“Experimented on?” Jefferson stood back up and walked cautiously toward Grady, who kept his sleeve up.
“Yeah. You guessed it when you were researching the virus. It is manmade. I was captured when my team tried to stop the virus from getting out of an Iranian facility in Brazil—” Grady’s voice faltered. The memory of the loss of his team hit him like a punch in the gut. He still didn’t remember much about his time in captivity, but the moments leading up to it… “Son of a bitch,” he mumbled.
“What?” Jefferson asked.
“Ah, I…” Grady remembered seeing Taavi at the airstrip in Brazil. He’d been the one who captured him with a net, caged him like some fucking animal to be poked and prodded endlessly. “Ah, I just had a memory that hit me about all of this shit,” he admitted.
“So, it turns out that I’m immune. They tried everything they could to infect me, but nothing worked. Then, they…changed what they were doing and started doing different experiments.”
“What kind of experiments, man?” Jefferson asked, clearly interested in Grady’s story.
Jake cleared his throat when Grady didn’t say anything. “Ahem. So, they did something to Grady. We think they were trying to create a vaccine for their military or…or something.”
“Something?” Jefferson asked skeptically. “You’re really only going to give me that they did ‘something’ to him?”
“Did you know that there are Iranian troops in America right now?” Jake asked, changing tactics. “And we’ve heard intel on the radio that there are North Koreans on the West Coast too. Can you believe that shit?”
Jefferson stepped back and rolled his wrist. “And whatever they did to this guy and the fact that there are bad guys on the West Coast is connected, how?”
“They turned me into some type of pariah to the infected,” Grady said, coming back to himself. “If I walk into a crowd of them now, they scatter—well, at least they get out of my way and don’t attack me. It’s—”
“Bullshit,” Jefferson spat.
“It’s true,” Murphy replied. “I didn’t believe it either until I saw it with my own eyes. I’ve seen it happen a few times on our trip here from Texas. Grady escaped from the Iranians about a month ago, which means they experimented on him for over a year. We think they were trying to come up with some way to keep their troops safe from the infected while they were here in the States doing…whatever their ultimate endgame is. We still don’t know why they’re here.”
“That’s a completely batshit crazy story, man,” Jefferson stated, turning slightly toward where the two guards stood waiting. “Can you guys give me a minute?”
“Boss, I don’t—”
“Can it, Phil,” Jefferson chastised. He tapped the pistol in its holster on his hip. “I’m good.”
Despite the grumbling, the two men bustled out of the apartment, closing the door behind them. When they were gone, Jefferson pointed at the dining room table. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, where are my manners. Please have a seat.”
“Uh—”
“No, no. You can’t sit on the couch, Beth would strangle me. You guys are filthy.”
He waited until the three men had sat in the wooden chairs around the table. “So, I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
“What do you mean?” Jake asked.
Jefferson glanced quickly at the front door before continuing. “I didn’t kill those scientists at CU, man. I went to work late one day and found a bunch of my colleagues dead in the lab. Tweakers had killed them while they were looking for their score. It was a fucking research lab. There weren’t any drugs in there, man.”
He shook his head forlornly. “After that, I stopped going in. Stopped the research on the virus and joined the other five million New Yorkers trapped here away from the mainland, just trying to stay alive. When the Burroughs started to sort themselves into different groups, I stayed in Manhattan with my girlfriend, Beth. We needed strong leadership, and I stepped into the role. I made up the story about being a ruthless asshole who killed his coworkers because they called me names and suggested they should infect me. Since taking on the role of mayor, I’ve had to do a lot of terrible things for the greater good of my people, but I don’t regret any of them.”
Jefferson looked up from the table at the men across from him. “The lab is still there. If you’re truly immune or repellant to the creatures, then I want to get a look at your blood and tissue samples.”
Grady smiled and leaned back. “I knew coming here would pay off.”
Jackson Jefferson shook his head. “I said I’d look at your samples and try to see what they did. Anything further than that and you’re on your own. I can’t guarantee any type of breakthrough or—”
“We’ll take it, Jefferson,” Grady interrupted. “We know it’s a long shot. First thing we’ve got to do is to kick the goddamned Iranians and Norks out of America, then we need to figure out how to stop the infection from spreading. This country is doomed if we can’t figure out a way to allow people outside of the refugee camps to start farming, like you’ve done here.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse,” Jake grunted. “We tried to keep them safe and to have enough food, but four million people crammed into a small area was impossible.”
Jefferson shook his head slowly. “You don’t have to tell me that, man.” He pointed out the window and said, “It’s too late to go up to the labs today. Our treaty with the gangbangers only covers the daytime. We get the day and the promise that they don’t mess with our gardens, they get the night to
