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  Kelly was staring at the scene with her lip curled upward, looking utterly disgusted. “This is… horrific,” she breathed, turning toward me. “We have to get out of here. This is an abomination. It’s a violation of so many medical and ethical regulations that I can’t even start to count them, and—”

  “And it’s not under CDC control, which means it’s not okay to break the rules, is that it?” asked Maggie. Her tone was icy.

  Kelly stopped midtirade, taking a shaky breath. “You don’t understand,” she said, slowly. “This is… the things they could do here, with this sort of equipment, are practically unthinkable. That’s a genetic sequencer.” She indicated a machine I didn’t recognize. “They could build a whole new version of the virus, if they wanted to.”

  “Let’s not antagonize the nice people, okay?” I asked. “You can be offended by their ethics later. When we aren’t outnumbered.” A lab this size would make body disposal distressingly easy. The last thing I wanted to do was give Dr. Abbey a reason.

  The massive dog—Joe—ambled up and stopped beside me, panting amiably. Maggie promptly knelt down and offered her hand, knuckles first, like she was trying to attract the attention of one of her own, much less scary-looking, canines. Joe deigned to sniff it. A moment later, he was slobbering all over her palm, tail wagging with delight as she used her other hand to start scratching behind his ears.

  “Most people are a lot less relaxed about Joe,” said Dr. Abbey, rejoining the rest of us. She’d shed her rifle somewhere between the door and the lab floor, but she was still wearing the lab coat. At least some of the overhead lights must have been using George’s beloved blacklight frequencies, because the fabric fluoresced slightly in the glare.

  “Most people don’t like risking infection when they don’t have to,” said Kelly.

  “Well, those people have sticks shoved half a mile up their asses,” said Dr. Abbey. “Besides, Joe’s no threat. He’s immune, aren’t you, sweetheart?” The mastiff looked around at the sound of his name, tail still wagging frantically back and forth.

  The rest of us, with the exception of Maggie—who was still deeply involved in her dog-worshipping duties—turned to stare at her. Surprisingly, it was Alaric who found his voice first, asking, “Are you serious? Immune? But he’s got to weigh more than sixty pounds. How can he possibly be immune?”nt>

  Dr. Abbey shrugged. “He’s got the canine forms of five reservoir conditions, and the initial signs of developing a sixth. He’s never going to be a daddy, since the fourth one he developed was testicular Kellis-Amberlee—I had to have him neutered after that, poor guy—but he’s never going to amplify fully, either. He’s immune.”

  My thoughts raced as I tried to absorb her words. It didn’t help that George was shouting in my head, demanding answers and denying the possible truth of Dr. Abbey’s claims at the same time. Kelly turned to look at Dr. Abbey, her mouth moving silently as she tried to form a protest that wasn’t willing to come out. Even Becks was just staring, looking as surprised as I’d ever seen her. That was saying something, because Becks doesn’t do surprised. No one who’s done field time as both a Newsie and an Irwin goes around being easy to knock off balance.

  Maggie looked up from her enthusiastic worship of Joe, a narrow line forming between her eyebrows as she considered Dr. Abbey. “Five reservoir conditions in one dog?” Dr. Abbey nodded. “But how? I’ve never heard of anything, canine or human, developing more than one.”

  “Oh, that part was simple,” said Dr. Abbey, and beamed. This smile was pure professional pride. “I induced them.”

  All of us fell silent at that, even George. Maggie’s hands stilled, dropping away from the dog. The distant beeping of the computers, the occasional squeal or bark from a lab animal, and the footsteps of the other technicians provided a strange sort of background music. Joe looked between the humans and let out a resonant, echoing bark.

  Dr. Abbey reached down to pat him on the head. “Well, since we’ve obviously got a lot to talk about, why don’t you come to my office? There’s cookies and tea, and I can tell you all about how I’ve managed to pervert the laws of nature. Come on, Joe.” Waving for the rest of us to follow, she walked forward, into the bustling lab.

  “Are we going with her?” asked Alaric.

  “Got a better idea?”

