Deadline

Four

What are we going to do?”

Becks asked the question, but all three of my staffers were looking at me with near-identical expressions of impatient expectation on their faces. It was all I could do to not turn and flee the room. They were expecting me to give them a direction; they were expecting me to make the call; they were expecting me to be George.

“What are we going to do?” I echoed, hoping they’d take the question as rhetorical.

The person it was aimed at didn’t. There are small mercies. We’re going to find out what’s going on, and we’re going to scream it from the mountaintops, said George. I repeated each word a half-beat behind her, creating a weird delay that no one outside my head could hear. We’re going to do our jobs. We’re going to go out there, and we’re going to get the news.

All four of the people in the room were staring at me by the time I—we—finished our little speech. Alaric was the first to look amisducking his head slightly as he turned back to his computer screen. Dude always wanted me to be my sister when it came time to make a decision, but he was never okay with it when I actually did.

“That’s great and everything, but there are a few things to work out,” said Dave. He held up a finger. “What do we do with Doc here?” A second finger. “If we don’t know whether it’s safe to talk to the CDC, where the hell are we supposed to start?” A third finger. “What are we going to say to the rest of the site? This isn’t you and a little team and a van anymore. This is a business. We can’t go chasing a story we can’t talk about, maybe even disappear on everybody, and expect them to be cool with it.”

“Call Rick, see what he says,” said Becks.

“I’m pretty sure we can’t call the vice president of the United States with ‘Hey, we have a dead CDC researcher who says somebody’s trying to suppress her research,’ ” I replied. “We’re going to call Rick, but we need more than we have before we do it.”

Becks looked mollified. Rick Cousins used to be one of our staff Newsies. Now he’s helping run the country. That gave us a certain degree of access to the president, but if we were going to announce that the sky was falling, we needed to have some proof.

“And the rest?” asked Dave.

“Starting with your third question, we’re going to tell Mahir, because he already knows, and we’re going to tell Maggie,” I said. “We can figure out the rest as we go.”

Dave frowned. “Why are we getting Maggie involved?”

“Because she’s in charge of the Fictionals. If there’s any chance this is going to end up getting big enough that we have to bring the whole site in on it, I want her to have had time to figure out how she’s planning to tell her people,” I said.

Plus, it’s the right thing to do, added George.

“Well, yeah,” I muttered. “I knew that.”

My team had learned not to comment on my conversations with George. Kelly hadn’t. Frowning, she asked, “Are you wearing an earpiece?”

“What?” Shit. “Uh… no, not exactly.”

“Then who are you talking to?”

There was no way out but straight ahead. Shrugging, I said, “Georgia.”

Kelly hesitated, emotions chasing themselves across her face like a gang of zombies chasing a government hunting party. Finally, she settled for the easiest possible answer: “I see.”

The urge to get up in her face and try to start something was almost too strong to suppress. That’s how I usually dealt with people who gave me the look that she was wearing now, that horrible mix of surprise and shock and pity. Six months ago, I probably wouldn’t have been able to stop myself. Six months ago, I was thinking a lot less clearly. Maybe I’m crazy. But I’m going to be the kind of crazy thatse she’sreful until it blows everything in its path to kingdom come.

“We all cope in our own ways,” I said briskly. “Dave, is Maggie online? We can conference her in right now.”

“Negative,” he said, without a moment’s hesitation. I gave him a curious look. He shrugged. “She had a movie party last night. She won’t be up for another few hours.”

“Is she actually nocturnal or just trying to train herself to act that way?” asked Becks. Glancing to me, she added, “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this.”

“What, with telling Maggie?”

“With not telling everyone else.”

“How many people work for this site?”

Becks paused. “Uh… I’m not sure.”

“That’s why we have to do things this way, because right off the top of my head, neither am I.” I gestured at the server bank. “Like Dave says, this isn’t just me and a team that fits in a van anymore; this is a business. You know why corporate espionage keeps happening, no matter how bad they make the penalties for getting caught?”

“Greed?” ventured Alaric.

“Poor judgment brought on by possession of insufficient data?” said Kelly.

“People stop caring,” said Dave.

