Dead City

by Sean Platt

  But Danny wasn’t hanging out in the coffee room. His car didn’t seem to be in the parking lot. He wasn’t in the sales department when Ian just so happened to walk through it for no particular reason.

  “Hey,” said a familiar voice. “How did you get the day off yesterday?”

  Ian turned to see Ted Doyle behind him, taking a bite out of an oversized plum.

  “Oh. Hi, Ted.”

  “Are you fucking Gennifer or something?”

  “I’m Gennifer’s boss,” Ian said. “That would be backward.”

  “I didn’t ask who was whose boss,” Ted said, chewing.

  Ian turned and began walking back to Alpha building. Ted followed.

  “Seriously. What’s the trick to getting the day off?”

  Ian felt caught. He didn’t want to talk to Ted. He liked Ted, but this wasn’t just another workday for Ian Keys. There was betrayal afoot. In just over an hour, the entire staff, minus essential personnel, would be excused from work for an hour and a half so that visiting dignitary/boss Archibald Burgess could stand behind a lectern on the wide, downward-spilling front lawn and crow about Hemisphere’s greatness and how much the company loved the people it had saved from certain undead doom. It all felt so transparent, Ian wanted to vomit. Just a few days ago, he’d been thinking how noble the event was: important Archibald, taking time out of his packed schedule to shake hands with the people who’d received what he’d selflessly given for free. But now Ian could only see a big, phony photo opp. A natural sales funnel rich with upsells, government subsidies, protection from Panacea, favors, lobbies before congress … all the dirty-dealing worst.

  “Not right now, Ted.”

  Ted had come even with Ian. He moved in front and turned, stopping him in his tracks. He leaned against one wall and took another bite.

  “Hey. Meant to tell you. I took everyone’s message to heart. I’m going to drop my remaining prejudices.”

  Ian saw the punch line coming but was unable to duck.

  “I asked Sarah out. You know, the temp who’s a twitcher?”

  “You’re unreal.” Ian skirted Ted and kept walking.

  “I know, right?” He eyed Ian. “Hey, you still seem worked up. What’s up, boss? And what was up the other day? I saw you talking to Gennifer.” His face clouded. “That wasn’t about me, was it? Because, dude, I’m just kidding. Or was, the other day. Sarah actually seems really nice. And I did ask her out.”

  Ian wondered if it would be fastest and easiest to deny he’d been uneasy the other day, explain that he’d asked Gennifer about virology and various other things Ian had no reason (or knowledge) to be asking about, or tell Ted that he was the boss and didn’t need to explain himself to those below him in the command chain.

  He opted for none and resumed walking. Ted lagged, then finally stopped and shouted from behind.

  “Well, okay. See you at lunch?”

  Thoughts tumbled in Ian’s mind as Ted’s voice echoed past him.

  He’d let August Maughan into a lab he had no right being in and that company lore said he’d been exiled from, for the purposes of driving a stake through Hemisphere’s heart.

  In just under an hour, Ian was supposed to deliver the basics of August’s findings to the world, through a microphone on the sprawling lawn, in front of a sampling of the people Ian had, in his own small way, helped Archibald Burgess betray.

  His wife was outside, ready to spread a prop of a blanket for Ian near the lectern, surrounded by men with guns — because someone from Hemisphere (or maybe Panacea) had just tried to kill her.

  Alice Frank, who’d recently become Ian’s ally, had been hauled off to places unknown and was still missing.

  And last but not least, Ian had come down to the sales department to find his supposed friend Danny, who’d spent last night stalking Ian’s house, peering through his windows from the bushes.

  Ian wasn’t sure if he felt angry, guilty, nervous, terrified, or traitorous. Probably, he felt all of those emotions and a few others, mostly unsavory.

  “I doubt I’ll be in the cafeteria today,” Ian said, projecting his voice down the hallway to Ted.

  “Oh right!” Ted shouted back. “That thing is today! I’ll save you a spot on the team’s blanket for your picnic basket!”

