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paler than it had been before I fell. I glanced around. Seeing that nothing else was about to rush me, I bent, picked up the Taser, and replaced both it and the gun in my belt. “You okay over there, Steve-o?”

“Did you get bit?” he demanded.

There was a predictable response. “Nope,” I said, raising my hands to show the unbroken skin. “You can test me again when we hit the motor pool, okay? Right now, I think we should stop being out here, like, as soon as possible. That wasn’t my favorite thing ever.” I paused, and added, almost guiltily, “Besides, I didn’t have a camera running.” George would’ve kicked my ass for that, after she finished kicking my ass for getting that close to a live infection.

“You don’t need the ratings,” said Steve, and grabbed my arm, hauling me after him as he resumed moving, double-speed, toward the motor pool.

Maybe it was because Carlos and Heidi had access to an entire ammo shed, and maybe it was because the motor pool wasn’t a popular hangout for the living, but the infected tapered off as we moved toward it, and we crossed the last ten feet to the fence without incident. Good thing; I was almost out of bullets, and I didn’t feel like trusting myself to the Taser. The gate in the fence was closed, the electric locks engaged. Steve released my arm, reaching for the keypad, and a shot rang out over our heads, clearly aimed to warn, not wound. Small favors.

“Stop where you are!” shouted Carlos. I looked toward his voice and watched as he and Heidi stepped out from behind the shed, both bristling with weapons. I clucked my tongue disapprovingly. Sure, it looked good, but you can’t intimidate a zombie, and they had so many things piled overlapping that they’d have trouble drawing much of anything when their primary guns ran out of bullets.

“Overkill,” I muttered. “Amateurs.”

“Stand down,” barked Steve. “It’s me and the Mason kid. He tested clean when I picked him up.”

“Beg your pardon, sir, but how do we know you test clean now?” Heidi asked.

Smart girl. Maybe she could live. “You don’t,” I said, “but if you let us through the fence and keep us backed against it while you run blood tests, you’ll have the opportunity to shoot before either of us can reach you.”

She and Carlos exchanged a look. Carlos nodded. “All right,” he said. “Step back from the gate.”

We did as we were told, Steve giving me a thoughtful look as the gate slid open. “You’re good at this.”

“Top of my field,” I said, and followed him into the motor pool.

Carlos chucked us blood testing units while Heidi reported on the status of the other units, still remaining at a safe distance. Susan was confirmed as infected; she’d been tagged by a political analyst as she was helping Mike evacuate a group of survivors to a rooftop. She stayed on the ground after she was bitten, shooting everything in sight before taking out the ladder and shooting herself. About the best ending you could hope for if you got infected in a combat zone. Mike was fine. So, surprisingly, was Paolo. There was still no word from Andres, and three more groups of security agents and survivors were expected to reach the motor pool at any time. Steve absorbed the news without changing his expression; he didn’t even flinch when the needles on his testing unit bit into his hand. I flinched. After the number of blood tests I’d had recently, I was getting seriously tired of being punctured.

Heidi and Carlos relaxed when our tests flashed clean. “Sorry, sir,” said Carlos, walking over with the biohazard bags. “We needed to be sure.”

“Standard outbreak protocol,” Steve said, dismissing the apology with a wave of his hand. “Keep holding this ground—”

“—while we break quarantine,” I said, almost cheerfully. George snorted amusement in the back of my head. All for you, George. All for you. “Steve-o and I need to take a little trip. Loan us a car, give us some ammo, and open the gates?”

“Sir?” Heidi sounded uncertain; the idea of leaving a quarantine zone without military or CDC clearance is pretty much anathema to most people. It’s just not done, ever. “What is he talking about?”

“One of the armored SUVs should do,” said Steve. “Find the fastest one that’s still on the grounds.” Carlos and Heidi stared at him like he’d just gone into spontaneous amplification. “Move!” he barked, and they moved, scattering for the guard station where the keys to the parked vehicles were stored. Steve ignored their burst of activity, leading me to the weapons locker and keying open the lock. “Candy store is open.”

“So all you have to do to break quarantine is shout ‘move’?” I asked, beginning to load my pockets with ammunition. I considered grabbing a new gun, but dismissed the idea. Nothing but George’s .40 was going to feel right in my hand. “Wow. Normally, I need a pair of wire cutters and some night-vision goggles.”

“Gonna pretend you never said that.”

“Probably for the best.”

Carlos emerged from the guard station and tossed a set of keys to Steve, who caught them in an easy underhand. “We can unlock the rear gate, but once the central computer realizes the seal’s been broken—”

“How long can we have?”

“Thirty seconds.”

“That’s long enough. You two hold your ground. Keep anyone who makes it here safe. Mason, you’re with me.”

“Yes sir!” I said, with a mocking salute. Steve shook his head and pressed the signal button on the key fob. One of the SUVs turned its lights on. Showtime.

Once we were inside, belts fastened and weapons secured, Steve started the engine and drove us to the gate. Carlos was already waiting, ready to hit the manual override. The manual exits exist in case of accidental or ineffective lockdown, to give the uninfected a chance to escape. They require a blood test and a retinal scan, and breaking quarantine without a damn good reason is a quick way to get yourself sent to prison for a long time. Carlos was risking a lot on Steve’s order.

“That’s what I call a chain of command,” I said to myself, as the gate slid open.

“What’s that?” asked Steve.

“Nothing. Just go.”

We went.

The roads outside the Center were clear. That’s standard for the time immediately following a confirmed outbreak in a noncongested area. The people inside the quarantine zone will survive or not without interference; it’s all up to them the minute the fences come down. So the big health orgs and military intervention teams wait until the worst of it’s had time to burn itself out before they head in. Let the infection peak. Ironically, that makes it safer, because it’s trying to save the survivors that gets people killed. Once you know everyone around you is already dead, it gets easier to shoot without asking questions.

“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.