I pointed at him. “Give that man a prize. People stop caring. Once you reach the point where you’re working with more people than can comfortably go for drinks together, folks stop giving as much of a shit. Politics creep in. Do I trust everyone who works for us with the day-to-day? Yeah. I’d trust every Irwin we have at my back in a firefight, and every Newsie we’ve got to tell the truth according to their registered biases. But we go dangling a giant cherry of a story like ‘The CDC has illegal clones, and their dead researcher isn’t really dead, oh, and maybe there’s a conspiracy blocking certain research paths,’ somebody’s going to leak it. They’ll do it for profit, they’ll do it because it gives them the leverage to get a better job with another site, or they’ll do it because it’s just too damn good not to share. Every person we bring in on this is another chance that this gets out before we’re ready, and we’re all fucked.”

“Some of us more than others,” muttered Kelly, sotto voce.

“You trusted us with Tate,” said Becks.

“We didn’t have a choice with Tate, and we didn’t understand the stakes the way we do now,” I said. “We tell Mahir, we tell Maggie, and we stop there until we know what’s going on. Anyone really feel like arguing?”

No one did.

“Good,” I said, after taking another look around the room. “Doc? From what you’re saying, the CDC’s out of the picture. I’m assuming that means WHO is also compromised.”

She nodded marginally. “WHO and USAMRIID. There’s no way we can go to them without the CDC finding out what we’re doing. But…” She hesitated.

“But what?” asked Becks. “I’m sorry, Doc, you can’t just show up here with your corpses and your conspiracy and your craziness and not give us at least a place to start.”

Kelly wiped her eyes, managing to do it without smearing her mascara, and said, “I mentioned that the funding wasn’t really there for researching the reservoir conditions. My team had the director’s blessing, and we were still working on a shoestring budget. Our interns kept getting reassigned, our lab spaces… anyway. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that almost all the specialists have gone into the private sector to pursue their own research. I have a list.”

“Thank you, God,” said Dave, rolling his eyes theatrically toward the ceiling.

“Dave, cut it out.” I focused on Kelly. She was holding it together better than I would have expected. Pure researchers don’t usually do well when suddenly hurled out of their labs and into the real world. “Is that everything, Doc?”

Kelly took a deep breath, and said, “No one outside the CDC knew what my team was researching.”

Dead silence engulfed the room as Dave and Alaric stopped typing and Becks and I just stared. There was a moment where I wasn’t sure I’d be able to control my temper—a moment where her statement was one thing too many in the “Why didn’t you say that first?” column. Was it her fault? No. But it was suddenly our problem.

Calm down, cautioned George. We need to keep her talking.

“Says you,” I snapped. Kelly blinked, looking to Becks, who shook her head. My team’s had time to learn the difference between me talking to them and me talking to George. Thankfully.

It’s not her fault.

“I know.” I whirled around and punched the wall. Kelly jumped, making a small squeaking noise. That was satisfying, even as it made me feel worse about the whole situation. Like she wasn’t scared enough already? “Sorry, Doc. I’m just… I’m sorry. I was a little surprised, is all.”

“It’s okay,” she said. It wasn’t—not according to the look in her eyes—but it was going to have to do.

I shook my hand to ease the ache as I counted to ten, considering the implications of Kelly’s words. We’d always known somebody inside the CDC was involved with Governor Tate’s doomed attempt to claim the presidency through the use of weaponized Kellis-Amberlee; Kelly’s information just confirmed it. What we’d never had was the proof necessary to make a concerted inquiry into one of the most powerful organizations in the world. “Get me facts and I’ll convince the president,” that’s what Rick had said. But the facts had been awfully slow in coming.

As for me… I’d been ready to take the CDC on single-handedly, if that was what it took. Mahir and Alaric talked some sense into me. Getting myself killed wouldn’t bring George back. If we wanted the pple responsible for her death punished, we needed to be slow, we needed to be careful, and we needed to nail them to the wall. Kelly’s information didn’t change any of that, and at the same time, it changed everything, because it meant the conspiracy was still alive and well. If someone inside the CDC decided that the study needed to stop, then someone inside the CDC was involved in whatever was raising the death rates among individuals with reservoir conditions.