  Ian kept walking without responding, feeling the ticking clock, the bomb of the unwelcome scientist conducting his subversive research in the lab above.

  Just under an hour.

  And when those sixty minutes were up, Ian didn’t think Ted and the others would want to be anywhere near him.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  BLOCKED

  “SHIT.”

  ALICE HAD GROWN USED to the idea of touching her steering wheel to make calls, but it was useless without a paired phone. She hadn’t bothered to ask for hers, figuring it would only draw attention to the exit Smyth had made possible. The people she asked for her phone back might be some of the same people who wanted her released from custody to open her big mouth … but only so long as she reached the decade’s biggest story too late.

  Without her phone to yell at, Alice couldn’t ask for a detour around the roadblock she’d rather interestingly encountered on the otherwise lightly trafficked roads.

  But even if she had her phone, Alice thought the roadblock might move anyway. There were more Panacea agents than there were Alice Franks in the world, and their task was easier. While she tried to race through obstacles to Hemisphere HQ, they merely had to stay in her way for another hour or so.

  Alice looked at her dashboard clock.

  For another forty-five minutes or so.

  “Shit. Shit. SHIT!”

  Maybe she could get out of the car. Maybe she could borrow someone’s phone, ask for directory assistance, call the goddamned Hemisphere switchboard if nothing else. Bridget Keys would have a listed number, right? Except that Smyth had already established the phone access Panacea could get if it only tried, and Alice sort of thought her calls, no matter how ingeniously concocted, wouldn’t do the trick.

  If Smyth’s information was correct, Panacea would release fifty or more fast ferals on the Hemisphere picnic, and her friends were about to find themselves in the middle.

  Unless she could get there, and fast.

  Alice looked at her dashboard clock.

  It was 9:31 a.m., and the barricade ahead showed no signs of moving.

  She wrenched the wheel around, weaving around the other cars on the berm, saluting angry honks with her raised middle finger.

  She hoped Archibald Burgess was the kind of guy who couldn’t manage to be on time, or that Ian would at least grab the mic and begin shouting right away, before the horde was released. But it didn’t seem likely.

  Minutes ticked, vanishing like water down a drain.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  CLARION CALL

  HOLLY STOPPED MID-STRIDE. SHE’D learned to favor her lazy right leg over the years — a way of dragging along that made her look and feel like a monster cliché. But this time, she stopped for reasons that had nothing to do with anatomy.

  She was holding two slices of American cheese. In the pan on August’s stove were two slices of white bread, buttered sides down. The burner was on medium, the odor of toast wasted on Holly’s dead sense of smell. Soon, it would begin to blacken and burn, like a body on a pyre.

  A slice of cheese hit the floor. It made a wet smacking sound.

  Concentrate.

  A voice not meant for Holly’s ears, if it had been her ears that had done the hearing. Meant for someone else, from someone else. Holly was a snoop on a party line, listening in to other people’s conversations.

  Know who to take. Know what it means.

  And a sort of rumble in answer. An understanding that wasn’t comprehension. A sense of knowing that wasn’t like knowing at all.

  “Miss Holly?”

  The girl’s voice was like an ice pick, intruding on Holly’s auditory theater. For a second —
only a second, and then only on the level of impulse — Holly imagined herself ripping the girl to pieces. Then the feeling was gone, and the voices snapped off, and she found herself looking at Analise Keys.

  “Are you okay, Miss Holly?”

  “I’m fide.”

  But the word came out wrong. Not fine but fide, as if she had a cold. As if her lips wanted to remind her who she truly was, and whose side she was supposed to be on.

  “You’re sure?”

  More certainly, with more effort at control, Holly said, “Yes. Yes, Ana, I’m sure.”

  “The grilled cheese is going to toast all the way without any cheese in it,” she said, looking at the pan and then the yellow square on the floor.

  Holly forced a smile. “Grab me another from the fridge, will you?”

  Ana watched Holly warily for a moment then turned to go.

  In the seconds that followed, Holly seemed to see her body’s own cells, the cells of others, inside the cells, to the soup beneath the fluid membrane.

