She didn’t answer me. She just raised one trembling finger and pointed to the driveway ahead of us. I turned to look where she was pointing, and stared.
Normally, the third gate on Maggie’s driveway is the first one that requires authorized visitors to interact with the security system. The normal system wasn’t in operation today. Instead, the gate stood open, and three men in full outbreak gear stood to block the road, assault rifles at the ready. Their faces were concealed by the biohazard masks they wore, filtering their air and blocking them from all fluid or particle attacks. That, more than anything else, told me this wasn’t a drill. Those masks are hell to wear. Nobody would do that without good reason.
One of the men beckoned for us to come closer. Becks crept forward until the same man waved for us to stop. He walked over to the van and tapped the muzzle of his rifle against the glass of my window. “Please lower the window, sir,” he said, in case his message hadn’t been clear enough.
Swallowing hard, I did as I was told. “Uh, hey,” I said. “You’re one of Maggie’s security ninjas, aren’t you? I was starting to think you were a myth.”
“Credentials.”
“Right.” I dug out my wallet and handed him my license card.
“All three of you.”
“Got it. Becks? Mahir? A little help here?”
“Here,” said Becks, shoving her card into my hand. Mahir followed suit.
I passed both cards to the security ninja. “So does this have anything to do with the total disappearance of the population of the American Midwest? Because we’re a little creeped out right now, and I’d really li to get to the bathroom.” I was babbling to cover my sudden conviction that something, somehow, had happened to Maggie and Alaric. We were driving into a murder investigation. We had to be. It was the only thing that made sense.
The security ninja didn’t answer me. He fed our cards into a handheld reader, one at a time, before handing them back to me and waving one of the other men forward. This man carried a stack of top-of-the-line blood testing units—the same model we used to confirm that George had been infected.
“Please distribute these to the rest of your party,” said the first man, as the second man carefully passed the test units through the window to me. He avoided touching my fingers, like I might be carrying a contagion that could somehow travel through his triple-lined Kevlar gloves and burrow into his skin. Not even Kellis-Amberlee can do that. The live virus has only ever traveled through direct fluid contact, thank God, or we’d all have been shambling our way around the world a long damn time ago.
I handed a test unit to Becks and held another out behind me, waiting until I felt Mahir take it out of my hand. I didn’t take my eyes off the man in the outbreak gear. This wasn’t outbreak protocol. They shouldn’t have been outside at all, and if they were, they should have started firing as soon as we came into range. “What’s going on?”
“Please open your test unit.”
There were three security ninjas I could see, which meant there were probably half a dozen more that I couldn’t. If they were all armed as heavily as the ones guarding the road, making trouble would be a good way to get dead without actually accomplishing anything. I frowned and popped the lid of the testing unit up, sliding my entire hand inside. The lid clamped down, holding my hand in position with the fingers spread for optimal sampling. Small snaps from beside and behind me told me that Becks and Mahir were doing the same. I kept watching the security ninja, trying to figure out what was going on.
The security ninja’s mask wasn’t directed toward my face anymore. It was directed at the lights on my testing unit. I realized with a start that his companions had moved to flank the van, putting them into position to shoot any one of us the second a test came back positive. That would fill the interior of the van with blood, turning it into a mobile hot zone, filling the enclosed space with the sharp tang of gunpowder—
Blood drying on the walls in half a dozen different shades, reds and browns and oh, God, George, I don’t think that I can do this without you. I don’t think I’m allowed to do this without you. So take it back, okay? Take back the blood, open your eyes, and if you’ve ever loved me, come back, take the blood away and come back—
George’s voice cut through the sudden jangle in my head with clear, soothing calm: That was a long time ago; that was a different van. Your test is clean.
“What?” I said, before I could remember that talking to myself in front of strangers isn’t a good idea.