Somebody knew. Somebody knew George was in danger—before the campaign, her condition pre-existed the campaign by years—and they didn’t do a thing. Somebody knew—

Shaun!

Her tone was sharper this time, cutting cleanly through my anger. I took another deep breath, counting to ten before I straightened, tucking my bruised hand behind my back. “Doc, give Dave the list.” I paused. “Please.”

“Sure.” Kelly produced a flash drive from her briefcase and leaned over the back of the couch to pass it to Dave. He took it without a murmur of thanks, slamming it straight into a USB port and beginning to type.

“Thanks. Now take off all your clothes.”

“What?” demanded Kelly, eyes going wide. “Shaun, are you feeling all right?”

“I’m fine. I just need you to strip.”

“I’m not going to take off my clothes!”

“Actually, princess, you are,” said Becks, standing and moving to stand beside me. “We need to check you for bugs. Don’t worry. You don’t have anything we haven’t seen before.”

Being asked by another woman seemed to do the trick, even if it was overly generous to call what Becks was doing “asking.” Kelly sighed deeply and began removing her clothing, holding each piece up to show us before dropping it to the floor. Finally, when she was standing stark naked in the middle of the living room, she spread her arms and asked, “Happy?”

“Ecstatic.” I glanced to Becks. “Take her clothes with you.” Becks nodded, and grabbed a laundry bag before beginning to gather Kelly’s things.

“Wait, what?” Kelly dropped her arms. “Where is she taking my clothes?”

“Don’t worry, you’re going with them. Becks, get the countersurveillance kit from the closet and take her to the bedroom. I want everything she has swept for trackers, bugs, anything that might transmit. Don’t bring her back until you’re sure she’s clean.” I gave Kelly a reassuring look. “It’s not personal, Doc. We just need to know.”

Kelly surprised me: She didn’t argue. She just sighed, looking resigned, and said, “I understand decontamination procedures,” before picking up her briefcase and turning to Becks. “Where do we go?”

“This way.” Becks slung the laundry sack over her shoulder and led Kelly from the room. The door closed behind them with a snap as Becks engaged the interior locks. They’d be a while.

Alaric and Dave were watching me warily when I turned to face them. I smiled faintly. “It’s a fun day, isn’t it? Alaric, turn on the wireless speaker. I want the two of you to hear this.”

“Hear what?” he asked, beginning to type again.

“I’m going to play the concerned citizen and call the Memphis CDC. I want to extend my heartfelt condolences to my good friend Joseph Wynne,” I said blandly, pulling out my phone. “Dave, start the server recording.”

“It’s on,” he said.

“Good.” With all the necessary steps taken, I flipped my phone open. Most guys my age have girlfriends and drinking buddies on their speed dial. Me, I have the Memphis CDC. Sometimes I really think I never had a chance in hell of having a normal life.

“Dr. Joseph Wynne’s office, how may I direct your call?” The receptionist’s voice was bright, perky, and generic. I might have spoken to him before; I might not have. Office staff at the CDC seemed trained to behave as interchangeably as possible.

“Is Dr. Wynne available?”

“Dr. Wynne has asked not to be disturbed today.”

“And why is that?”

“There has been a recent personnel change, and he is attempting to redistribute tasks in his department,” said the receptionist pertly.

That was the coldest way I’d ever heard to describe somebody’s death. Rolling my eyes, I said, “Tell him it’s Shaun Mason calling with condolences for his recent loss.”

“One moment please.” There was a click and the speaker was suddenly playing the elevator music version of some bloodless pre-Rising pop hit. Removing the lyrics and most of the subliminal bass actually improved the song.

Dave and Alaric got up and came to stand beside me, as much for the psychological benefit as to hear what was going on; the speaker was broadcasting every tortured, tuneless note to the entire room, and it kept broadcasting as the music clicked off, replaced by the tired, Southern-accented voice of Dr. Joseph Wynne: “Shaun. I wondered when you’d be calling.”

“I just finished processing the news, sir. How are you holding up?”

“Oh, as well as can be expected, I suppose,” he said. Someone who thought Kelly was dead might have taken the strain in his voice for grief. Since Kelly was in the next apartment showing Becks parts of her anatomy that only her gynecologist would normally see, I recognized his hesitance for what it was: fear.

