Deadline

it that clearly in a long time. It went away after you’d spent enough time in the field. Hysteria takes too much energy to be maintained forever. “They likely turned around as soon as they found a wide enough spot in the road.”

“As long as their turn didn’t take them in our direction, I don’t care where they went.” Becks managed to sound like she was muttering even while pitching her voice to be heard at the front of the van. It’s a trick from the basic Irwin handbook: The lower and more urgent your tone, the more exciting and dangerous the situation will seem to the people at home. It’s just a matter of learning to whisper as loudly as some people shout, to make sure the cameras can pick you up. I knew exactly what she was doing. I was still impressed. She was damn good at it.

“We have enough gas to get us past Little Rock—after that, I want to get freaky,” I said. “Mahir, get us a route that doesn’t involve the roads we used to reach Tennessee. Try to get a whole new set of states if you can.”

“Why are you asking me?” Mahir asked peevishly. He started tapping a staccato pattern on the screen of his phone, calling up a more sophisticated GPS mapping program. “I’m the only one in this car not native to this damn continent.”

“Great. That means you won’t have any stupid preconceptions about what to avoid.”

“What, bad neighborhoods?”

“I was thinking more like Colorado, but sure, whatever.” I made a sharp turn onto yet another frontage road, causing Becks to whack her shoulder against the window. She swore, but didn’t yell at me. Our escape was too important to interrupt for silly things like fighting amongst ourselves. “Becks, we still clear?”

“Unless the CDC has invisible cars, yes,” she snarled.

“Good enough for me.” I pulled a disposable ear cuff out of my pocket and snapped it on, tapping the side to trigger the connection. “This is Shaun Mason activating security protocol Campbell. The bridge is out, the trees are coming, and I’m pretty sure my hand is evil. Now gimme some sugar, baby.”

Mahir stared at me with undisguised confusion. “What the fuck was all that about?”

“Single-use phone. I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t activate it by mistake.” The ear cuff beeped as the connections were made, routed through half a dozen dummy servers and half a dozen more firewalls.

Fire-and-forget phones are about as secure as it gets, providing you don’t mind spending a few hundred bucks to make one call. That call can’t last for more than six minutes, and it has to end with the total destruction of the phone you used to make it. But yeah, it’s secure.

“Well, that’s definitely one thing no one’s going to say on bloody accident!”

“Exactly. Now get back to finding us a rabbit hole to dive down.”

The beeping stopped, and Alaric’s voice came down the line, asking, “Shaun? Is that you? Where are you?”

“That’s a good question, and no matter how secure I think this line is, it’s one I’m not going to answer. We have a maximum of six minutes talk time before we become traceable, so I want you to get Maggie and set your phone to speaker. Got me?”

“She’s right here,” said Alaric. There was a clicking sound. When he spoke again, his voice was tinny and a little distant, like it was coming down a tube. “Go.”

“Right. Wynne sold us out. I don’t know if he was always dirty or if they got to him after the election, but I’m not sure it matters. He’s dead. So’s Kelly.” I winced as I realized that there was one more unexpected tragedy to her death. “Shit. We can’t even put her on the Wall. She officially died months ago, and it wasn’t because of the infected.”

“Damn,” whispered Alaric. The seconds were ticking away from us, but we still fell silent for a moment, considering the magnitude of the tragedy in front of us. The Wall is a virtual monument to the people who’ve died because of Kellis-Amberlee. It started during the Rising with bloggers and doctors, college students, and soccer moms—anyone and everyone who came out on the losing end of the zombie apocalypse. We’ve kept it up since then. The blog community views it as a public service and a vital reminder that none of us is safe; that it never really ended. Maybe the infected don’t roam the streets the way they did once, but they’re still here. They’re never going away. And names keep going up on the Wall.

George’s name is up there. So is Buffy’s, and Dave’s, since he died during an outbreak. Hell, even Tate’s name is on the Wall. He killed my sister, but the Wall doesn’t judge. George used to call it the ultimate monument to truth, a universally accepted model of the world as it is, not as we want it to be. There was no way we could pretend Kelly died because of any reason other than Kellis-Amberlee… and because of that goddamn clone, she was never going to go up on the Wall.

I guess there’s nothing in the world that can’t lie to us, said George, sounding subdued. I think I’m glad I died before I found that out.

There was nothing I could say to that. I cleared my throat, shattering the silence. “We’re on our way home. I can’t tell you how we’re going to be coming—it’s not safe, and I’m not sure—but I want you to stay inside, lock yourselves down, and don’t go out for anything. I mean anything.”

“The dogs—” started Maggie.

“That’s what you have security for! Call them out of the woods and make them take the little crap factories out for walkies. Dammit, Maggie, I don’t think you understand how deep the shit is right now. Alaric, start backing up our databases everywhere you possibly can. Send encrypted copies to everyone in the employee database, everyone who’s ever been in the employee database, your ex-girlfriend, your ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, everyone.”

“Everyone?” asked Alaric.

I hesitated.

Do it, said George.

“Yeah—everyone,” I said. “Make the flat-drop. Encrypt the files first, to slow things down, but make it. We’ll deal with it later, assuming there is a later. Both of you, make sure your wills are up-to- date. Maggie, tell your Fictionals to stay the fuck home until further notice. I don’t want anyone coming within a hundred miles of Weed if they have a choice in the matter.”

“All right, boss,” said Alaric, quietly.

“Turn left at the next intersection,” said Mahir.

“Got it.” I slowed slightly as I took the turn. There were still no other cars in sight. “I’m dead serious here, guys. We’re on lockdown until further notice. Treat every door and window as a sealed air lock, and open them only if your lives depend on it. Your lives probably do depend on keeping them closed, since these assholes have clearly demonstrated that they wouldn’t know a scruple if it bit them on the ass. Mahir, how’s our network security?”

“Iave no fucking idea, Shaun. If you’ve got a way of bringing Buffy back from the dead, maybe she could tell you. The only thing I can tell you is that you’ve got a right turn coming up in a block and a half.”

“Right. Well, the dead are walking, boys and girls, but they’re not doing it in our favor, so for right now, we’re on our own. I don’t have a safe way of transmitting our files to you.”

Maggie broke in. “I’ll tell my Fictionals I’ve had another problem with the plumbing, and keep anything more detailed to the secure servers. Will you be able to call in again at all?”

“Maybe,” I hedged. “I’m not going to promise anything, but I’ll try. For the moment, assume you won’t be hearing from us until we arrive, and that we won’t be staying long before it’s everybody out. We wouldn’t be coming back at all if there was anywhere safer to go.” The CDC would figure out that we’d been staying at Maggie’s place, eventually. I was just praying that their fear of her parents would keep them from doing anything drastic before we had time to grab our shit and hit the road. “Pack a bag and be ready to move.”

“On it.”

“Good. This shouldn’t be more than a three-day drive, and that’s assuming we actually stop to sleep. If we’re not there inside of the week—”

“If you’re not here in a week, don’t bother coming,” she said. “We won’t be here when you arrive.”

“That’s the right answer.” I glanced over at Mahir. His attention was still focused on the phone in his hand. “Mahir? You want to send a message for your wife?”