  “Nope,” he said, glumly.

  “All right, then. Following the crazy lady to our deaths it is.” I shrugged and walked after her, trying to look nonchalant. The day was getting more interesting by the minute. I just had to hope it was the sort of interesting we’d live to talk about later.

  The nature of the so-called reservoir conditions has never been fully explained, although a great many theories have been proposed, some reasonable, some not. Why does the KA virus manifest its live state in certain parts of the body? Why does that live virus then fail to spread the infection according to the laws that govern all of its other manifestations? Why is retinal KA most common in females, while cerebro-spinal is most common in males? Nobody really seems to have a clue.

  We do know that reservoir conditions are becoming more common, with reported cases of retinal, cerebro-spinal, ovarian, testicular, and pituitary KA in both human and animal hosts up by more than eighteen percent overthe last eleven years. There are rumors of new reservoir conditions manifesting themselves, conditions with scary names like “cardiac” and “pulmonary.” Yet still, no one knows why.

  Taken all together, it’s enough to make one question whether we truly dodged the end of the human race… or merely delayed it by a decade or two.

  —From Epidemiology of the Wall, authored by Mahir Gowda, January 11, 2041

  Nine

  Dr. Abbey’s “office” was a euphemistically named cubicle only slightly larger than the ones around it. It didn’t help that it was jammed with file boxes, outmoded computer equipment, and—best of all—clear plastic tanks full of assorted insects and arachnids. I don’t have a problem with spiders. Spiders can’t carry Kellis-Amberlee. Ditto giant hissing cockroaches and squiggly things with way too many legs. Becks didn’t share my disregard. Every time the squiggly thing moved, she sank farther back into her chair.

  It’s called a millipede, said George.

  “It’s called comedy,” I muttered, and turned my attention back to Dr. Abbey.

  She had shrugged out of her lab coat before pulling a bag of Oreos out of a filing cabinet and dumping them onto a paper plate. Now she was rummaging through the minifridge shoved under her desk, crouching in a way that I recognized as designed to put a minimum of stress on her knees. Joe the Mastiff was stretched out between her and us, enormous head resting between his forelegs. His pose was relaxed, but his eyes were alert, focusing on whoever had moved most recently. That meant his focus was mostly on Becks, who couldn’t stop flinching.

  “So there’s apple juice, water, beer, and something unlabeled that’s either a protein shake or algae.” Dr. Abbey looked up. “Who wants what?”

  “I want to know how you managed to induce a reservoir condition,” volunteered Kelly, the need for knowledge apparently overwhelming her reluctance to work with unsanctioned researchers.

  Dr. Abbey fixed her with a flat stare. “That’s not a beverage. I want to know how you managed to justify violating a couple dozen international laws when you used a clone for personal benefit. Don’t they train you out of that at the CDC? I thought that was their job. That, and restricting research to party-line channels while people were dying.”

  “I’ll take an apple juice,” I said.

  “Nothing for me, thanks,” said Alaric. He was looking at Dr. Abbey with the same sort of intent focus that Joe was turning on the rest of us, eyes slightly narrowed.

  “Uh, water,” said Maggie.

  Becks said nothing. She was too busy watching the millipede.

  “Got it.” Dr. Abbey straightened, passing a ble of water to Maggie and a bottle of apple juice to me before sitting in the chair next to her d
og. “So you’re finally here about the reservoir conditions. Damn. I’ve had a bet going with Dr. Shoji in Oahu for years now. He’s been swearing you’d come someday. I thought you’d just keep treading water until we were all completely fucked.”

  “Shoji?” asked Alaric, eyes narrowing further. “Would that refer to Joseph Shoji, the director of the Kauai Institute of Virology?”

  “Why are you asking me questions you know the answers to already? Nobody here needs the exposition.” Dr. Abbey picked up her own drink, sipping calmly before she said, “If you think you can sell me to your government, think again. They already know who I’m in contact with, how often, how we communicate, basically everything but how often I change my underwear. If they wanted to take me, they’d take me. They just don’t want to risk it.”