I was talking to a man who was scared out of his mind.

“What happened?” I asked.

“We don’t rightly know yet, although I wish we did. There’s a group of folks here from the Atlanta office going over our security tapes and checking all the facilities. There’s no way anyone should have been able to ghis far into the building, but they managed it somehow.”

“I’m so sorry, sir,” I said, exchanging a nod with Dave. It was good tactical thinking. Set up a convoluted enough break-in and distract the security teams with picking it apart, rather than looking too closely at “Kelly” while she was still in the morgue. The body would be cremated almost immediately—hell, it might have been cremated already, depending on her family’s wishes—and any chance of them identifying it as a clone would be lost. Sure, Dr. Wynne would be fucked beyond belief if the break-in was revealed as a fake, but Kelly would be in the clear.

“I’m still a bit in shock,” he said. “I’m sorry to say it, Shaun, because I know the wounds are still raw for you, but it’s like Georgia all over again.”

Shit, hissed George.

“George?” I said, automatically.

Luckily for me, Dr. Wynne was one of the few people I knew who hadn’t received the “Shaun has lost his marbles” memo. Him and my parents. “The way we lost her was just so damn sudden,” he said, continuing our conversation without missing a beat.

He’s saying it was an emergency evacuation, you idiot, said George. She may not know it, but he got her out to save her life. God, I wish there was a way you could ask if he was sure she wasn’t bugged.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “It really was. Was there any way anyone could have predicted this was coming?”

“I don’t think so,” said Dr. Wynne, quickly. Not quickly enough. I could hear the hesitation in his voice, that split second of uncertainty that told me everything I’d been hoping I didn’t really need to know. Did he think he’d managed to get Kelly out clean? Yeah, because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have risked sending her to us. But was he absolutely one hundred percent sure that he’d succeeded?

No, he wasn’t.

“Let us know if there’s anything we can do over here, but you may have to wait a little while for a response,” I said. “The team and I are going on location for a little while. I’m not sure when we’ll be back.”

“Really?” There was deep reluctance in his voice as he asked the natural next question: “Where are y’all heading?”

The reluctance was the last piece of evidence I needed to support the idea that Kelly might not have gotten out as cleanly as she thought she had. Dr. Wynne didn’t want to ask in case I was serious about the trip; he didn’t want me to tell him the truth about where we were going. “Santa Cruz,” I lied. “Alaric’s testing for his field license soon, and we want to get some footage of him on his provisional to build into a supporting report. We’re trying to up his merchandise sales among the female demographic, and our focus groups agree that the best way to do that involves getting him shirtless in a pastoral setting. Danger is just a bonus.” Alaric shot me a confused look. I waved him down.

“You kids,” said Dr. Wynne, with a forced chuckle. “Y’all be careful out there, all right?”

“As careful as you can be when you’re looking for the living dead,” I said. “Take care of yourself, Dr. Wynne.”

“You, too, Shaun,” he said, and disconnected the call.

I took a second to just stand there with my phone in my hand, closing my eyes and listening to George swearing in the back of my head. “Here we go again,” I said, voice barely above a whisper.

“What?” asked Dave.

“Nothing.” I opened my eyes, slamming the phone into my pocket before stalking back into the kitchen for a fresh Coke. I popped the tab and downed half the can in one large, carbonated gulp. The frozen sweetness made my molars ache and snapped the world back into a semblance of focus. “I need you to tear down your workstations, and then get started on everybody else’s,” I said, returning to the living room. “Dave, where are you with that list?”

“It’s encoded. I need—”

“Forget what you need. Upload it to the main server and the mirrors; pack the physical drive.”

“Boss?” asked Alaric, uncertainly.

“Gear up like you’re never going to see this place again. Alaric, as soon as Becks confirms that there’s nothing standard on the Doc, I need you to take over. Do a second scan of everything she brought with her. You find anything that looks like it might be related to something that might be a bug, kill it.” I raised a hand before he could protest. “Don’t study it, don’t dissect it, don’t try to subvert it, kill it. We don’t have time to risk the sort of heat that might be coming after her.”

