Kelly swallowed, throat working as she struggled against some clear inner impulse not to answer. Finally she said, “Dr. Abbey. I read some of the work she did on reservoir conditions before she went off the grid. I think she’d be able to help us.”
“Fine. Where is she?”
She sighed. “Portland, Oregon.”
“That’s a five- or six-hour drive if we take the direct route,” I said, sipping again from the can. “Annoying, but manageable. What was the big crime that got them blacklisted?”
“Unethical experiments involving the manipulation of the viral structure of Kellis-Amberlee. None involving human subjects, thank God, or she and her staff would be in federal prison for the rest of their lives.”
“I’m surprised they aren’t in federal prison anyway. How much blackmail material did she have?”
“Enough.” Kelly shook her head. “I don’t know much—it was all before my time—but she worked for Health Canada. Joint research team, theirs and ours. Some bad things happened, and she quit. Ever since then, she’s been pretty careful about who she lets get anywhere near her or her research.”
“Better watch out, Doc. That sounded almost like respect.”
“I like people who are serious about their work.” She shrugged. “Dr. Abbey was devoted to figuring out Kellis-Amberlee.”
“Somebody has to be.” I swung back around to the keyboard. “Better go see if Maggie’s got something you can wear, Doc. We’re going on another road trip.”
We made it out of Oakland alive. I’m still not sure how we did it, except that my team is made up of some of the best people I’ve ever known, and I don’t deserve them. I keep making it out of places alive. I think the universe is fucking with me.
I did something during the evacuation that yu shouldn’t ever do. I went back for George’s black box. I’d do it again, too. Because there’s already not enough of her left in this world, and I’m running out of things to hold onto.
Fuck, I miss her.
—From
Santa Cruz is gorgeous this time of year. I realize it’s a zombie-infested wasteland, but hell, at least the rents are good, right? Besides, there’s a reason this used to be one of the state’s most popular vacation destinations, and I doubt it had very much to do with their boardwalk, no matter what the old tourism brochures try to tell you.
We’re still working on getting Alaric ready for his field trials. Next up, Becks is going to take him down to the beach and see if they can find a zombie seal to poke at. Never a dull moment around here. Oh, well. It’s better than a desk job.
—From
Eight
Maggie didn’t look
I chuckled, and got back to work.
Alaric came into the room with a half-eaten piece of toast in one hand as I was firing off an e-mail to authorize the continuing sale of Dave’s merchandise line. “Did you see the crime scene photos on the gossip sites?” he asked. I nodded. He continued: “This is, like,
“Could be worse.”
“How?”
“I have no idea. But it can always be worse.” I glanced toward the kitchen door. “Where’s Becks?”
“She’s helping Maggie with Dr. Connolly.” He took a bite of toast, sitting down at dical blonitor next to mine. “I don’t think she wanted to leave them alone together.”
“I always knew she was smart.”
Alaric grunted as he logged on and started working the message boards. I leaned over to “supervise,” which really meant “look over his shoulder, drinking a Coke and pretending to pay attention.” He ignored me. I took his tendency to shut me out while he worked personally at first, until George assured me that he’d always done the same thing to her. He was just one of those people who really liked to focus on his work.
“Don’t start with me,” I said, and took another drink of Coke. That’s normally enough to shut her up for a little while. When that doesn’t work, I zone out in front of the news feeds. Comforting for her, educational for me. Everybody wins.
“It’s a shitty thing to say and you know it.”
Alaric ignored my conversation with the air. He learned the hard way that sometimes it was best to turn a blind eye. During our first few months in the office, he asked who I was talking to every time I forgot and answered George aloud, and he pointed out that she was dead more than once. He stopped after I finally lost my temper and introduced my fist to his face, resulting in skinned knuckles on my part and a broken nose on his. He still flinches if I move too fast. Guess I can’t blame him. If my boss were a potentially crazy man with a mean right hook, I’d probably be a little jumpy, too.
The title of one of the threads caught my eye. I leaned forward, tapping Alaric’s screen. “There. Can you expand that thread?”
“Sure.” He clicked the header line:
“Just scroll.”
“Right,” he said, and started scrolling.
The thread started as a discussion of the break-in at the Memphis CDC and devolved into a discussion of CDC security precautions over the course of half a dozen posts. As I’d hoped, the posters quickly started naming names, citing every CDC doctor, intern, affiliate, and publicity person to have died during the last eighteen months. “Alaric, can you grab the names of the deceased and start calling up obituaries and circumstance-of-death reports? If anyone looks at you funny, you can say you’re basing a report off this thread.”
“Sure,” he said, warming to the idea as he saw where I was going with it. “I can do you one better. I still have a few of Buffy’s old worms live and functional. I’ll set one of them digging for connections between the deceased employees, Kelly Connolly, Joseph Wynne, and any other unusual or unexplained deaths in their circle of friends.”
“Just don’t get caught or traced and you can do whatever you want.”
“Awesome.” Alaric bent d, starting to type. He had the same focus I’ve seen from George, Rick, and every
