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  I didn’t really know what to say to that. I shook my head and checked the rearview mirror. Becks was still in watch position, expression grim as she scanned the windows. “Becks? Any messages you wanted to send?”

  “Fuck that shit.” Her narrowed eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, almost daring me to argue. “We’re going to make it home, and then we’re going to take them all down.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me. Alaric? Maggie? You’ve got your marching orders. Now march. We’ll check in if we can, and if we can’t, just keep the porch light burning until our time runs out.”

  “It’s been good working with you, boss,” said Alaric.

  “Same here, buddy, but it’s not over yet.”

  “Your lips to God’s ears,” said Maggie. “All of you, stay safe, and don’t pull any stupid heroics. I don’t want to flee to the Bahamas with nobody but Alaric for company.”

  “Truly a fate worse than death,” deadpanned Mahir.

  “We’ll do our best,” I said. “Stay safe.”

  There was nowhere good that the call could go from there, and we were almost at the limit of what the phone’s security would allow. I killed the connection before pulling off the ear cuff and dropping it into the coin tray between the van’s front seats. “We’ll stop and torch that as soon as we can,” I said.

  “Better make it sooner rather than later,” said Becks.

  “On it. Mahir?”

  “Take the right.”

  I took the right.

  Our original route took us to Tennessee by way of the American Southwest, hour upon hour of desert unspooling outside the van’s windows. Mahir’s adjusted route followed roughly the same roads, at least until we got to Little Rock. Then things got weird. Instead of heading down to avoid the mountains and the hazard-marked farmland, we turned up, heading out of Arkansas and into Missouri. We stopped for gas in Fayetteville.

  Mahir stayed in the van while I filled the tank and Becks visited the station’s obligatory convenience store. She’d done a remarkable job of changing her appearance while standing guard against possible CDC pursuit. Her hair was down and she’d somehow managed to trade her jacket and cargo pants for a halter top and a pair of hot-pink running shorts that might as well have been painted on and left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

  I didn’t need to imagine what she’d looked like without them, and it was still hard to keep from staring at her ass as she sauntered toward the convenience store doors. The only aspect she hadn’t been able to change were her shoes, still clunky, solid, and more “fight club” than “fashion show,” but in that outfit, I doubted anyone was going to be looking at her feet.

  Sometimes you’re such a guy, said George.

  “Yeah, well, I’m the one who isn’t dead yet, remember?”

  I was stating a fact, not making a complaint.

  I snorted and hit the button to start fueling up. If the CDC clued to the fact that we were using a Garcia Pharmaceuticals company ID to pay our bills, we were fucked, but our cash ran out in Little Rock and it wasn’t like we had another choice. The truth may set you free. It won’t fill your fuel tank.

  Mahir’s proposed route was a good one, cutting through the corner of Missouri and into Kansas. From there, we’d travel through Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah before hitting the home stretch across Nevada. Of the six states we’d be crossing before we got to California, only two had laws forbidding self-service fueling stations, and those were the two we’d be spending the least overall time in: Colorado and Utah. If we paced ourselves right, we’d be able to avoid stopping in either state for anything longer than a bathroom break. That was good. The more we could stay away from people, the better.

  While the tank filled, I washed the windshield, checked the tires, and did my best not to think about the fact that we were running from an organization that had the power to declare martial law without any justification more sophiicated than a sneeze. I couldn’t believe the CDC was doing this alone, or that the entire CDC was involved—Kelly clearly hadn’t been, and I was willing to bet that all the other team members who’d died hadn’t been either. Still, a properly seated cabal of people willing to do anything to get their way is more than enough to be a major problem, especially when they have essentially infinite resources to throw around. At the same time, they were obviously trying to stay at least somewhat under the radar, or they wouldn’t be bothering with artificial outbreaks and assassinations made to look like natural deaths. All that spy shit is necessary only when you’re trying to pretend you don’t exist.

  Becks came sauntering out of the convenience store with a paper sack in each arm and a smug, cat-that-ate-the-canary smile curling her lips. It faded as soon as she was close enough to be out of the cashier’s sight, and she yanked the van’s rear door open without so much as a hello as she scrambled to get herself and our supplies inside. I unhooked the fuel pump and opened the driver’s-side door, sliding myself behind the wheel.

  “Any problems?” I asked, twisting to watch Becks unpack bottles of water, sodas, and snack food all over the backseat. We’d told her to buy as much as she could without attracting suspicion. Apparently, this meant focusing on things that made it look like she was heading for a bachelorette party, including a bottle of cheap Everclear knockoff and seventeen bags of MMs.

  “Next time you’re wearing the ‘look at my titties’ shirt, and I’m filling the tank.” She chucked a bag of MMs at my head. I caught it and passed it to Mahir. “No, no problems. If they’re running our pictures on the news, the dickhead working the counter didn’t know anything about it. There’s been a minor outbreak alert in Memphis, and the area around the CDC there is on lockdown, but it wasn’t a big enough deal to peel Dicky’s eyes off my ass.”

  “See, I wouldn’t get the same results with that shirt. I just don’t have the figure for it. Mahir might do a little better. We can try it next time we stop.” I leaned into the back to grab a bottle of Coke before she could chuck that at my head, too. “We’re good to go, then?”