“But—”

I turned away from him to open the closet door. The shelf on the right was crammed with ammo boxes. I started grabbing them three at a time. “He said it was like George, Alaric. Not like Buffy, who was actually unexpected; not like Rebecca Ryman, or any of the other people he and I wound up having in common.”

“So what?”

Go easy on him, said George. He wasn’t there. He doesn’t really understand.

“I know,” I muttered darkly. More loudly, I said, “So there were people at the CDC who were involved with what happened to her, and we never caught them. George had a reservoir condition. I thought you were the Newsie here. Do I have to draw you a picture?”

My favorite hunting rifle was leaning against the closet wall. I grabbed it, relaxing slightly as its satisfying weight fell into my hand. Letting it rest against my shoulder, I went back to grabbing ammo.

“Fuck,” muttered Dave.

“My thoughts exactly,” I said. “Go tell Becks she needs to hurry it up; we’re getting out of here. Any bugs she can’t find without a subdermal sweeper, she’s not going to find with an extra ten minutes.”

“On it,” said Dave, and trotted out of the room.

We got to work, Alaric dismantling the equipment that wasn’t needed for final uploads, while I emptied and packed down the contents of the closet. Dave came back and started helping Alaric break things down. I was filling a backpack with protein bars and spare laptop batteries when the bedroom door opened and Becks emerged, followed by a rumpled-looking Kelly.

“She’s clean,” Becks announced, tossing Kelly’s briefcase to Alaric. He caught it and turned back to what remained of his workstation, reaching for a scanner.

“Good. We roll in twenty. Grab whatever you think you’re going to need, and pack like we’re not coming back.”

“Where are we going?” asked Becks.

“Maggie’s,” I replied. She nodded, looking relieved. Even Dave and Alaric relaxed a little. If we were heading for Maggie’s, they knew that we were at least going to wind up someplace safe.

Maggie lives in the middle of nowhere and has the best security money can buy. Literally. Some of the systems on her house are military grade or better, and her parents make sure she gets the latest upgrades. Hell, sometimes I think the latest upgrades are designed specifically for her and then just shared with everybody else. She started out as one of Buffy’s friends—and Buffy had interesting friends.

The apartment buzzed with renewed activity as Dave and Alaric redoubled their work. Becks started picking up stray ammo boxes. Only Kelly stayed where she was, looking utterly confused. “I don’t understand,” she said.

“We’re leaving,” I informed her. “Which sort of brings up the next question on the table: Do you have a cover story that lets us take you with us, or are we going to be smuggling you out and then shipping you off to one of the Amish compounds to live a camera-free existence?”

“They always need trained medical personnel who don’t have a major addiction to electricity and running water,” said Becks sunnily. Kelly shot her an alarmed look before turning to me. She seemed to view me as the stable one in the room. I might have found that comic under better circumstances.

“I have a cover story,” she said. “A whole ID, even. Dr. Wynne paid to have it built for me. The files are on that card I gave you.”

“Who did he pay?” asked Dave, sounding suddenly wary. Alaric didn’t say anything; he just stiffened as both of them turned toward Kelly. They looked like they were waiting for something to explode.

Their reaction wasn’t surprising or as over the top as it might look. Dave and Alaric wound up taking over the bulk of the computer maintenance after Buffy died, at least until we could hire some permanent IT staff. They never approached Buffy’s level of competence—she was some kind of crazy computer virtuoso, and those don’t come around very often—but they’d learned a lot, and they hadn’t exactly started out as idiots. If anyone knew how easy it was to crack a cheap cover story, it was them.

“I don’t know who did the programming,” said Kelly, with increasing annoyance. “Dr. Wynne mentioned ‘the Brainpan’ once, but that was all. Everything was done through electronic transfer and encrypted messages. I never saw a face.”

Dave and Alaric exchanged glances, saying, almost in unison, “The Monkey.”

“It’s creepy when you two do that, so stop.” I raised a hand. “Somebody want to share the reason this makes us not panic?”

“The Monkey is possibly the single best identity counterfeiter in the country.” Dave shook his head. “If you want an ID that can stand up to anything, you find a guy who knows a guy who might be able to put you in touch with one of the Monkey’s girlfriends, provided you’re willing to pay a deposit on faith.”

