Feed n-1

by Mira Grant

  “How long since the quarantine went down?” I asked.

  “Thirty-seven minutes.”

  Standard CDC response time says you leave a quarantine to cook for forty-five minutes before you go in. Given our proximity to the city, they wouldn’t just be responding by air; they’d be sending in ground support to make sure nobody broke quarantine before they declared it safe. “Shit.” With eight minutes between us and the end of the cooking time, we needed to get out of sight. “How good’s the balance on this thing?”

  “Pretty good. Why?”

  “Quarantine. It’s going to be forty-five minutes since the bell real soon here, and that means we’re gonna have company. Now, I’ve got a way out, but only if you trust me. If you don’t, we’re probably gonna get the chance to tell some nice men why we’re out here. Assuming they don’t just shoot first.”

  “Kid, I’m already committed. Just tell me where to go.”

  “Take the next left turn.”

  Being a good Irwin is partially dependant on knowing as many ways to access an area as possible. That includes the location of handy things like, say, railroad trestle bridges across the American River. See, they used to run trains through Sacramento, back when people traveled that way. The system’s abandoned now, except for the automated cargo trains, but they run on a fixed schedule. I’ve had it memorized for years.

  Steve started swearing once he realized where we were going, and he kept swearing as he pulled the SUV onto the tracks and floored the gas, trusting momentum and the structure of the trestle to keep us from plunging into the river. I grabbed the oh-shit handle with one hand and whooped, bracing the other hand on the dashboard. I couldn’t help myself. Everything was going to hell, George was dead, and I was on my way to commit either treason or suicide, but who the hell cared? I was off-roading across a river in a government SUV. Sometimes, you just gotta kick back and enjoy what’s going on around you.

  We were halfway across the river when the first CDC copters passed overhead, zooming toward the Center. Three more followed close behind, in closed arrow formation. Fascinated, I leaned over and clicked on the radio, tuning it to the emergency band. “—repeat, this is not a drill. Remain in your homes. If you are on the road, remain in your vehicle until you have reached a safe location. If you have seen or had direct contact with infected individuals, contact local authorities immediately. Repeat, this is not a drill. Remain in—”

  Steve turned the radio off. “Breaking quarantine is a federal offense, isn’t it?”

  “Only if they catch us.” I settled back in my seat. “Doesn’t bother me much, and they’re not looking down.”

  “All right, then.” He hit the gas again. The SUV rolled faster, hitting the end of the trestle and blazing onward toward the city. He glanced at me as we drove, saying, “I’m sorry about your sister. She was a good woman. She’ll be missed.”

  “That’s appreciated, Steve.” The idea of looking at his face—it would be so earnest, if his words were anything to judge by, so anxious for understanding—made me tired all over again. There was nothing I could do now, nothing I could do until we got to the hall and to the man who had killed my sister. So I looked at my hands as I cleaned and reloaded Georgia’s gun, and I was silent, and we drove on.

  * * *

  … but they were us, our children, our selves,

  These shades who walk the cloistered dark,

  With empty eyes and clasping hands,

  And wander, isolate, alone, the space between

  Forgiveness and the penitent’s grave.

  —From Eakly, Oklahoma, originally published in By the Sounding Sea, the blog of Buffy Meissonier, February 11, 2040

  Twenty-nine

  Quarantine procedures hit different social and economic classes in different ways, just like outbreaks. When Kellis-Amberlee breaks out in an urban area, it hits the inner cities and the business districts the hardest. That’s where you have the largest number of people coming and going, experiencing the closest thing we have these days to casual contact. Interestingly, you tend to have more fatalities in the business districts. The slums may not have the same security features and weaponry, but they’re mostly self-policing and fewer people try to conceal injuries when they know amplification isn’t just going to cost them their coworkers; it’s going to cost them their families. Inner cities and business districts turn into ghost towns when the quarantines come down. If you pass through while they’re under quarantine, you can feel the inhabitants watching you, waiting for you to make a move.

