Deadline (16 page)

The thought barely had time to form before George interrupted it, saying,
You’re one to talk.

I didn’t mind. At least she was talking to me. And she sounded amused, which is always nice. It’s good to know that I can still make my sister smile. “Hush, you,” I said.

Kelly gave me a startled look. “I didn’t say anything,” she protested.

“It was George,” I said, with a quick shake of my head.

“You know,” said Kelly carefully, “if it’s anxiety that leads you to continue conversing with her, there are medications that will—”

“New topic time,” I said pleasantly. “Continuing this topic is going to lead to somebody getting punched in the face. It could be you.”

“Shaun has no compunctions about hitting girls,” said Becks.

“You try growing up with George, see how many compunctions about hitting girls you come out with.” I led our motley little parade into Maggie’s kitchen. It was decorated like the rest of the house, in middle-class pre-Rising shabby. Maggie hadn’t been kidding about the meatloaf. It was sitting on the kitchen table, alongside a platter of sliced vegetables, a big bowl of mashed potatoes, and half a sponge cake.

“I’ll get the plates,” said Becks.

When Maggie and Alaric finally came in fifteen minutes later, they found the three of us seated around the kitchen table, stuffing our faces. Becks and I were stuffing our faces, anyway. Kelly was watching us with a sort of horrified bemusement, like she couldn’t believe her life had gone so terribly wrong in just one day. She’d catch on. If she lived long enough.

Maggie and Alaric had clearly both been crying, although it showed more on her than it did on him; her
eyes were puffy and her cheeks were even redder, whereas Alaric looked about as normal as he ever did. He tried to explain his consistently camera-ready appearance to me once, but I didn’t listen. Largely because I didn’t care.

“Alaric tells me you’re the dead girl from the CDC,” said Maggie, arrowing in on Kelly with the laser-point accuracy that has made her editing skills feared throughout the Fictional world. “Nice trick. Explain it.”

“Hello to you, too, Maggie,” I said brightly, reaching for the mashed potatoes. “Do you need antroduction to our guest, or do you prefer the tornado approach? Just so it’s said, she’s had a pretty shitty week, and I wouldn’t blame her if she freaked out on you. I mean, it’s been a shitty day for all of us, so I’d really appreciate it if you could take it easy on the Doc.”

Maggie stiffened. I looked at her calmly, waiting to see which way the dam was going to break: raging flood or anguished trickle.

Finally, her shoulders dropped, and she said, “Mahir kept Dave’s last post from going live, but he sent me a copy and said he thought you might be coming here. That’s why I sent everybody home.”

“That was a good idea,” I said, neutrally.

“I didn’t get to say good-bye, Shaun.” Maggie shook her head. “I should’ve been able to say good-bye. I should’ve been able to tell him… I should’ve been there.”

That was the sort of grief I can handle. Sadly enough, it’s the kind I’ve been on the inside of, because even saying good-bye isn’t enough. There’s always one more thing you should have had the time to say, or do, or ask. There’s always going to be that one missing piece.

I put my fork down and stood, shifting dogs out of
the way with the side of my foot as I walked over to Maggie. She looked at me. I nodded, once, and put my arms around her, feeling the tension in her shoulders. “I won’t tell you it’s going to be all right, because it’s not going to be all right,” I said. “I won’t tell you I understand what you’re going through, because nobody who isn’t inside your head can understand, and I won’t say that we’re here to help. We’re not. We’re here to save our asses, and we’re here to find out what the fuck is going on. But I’ll say this: Dave made his decision, and they’re going to put him up on the Wall with all the other heroes. He’s going to be there forever because of what he decided was the right thing to do. I guess I can’t be too angry at him for that. George wouldn’t have hired him if she didn’t think he knew how to make the hard calls, and I wouldn’t have kept him if she wasn’t right.”

“I think I loved him,” said Maggie, her voice soft and almost muffled by her face pushing up against the side of my shirt.

I sighed deeply, looking over her head toward the others. Becks and Alaric had barely had time to get over being the walking wounded after losing Buffy and George. I’d barely had time to learn how to look like I was coping. And now it was all starting up again. The conspiracy theories, the confusing evidence, the deaths, the whole fucking mess.

The worst part was that deep down in my heart, in the part of me that no one got to see but George, I was glad. Because if all the old shit was starting up again, that meant that we were moving again. Moving toward an answer to the question that kept me from sleeping at night, and probably kept me from killing myself:

Who really killed my sister?

Kelly met my eyes and looked away, expression guilt-stricken. I’d have to talk to her about that. This wasn’t her fault, any more than it was mine, or Alaric’s, or Maggie’s. She was a victim, just like the rest of us. None of us did anything wrong. But that could be dealt with tomorrow, when we’d had time to sleep, reassure Mahir that we were still alive, and really look at Kelly’s data.

“I think we all loved him at least a little,” I said, with complete honesty, and I stood in that homey-smelling kitchen surrounded by the remains of my team, and I held her while she cried.

