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still wearing his formal clothes. He hadn’t even had time to change. “She was just inside the doorway. I think… even after they hurt her, I think she tried to get away.” Tears running down his cheeks. I’m not sure he was even aware of them. “I think she was trying to come and find me. She was just a little cat, Georgia. Why would anyone do this to such a little cat?”

Shaun stiffened. “She was inside? Are you sure this wasn’t natural causes?”

“Since when do natural causes break your neck?” asked Rick, in a tone that would have been reasonable if he hadn’t been crying so hard.

“We should go to the van.”

I frowned. “Shaun—?”

“I’m serious. We can talk about this in the van, but we should go there. Right now.”

“Just let me get my gun,” I said, and started to turn toward the trailer. Shaun grabbed my elbow, yanking me back. I stumbled.

The trailer exploded with a concussive bang, like an engine misfiring.

The first bang was followed by a second and larger bang, echoed in the distance as another trailer—probably Rick’s—went up in a ball of blue-and-orange flame. Not that there was much time to make estimates about where the blast was coming from. Shaun still had my arm and he was running, dragging me in his wake as he rushed toward the van. Rick ran after us, clutching Lois’s body to his chest, all of us bathed in the angry orange glare of the blast. Someone was trying to kill us. At this point, I didn’t even have to wonder who. Tate knew we knew. There was no reason for him to play nice anymore.

Once he was sure I’d keep running, Shaun let go of me, dropping back as he tried to cover our retreat toward the van. I quashed the urge to worry about him, keeping my focus on the running. Shaun could take care of himself. I had to believe that or I’d never be able to believe anything else. Rick was running like a man in a dream, Lois bouncing limply in his arms with every step. And I just ran.

Something pricked my left biceps when we were about halfway to the van. I ignored it and kept going, more focused on getting to cover than on swatting at some mosquito with shit for timing. No one’s ever been able to tell the insects of the world that they shouldn’t interrupt the big dramatic moments, and so they keep on doing it. That’s probably a good thing. If drama kept the bugs away, most people would never emotionally mature past the age of seventeen.

“Rick, get the doors!” shouted Shaun. He was hanging about five yards back, still moving fast. He had his .45 drawn, covering the area as we retreated. The sight of him was enough to make my heart beat faster and my throat get tight. I knew he was wearing Kevlar under his clothes, but Kevlar wouldn’t save him from a headshot. Whoever blew up the trailers might be out there watching, and once they saw us scattering into the open, there was every chance they’d decide to finish what they’d started. And none of that mattered, because someone had to watch the rear, and someone had to open the van, and if we clustered together to make me feel better, neither of those things would happen, and we’d all die.

Knowing the realities of the situation didn’t do a damn thing to make me feel better about leaving Shaun to twist in the wind. It just meant I understood that we didn’t have a choice.

Rick put on a burst of speed, reaching the van a good twenty feet ahead of me. He finally seemed to realize he was carrying Lois because he dropped her body, reaching out to grab the handles of the rear doors and press his forefingers against the reader pads. There was a click as the onboard testing system ran his blood and prints, confirming he was both uninfected and an authorized driver before the locks released.

“Got it!” he yelled, and wrenched the doors open, motioning for us to get inside.

He didn’t need to tell me twice. I sped up, breath aching in my chest as I raced to get out of the open. Shaun continued moving at the same pace, swinging his gun unhurriedly from side to side as he covered our retreat.

“Shaun, you idiot!” I yelled. “Get your ass in here! There’s no one out there to save!”

He glanced over his shoulder, eyebrows rising in apparent surprise. Something in my expression must have told him that it wasn’t worth arguing because he nodded and turned to run the rest of the way.

I didn’t start really breathing again until he and Rick were both inside with the doors closed behind them. Shaun flipped the dead bolts on the rear doors, while Rick moved to do the same on the movable wall that shut the driver’s cabin off from the rest of the vehicle. With those latches thrown, we were effectively cut off from the rest of the world. Nothing could get in, and unless we opened the locks, nothing could get out. Barring heavy explosives, we were as safe as it was possible to be.

I took a seat at the main console and brought up the security recordings for the last day. The scanner came up clean, showing no attempted break-ins or unauthorized contact with the van’s exterior during that time. “Shaun, when was the last security sweep?”

“I ran one remotely while I was waiting for the senator’s speech to finish.”

“Good. That means we’re clean.” I leaned over to turn on the exterior cameras—without them, we were flying blind and would have no way of knowing when help arrived—and froze.

“George?”

It was Shaun’s voice, sounding distant and surprised. He’d seen me reach for the switches, and seen me stop; he just hadn’t seen why. I didn’t answer him. I was too busy staring.

“George, what’s wrong?”

“I…” I began, and stopped, swallowing in an effort to clear the sudden dryness from my mouth. Forcing myself to start again, I said, “I think we may have a problem.” Raising my right hand, I wrapped numb fingers around the hollow plastic dart projecting from my left biceps and pulled it free, turning to face the other two. Rick paled, seeing the red stain spreading through the fabric of my shirt. Shaun just stared at the dart, looking like he was seeing the end of the world.

In a very real and concrete way, there was an excellent chance that he was.

* * *

If you want an easy job—if you want the sort of job where you never have to bury somebody who you care about—I recommend you pursue a career in whatever strikes your fancy… just so long as it isn’t the news.

—From Another Point of True, the blog of Richard Cousins, June 20, 2040

Twenty-six

Shaun broke the silence. “Please tell me that didn’t break the skin,” he said, almost pleading. “The blood came from something else, right George? Right?”

“We’re going to need a biohazard bag.” There was no fear in my voice. Really, there was nothing there at all. I sounded… empty, disconnected from everything around me. It was like my body and my voice existed in different universes, tethered by only the thinnest of threads. “Get one from the medical kit, put it on the counter, and step away. I don’t want either of you touching this.” Or me. I didn’t want them touching me when there was a risk that I could infect them. I just couldn’t say that. If I tried, I’d break down, and any chance of containing this would go right out the window.

“George—”

“We need a testing kit.”

Rick’s voice was surprisingly strong, considering the circumstances. Shaun and I turned to face him. He was white-faced and shaking, but his voice was firm. “Shaun, I know you don’t want to hear this, and if you want to hit me later, that’s fine, but right now, we need a testing kit.”

Storm clouds were gathering in Shaun’s expression. He knew Rick was right; I could see it in his eyes and in the way he wasn’t quite willing to look at me. If he hadn’t known, he wouldn’t have cared that Rick was calling for a blood test. But because he did, it was the last thing in the world he wanted. Well. Maybe not the last thing. Then again, it was starting to look like the last thing had already happened.

“He’s right, Shaun.” I placed the dart on the counter next to my keyboard. It was so small. How could