We reached the base of Maggie’s driveway an hour before sunset. Becks was driving, and I was in the passenger seat, while Mahir sat in the back with his laptop plugged into the car charger, tapping relentlessly away. He’d been writing for about four hours, recording everything we’d seen or heard in true Newsie fashion. It was a comforting sound. George used to do the same thing, back when she still had fingers.
The first two gates opened like they were supposed to, recognizing our credentials and letting us drive on through. “Looks like we’re home free,” said Becks. “Just a little farther and—holy shit!” She hit the brakes, hard. I slammed forward, my seat belt keeping me from hitting myself on the dashboard. There was a crash from the back as Mahir—who wasn’t wearing a seat belt—went sprawling.
“Jesus, Becks, what the fuck?” I demanded.
She didn’t answer me. She just raised one trembling finger and pointed to the driveway ahead of us. I turned to look where she was pointing, and stared.
Normally, the third gate on Maggie’s driveway is the first one that requires authorized visitors to interact with the security system. The normal system wasn’t in operation today. Instead, the gate stood open, and three men in full outbreak gear stood to block the road, assault rifles at the ready. Their faces were concealed by the biohazard masks they wore, filtering their air and blocking them from all fluid or particle attacks. That, more than anything else, told me this wasn’t a drill. Those masks are hell to wear. Nobody would do that without good reason.
One of the men beckoned for us to come closer. Becks crept forward until the same man waved for us to stop. He walked over to the van and tapped the muzzle of his rifle against the glass of my window. “Please lower the window, sir,” he said, in case his message hadn’t been clear enough.
Swallowing hard, I did as I was told. “Uh, hey,” I said. “You’re one of Maggie’s security ninjas, aren’t you? I was starting to think you were a myth.”
“Credentials.”
“Right.” I dug out my wallet and handed him my license card.
“All three of you.”
“Got it. Becks? Mahir? A little help here?”
“Here,” said Becks, shoving her card into my hand. Mahir followed suit.
I passed both cards to the security ninja. “So does this have anything to do with the total disappearance of the population of the American Midwest? Because we’re a little creeped out right now, and I’d really li to get to the bathroom.” I was babbling to cover my sudden conviction that something, somehow, had happened to Maggie and Alaric. We were driving into a murder investigation. We had to be. It was the only thing that made sense.
The security ninja didn’t answer me. He fed our cards into a handheld reader, one at a time, before handing them back to me and waving one of the other men forward. This man carried a stack of top-of-the-line blood testing units—the same model we used to confirm that George had been infected.
“Please distribute these to the rest of your party,” said the first man, as the second man carefully passed the test units through the window to me. He avoided touching my fingers, like I might be carrying a contagion that could somehow travel through his triple-lined Kevlar gloves and burrow into his skin. Not even Kellis-Amberlee can do that. The live virus has only ever traveled through direct fluid contact, thank God, or we’d all have been shambling our way around the world a long damn time ago.
I handed a test unit to Becks and held another out behind me, waiting until I felt Mahir take it out of my hand. I didn’t take my eyes off the man in the outbreak gear. This wasn’t outbreak
“Please open your test unit.”
There were three security ninjas I could see, which meant there were probably half a dozen more that I couldn’t. If they were all armed as heavily as the ones guarding the road, making trouble would be a good way to get dead without actually accomplishing anything. I frowned and popped the lid of the testing unit up, sliding my entire hand inside. The lid clamped down, holding my hand in position with the fingers spread for optimal sampling. Small snaps from beside and behind me told me that Becks and Mahir were doing the same. I kept watching the security ninja, trying to figure out what was going on.
The security ninja’s mask wasn’t directed toward my face anymore. It was directed at the lights on my testing unit. I realized with a start that his companions had moved to flank the van, putting them into position to shoot any one of us the second a test came back positive. That would fill the interior of the van with blood, turning it into a mobile hot zone, filling the enclosed space with the sharp tang of gunpowder—
George’s voice cut through the sudden jangle in my head with clear, soothing calm:
“What?” I said, before I could remember that talking to myself in front of strangers isn’t a good idea.
The security ninja either didn’t notice or had been briefed on my little idiosyncrasies. “I appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Mason,” he said. A fourth man had appeared from somewhere—I wasn’t sure wanted to know exactly where, or how many friends he had lurking out there. He was carrying a large biohazard bag. “If you would collect the units and return them, we’ll be glad to allow you to continue on your way.”
“Uh, yeah.” I took the bag with my free hand, dropping my green-lit testing unit inside before passing the bag to Becks. “Now do you want to tell us what’s going on? Because seriously, we have no idea, and you’re freaking me out more than a little.”
“Me, too,” contributed Becks.
“Myself as well,” said Mahir. He leaned forward to drop his testing unit into the bag in Becks’s hands. “I think we can safely declare this the worst vacation I have ever taken.”
“Mr. Mason, Ms. Atherton, Mr. Gowda.” The security ninja held out his hand. After a pause, Becks handed the bag back to me, and I handed it to him. He pulled it out of the van, handing it to the fourth man, who promptly vanished back into the brush surrounding the road. “If you would please continue on to the house, Ms. Garcia is anxiously awaiting your arrival.”
And had probably been notified by the security system as soon as we passed the first gate. “You’re not going to tell us what’s going on, are you?”
“Please continue on to the house.” The security ninja paused. When he spoke again, he sounded a lot more human, and a lot more frightened. “It isn’t safe for you to be out here. It isn’t safe for anyone to be out here. Now roll up those windows, and
“Got it. Thanks.” I rolled up my window and turned to Becks, who looked like she couldn’t decide between being terrified and being furious. “You heard the man. Let’s get the hell out of here before they decide to shoot us just to be sure.”
“Oh, right.” Becks slammed her foot down on the gas, and we roared onward, up the circling driveway.
The other gates were standing open, each one flanked by a pair of men in outbreak gear. Whatever was happening, it was bad enough to mobilize the private security force that Maggie’s parents maintained for her. That was terrifying, in and of itself.
Maggie’s door was closed, and all the shades were drawn. They didn’t twitch as we pulled to a stop in front of the house. Becks turned off the engine and simply sat there, staring through the windshield.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now we grab whatever we absolutely can’t live without and run for the house,” I replied, picking up the bag with my laptop and guns in it. “Whatever the fuck is going on, it’s bad enough to have men in outbreak suits on Maggie’s driveway. Assume that once we’re inside, we’re not coming out again for anything short of the apocalypse.”
“Funny, that,” said Mahir. “I’m rather concerned that’s what we’re going in to hide from.”
“Okay. One, two—” and I was out of the van, slinging mybag over my shoulder as I ran for the house. Doors slammed behind me as Becks and Mahir followed, the one only slightly faster than the other.
There was no blood test required to get inside the house. Once you were past the security on the driveway, you were clean—or that had always been the assumption before, anyway. I swung open the front door to find
