A lot of time was spent looking into the science and application of forensics before the Rising. How did this man die? What did he die for? Could he have been saved? It’s been different since the Rising, as the possibility of infection makes it too dangerous for investigators to pry into any crime scene that hasn’t been disinfected, while the strength of modern disinfectants means that once they’ve been used, there’s nothing to find. DNA testing and miraculous deductions brought about by a few clinging fibers are things of the past. As soon as the dead started walking, they stopped sharing their secrets with the living.
For modern investigators, whether with the police or the media, this has meant a lot of “going back to our roots.” An active mind is worth a thousand tests you can’t run, and knowing where to look is worth even more. It’s all a matter of learning how to think, learning how to eliminate the impossible, and admitting that sometimes what’s left, however improbable, is going to be the truth.
The world is strange that way.
Fourteen
Rick was a good match for our team in more ways than one: He had his own transport, and he didn’t leave home without it. I’d heard about the armor-plated VW Beetles—they’re in a lot of Mom’s antizombie ordnance reports, which she tends to leave lying all over the house—but I’d never actually seen one before Rick’s. It looked like a weird cross between an armadillo and a pill bug.
An electric blue armadillo.
With headlights.
He was parked outside the ranch gates, leaning against the side of his car and typing something into his PDA’s collapsible keyboard. He lifted his head as we drove up, folding the keyboard and stowing the entire unit in his pocket.
Shaun was out of the van before we’d stopped moving, pointing to Rick. “You do not lower your eyes in the field!” he snapped. “You do not split your attention, you do not focus on your equipment, and you
I stopped the van, leaning over to close Shaun’s door before opening my own. A lot of people don’t think my brother has a temper. It’s like they assume I somehow sucked up the entire quota of “cranky,” and now Shaun’s perpetually cheery and ready for a challenge while I glower at people from behind my sunglasses and plot the downfall of the Western world. They’re wrong. Shaun has a bigger temper than I do. He just saves his fits of fury for the important things, like finding one of our team members acting like an idiot in the vicinity of a recent outbreak.
Rick was realizing he had a problem. Putting up his hands in a placating gesture, he said, “The area was cleared, and they did a full disinfect. I looked it all up before I came out here.”
“Did they get a one hundred percent scratch-and-match between mammals meeting the KA amplification barrier, known victims, registered survivors, and potential vector points?” Shaun demanded. He knew they hadn’t, because there’s
“No,” Rick admitted.
“No, because it doesn’t happen. Which means you? Have basically been standing naked in the middle of the road, waving your arms and shouting, ‘Come get it, dead guys, I wanna be your next snack.’” He flung Rick’s field kit at his chest. Rick caught it and stood there, blinking as Shaun spun on his heel and stalked off toward the gates. I let him go. Someone needed to start the process of presenting our credentials to the guards on duty, and it would calm him down. Bureaucracy generally did.
Rick stared after Shaun, still looking shell-shocked.
“He’s right, you know,” I said, squinting at him through my sunglasses. The glare outside the van was bad enough to make me wish it were safe to take painkillers in the field. It’s not; nothing that dulls your awareness of your body and what it’s doing is a good idea. “What made you get out of your car?”
“I thought it was safe,” Rick stammered.
I shook my head. “It’s never safe. Get your pack on, activate your cameras, and let’s go.” I started along Shaun’s path to the ranch gates. Getting out of the car alone was a rookie mistake, but Rick’s record wasn’t heavy on field work. His reporting was good, and he knew enough to stick with the senior reporters in an area. He’d learn the rest if he lived long enough to get the chance.
If getting out of the car was a rookie mistake, going into the ranch on foot was blatant stupidity, but we didn’t have any real choice. Not only would our vehicles have been impossible to fit into any of the standing structures, we wouldn’t have been able to avoid getting hung up in potholes or in the ruts opened by the government cleaning equipment. Better on foot and paying attention than sucked into a false sense of security and taken out by hostile road conditions.
Shaun was outside the guard station, where two wary, clean-shaven men watched from behind thick sheets of safety glass. Both were wearing plain army jumpsuits. From the looks on their faces, this was their first outbreak, and we didn’t fit their expectations of the sort of folks who would walk into a sealed-off hazard zone, even one that was due to be unsealed within the next seventy-two hours and had been the scene of a complete Nguyen-Morrison testing, including bleach bombs and aerosol decontamination. If it’d been the sort of ranch that grew crops instead of livestock, they’d have been forced to shut it down for at least five years while the chemicals worked their way out of the soil. As it was, they’d be importing feed and water for eighteen months, until the groundwater tested clear again.
The things we’re willing to do to avoid the possibility of exposure to the live virus are sometimes awe inspiring. “Any trouble?” I asked, stopping next to Shaun and casting a tight-lipped smile toward the army boys. “My, don’t they look happy to see us?”
“They were happier before I showed them we had Senator Ryman’s permission to be here and the proper clearances to enter the property. Although I think they were kind of relieved when they realized our clearance levels mean they don’t have to come in with us.” Shaun grinned almost maliciously as he handed me and Rick the metal chits that served as our passes into the zone. Any hazard seals would react to the ID tags on the chits, opening to let us pass. “Somehow, I don’t think the boys want to meet a real live infected person of their very own. It’s amazing that they passed basic training.”
“Don’t tease the straights,” I said, pressing the chit against the strap of my shoulder bag. It adhered to the fabric with a nearly unbreakable seal, turning on and beginning to flash a reassuring green. “How long’s our clearance?”
“Standard twelve-hour passage. If we’re inside the zone when the chits run out, we’ll have to call for help and hope help answers.” Shaun pressed his own chit to the collar of his chain-mail shirt. It flashed before dimming to standard metallic gray.
“Any recent signs of movement in or around the zone?” Rick asked. His chit was clinging to the earpiece of his wireless phone, where its green flashes contrasted with the blinking yellow LED.
“Not a one.” Shaun jerked his up, indicating the guards. “Shall we move on before they book us for loitering outside a hazard zone?”
“Can they do that?” asked Rick.
“We’re within a hundred yards of a recent outbreak,” I said. “They can do just about whatever they want.” I walked toward the gates. The chit on my bag flashed and they swung open, letting me enter the ranch grounds. There were no blood tests on this side of the hazard zone. If I wanted to enter a known infection site when I was already infected, I’d just finish my transition behind a pre-established barrier. Not exactly what most people would consider a loss.
The gates shut behind me, only to open again as Shaun approached, and a third time for Rick. Only one
