Deadline (38 page)

F
ive days ticked by with li
ttle fanfare. Becks and I went shooting in the woods outside of town, clearing out a mixed mob of zombie humans and cows. Once the disease takes over, species isn’t an issue anymore. Maggie spent a lot of time writing poetry, weeding her garden, and avoiding Kelly, who took over the dining room table with Dr. Abbey’s research and kept muttering things none of the rest of us could understand. Alaric hung out with her, listening, taking notes, and nodding a lot. It was almost unnerving, in a geeky sort of way.

Those five days may have been the last good time for us. Maybe the universe had been listening when I made my wish out in the garden; I don’t know. I just know that I asked for time to rest, and somehow, miraculously, I actually got it. Nothing exploded. There were no outbreaks and no emergencies, nothing to pull us away from the difficult task of turning ourselves back into a team. The hours turned into days, and the days blended together, distinguished from each other only by the activity in the forums and the reports we were posting.

Kelly continued her series of guest articles under the Barbara Tinney byline. It wasn’t exactly a runaway hit, but it was popular—surprisingly so. I always forget how much people like getting excuses for their crazy. The profits Kelly’s column brought in went directly to Maggie, where they could help pay for our room and board. She snorted and waved it off like it was no big thing. She also took the money. It made me feel a little bit less guilty about the way we were intruding.

Becks moved into the study, saying that the air mattress was better for her back than the couch was for mine. That meant I could move to the guest room, which was a relief, since I wasn’t really sleeping in the living room. And I needed my sleep. I went to bed every night with my head stuffed full of science, and woke up every morning ready to cram in some more. I needed to understand the research Dr. Abbey had given us. More important, I needed to understand the research Mahir was hopefully sweet-talking some British professor into doing. If I was going to march everyone off to get themselves killed on my behalf, I was by God going to be certain I knew what they were dying for. It was the only promise I could make that I felt reasonably sure of being able to keep.

When I wasn’t studying, I was making calls. My little team of reporters might not have much in the way of manpower, but we had connections, and it was time to exploit them. Rick’s ascent from Newsie to vice president of the United States isn’t a normal career path for either a journalist or a politician, but hey, it’s worked out pretty well for him. I started calling his office, once a day at first, then twice a day, until it became clear that he wasn’t going to call me back. That wasn’t like him. Not even a little bit. And that worried me.

The days rolled on. Alaric started a series on the rise of digital profiling and its applications in the medical field. Becks took a trip up into Washington, looking for zombies she could harass on camera; she came back with powder burns, bruises, and twice as many articles about her adventures. Reading the first one made my throat get tight with half a dozen emotions it was hard to put into words. That used to be me running into the woods to play tag with zombie deer and gathering “no shit, there I was” stories from truckers who remembered the roads during the Rising. That used to be all I wanted in the world. Everything changed when George died. Sometimes I read the articles that Becks posts and I wonder whether the man I used to be would even recognize the one I’m becoming. I don’t think he’d like the new me very much.

I know I don’t.

I told Mahir and Maggie about the silence from Rick’s office, and they agreed that it was best if we kept it between us, at least for now. Everyone was freaked out enough without adding that little wrinkle to the mix. Maggie’s Fictionals didn’t help; at some point, she’d given at least half of them the all-clear. They went back to dropping in without warning, appearing on the doorstep and in the kitchen like they’d been there all along. Most of them brought pizza, or cookies, or samosas. I’d never met two-thirds of them before, even though they were all technically part of the site staff. They walked on eggshells around everyone but Maggie, and we started using their visits as excuses for equipment repair and trips into Weed for more groceries. Once their grindhouse parties got started, they could go for hours, watching crappy pre-Rising horror movies and eating gallons of popcorn. I didn’t realize
how antisocial I was becoming until the Fictionals started to descend, and all I could think of was how quickly I could get away.

The bug at the Portland CDC yielded nothing useful; either they’d managed to find and destroy it, or it hadn’t survived the decontamination process. One more possible information source down the drain. The worms Alaric activated back in Oakland were doing a little bit better. They kept finding old research papers and short-lived projects buried in the bowels of one server or another. We added them to the data we already had, and kept on working.

Mahir had a few local scientists who were willing to at least discuss the situation with him; he didn’t tell us their names, and I didn’t press. There were some things I was better off not knowing until I had to. It seemed to be going well, at least in the beginning, but after the second day, he stopped calling or e-mailing. His reports still went up on time, and he still did his time on the forums—from the outside, everything looked fine—but he wasn’t keeping up normal contact.

Don’t push him,
said George. I listened, more out of habit than because I agreed with her. She was usually right about when I needed to wait and when it was okay to barrel on ahead. I just wasn’t sure how much longer my patience could last.

The waiting ended a little over two weeks after the destruction of Oakland and our arrival at Maggie’s. The house phone rang, ignored by the humans currently present—myself, Maggie, and the Doc, who was struggling to write an article about the pros and cons of exposing children to the outside world. She was having a lot more trouble meeting her deadlines now that she didn’t have Mahir to help.

The answering machine picked up after the second ring. There were a few minutes of silence, followed by the voice of the house computer saying politely, “Excuse me, Shaun. Do you have a moment?”

I hate machines that sound like people.

“sh,” I muttered. The house computer had learned not to pay attention when I spoke that quietly—I guess even machines have a learning curve for crazy—and continued to wait for my reply until I said, “Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

“There is a call for you.”

“I guessed that part. Who is it?”

“The caller has declined to identify himself. By his accent, there is an eighty-seven percent chance that he is of British nationality, although I am unable to determine his region of origin with any accuracy. The call has been placed from a local number. The exact number is blocked. Would you like me to request additional information?”