  “Actually, I sort of need the exposition, since I have no clue what you people are talking about,” I said. “Why doesn’t the government want to risk it? I mean, no offense, but it’s not like you’re sitting on a nuke here or anything.”

  “Oh, but I am.” Dr. Abbey’s gaze went to Kelly, and stayed there, guileless and steady as she continued: “See, the CDC knows damn well and good that something’s wrong. I don’t know how many of the people working there know what it is, but you can’t have half a brain, work in the medical field, and not realize that something’s not right.”

  “That’s not fair,” protested Kelly. “The research—”

  Dr. Abbey cut her off: “That’s an excuse.”

  “You’re talking about the reservoir conditions,” said Becks. It was a relief to have her join the conversation. Her training was a lot more analytical than mine. I didn’t know what questions to ask. She and Alaric did, and that could save our asses.

  “Exactly.” Dr. Abbey kept looking at Kelly. “What do you know?”

  “I don’t know who Dr. Shoji is,” I volunteered. “But I know that people with reservoir conditions are dying faster than they should be, and I know that my sister was one of those statistics, so we’re here because we need you to tell us what the CDC doesn’t want to say.”

  Kelly shot me a look. “Control of sensitive information is a key duty of all government organizations,” she said. “Given your own need for information security, I would have thought—”

  “Drop the party line, Doc,” I said pleasantly. “I still don’t have a problem with hitting girls.”

  Her mouth snapped shut with an audible click.

  Dr. Abbey studied me for a moment before looking toward Alaric, nodding in my direction, and asking, “Is he for real?”

  “He’s for real,” said Alaric. “Infuriating, impossible, and probably insane, but for real.”

  “Huh.” Dr. Abbey took another sip of her drink. “Jos five fully developed reservoir conditions. Retinal, cerebro-spinal, cardiac, testicular, and my personal favorite, thyroid. He’s the first documented case of a canine thyroid reservoir condition, aren’t you, Joe?” Joe turned his massive head toward her, tongue lolling as he drooled agreement with her words.

  “You said you induced them?” said Becks.

  “That’s impossible,” said Kelly. “The virus doesn’t behave that way.”

  “It’s not impossible. It’s just hard,” said Dr. Abbey. “I started injecting him with the live-state virus when he was six weeks old. That gave his body time to learn to deal with it before he got big enough to amplify. The first two conditions developed on their own, as a consequence of the inoculations. The others took more doing, since they had to be induced after adulthood.”

  “I just don’t understand,” said Kelly. “I mean, the risk of amplification alone—”

  “Who says he didn’t amplify?”

  We all turned toward Maggie—I’d almost forgotten she was there, I was so busy trying to understand what the hell was going on—who was looking at Dr. Abbey with wide, solemn eyes.

  “What?” asked Kelly.

  “Who says he didn’t amplify?” repeated Maggie. She picked up her water, took a thoughtful drink, and continued: “I mean, if you can induce reservoir conditions… You said he’d never amplify fully. It seems like there’s only one way you could know, and that’s by testing it. I’m not sure how you’d do it; it’s not like I’m a doctor, but it seems… possible.”

  “Doesn’t it?” asked Dr. Abbey. “Gold star for you.”

  A slow, horrifying picture was beginning to come together in my head, a picture that I didn’t want to see. George was silent, making it even harder to ignore the conclusions my mind was drawing. Whatever those conclusions were, she was drawing them, too, and she didn’t like them any more than I did. My mouth was suddenly desert-dry, as parched as the ground outside of Memphis, where snipers opened fire on our convoy, where Buffy died… where the CDC took us in for the very first time.

  “Dr. Abbey?” I asked. She looked toward me, expression that of a teacher who wanted to encourage a favorite student to come up with the right answer before the final bell. “What do the reservoir conditions really do? Do you know?”

  “Of course I do.” She smiled, setting her drink aside as she stood. “Come on. I think it’s time I took you for a tour of the lab. You need to understand what we’re doing here.”

  “I’ve always liked a good perversion of science,” said Becks. At least one of us was remembering to keep things light. “Let’s take the tour.”

