“Just playing devil’s advocate,” said Barry, “but we’re usually fighting with the Seventeens over food and resources. From what I’ve heard so far, it sounds like these smart ones don’t go chasing after people. I mean, none of them actually need to eat to survive, right?”
Josh nodded. “Eating seems to slow down decomposition somehow, on a minimal level, but it doesn’t sustain them. We think it’s just some sort of basic, primal urge from the reptilian part of the brain, one of the only things that still works.”
“Good thing that’s the only primal urge they act on,” murmured Barry. It got a few chuckles.
“So this could be a good thing,” tossed out St. George. “A new breed of exes that don’t need to kill people.”
“They might still do it for fun,” said Gorgon.
“Of course, if they do decide to go after people, we’re their main resource,” said Danielle. “The Mount’s just become a big grocery store.”
“Open twenty-four hours,” said Barry. “Thank you for shopping,”
“So what is causing it?” Stealth glanced at Josh. “Some mutation in the virus?”
He shook his head. “The ex-virus doesn’t mutate. We’ve grown thousands of cultures. No variation at all. If I had to guess, I’d say these smart exes have some quirk in their own cells that’s making the virus react differently to them.”
“So this is something new.”
“You know what I’m wondering?” said Barry. “Why are the only ones we’ve seen Seventeens?”
St. George shrugged. “If you woke up as a smart ex, would you come running up to the Melrose Gate? There may be hundreds of them who are hiding from us.”
“Doubtful,” said Josh. “If it’s a cellular mutation in the victim it has to be extremely rare. Last numbers I heard said there were over three hundred million exes in North America alone and there’s never been a report of anything like this before.”
“Out of three hundred million,” argued Gorgon, “a few hundred is still pretty rare.”
“Maybe the people are all just starting to mutate now,” said Barry. “It could be some sort of evolutionary response to the virus, a survival of the fittest thing.”
Stealth shook her head.
“Maybe the virus just started to mutate now,” added Gorgon. “There could be some new influence we don’t know about.”
Josh glared at him. “The virus doesn’t mutate!”
“How can you be so sure?”
“How? Have you forgotten who I am?” He pulled his withered hand out from his pocket and thrust it at the goggled man. The parchment fingers trembled in the air. “I’ve been living with this damned thing hanging over my head for two years now. It doesn’t change or I’d know!”
“Oh, that’s right,” said Gorgon. “I forgot, you’re the fucking expert when it comes to dealing with the ex-virus.”
“Shut the hell up.”
“That’s how Kathy died, wasn’t it? Because of your expertise?”
“Yeah, you know what?” Josh straightened up and reminded them all how big he was. “Your teenage girlfriend’s dead.”
“Fuck you!”
“She died and I couldn’t save her. She’s dead, so’s Meredith, so are millions of other people. Millions! You don’t have any sort of special pass on grief so just deal with it.”
Danielle didn’t lift her eyes from the map. “Like you have?”
He stabbed a finger at her. “You’re the last one to be pointing out damaged people.”
“Quiet!”
Stealth turned her head to each of them. “The next person who interrupts,” she said, “I will break their right ring finger. Is that clear?”
They looked at her with raised eyebrows and slack jaws. Then, one by one, they shifted their gazes to St. George.
The Mighty Dragon shook his head and crossed his arms.
“Whipped,” murmured Gorgon.
Josh and Danielle bit back their laughs. Barry tried and failed.
Stealth and St. George glared at him.
“May we continue?”
They nodded.
“We are all making wild guesses and assumptions. Without information there is nothing else we can do.” She gestured at the map. “Therefore, we need to go make an assessment. The Seventeen’s exact location, numbers, resources. If we can, determine how many of them have become exes. We know most of their activity has been centered here in Beverly Hills, between La Cienega and Century City. The last time Zzzap made a pass, three months ago, this seemed to be their base of operations.”
Barry nodded. “They’ve used cars and a lot of the old National Guard barricades to block off roads and make walls. Gregory, Maple, Pico, Century Park East. They’re all just one massive pile-up, three cars high at places. Decent amount of barbed wire and stakes, too. Pretty much impassable by anything that can’t think and climb.” His finger made a set of slashes across the map.
Gorgon shook his head. “That’s a hell of a lot of space. How many people are we talking about?”
Barry shifted on the table. The dark woman traced the outline he had described. “We are estimating about twenty-two thousand,” she said.
St. George’s palms hit the tabletop. “What!?”