Mahir blinked. “Kellis-Amberlee has never had an insect vector. I’m not sure I’m willing to believe that it has one now. Why are you already carrying this stuff?”
I smiled thinly. “Because it’s the best bug repellent known to man. When you’re an Irwin, poking into places men were not meant to poke, being chased by the living dead, the last thing you want to do is stop to deal with mosquito bites all over your ass.”
“I suppose that makes sense.”
“I’m going to go get the others up to speed. We need to start packing, and we need to give Maggie time to tell the house security systems to stand down.” If I doused myself in bug repellent and wore my full-field armor, I’d be able to take the bike. Any mosquito that could bite through Kevlar deserved to get a piece of me. “We’re taking the work van. If it doesn’t fit in there, it isn’t coming.”
“What are you talking about? We need to wait—”
“The sun rises in five hours. The instructions will wipe themselves in five hours. If we want to get to Dr. Abbey alive, we need to leave now.”
Mahir hesitated, eyes searching my face. Finally, carefully, he said, “Shaun, are ou sure? I mean, are you really sure we should be going to this woman, rather than staying here, where it’s safe?”
“Is it safe here? Maggie’s folks know where we are. The security staff knows. It’s only a matter of time before one of us slips and our readership knows. We’re on the verge of full-blown martial law, which means that eventually some asshole at the CDC is going to put two and two together and realize that we’re sitting ducks. It’s going to be Oakland all over again. They just have to make sure their fall guy knows enough to be believable as the one who pressed the button and blew the only heir to Garcia Pharmaceuticals to hell. If we want to stay alive through this, we need to get the fuck out of here.”
“I…” Mahir stopped. Squaring his shoulders, he looked me in the eye, and asked, “What is it you need me to do?”
“Check with your Newsies. See who’s posting what and how much they have ready to go up. Also see who can play phone-tree. We’re going to want to hold a short staff meeting before we get out of here—and by ‘we,’ I mean you, me, and Maggie.” Becks and Alaric weren’t department heads. They could be packing the van and gathering any essential supplies from the house while we made the requisite reassuring noises and made it seem like we’d be staying where we were for the foreseeable future. I hated the idea of lying to my crew, I hated it, but I didn’t see any alternative. Not if we wanted to stay alive. I didn’t think any of them were secretly working for the enemy—Buffy was a special case—and I was pretty sure they were all willing to do whatever it took to help us spread the truth. George had a gift for hiring good people, and the best thing about hiring good people is that they’ll recommend other good people when it comes time to expand.
I would trust our staff with my life, and had, on several occasions. But we couldn’t take them all with us, and that meant they couldn’t know where we were going. More cold equations. If someone came looking, it was important there be no one who could give our location away.
Mahir was clearly doing the same math I was because he looked stricken before he nodded. “I’ll get them to report in, and I’ll pass the word about the staff meeting. How long do you think we need?”
“Tell ’em to be online in fifteen minutes. Anyone who isn’t there when we get started can join late and try to catch up as best they can.” I paused. “Also… tell them I’m not my sister. I’m not going to pull a grand gesture like she did. But if they want to quit without consequences, now would be the time to do it.”
George called a staff meeting when we first started to realize the size of the conspiracy we were facing. She made sure everyone was connected—and fired them all. Anybody who wanted to stay on could stay, but they had to sign another contract first. They had to understand what they were getting into. It was a big deal. It was incredibly important. And there just wasn’t time for that kind of theater. They’d stay or they wouldn’t. Anyone who’d signed on during the meeting with George knew the score, and so did anyone who’d signed on since.
“All right,” said Mahir. He was already moving toward the house terminal, my printout clutched in one hand.
I leaned over and pluckedt from his grasp, offering a wan smile in his direction before I turned and started for the kitchen. It was time to get everybody on the same page, get Maggie to start packing, and get ready to go on the run.
Bet you wish we’d never signed up for the Ryman campaign, huh?
“The thought has crossed my mind,” I admitted. “When you said, ‘Hey, Shaun, let’s be journalists,’ I’m pretty sure this part wasn’t in the brochure.”