neck vein pop out like that since the night Nick stole his Porsche and took his friends on a joyride. Must’ve been fourteen or fifteen.
“Fired.” Spit flew from the chief’s clenched teeth. “You’re fired. Get. The fuck. Out.”
Nick straightened, trying to appear stoic, but he felt the slightest upturn of his lip. The chief grabbed the first thing within reach, a stapler, and threw it right at his head. He ducked, and the stapler hit the edge of the whiteboard instead of the window. Damn. It would have made his day to see the fishbowl shatter into a million pieces.
But his mission was accomplished.
He pivoted and held up both middle fingers for the audience below, relishing the shocked look on Osborne’s fat little face.
He looked back over his shoulder. The chief—now simply Dad—was still red-faced, seething. White foam had collected in the corners of his mouth, and his breath came fast. For a minute, Nick wondered if he was on the verge of a heart attack, but he fell back into his chair, growling obscenities under his breath.
As Nick stepped over the threshold, both birds still flying, he couldn’t remember the last time he felt that dignified. He’d regret it later, probably, but for now, he felt like a god.
5
March 2024, Arizona
Nick surveyed the other patrons as he took a seat at the end of the bar. He hoped it would be empty this time of day. It wasn’t, though he shouldn’t have been surprised. The world had grown so depressing and gloomy that drowning one’s sorrows over a pint, even at ten in the morning, had become a national sport, ranking second only to major league opioid abuse.
A man four seats down eyed him. Nick nodded politely, trying to remember the guy’s name: Curt or Dirk or something. The man stood, dropped a bill on the table, and called out to the bartender. “See ya, Darcy!”
He growled at Nick on his way out. “Glits are not welcome here.”
“I’m not a glit,” Nick called after him. “I live on Forty-First Street.” It wasn’t just an insult to be associated with the glitterati, it was dangerous. Violence was the result when glits came out from behind their fancy protective walls into the dregs. Bloodshed. Covered in red glitter, as the crime scenes were often described.
Darcy set a pint of Guinness on a coaster in front of him. “It’s the suit. You can’t dress like that around here. And why aren’t you at work, anyway?”
He wished he hadn’t made his aunt Darcy his first stop after storming out of the building. He didn’t regret his separation from employment. Not yet anyway. In truth, the paper had only impeded his important mission. His research had been scrutinized, his words neutered until they’d lost all meaning. He’d been immobilized, like an unloved, neglected dog tethered to a fence. But now, as a free agent, he could investigate his way. The story was out there, and he was damn well going to find it and tell it. There was only one small problem. His bank account. He needed Darcy’s help.
He wrapped his hands around his glass and nodded at the TV screen to stall. “What’s going on?” A hospital was surrounded by fire trucks and police cars, lights flashing.
“The virus. Thirty-seven more dead in a hospital in Missouri, of all places. No idea how it got inside.”
“Are they sure it’s the virus?”
“Yep. The eye spasms.”
He shook his head and squinted at the screen. The virus, once called by its true name, the lyssavirus, before it had been clipped presumably to save characters on Twitter, had plagued every country on earth. Even now, after a year and a half, it hadn’t been fully eradicated. He could still hear the voice on the YouTube video “A Desperate Warning to the World” delivering a speech that every human on the planet today could recite by heart.
Today is October fourteenth, 2022. It is with great despair that I report a virus has been released from the Gansu Province in China and will soon enough spread across the globe. It is unlike anything the world has seen before. I have had firsthand experience with this virus. I’ve seen what it’s capable of, and I am sending this message as a warning to stay out of public places. S
tay off the streets. Quarantine in your home with your loved ones.
I’m begging you.
The anguish in the man’s voice had been enough to send chills down anyone’s spine, and yet no one had believed it, not until the bodies started piling up. By the time the world’s military forces had gotten off their asses, it was too late. The virus was relentless. It sparked panic, fear, and distrust so contagious that the run on gun stores outpaced the run on toilet paper. Shoot first, ask questions later became the mantra. Every grocery store was surrounded by a SWAT team. Parks emptied, schools shut down, and the cities became eerily silent, as if an alien spaceship had dropped down and abducted all human life.