  “Should be.” Becks pulled her jacket back on before opening one of the bags of MMs. “Mahir, make sure you’re running weather projections on our route. They had a storm advisory up while I was checking out.”

  “Right,” he said, and grabbed a drink before he started pecking away at his phone.

  I slid my soda into the van’s drink holder and started the engine. We’d been holding still long enough, and we had a long damn way to go before we’d be anything resembling safe.

  We crossed into Kansas an hour later, and I risked pulling off the road, into the parking lot of an abandoned pre-Rising rest stop. The gate across the entrance wasn’t even chained. If we wanted to go in there and get eaten, that was our problem, not the local government’s. “We should report them for negligence,” muttered Becks, as we pushed the gate out of our way.

  “That’s good,” I said agreeably. “How are we going to explain what we’re doing out here? Are we on a sightseeing tour of the haunted cornfields of North America or something?”

  She glared at me. I shrugged and got back into the van, pulling forward until we were completely hidden from the road by the overgrown trees surrounding what must have once been a pretty nice picnic area. People used to bring kids and their dogs to places like this, letting them run wild on the grass to burn off a little energy before they got back into the car and continued their drive toward the American dream. These days, that kind of thing will get you thrown in jail for child abuse. Not even the Masons were that crazy, and they did a lot of dangerous things with me and George while we were growing up. Running around in the grass near an unsecured structure and a bunch of trees is a good way of taking yourself out of the gene pool.

  Becks stood guard with her rifle while I took the fire-and-forget phone over to the remains of a barbecue pit. Mahir followed me, observing without comment as I beat the phone with a large rock, tossed it into the hole, and set it on fire. A few squirts of lighter fluid f
rom the travel kit made sure that it kept burning, delicate circuitry and memory chips melting into slag under the onslaught of the flames.

  “Hey, check it out, Mahir—the green wires burn purple. What’s up with that?” No answer. I looked up. “Mahir?”

  He was staring toward the low brick building that contained the restrooms and water fountains like a man transfixed. “Why haven’t they torn this thing down?” he asked. “It’s like a bloody crypt, right in the middle of what ought to be civilization.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they don’t have the money. Maybe they think it’s better to give the infected someplace they can hide, so they’ll know where to go when they start getting outbreak reports.” I squirted more lighter fluid onto my makeshift pyre. “Maybe the people who live around here would feel like it was too much like giving up. Leave the walls standing so we can build a new roof when the crisis is over. Don’t tear down something you’re going to want to use later.”

  “Do you really think people are going to want to go to places like this ever again? Even if we kill all the damn zombies, we’ll remember where the dangers were.”

  “Will we?” I stuck the lighter fluid back into my pocket. My hands were smudgy with old ash from the barbecue pit, and I wiped them carelessly clean against the seat of my jeans. “People have pretty short memories when they want to. It’ll take a few generations, but give them time, and things like this will be all the rage again. Just watch.”

  “Assuming we ever get to that point.”

  “Well, yeah. Which is going to take people not trying to kill us for a little while.” The bottle of knockoff Everclear Becks picked up at the convenience store turned out to make an excellent accelerant. I dumped it out over the fire. The flames leapt up and then died back down, burning off the additional fuel in seconds.

  Mahir snorted. “That would be a rather impressive change.”

  “Wouldn’t it?” I kicked some dirt onto the remaining flames. “If we burn this place down, you think we’ll get in trouble for arson?”

  “I think wegett medals from the bloody civic planning commission.”

  “Cool.” I kicked more dirt onto the fire. That would have to be good enough; we didn’t have time to dawdle. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before Darwin decides we need a spanking.”

  Becks looked over as we approached, nodding her chin curtly toward the smoke still wafting up from the barbecue pit. “We done here?” she asked.

  “Unless you want to stick around and make s’mores, yeah, we are.”

  She snorted. “I suppose we’d roast our marshmallows on sticks and tell each other ghost stories after the sun went down?”

  “Something like that.” I reached for the van door and paused, looking at Mahir, who was staring up at the sky. “What now?”

  “Look at those clouds.” He sounded faintly awed. Becks and I exchanged a glance, tilted our heads back, and looked.

  Growing up in California meant George and I never really experienced that much in the way of what most people would consider “weather.” We got more in the way of “climate.” Still, even California gets rained on, and I know what a cloud looks like when it’s getting ready to storm in earnest. The clouds forming overhead were blacker than any that I’d ever seen, hanging low in the sky and visibly heavy with rain. They were coming together at a disturbing rate. The sky wasn’t exactly clear when we pulled off, but it hadn’t been anything like this.

  Becks whistled low. “That is some storm,” she said.

  “Yeah, and we get to drive in it.” I opened the van door. “As long as we don’t get washed away, this could actually work in our favor. If that sucker comes down as hard as it looks like it’s going to, we’re gonna be a bitch to track.”

  “Saved by the storm,” said Mahir. “I suppose it’s true that stranger things have happened.”

