“Uh, yeah,” I said. “It really was. Was there any way anyone could have predicted this was coming?”
“I don’t think so,” said Dr. Wynne, quickly. Not quickly enough. I could hear the hesitation in his voice, that split second of uncertainty that told me everything I’d been hoping I didn’t really need to know. Did he think he’d managed to get Kelly out clean? Yeah, because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have risked sending her to us. But was he absolutely one hundred percent sure that he’d succeeded?
No, he wasn’t.
“Let us know if there’s anything we can do over here, but you may have to wait a little while for a response,” I said. “The team and I are going on location for a little while. I’m not sure when we’ll be back.”
“Really?” There was deep reluctance in his voice as he asked the natural next question: “Where are y’all heading?”
The reluctance was the last piece of evidence I needed to support the idea that Kelly might not have gotten out as cleanly as she thought she had. Dr. Wynne didn’t want to ask in case I was serious about the trip; he didn’t want me to tell him the truth about where we were going. “Santa Cruz,” I lied. “Alaric’s testing for his field license soon, and we want to get some footage of him on his provisional to build into a supporting report. We’re trying to up his merchandise sales among the female demographic, and our focus groups agree that the best way to do that involves getting him shirtless in a pastoral setting. Danger is just a bonus.” Alaric shot me a confused look. I waved him down.
“You kids,” said Dr. Wynne, with a forced chuckle. “Y’all be careful out there, all right?”
“As careful as you can be when you’re looking for the living dead,” I said. “Take care of yourself, Dr. Wynne.”
“You, too, Shaun,” he said, and disconnected the call.
I took a second to just stand there with my phone in my hand, closing my eyes and listening to George swearing in the back of my head. “Here we go again,” I said, voice barely above a whisper.
“What?” asked Dave.
“Nothing.” I opened my eyes, slamming the phone into my pocket before stalking back into the kitchen for a fresh Coke. I popped the tab and downed half the can in one large, carbonated gulp. The frozen sweetness made my molars ache and snapped the world back into a semblance of focus. “I need you to tear down your workstations, and then get started on everybody else’s,” I said, returning to the living room. “Dave, where are you with that list?”
“It’s encoded. I need—”
“Forget what you need. Upload it to the main server and the mirrors; pack the physical drive.”
“Boss?” asked Alaric, uncertainly.
“Gear up like you’re never going to see this place again. Alaric, as soon as Becks confirms that there’s nothing standard on the Doc, I need you to take over. Do a second scan of everything she brought with her. You find anything that looks like it might be related to something that might be a bug, kill it.” I raised a hand before he could protest. “Don’t study it, don’t dissect it, don’t try to subvert it, kill it. We don’t have time to risk the sort of heat that might be coming after her.”
“But—”
I turned away from him to open the closet door. The shelf on the right was crammed with ammo boxes. I started grabbing them three at a time. “He said it was like George, Alaric. Not like Buffy, who was actually unexpected; not like Rebecca Ryman, or any of the other people he and I wound up having in common.”
“So what?”
Go easy on him, said George. He wasn’t there. He doesn’t really understand.
“I know,” I muttered darkly. More loudly, I said, “So there were people at the CDC who were involved with what happened to her, and we never caught them. George had a reservoir condition. I thought you were the Newsie here. Do I have to draw you a picture?”
My favorite hunting rifle was leaning against the closet wall. I grabbed it, relaxing slightly as its satisfying weight fell into my hand. Letting it rest against my shoulder, I went back to grabbing ammo.
“Fuck,” muttered Dave.
“My thoughts exactly,” I said. “Go tell Becks she needs to hurry it up; we’re getting out of here. Any bugs she can’t find without a subdermal sweeper, she’s not going to find with an extra ten minutes.”
“On it,” said Dave, and trotted out of the room.
We got to work, Alaric dismantling the equipment that wasn’t needed for final uploads, while I emptied and packed down the contents of the closet. Dave came back and started helping Alaric break things down. I was filling a backpack with protein bars and spare laptop batteries when the bedroom door opened and Becks emerged, followed by a rumpled-looking Kelly.
“She’s clean,” Becks announced, tossing Kelly’s briefcase to Alaric. He caught it and turned back to what remained of his workstation, reaching for a scanner.