I stood so fast that I knocked my Coke over. Soda cascaded across the table and onto the carpet. I ignored it, lunging for the phone next to the kitchen door. Maggie was right behind me, demanding, “House, is the line secure?”

“This end of the line is secured according to protocol four, which should be sufficient to block anything but a physical wiretap. I am unable to determine the security standards of the other end of the line. Do you wish to proceed?” The voice of the house was infinitely patient, mechanical calm unbroken by the fact that Maggie and I looked like we were on the verge of hysterics.

“Yes, dammit,” I said, and grabbed the receiver from the wall. Dead air greeted me. I gave the phone a panicked look. “Where is he?”

“House,
connect,
” ordered Maggie.

The phone clicked, and suddenly, wonderfully, Mahir’s voice was in my ear, muffled slightly, like he had his hand over the receiver. “—Promise you, sir, I’m phoning my ride now. I apologize for loitering within your isolation zone, but as my original flight was delayed, it was unfortunately unavoidable.” His tone was clipped, carefully polite, and shaded with a bone-deep weariness that made me tired just listening to it.

“Mahir!” I said, loudly enough that he would be able to hear me through his hand.

There was a scraping sound before he said, “About bloody time, Mason. Come get me.”

“Uh, sorry if I’m a little bit behind the program here, but come get you
where
?”

The house said the call was coming from a local number,
said George sharply.
He’s
here.
Mahir is in this area code.

“I’m at the Weed Airport.”

I froze, staring stupidly at the wall. Maggie nudged me with her elbow, and I said the first thing that popped into my head: “Weed has an airport?”

Maggie dropped her forehead theatrically into her hand. “The man’s been here for weeks and he hasn’t even checked the phone book…” she moaned.

“It had best, or I’m in the wrong place entirely.” Mahir sounded like he was too tired to be amused. “I’m inside twenty minutes of being toted off for loitering, which would be a bit of a problem for me, s will you
please
come pick me up?”

“I—” I shot a glance at Maggie, who was still covering her face with her hand. “We’ll be right there. Just stay where you are.”

“That’s not going to be a problem,” Mahir said.

There was a click, and the calm, pleasant voice of the
house said, “The other party has disconnected the call. Would you like me to attempt to restore the connection?”

“No, he hung up,” I said, and did the same. My fingertips were numb, probably from the shock. “Maggie, you know how to find the airport?”

“I can get us there.”

“Good. Doc! Get your shoes on. We’re taking a road trip.”

Kelly emerged from the dining room, hugging a notepad against her chest. “We are?” she asked, sounding bemused. “Where are we going?” After a pause, she added, “Why am
I
going?”

“We’re going to the airport to pick up a friend, and you’re coming because Maggie has to tell me how to get there.” By group consensus, Kelly was never left alone in the house for any reason, not even for a few minutes. The closest we’d come was leaving her in the custody of a few of Maggie’s Fictionals, and even then, it was never for more than an hour. We weren’t afraid she was going to run—not anymore—but there was always the chance the CDC would finally track her down when we weren’t there to protect her.

To her credit, Kelly had stopped arguing about our refusal to leave her by herself after the first week, and she wasn’t arguing now. She nodded, saying, “I’ll go get my coat,” before disappearing back into the dining room.

Maggie and I exchanged a glance. “I didn’t think he’d come
here,
” she said. “I’ve only met him the once, at… the last time he came to California.”

The event she wasn’t naming was Georgia’s funeral. I nodded, both in acknowledgment and as silent thanks for her not saying the word “funeral” out loud. “He’s a
good guy. If he’s here, he must have found something pretty big.”

“Or he’s running from something pretty big.”

“That’s also possible.” Mahir hadn’t said anything about his wife being with him, and somehow I couldn’t imagine that she’d approved this little jaunt without a good reason. “Let’s go find out, shall we?”

“I’m pretty sure we don’t have a choice,” Maggie said, and patted my arm lightly before heading for the door.

I paused long enough to grab my gun belt and laptop, and followed. “I guess this means the break is over,” I muttered.

I think you’re right.

Maggie and Kelly were waiting next to Maggie’s van when I made it outside, miniature bulldogs frolicking around their feet. Maggie smiled wryly. “They can’t imagine any reason for us toI’ll goutside that doesn’t involve playing with them.”

“I’ll throw tennis balls for an hour once we finish the debriefing,” I said, holding up my hand. “Keys?”

“You’re driving?” asked Maggie, as she lobbed them to me underhand.

“At least that way we’ll get there alive.”

Maggie’s laughter was echoed by George, the two of them setting up a weird reverb that no one but me could hear. George always
hated
letting me drive, said I was trying to send the both of us to an early grave every time I swung around a corner without slowing down. I do the driving for both of us these days, by necessity, and she mostly doesn’t give me shit about it, but still, the irony wasn’t escaping either one of us.

Even when she was alive, George would have admitted that I was a better driver than Maggie. I’ve never let the car spin out just to see what would happen, for
example, and I don’t view rainy days as an excuse to hydroplane. I may be crazy, but I think there’s a pretty good chance that Maggie’s suicidal.

Kelly crawled into the backseat. Maggie and I took the front, Maggie programming an address into the GPS as I started the van. I drove slowly down the length of the driveway, pausing only for the exit checkpoint—a small, almost cursory confirmation that we were aware of the dangers inherent in choosing to leave the property—before turning onto one of the winding two-lane roads that pass as major streets in a town the size of Weed. There weren’t many potholes. That was about as far as the civic planners went in terms of preparing the citizenry for an outbreak. In places like Oakland and Portland, there are standing defenses, blood test checkpoints, and lots of fences. In places like Weed, there are doors with locks, safety-glass windows, and room to breathe. I’d never spent much time in a stable rural area before; I always thought the people who chose to live that way were sort of insane. It was sort of surprising to realize that I liked it.