  She saw molecules like little Pac-Men, dutifully gobbling troublesome pellets.

  She saw blood.

  She saw more molecules than Pac-Men, overwhelming them, making them pop.

  A spotlight in the darkness.

  A man on a bluff.

  And even more blood, red like a harvest moon.

  “You’re sure you’re okay, Miss Holly?” said Ana’s voice from behind her.

  Holly felt regret that wasn’t her own.

  She felt hunger and anger. She could hear a clarion call like a wail in the night.

  Something was coming.

  And action would need to be taken.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  ROCKWELL PORTRAIT

  IAN CHECKED HIS PHONE. HE checked his phone again.

  “Stop it,” Bridget said beside him. “Your stupid compulsive checking is making me nervous.”

  Ian wanted to snap back at her, just as he’d nearly snapped at Ted. She’d been edgy all morning, her nerves seemingly tissue thin. But rather than feeling for Bridget, Ian could only feel for himself right now. She wouldn’t have to nudge her way onstage. She wouldn’t have to say anything outrageous — something that would ruin her, might get her arrested, might get her killed. He was doing this for her and for Ana in the first place. How about a little sympathy? How about some appreciation?

  “I just want a text that gives me a thumbs-up. A green light. A go-ahead,” Ian said.

  Bridget shifted on the picnic blanket. It was red-and-white checks. They actually had a picnic basket in the middle, like something out of a Norman Rockwell illustration. Ian’s work family — Gennifer, Ted, Gary, and Kate — were around them in a ring, forcing Ian to watch his words when discussing August and his plan. He wouldn’t have wanted to sit so close — or, really, to sit with Ted at all. Normally, Ian liked Ted, but today he had no patience. But Bridget had insisted. She, unlike Ian, had never really liked Ted. And yet she’d forced her way into the work group’s middle, making Gary and his wife pick up their own blanket and shuffle back to accommodate.

  “Supposedly,” she said, dragging the word out, making it feel belabored, “you have the go-ahead unless you hear different.”

  “I want proof. If I’m supposed to get up there and talk, I’d at least like an indication that he has some firm goddamned proof.”

  “Proof of what, Ian?” Kate asked from Ian’s right.

  “Nothing.” Ian tried to smile.

  Bridget leaned close and whispered. “You think I like this any more than you do? You want my opinion, really? I say you call this off. Because what if August can’t really prove it? You’ll just look like an idiot.” She craned her head and looked around. “Do it later if you have to do it. After you find Alice.”

  “So now you’re for me finding Alice?”

  Bridget’s breath was hot in Ian’s ear — a distinct change from her usual sweet self, as if she’d somehow come unhinged. Like Ian felt.

  “I’m not apologizing again, Ian. Just because you’re not having an affair doesn’t mean you’re not fucking someone.”

  “Who? Who am I fucking?”

  “Me. Us.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Why do you have to be the one to do this? Why here and now, so publicly? Maybe August will find what he’s after in the lab and maybe he won’t, but you shouldn’t have to be the one to blab about it. Let him, or let Alice. You’ve done enough. And what about me? Do you have any idea what I’ve been through for all of this?”

  Ian rolled his eyes, but she was too close to see it. Of course he knew. Of course he kept thinking of it over and over and over again. Didn’t she know that what had happened bothered him even more than it bothered her? She’d almost died, but Ian had almost killed her. This was the only way. Everyone agreed waiting for Alice to show might mean missing their only chance. This was like ripping off a Band-Aid: one swift motion to end it all. Sure, his job would die with the rest of Hemisphere. Sure, they’d have to start over. But what was the alternative? To keep hiding? To keep worrying? To keep going to work day in and day out, knowing the evil he was helping to perpetuate?

  “I don’t have a choice, Bridge. It’s gone too far.”

  “But Alice … ”

  “We don’t know where Alice is. We wait, it’s more dangerous. For all of us.”

  Bridget’s head popped up. Again, she scanned the crowd edge to edge, as if searching for something.