S
haun?”

I raised a hand to rub my temple as I raised my head, trying to ward off the headache I could feel brewing there. I’d turned off most of the lights when the rest of the house went to bed, but I hadn’t stopped reading. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. “In here, Maggie.” I was sitting on the living room floor, back against the couch. I’d been sitting long enough that I wasn’t sure I could still stand.

Maggie made her way down the darkened hall to the doorway without tripping over anything. I had to admire how well she knew where everything was. I couldn’t have navigated that hall without causing my shins some serious damage. “How’s Mahir?”

“Relieved that we’re not dead. Broadcasting some old camping footage George and I took the last time we went to Santa Cruz. As long as he strips the dates, he should be able to make it look like we were all off having a grand time with the infected when they firebombed our building.”

Maggie swallowed. “And Dave?”

“Stayed behind to take care of the servers. We figure the cleanup on Oakland should be done by morning. They’ll contact his family, and we’ll announce it after they contact us.” It was heartless. It was unforgivable. It was the only choice we had. “I figure we can fake being out in the field for three or four days before we need to find somewhere else to be.”

“Don’t be an idiot.” The edge on her voice was surprising. I blinked. Drawing her tattered terrycloth bathrobe around her shoulders like it was a form of armor, Maggie scowled at me. “You’ll stay right here. My security systems can bounce your signal anywhere we want it to be.”

“Maggie—”

“Don’t you dare tell me it isn’t safe, Shaun Mason. Don’t you
dare
.” She stalked to the nearest overstuffed armchair and sat, curling her legs under herself and eyeing me like an aggravated cat. “I’ve never been safe in my life. I’m not planning to start now.”

“You can’t tell me that,” I protested. “I’ve seen your security system.”

Maggie’s laugh was rich, bright, and surprising. “I’m going to inherit enough money to buy a small country someday. My parents don’t have anyone else to leave it to. There’s a reason I live in the middle of nowhere and surround myself with reporters. Do you have any idea how good the security on this place
really
is? If I scream, someone comes. They can’t fake an outbreak on us here that won’t be immediately obvious as a setup. So unless the dead decide to rise en masse again—”

“Which is thankfully not very likely.”

“Exactly. You won’t be safe when you leave here.”

I looked at her measuringly. “Nice cage you’ve got here.”

“Thanks.” She smiled thinly. “The food’s pretty good, but, man, does the company suck.”

“We do our best.” I sighed. “I’m really sorry about all this.”

“Don’t be. Just get some sleep.” Maggie pulled her almost waist-length braid over one shoulder, picking aimlessly at the trailing end. “You’ve had a long day.”

“Yeah, well. Objects in the rearview mirror don’t get smaller just because they’re getting farther away.” I held up one of the folders from Kelly’s briefcase. “I’m trying to make sense out of all this crap while nothing’s catching on fire. I figure that won’t last for long.”

“It never does,” Maggie agreed. “How bad is it?”

“On a scale of one to oh fuck, we’re all gonna die?” I flipped the folder open and read, “ ‘Considering the risk of mutation, the concept of the reservoir conditions as the next stage in Kellis-Amberlee’s evolution cannot be ignored. We would be severely remiss to ignore the opportunities, and dangers, that such an evolution may present.’ ” I closed the folder, but didn’t look up. “What the fuck does it even mean? Somebody’s killing the folks with reservoir conditions. The numbers aren’t lying, even if everybody else is. But what does it
mean
?”

“It means we have a job to do, I guess.”

“Yes.” I glanced toward the hall. “Everybody else asleep?”

“Yes, they are. I think a few of them may have helped themselves get that way with chemical aid, but whatever works.”

“Good.”

Maggie had prepared the guest rooms while we were still on the road, swallowing her grief long enough to break out fresh bedding and clean towels. I’m pretty
sure the process was a sort of good luck charm for her; if she got the rooms ready, we’d show up alive. As it was, when bedtime came, she apologized for having only three guest rooms, since the other two spare rooms had been converted, respectively, into a home theater and a study. Like there’s anything “only” about a house with six bedrooms. George and I grew up in a house with three, and ours were connected enough to practically count as a single room. Three guest rooms meant one each for Alaric, Becks, and the Doc. I’ve slept on couches before. It doesn’t bother me.

Besides, I wanted to stare at those numbers until they started making sense. After almost two hours, I wasn’t getting any closer. I sighed. “I’m missing something. I know I’m missing something.”

Don’t be so hard on yourself,
said George.
You’re tired.

“That’s easy for you to say,” I snapped, before I could stop myself. Then I froze, casting a careful glance toward Maggie. I was expecting… I don’t know what I was expecting. I get a lot of reactions to the fact that I still talk to my sister. Most of them aren’t good ones.

Maggie’s fell somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. She was looking at me thoughtfully, head tilted slightly to one side. “She really talks to you, doesn’t she?” she asked. “It’s not just you talking to her. She talks
back
.”