The economy should have recovered, but fear kept people inside even after stores and restaurants reopened. No one felt protected, and everyone was trigger-happy. Walls went up around wealthy glitterati neighborhoods, leaving everyone else to suffer in poverty and fear, the dregs of society living in the dregs of what once was the most powerful country in the world.
He looked up from his reverie to see his aunt studying him. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me he fired you.”
“In the powerful words of George Orwell”—he mimed a long drag on a cigarette and spoke with an English accent—“ ‘The further society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.’ ”
Darcy smirked. She was one tough lady. She’d been one of the fifty-three women and four men laid off from state social services. She’d worked there twenty-five years, longer than any of the male counterparts over which she had seniority, but no one had bothered protesting the gender inequality. It was simply one more troubling sign of the times. With her meager savings and a little help from Nick, she’d scooped this dank, windowless bar in Central City out of bankruptcy. If I can’t help these people, I can at least ease their suffering had been her rationale. Here in the dregs, people needed that.
“Was it the article?” she asked.
“It was just the last straw. Nothing’s ever been good enough for that asshole.”
He decided not to mention the sellout insult. Darcy had never liked Nick’s father. What kind of dad makes his son call him sir? he’d overheard her asking Uncle Jay when he was just a kid. Now she refused to talk about him or Nick’s mother, who’d packed a suitcase and walked out the door when Nick was only ten years old, never to be heard from again.
Her expression dulled as she picked up Curt or Dirk’s glass and wiped the bar.
“Listen, Darce, I’m not letting it go. We’ll find ’em. The article was just posted, and right now someone, somewhere, is feeling very scared. If they believe the cops are snooping around the Vitapura site, they’ll come out of their hiding place.” She will, he wanted to add. Allison Stevens. But that was just his gut feeling.
Her lower lip trembled. “After your uncle died, I never thought I’d find another soulmate, but I did. I couldn’t do anything about losing Jay. But dammit, Pete was stolen from me. Stolen. And I need to make it right. They have to pay for what they did.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d said these words, but Nick nodded empathetically. He’d doubted her story when she’d first come to him, distraught—devastated, actually. In his experience, when a victim was that grief-stricken, sometimes they invented stories as a coping mechanism to deal with their loss. Pete Malloy and Danny Garcia didn’t go to a meth lab in Tempe. They went to the Vitapura Wellness Center. Scientists were torturing kids there. They implanted ports in their spines, Nick. Just imagine that. And they were injecting them with illegal genetic drugs. Pete knew everything, and that’s why they killed him.
Nick had tried to console her, but she didn’t want his hugs or his Scotch. She’d looked at him with fire in her eyes and stabbed a finger at him. Find them, Nicky. You’re a reporter. Go do your fucking job. It was the only time he ever heard her use profanity. He’d studied her quivering face for several moments, unconvinced, but agreed to look into it. Only then did she collapse into sobs.
But his battle for a police investigation into Vitapura had been futile, resulting in nothing but a formal complaint against him. He hadn’t dug up a shred of physical proof. It wasn’t until the center closed six months later that he’d been able to sneak inside, and only then had he become convinced Darcy had been right all along.
Once he began poking around, the silent war began. He’d driven out to Black Canyon City, explored the deserted Vitapura site, and returned home to find his apartment had been tossed. He’d purchased a surveillance device and found his credit card had been canceled. It infuriated him that they knew who he was, but he didn’t know who they were.
And he had no doubt that they’d come after him again, but he wasn’t about to put that scare into Darcy.
He picked up a dusty deck of cards on top of an even dustier Pictionary board game box. No one played games anymore. “I’ll cheer you up.”
She held up a hand. “I’ve seen ’em all, Mr. Copperfield.”
“What about the one where I swallow the card? Come on, that’s genius.”
“Yep.”
He faked a dejected look and dropped the cards back onto the board game graveyard, sending up a cloud of dust, and finished his beer in one long gulp. He dropped a five on the bar. There was a time when he could’ve dropped a twenty, but these days he needed every penny just to keep a roof over his head.