  Becks rolled her eyes. “I hate to be the one to get all negative on you two, but we’re in Kansas, and we’re planning to be in Kansas for hours. Isn’t this where Dorothy was when that whole ‘twister ride to Oz’ thing happened? Does either of you know how to recognize a tornado? Because I don’t. It might be a good idea for us to find a motel and hole up until this blows over.”

  I shook my head. “That might be the smart thing to do, but it’s not an option. If the CDC is following us, they’re going to expect us to wait out the storm. This could be the best shot we have at getting clear.” Becks still looked unconvinced. I didn’t blame her; I wasn’t entirely convinced myself. “Look, we’ll keep the weather advisory running on Mahir’s phone. It’s a nonspecific enough program that no one should be able to use it to track us, and if it starts flashing ‘Get off the road, assholes,’ we’ll pull off until the storm passes. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, slowly. “But if we get blown to Oz, I’m going to drop a house on your ass.”

  “See, that’s the sort of compromise I can live with.” I got into the van. Becks and ir did the same.

  You really sure this is the right plan? asked George.

  “Absolutely not,” I muttered, and started the engine.

  We backed out of the rest area a little at a time. Once we were on the road, Mahir got out to close the gate, Becks covering him with her rifle the whole time. The highway was clear in all directions. What travelers we might have had to deal with were clearly all smarter than we were and had chosen to get out of the path of the oncoming storm. The van shuddered as the wheels left the cracked pavement of the rest area entrance for the smooth, well-maintained asphalt of U.S. 400, running west, toward California.

  The light faded out a little bit at a time, until I was driving with the lights on in what should have been the middle of the day. The wind picked up as the light slipped away, and the flatness of Kansas offered no real shelter. The van rattled and fought against me until I was forced to slow to forty miles an hour, Mahir still tapping away in the front passenger seat. Becks stayed crouched in the back with her rifle in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other, munching as she watched out the window. As long as it kept her awake, I really didn’t care what she wanted to do. I was going to need her to take over driving duties before too much longer, at least if we wanted to get out of this storm without smashing the van by the side of the road.

  Kansas stretched out in front of us like a bleak alien landscape, the shadows cast by the clouds turning everything strange. I turned the radio on just to break the silence, pushed down the gas a little more, and drove onward, into the dark.

  We didn’t know. There was nothing we could have done, and we didn’t know. You can’t shoot the wind. You can’t argue with the clouds. There was nothing, nothing we could have done to stop the storm, and even if there had been, we didn’t know. There was no fucking way for us to know. Nothing like that had ever happened before, and we didn’t know.

  It wasn’t our fault. And if I say that enough times, maybe I’ll start believing it. Oh, fuck.

  It wasn’t our fault. We didn’t know.

  Oh, God, we didn’t know.

  —From Adaptive Immunities, the blog of Shaun Mason, June 24, 2041. Unpublished.

  Twenty-two

  We crossed Kansas on the leading edge of the storm, chasing the light until the sun went down and we were driving in darkness so absolute that it was oppressive. The clouds covered the sky until they blocked out all traces of the stars, and when the rain started—about half an hour after the sun went down—visibility dropped to almost zero, even with the high beams on.

  Becks took over driving after the rain started, while I moved to the back and the increasingly futile task owatching for pursuit. We hadn’t spotted anybody yet, but that didn’t mean no one was coming; it just meant they’d been careful enough to stay out of sight. There was a chance the rain would make them careless, driving them closer as they tried to keep from losing us. Of course, there was also a chance I’d wind up shooting myself in the leg if I tried to fire under these conditions. Sadly, that was a risk we had to take
.

  There was one good thing about the way the wind was howling; with Becks and Mahir in the front seat and me at the rear, they wouldn’t be able to hear me over the storm. “Christ, George, will you listen to that?” I whispered. “It’s like it wants to blow us all the way back to California.”

  I don’t like it, she said, tone clipped and razor-sharp with tension. It felt almost like I’d see her if I turned my head just a little to the side, watching the other side of the van with her favorite .40 in her hands as she scanned the road for trouble. I didn’t turn. She added, There’s something not right about all this. Why aren’t they coming after us yet?

  “Maybe they’re not sure it was us.” The excuse sounded stupid almost before it was out of my mouth. The people Dr. Wynne was working with had to know he’d sent Kelly to infiltrate us—he couldn’t have triggered the outbreak in Oakland remotely, and he certainly couldn’t have called in an air strike without somebody to approve it. Finding Kelly dead in his lab might confuse the legit members of the CDC, but the corrupt ones would know exactly who must have brought her back to Memphis, and they’d be watching the roads. So where were they?

  This is too easy.

  “I know.” I took a breath, scanning what little of the road was still visible through the darkness and the pounding rain. I almost wished there was someone else out there. At least a second pair of headlights would have broken up the black a little bit. “I think we fucked up, George. I think we fucked up big.”

  We should have come up with a better plan. There has to have been another way. Her voice turned bitter. If anyone should have known better, it was me.

  I didn’t argue with her. George was stubborn even when she was alive. Dead, she was basically impossible to convince of anything she didn’t agree with. “So now we head home, we regroup, and we head someplace where we can be invisible. We can’t stay with Maggie anymore. It’s not safe.”