  Middle-class zones also tend to seal themselves off, but they’re less blatantly aggressive about it; windows too small or too high for a person to get in through can be left open, and not every glass door has a steel shield in front of it. You can enter those areas and still believe people live in them, even if those folks aren’t exactly setting out the welcome mats. They’ll kill you as quickly as anyone else will if you try to approach them. If you don’t, they won’t interfere.

  The hall where they held the keynote speech was far enough from the Center that it wasn’t technically in the quarantine zone. Street traffic was down to practically zero, but there were no retractable bars over the windows and no steel plating over the doors. Local businesses were open, even if there weren’t any customers. I looked around as Steve pulled up to the first checkpoint, and I hated these people for being able to ignore what was going on outside their city. George was dead. Rick and Mahir said the whole world was mourning with me, but that didn’t matter, because the man who did it—the man I intended to blame—wasn’t even inconvenienced.

  If the guard thought there was something odd about us arriving in a dusty, dented SUV over an hour after the Center went into lockdown, he didn’t say anything. Our blood tests came back clean; that was what his job required him to give a damn about, and so he just waved us inside. I clenched my jaw so hard I almost tasted blood.

  Calm down, counseled George. It’s not his fault. He didn’t write the news.

  “Go for the writers,” I muttered.

  Steve shot me a look. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.”

  We parked next to a press bus that had doubtless been loaded with reporters who were now thanking God for their timing, since being on assignment with a bunch of political bigwigs meant they weren’t available to be sent out to report on the quarantine. Local Irwins would be flocking to the perimeter, getting footage of the CDC men as they locked and secured the site. I would’ve been with them not that long ago, and been happy about it. Now… I’d be just as happy if I never saw another outbreak. Somewhere between Eakly and George, I lost the heart for it.

  Steve and I got into the elevator together. I glanced at him as he keyed in our floor, saying, “You don’t have a press pass.”

  “Don’t need one,” he said. “The Center’s under quarantine. By contract, I’m actually obligated to circumnavigate any security barricade between myself and the senator.”

  “Sneaky,” I said, approvingly.

  “Precisely.”

  The elevator opened on a sickeningly normal-looking party. Servers in starched uniforms circulated with trays of drinks and canapés. Politicians, their spouses, reporters, and members of the California elite milled around, chattering about shit that didn’t mean a goddamn thing compared to George’s blood drying on the wall. The only real difference was in their eyes. They knew about the quarantine—half of these people were staying at the Center, or worked there, or had a stake in its continued success—and they were terrified. But appearances have to be maintained, especially when you’re looking at millions of dollars in lost city revenue because of an outbreak. So the party continued.

  “Poe was right,” I muttered. The man with the blood tests was waiting for us to check in. I slid my increasingly sore hand into the unit he held, watching lights run their cycle from red to yellow and finally to green. I wasn’t infected. If being shut in a van with George’s body didn’t get me, nothi
ng was going to. Infection would have been too easy a way out.

  I yanked my hand free as soon as the lights went green, held up my press pass, and ducked into the crowd. Steve was right behind me. I dodged staff and guests, arrowing toward the room where I had last seen Senator Ryman. They wouldn’t allow him to leave after the Center went into lockdown, and if he couldn’t leave, he wouldn’t have left the room where he had his surviving staff and supporters gathered. It just made sense.

  People recoiled as I passed them, eyes going wide and suppressed fear surging to the front of their expressions. I paused, looking down at myself. Mud, powder burns, visible weapons—everything but blood. Somehow, I’d managed to avoid getting George’s blood on me. That was a good thing, since she’d died infected and her blood would have made me a traveling hot zone, but still, it was almost a pity. At least then she would have seen the story find an ending.

  “Shaun?”

  Senator Ryman sounded astonished. I turned toward his voice and found him half standing. Emily was beside him, eyes wide, hands clapped over her mouth. Tate was on his other side. Unlike the Rymans, the governor looked anything but relieved to see me. I could read the hatred in his eyes.