And that thought brought him to the moment he’d been dreading.
“I’m gonna have to close out my investment account at the bank of Darcy’s bar.”
He could tell just by the way she slouched over the sink that she was disappointed by his request. It wasn’t that she still needed his start-up money. She’d already recouped it and even paid him a little interest, but as long as it was in her possession, she knew Nick wasn’t living hand to mouth. Sadly, he was.
In a more cheerful tone, he added, “And then I’m heading home to check the tapes.”
She wordlessly plodded to the back office and returned with an envelope, which she slid across the bar. Forty-three hundred dollars, his entire net worth. He’d once been worth fifty times that amount. The stock market had been performing so well, it was just dumb to keep cash in low-yield savings accounts. When the crash hit, it came hard and fast, sweeping through the US, Western Europe, and Asia in a matter of days. The damage was analogous to the stock market crash of 1929 and left the world in ruins.
Darcy rested her elbows on the bar and gazed at him with tired eyes. She’d aged so much in the past two years; the twinkle that once lit up her face was gone. “Take care of yourself first, Nicky. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you, too.”
“I will, Darce. Promise.”
Outside in the unforgiving heat, he slipped off his jacket to air out the damp armpits of his white dress shirt. As his eyes adjusted to the bright morning sunlight, he caught sight of the unmarked white van parked a block down the road on the opposite side of the street. Was that the same one he noted when he left the Sun this morning? A van like that had no reason to be in this part of town, and it wasn’t lost on him that the driver would have a perfect view of Darcy’s bar.
The van pulled off the curb and made a U-turn. The glare off the windshield prevented him from getting a good look at the driver, and he dropped his eyes searching for a license plate number. The plates had been removed.
“Chicken shit bastard,” he mumbled. “I’ll find you. If it’s the last thing I do in this life, I’ll expose you to the world.”
6
October 2022, Mexico
Layla pulled her hair into a tight bun on top of her head and reached into the makeup case for some mascara. Steadying her hand with her pinky finger against her cheek, she expertly pulled the mascara brush through her lashes. It was as if she’d been doing it her entire life, although she could only remember applying mascara over the past few months. Muscle memory stays with you even after significant memory loss, Dr. Jeremy had explained back when she was an inductee. That was bef
ore she’d understood that the Colony had used a genetic drug to erase her memories to give her a fresh start and a new purpose in life.
Still, it explained why she could pull on hose without poking a fingernail through the flimsy material and why she could walk in three-inch pumps without wobbling. The brain, with its many mysterious functions, was truly remarkable. But she didn’t like getting dressed up or wearing makeup. She’d take the Colony’s traditional white linens over this fancy uniform any day, but image was critical for new inductees.
The rebranding had been her idea. Leaders needed to present a more professional first impression to recruits and inductees so that newcomers, or what they referred to as Stage Ones, could see that the Colony offered a better alternative to their current situations. To someone down on their luck, the welcoming face of someone who actually spoke to them with respect and kindness was a rare and powerful thing. It made for a much more successful transition.
She appraised herself in the mirror, applied a little lip gloss, and pulled on the white jacket matching her gleaming faux leather maternity skirt. The buttons had no chance of clasping over her belly. Thank goodness her shirt hid the stretch panel. She sighed at her corpulent reflection.
James’s voice came from the back of the room. “You look beautiful.”
“Thanks.” She puffed her cheeks and grinned at his reflection in the mirror as he wrapped his long, muscular arms around her. Even though she was still a bit sore at him for yesterday, his embrace made her remember how special she was. James loved her, and she loved him.
“Only presenters are allowed in the dressing room,” she said. “Are you planning to deliver a cameo appearance? These are Stage Ones, your favorites.”
He chuckled, and his eyes sparkled with adoration. “Next to you? No way, I’d look like a clumsy oaf.”
She snickered at the goofy, old-fashioned expression. There was something to be said for hanging out with twentysomethings—they kept her young at heart—but she was thirtysomething, a decade younger than James. In the eyes of the inductees, Brother James was more fatherly than brotherly, although that didn’t make him any less important in their eyes.