“How much ‘anything’ are we talking here?” I asked.

“Scuttlebutt says one of the news anchors at NBC has three felony convictions and an ID by the Monkey,” said Alaric.

“First, never say ‘scuttlebutt’ again,” I said. “Second, good to know. All right, Kelly, you’ve got an ID. So who, exactly, are you supposed to be?”

“Mary Preston,” she promptly replied. “Dr. Wynne’s niece.”

“Right. Alaric, can you—”

“Already on it,” said Alaric, turning to one of the computer terminals that had yet to be torn down.

“Good. So ‘Mary,’ does this mean you have a paper trail?” I turned back to Kelly, who was starting to nod. “How much of a paper trail?”

“Mary’s a real person, and she’s really Dr. Wynne’s niece,” said Kelly. “Born in Oregon, joined Greenpeace straight out of high school, and got her conservationist’s pass to move across the Canadian border five years ago. Last Dr. Wynne heard, she was working on one of the dog preservation farms and had no intention of ever coming back to the States.”

“So she’s disreputable enough to get along with journalists, and unlikely to come demanding her identity back when you’re still using it.” I looked over at Alaric. “Well?”

“Damn. I mean, just… damn.” He was staring at his screen in open admiration. The rest of us took that as an invitation and put down whatever we were holding as we clustered around to peer over his shoulders, leaving Kelly by herself. Alaric shook his head. “I’ve never had a confirmed piece of the Monkey’s work to look at. This is… it’s not just amazing; it’s elegant.”

I frowned. “What are we looking at?”

The entire screen was filled with pictures of Kelly. Kelly in elementary school. Kelly at what looked like her senior prom. Kelly holding up one end of a banner that read STOP SHARK FISHING in big yellow hand-painted letters. Pretty standard snapshots, the kind you’d find on anybody’s personal site or bias page.

Look again, prompted George, sounding exasperated.

I looked again, and actually saw what I was looking at. “Holy… are all those pictures fakes?”

“Yes and no,” Alaric said, pulling up another set of pictures, including what looked like a still frame from an ATM’s security camera and a shot where she was clearly drunk and flipping off the camera. “They’re not really pictures of the Doc,” he nodded toward Kelly, “but they’re real pictures. The Monkey must’ve taken every picture of Mary on the entire Internet and somehow forced Kelly’s physical isometrics over them. Seamless transition. Add the paperwork I’m finding, and—”

“No one ever knows the difference,” Becks finished. “Slick.”

“I’m glad you all understand what the fuck that means, because I don’t,” I said sharply.

“Magic computer pictures make old Mary go bye-bye, put pretty new Mary instead. Now pretty new Mary not get shot by CDC for failure to be her own dead clone,” said Dave, in the lilting voice of a children’s teaching-blog host.

“Great. So you’ve got an ID that’s unbreakable as long as some chick in Canada doesn’t get homesick, a bunch of numbers I don’t understand, and a bunch of dead researchers. Oh, and folks like George are dying way too fast for anything short of a massive conspiracy. Okay, people, can anyone come up with a way to make this day any worse?”

That’s when everything started to happen at once.

The building’s siren began blaring almost at the instant that my phone started screaming with Mahir’s emergency ringtone. I smacked it without taking it out of my pocket, triggering my headset to pick it up. “We’re having a situation here, Mahir,” I snapped. I could see Dave and Alaric out of the corner of my eye, rushing through the effort of tearing down our gear. “Sirens just started going off. We don’t know why yet.”

“Yes, well, I bloody well do!” he shouted. “Your building’s surrounded, you’ve got no evac routes, and the civic authorities are declaring a state of general emergency through the surrounding cities! I don’t know how you’re supposed to do it, but you need to get the hell out of there, and you need to do it now!”

“Wait—Mahir, what the fuck are you talking about?” Becks started to say something. I held up a hand for quiet. It was already hard enough to hear Mahir over the siren.

“Good God, man, you mean you didn’t know?” Mahir managed to sound horrified and unsurprised at the same time. It was a nifty trick, but I didn’t have long to appreciate it; his next words took all the appreciation out of the world:

“There’s an outbreak in Oakland, Shaun. And you’re right in the fucking middle of it.”