  “What the hell do you keep looking around for?” Ian demanded in a harsh whisper, his nerves worn and patience gone.

  Beyond Gennifer’s blanket, the group of Bobby’s hunters looked over, out of place in their long jackets, weapons beneath, bags that were clearly not holding crackers and cheese, looking for all the world like people to avoid rather than trust.

  Someone to the hunters’ right shushed him.

  Not far ahead, a balding man in his seventies was taking the stage, his carriage and manner far too upright for a man of his years. Tapping the microphone too casually for a man whose fingers seemed suspiciously free of arthritis, too rejuvenated — as if by a longevity drug that had been weaponized into a plague. Smiling too broadly for a media darling with a genocidal secret.

  “Too late,” Ian told his wife, his eyes still on Burgess, his mind recalling the quiet threats Hemisphere’s CEO had made the last time they’d spoken.

  Around the stage and the several hundred people spread across the lawn, a ring of Panacea agents moved into position, perhaps to keep an eye on the few dozen strangers Ian could now see approaching from the property’s edges, almost too far back to be seen.

  The strangers stopped suddenly as if tethered, their body language impatient.

  Bridget, watching them, gripped Ian’s arm.

  Archibald tapped the mic again.

  Ian’s phone vibrated in his hand, displaying a text from August: the permission he needed.

  Ian’s heart rate seemed to double.

  Opening remarks at the annual picnic were always brief, lasting only a handful of minutes.

  It was do or die after that.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  CHRYSALIS

  FUCK WORK.

  MAYBE HEMISPHERE DIDN’T know that Danny was depending on its auto-dispensaries to deliver his livelihood, but in Danny’s opinion that didn’t excuse it from holding out on him. Last night hadn’t been fun. He’d gone through a roller coaster of emotions the entire workday then had endured more ups and downs in the evening. He’d ended the night panicked, resorting to trying to break into a man’s (a friend’s) house to … let’s face it … get the drugs he needed. It didn’t matter that Danny wasn’t a junkie. Drugs were drugs.

  Now, in the light of day, Danny figured Hemisphere could eat shit. Not in the long term, of course; Danny would need more supply soon (once he got another key card; Ian might have filed a restraining order by now), and he was also a loyal guy. He made fat stacks selling what the com
pany made, but that didn’t mean he was too good for his job.

  But for today? For this morning, at least? Yes, Hemisphere could eat a big fattie.

  Danny called in sick. He slept in, to make up for the sleep lost and the night’s general trauma. For the first time in what felt like forever, he could relax.

  He wanted Jordache to have what she’d grown used to. If there was one thing hotter than a girl who dressed like Jordache, it was one he could talk to. And there was no doubt her drug of choice had helped in that department. But she’d be fine for now. Jordache was over her hump, her body acclimated to plain old Phage like the rest of the necrotic world. Resupplying with the good stuff could come later.

  Jordache laughed when Danny talked about the future, but he could see himself with her. For sure.

  Danny languished in bed. Stretched. Watched some TV. Then he got donuts because Jordache loved them. The girl had a stomach you could bounce quarters off of (it was often exposed, and Danny had literally bounced coins once), and yet eating junk food was just about all they did together.

  With that one exception. And soon, he hoped, they’d do more of the other thing.

  When he knocked, she answered from far away. As if she heard him but wasn’t on the other side of the door to answer.

  “Go away,” she said.

  “It’s Danny.”

  “Go away, Danny.”

  Danny backed up a step. His brow furrowed. He moved down the trailer’s body, toward the source of her voice. A window was open to the screen. He peeked in, catching a whiff of something gone bad, like garbage left in the sun. He peeked around for a few seconds and almost jumped when he saw her staring right at him from between a tangle of clothes in the shadowy closet. Somehow, her eyes were piercing the gloom. They were usually blue, but from where Danny was standing, they looked almost iridescent except at the edges, as if her irises had been bleached by the sun.

  “Jesus,” he said, meeting those staring eyes, unable to see most of the rest of her. “You scared me.”