  “Senator Ryman,” I said, and finished my turn, walking to the table that looked like it held all the survivors of the Ryman campaign. Less than a dozen of us had been at this stupid speech; less than a dozen, from a caravan that had swelled to include more than sixty people. What kind of survival rate were we looking at? Fifty percent? Less? Almost certainly less. That’s the nature of an outbreak, to kill what it doesn’t conquer. “Mrs. Ryman.” I smiled narrowly, the sort of expression that’s always been more Georgia’s purview than my own. “Governor.”

  “Oh, God, Shaun.” Emily Ryman stood so fast she sent her chair toppling over as she threw her arms around me. “We heard the news. I’m so sorry.”

  “I shot her,” I said conversationally, looking over Emily’s shoulder to Senator Ryman and Governor Tate. “Pulled the trigger after she started to amplify. She was lucid until then. You can increase the duration of postinfection lucidity with sedatives and white blood cell boosters, and first-aid classes teach you to do that in the field. So you can get any messages they may have for their family or other loved ones.”

  “Shaun?” Emily pulled away, looking uncertain. She glanced over her shoulder at Governor Tate before looking back to me. “What’s going on here?”

  “How did you get out of the quarantine zone?” asked Tate. His voice was flat, verging on emotionless. He knew the score. He’d known it since I walked through the door. The bastard.

  “A little luck, a little skill, a little applied journalism.” Emily Ryman let me go entirely, taking a step backward, toward her husband. I kept my eyes on Tate. “Turns out most of the security staff liked my sister more than they ever liked you. Probably because George tried to help them, instead of using them to further her political ambitions. Once they knew what happened, they were happy to help.”

  “Shaun, what are you talking about?”

  The confusion in Senator Ryman’s voice was enough to distract me from Tate. I turned to blink at the man responsible for us being here in the first place, asking, “Haven’t you seen Georgia’s last report?”

  “No, son, I haven’t.” His expression was drawn tight with concern. “Things have been a bit hectic. I haven’t had a site feed since the outbreak bell rang.”

  “Then how did you—”

  “The CDC puts out a statement, that tends to go around in a hurry.” Senator Ryman closed his eyes, looking pained. “She was so damn young.”

  “Georgia was assassinated, Senator. Plastic dart full of live-state Kellis-Amberlee, shot straight into her arm. She never had a prayer. All because we figured out what was really going on.” I swung my attention back to Tate and asked, more quietly, “Why Eakly, Governor? Why the ranch? And why, you fucker, why Buffy? I can actually understand trying to kill me and my sister, after everything else, but why?”

  “Dave?” said Senator Ryman.

  “This country needed someone to take real action for a change. Someone who was willing to do what needed to be done. Not just another politician preaching changes and keeping up the status quo.” Tate met my eyes without flinching, looking almost calm. “We took some good steps toward God and safety after the Rising, but they’ve slowed in recent years. People are afraid to do the right thing. That’s the key. Real fear’s what motivates them to get past the fears that aren’t important enough to matter. They needed to be reminded. They needed to remember what America stands for.”

  “Not sure I’d call terrorist use of Kellis-Amberlee a ‘reminder.’ Personally, I’d call it, y’know. Terrorism. Maybe a crime against humanity. Possibly both. I guess that’s for the courts to decide.” I drew Georgia’s .40, and aimed it at Tate. The crowd went still, honed political instincts reacting to what had to look like an assassination attempt in the making. “Secure-channel voice activation, Shaun Phillip Mason, ABF-17894, password ‘crikey.’ Mahir, you there?”

  My ear cuff beeped once. “Here, Shaun,” said Mahir’s voice, distorted by the encryption algorithms protecting the transmission. Secure channels are only good once, but, oh, how good they are. “What’s the situation?”