  Yes, said George, sounding oddly subdued. Let’s.

  Kelly didn’t say anything. Maybe that was for the best.

  We left ourdrinks behind and followed Dr. Abbey from her cramped cubicle to the main floor of the lab. Joe padded along at the rear of the group, claws making an unnerving clacking sound against the bare linoleum. It was impossible to forget that he was there, or that he was—all protests aside—more than large enough to undergo full amplification. He could kill us all before anyone had a chance to reach for a weapon.

  But he won’t, said George, picking up on the thought. I don’t think Dr. Abbey’s quite that crazy.

  “Says the one with the least to lose,” I muttered.

  Dr. Abbey looked back at me, brows raised. “What was that?”

  I offered her a sunny smile. “Just talking to my dead sister. She lives inside my head now. She says you’re not crazy enough to let your dog go zombie and eat us all.”

  “She’s right,” Dr. Abbey agreed, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that I was talking about carrying on conversations with a dead person. It was weirdly jarring. “Even if Joe could amplify—which he can’t, after all the work we’ve done—I wouldn’t let him do it outside a sealed room. There’s too much here that he could damage.”

  “Like these?” Alaric stopped, frowning at a tank that contained about a dozen things that looked like guinea pigs with too many legs. Becks followed his gaze and let out a shriek, jumping backward.

  “Goliath tarantulas,” said Dr. Abbey. “Average weight of the specimens in that tank is between four and six ounces. It’s taken generations to breed them up that large.”

  “Why would you want to?” demanded Becks. “They’re horrible.”

  “They’re infected,” said Dr. Abbey. We all turned to stare at her. She continued blithely, “The biggest female has amplified twice so far. Once she got sick enough that she started displaying stalking behavior and infected three other spiders before she could be contained. One of them didn’t recover. A pity. He was from a very encouraging line. Come on, there’s a lot to see.” She resumed walking, obviously trusting us to follow her.

  “Spiders can’t amplify,” said Kelly, sounding uncertain.

  “Keep telling yourself that,” said Dr. Abbey, and kept walking.

  The rest of us hurried to catch up, with Joe once again lingering long enough to bring up the rear. I found myself wondering what would happen if one of us tried to split the party, the way they always seemed to do in the horror movies Maggie and Dave liked so much. Given the size of Joe’s head, and the number of teeth it contained, I wasn’t in any
real hurry to find out. Let Becks take the suicidal risks. She was the group’s remaining Irwin, after all.

  Dr. Abbey waited for us at the head of a narrow alley that smelled of salt water and damp. “I was starting to think I needed to send search parties,” she said, and ducked between the racked-up tanks, starting into the darkness.

  “I don’t like this,” said Alaric.

  .="" class="calibre_700">“Too late now,” I replied, and followed her.

  The source of the smell quickly became apparent: The tanks making up the sides of the alley were filled with salt water and contained a variety of brightly colored corals and plastic structures. I paused to peer closer and recoiled as a thick, fleshy tentacle slapped the glass from the inside. Dr. Abbey snickered.

  “Careful,” she said. “They get bored sometimes. They like to mess around with people’s heads when they’re bored.”

  “They who?” I asked, pressing a hand against my chest as I waited for my heart to stop thudding quite so hard against my ribs. There was a distinct heaviness in my bladder, telling me that I needed to find a bathroom before I lined myself up for too many more exciting surprises. “What the fuck is that thing?”

  “Pacific octopus.” Dr. Abbey tapped the offending tank. The tentacle responded by slapping the glass again, before it was joined by two more near-identical appendages, and a large octopus slithered out from a crack between two pieces of coral. “We do a lot of work with cephalopods. They’re good subjects, as long as you can keep them from getting bored enough to slither out of their tanks and go around wreaking havoc.”

  I glanced to Becks. “Isn’t this the part where you should run screaming?”

  “Nah,” she said. “I’ve got no problem with octopuses. It’s bugs and spiders that I don’t like. Octopuses are cute, in their own ‘nature did a lot of drugs’ sort of way.”