SPIN

'I think if we burned it anyway, that would be all right.'

I walked to the barn door and joined Simon, not looking back. Sorley could have changed his mind, grabbed his rifle and taken aim. I was no longer entirely capable of caring.

'Maybe burn it before morning,' I heard him say. 'Before the sun comes up again.'

* * * * *

'You drive,' Simon said when we reached the car. 'There's gas in the tank and extra gas in jericans in the trunk. And a little food and more bottled water. You drive and I'll sit in back and keep her steady.'

I started the car and drove slowly uphill, past the split-rail fence and the moonlit ocotillo toward the highway.

SPIN

A few miles up the road and a safe distance from the Condon farm I pulled over and told Simon to get out.

'What,' he said, 'here?'

'I need to examine Diane. I need you to get the flashlight out of the trunk and hold it for me. Okay?'

He nodded, wide-eyed.

Diane hadn't said a word since we'd left the ranch. She had simply lain across the backseat with her head in Simon's lap, drawing breath. Her breathing had been the loudest sound in the car.

While Simon stood by, flashlight in hand, I stripped off my blood-soaked clothing and washed myself as thoroughly as I could—a bottle of mineral water with a little gasoline to strip away the filth, a second bottle to rinse. Then I put on clean Levi's and a sweatshirt from my luggage and a pair of latex gloves from the medical kit. I drank a third bottle of water straight down. Then I had Simon angle the light on Diane while I looked at her.

She was more or less conscious but too groggy to put together a fully coherent sentence. She was thinner than I had ever seen her, almost anorexically thin, and dangerously feverish. Her BP and pulse were elevated, and when I listened to her chest her lungs sounded like a child sucking a milk shake through a narrow straw.

I managed to get her to swallow a little water and an aspirin on top of it. Then I ripped the seal on a sterile hypodermic.

'What's that?' Simon asked.

'General-purpose antibiotic.' I swabbed her arm and with some difficulty located a vein. 'You'll need one, too.' And me. The heifer's blood had undoubtedly been loaded with live CVWS bacteria.

'Will that cure her?'

'No, Simon, I'm afraid it won't. A month ago it might have. Not anymore. She needs medical attention.'

'You're a doctor.'

'I may be a doctor, but I'm not a hospital.'

'Then maybe we can take her into Phoenix.'

I thought about that. Everything I'd learned during the flickers suggested that an urban hospital would be swamped at best, a smoldering ruin at worst. But maybe not.

I took out my phone and scrolled through its memory for a half-forgotten number.

Simon said, 'Who're you calling?'

'Someone I used to know.'

His name was Colin Hinz, and we had roomed together back at Stony Brook. We kept in touch a little. Last I'd heard from him he was working management at St. Joseph's in Phoenix. It was worth a try—now, before the sun came up and scrubbed telecommunications for another day.

I entered his personal number. The phone rang a long while but eventually he picked up and said, 'This better be good.'

I identified myself and told him I was maybe an hour out of town with a casualty in need of immediate attention— someone close to me.

Colin sighed. 'I don't know what to tell you, Tyler. St. Joe's is working, and I hear the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale is open, but we both have minimal staff. There are conflicting reports from other hospitals. But you won't get quick attention anywhere, sure as hell not here. We've got people stacked up outside the doors—gunshot wounds, attempted suicides, auto accidents, heart attacks, you name it. And cops on the doors to keep them from mobbing Emerg. What's your patient's condition?'

I told him Diane was late-stage CVWS and would probably need airway support soon.

'Where the fuck did she pick up CVWS? No, never mind—doesn't matter. Honestly, I'd help you if I could, but our nurses have been doing parking-lot triage all night and I can't promise they'd give your patient any priority, even with a word from me. In fact it's pretty much a sure thing she wouldn't even be assessed by a physician for another twenty-four hours. If any of us live that long.'

'I'm a physician, remember? All I need is a little gear to support her. Ringer's, an airway kit, oxygen—'

'I don't want to sound callous, but we're wading through blood here… you might ask yourself whether it's really worthwhile supporting a terminal CVWS case, given what's happening. If you've got what you need to keep her comfortable—'

'I don't want to keep her comfortable. I want to save her life.'

'Okay… but what you described is a terminal situation, unless I misunderstood.' In the background I could hear other voices demanding his attention, a generalized rattle of human misery.

'I need to take her somewhere,' I said, 'and I need to get her there alive. I need the supplies more than I need a bed.'

'We've got nothing to spare. Tell me if there's anything else I can do for you. Otherwise, I'm sorry, I have work to do.'

I thought frantically. Then I said, 'Okay, but the supplies— anywhere I can pick up Ringer's, Colin, that's all I ask.'

'Well—'

'Well, what?'

'Well… I shouldn't be telling you this, but St. Joe's has a deal with the city under the civil emergency plan. There's a medical distributor called Novaprod north of town.' He gave me an address and simple directions. 'The authorities put a National Guard unit up there to protect it. That's our primary source for drugs and hardware.'

'They'll let me in?'

'If I call up and tell them you're coming, and if you have some ID to show.'

'Do that for me, Colin. Please.'

'I will if I can get a line out. The phones are unreliable.'

'If there's a favor I can do in return…'

'Maybe there is. You used to work in aerospace, right? Perihelion?'

'Not recently, but yes.'

'Can you tell me how much longer all this is going to last?' He half whispered the question, and suddenly I could hear the fatigue in his voice, the unadmitted fear. 'I mean, one way or the other?'

I apologized and told him I simply didn't know—and I doubted anyone at Perihelion knew more than I did.

He sighed. 'Okay,' he said. 'It's just galling, the idea that we could go through all this and burn out in a couple of days and never know what it was all about.'

'I wish I could give you an answer.'

Someone on the other end of the line began calling his name. 'I wish a lot of things,' he said. 'Gotta go, Tyler.'

I thanked him again and clicked off.

Dawn was still a few hours away.

Simon had been standing a few yards from the car, staring up at the starry sky and pretending not to listen. I waved him back and said, 'We have to get going.'

He nodded meekly. 'Did you find help for Diane?'

'Sort of.'

He accepted the answer without asking for details. But before he bent to get in the car he tugged at my sleeve and said, 'There ... what do you suppose that is, Tyler?'