Cameras ringed the parking garage; cameras with feeds that plugged into the building’s security system. I turned to the nearest of them, blinking back the tears that were suddenly threatening to blur my vision, and saluted.
“Move it or lose it, boss,” said Dave, voice cracked and distorted by the speakers in my helmet. “You’ve got ten minutes at most before the fire rains down.”
“Don’t you dare move into my head after you die, you fucker,” I said. “It’s crowded enough in here.”
“Boss?”
I closed my eyes. “Open the doors.”
Whatever whack-ass computer voodoo he’d worked on the security system was good; the doors slid open as soon as I gave the command. Only a few of the infected were visible on the street outside, but they’d start to mob soon enough. I gunned my engine, waving for Becks to follow, and roared out into the light. She follows bikeout fifteen yards behind, both of us cutting a path toward the closest major street—Martin Luther King Boulevard—and our hopeful survival.
Dave was wrong about one thing. We didn’t have ten minutes. The building went up in a pillar of flame six minutes later, along with every other structure in its immediate vicinity. Slag and ash rained down on the entire neighborhood. Collateral damage for a major urban outbreak; the only way to be sure the infection wouldn’t spread.
We were outside the quarantine by that point, outside the kill zone, but the light from the explosion was still enough to hurt my eyes. I pulled off to the side of the road and kept watching it all the same. When the glare got to be too much, I put on the extra pair of sunglasses George always kept in a case clipped to her handlebars, and I kept watching.
I kept watching while Oakland burned, and a good man burned with it. A lot of good men, I’m sure, but only one who’d answered to me. The first man lost on my watch, instead of on my sister’s.
“All right, George,” I said. “Now what?”
For once, she didn’t have an answer.
BOOK II
Vectors and Victims
Life’s more fun when you take the chance that it might end. I have no regrets.
—DAVE NOVAKOWSKI
A martyr’s just a casualty with really good PR. I’d rather be a living coward any day.
—GEORGIA MASON
—transmitting? You fucking useless piece of crap, don’t you cut out on me n—
—fixed it. I hope that means I fixed it. If this is getting out, this is Dave Novakowski reporting live from the headquarters of the After the End Times. Well. This was Dave Novakowski reporting live. By the time this report finishes bouncing to our servers, and Mahir sees it and clears it by the boss, I’m going to be long d— —shit, the sirens just stopped. That means they’re not letting evacuees out anymore. Too late, ha-ha, joke’s on me, couldn’t get out if I wanted to. I take my hands off the controls, the building goes into lockdown. I stay here, I can let people out—or I could, if there were any people left—but I can’t escape. Irony in action, ladies an— —dalene? Even if this entry stays in-house, I know you’ll see it, some. God, Maggie, I’m sorry we screwed around so much. We should’ve just gone for it. That’s what people ought to do. They should just go for it. I loved you a lot. I loved my job a lot. I guess that makes me one of the lucky ones. I guess— —can hear the bombs now; I can hear them coming, I can he—
—From The Antibody Electric, the blog of Dave Novakowski, April 12, 2041. Unpublished.
Six
Maggie’s place is located six miles outside a town called, I swear to God, Weed. Weed, California, one of the smallest urban areas intentionally reclaimed after the Rising. What made them so special? Choice of location: Weed offers convenient access to three of California’s major rivers, and with red meat permanently off the menu, the fishing industry is one of the hottest things going. If you want river-fished trout to be one of your menu options, you need to reclaim your fishing towns. Weed was rescued from the oblivion that claimed most of the towns and cities built too close to the wild, and it was rescued because it was so close to the wild. Sometimes, logic just doesn’t work.
Driving from Oakland to Weed takes about four and a half hours if there aren’t any quarantine barriers on I-5. According to the GPS, we were looking at clear sailing the whole way. I signaled for Becks to follow and pulled back onto the road, turning north. It was time for us to get the hell out of Dodge.
Shaun?
“I’m not in the mood right now, George.” The roar of the wind ripped my words away as soon as they were spoken, but that really didn’t matter; she’d hear me. She always heard me, even when I didn’t say a word.
I lost him, too.
“He died on my watch, George. My watch. That’s not supposed to happen.”