  “On Tate now. Start uploading everything you receive and download Georgia’s last report directly to Senator Ryman. He needs to give it a glance.” Governor Tate was glaring. I flashed him a smile. “I’ve been recording this whole time. But you knew that, didn’t you? Smart guy like you. Smart enough to get around our security. To get around our friends.”

  “Miss Meissonier was a realist and a patriot who understood the trials facing this country,” said Tate, tone as stiff as his shoulders. “She was proud to have the opportunity to serve.”

  “Miss Meissonier was a twenty-four-year-old journalist who wrote poetry for a living,” I snapped. “Miss Meissonier was our partner, and you had her killed because she wasn’t useful anymore.”

  “David, is this true?” asked Emily, horror leeching the inflection from her voice. Senator Ryman had taken out his PDA and seemed to be growing older by the second as he stared at its screen. “Did you… Eakly? The ranch?” Fury twisted her features, and before either I or her husband could react, she was out of her chair, launching herself at Governor Tate. “My daughter! That was my daughter, you bastard! Those were my parents! Burn in hell, you—”

  Tate grabbed her wrists, twisting her to the side and locking his arm around her neck. His left hand, which had been under the table since I arrived, came into view, holding another of those plastic syringes. Unaware, Emily Ryman continued to struggle.

  The senator went pale. “Now, David, let’s not do anything rash here—”

  “I tried to send them home, Peter,” said Tate. “I tried to get them off the campaign, out of harm’s way, out of my way. Now look where they’ve brought us. Me, holding your pretty little wife, with just one outbreak left between us and a happy ending. I would have given you the election. I would have made you the greatest American president of the past hundred years, because together, we would have remade this nation.”

  “No election is worth this,” Ryman said. “Emily, be still now, baby.” Looking confused and betrayed, Emily stopped struggling. Ryman lifted his hands into view, palms upward. “What’ll it take for you to release her? My wife’s not a part of this.”

  “I’m afraid you’re all a part of this now,” Tate said, with a small shake of his head. “No one’s walking away. It’s gone too far for that. Maybe if you’d disposed of the journalists,” the word was almost spat, “it could have gone differently. But there’s no use crying over spilled milk, now, is there?”

  “Put down the syringe, Governor,” I said, keeping the gun level. “Let her go.”

  “Shaun, the CDC is piggybacking our feed,” said Mahir. “They’re not stopping the transmission, but they’re definitely listening in. Dave and Alaric are maintaining the integr
ity, but I don’t know that we can stop it if they want to cut us off.”

  “Oh, they won’t cut us off, will you, Dr. Wynne?” I asked. I was starting to feel a little light-headed. This was all moving so damn fast.

  Keep it together, dummy, hissed George. You think I want to be an only child?

  “I’ve got it, George,” I muttered.

  “What’s that?” asked Mahir.

  “Nothing. Dr. Wynne? You there?” If it was him, the CDC was with us. If it was anybody else…

  There was a crackle as the CDC broke into our channel. “Here, Shaun,” said the familiar southern drawn of Dr. Joseph Wynne. Mahir was swearing in the background. “Are you in any danger?”

  “Well, Governor Tate’s holding a syringe on Senator Ryman’s wife, and since the last two syringes we’ve seen have been full of Kellis-Amberlee, I’m not betting this one’s any different,” I said. “I’ve got a gun on him, but I don’t think I can shoot before he sticks her.”

  “We’re on our way. Can you stall him?”

  “Doing my best.” I forced my attention back to Governor Tate, who was watching me impassively. “Come on, Governor. You know this is over. Why not put that thing down and go out like a man instead of like a murderer? More of one than you already are, I mean.”

  “Not exactly diplomatic, there, Shaun,” said Dr. Wynne in my ear.

  “Doing the best I can,” I said.

  “Shaun, who are you talking to?” asked Senator Ryman. He looked edgy. Having a crazy dude holding a syringe of live virus on his wife probably had something to do with that.