“What, are you saying she might be working with the CDC? I don’t think so. I’m usually better at reading people than that.”
Shaun… I could almost see the exasperated shake of George’s head, the way she’d be glowering at me behind her sunglasses. I don’t think Becks is a traitor, but you need to be careful with her. Okay? Can you do that for me?
“Sure, George.” I slid off the bike, stretching. The muscles in my calves and thighs protested the movement but were overruled by my ass, which was so sore from the drive that I doubted I’d ever sit down again. “Whatever you say.”
One nice thing about working with people who know how crazy I am: Maggie, Alaric, and Kelly were in the kitchen when I stepped inside, all three of them in easy view of the window, and not one of them commented on the fact that I’d stopped to talk to myself before following Becks into the house. It’s a lot easier to deal with people who are already used to me.
“Becks tore through on the way to the shower,” said Maggie. She was next to the sink, drying the last of the dinner dishes. The kitchen smelled of savory pastry and fresh-cooked chicken. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that all I’d eaten since leaving Portland was some soy jerky, half a bag of potato chips, and a candy bar. The corner of Maggie’s mouth turned up in a smile. “There’s a potpie for each of you in the oven. We left them there so they’d stay warm.”
“Awesome.Thanks.” George was hovering at the back of my mind, casting a veil of anxiety over everything. I walked to the fridge and opened it. Someone had gone to the store while Becks and I were out; there was a twelve-pack of Coke on the bottom shelf, and what looked like sufficient fresh provisions for us to survive a siege, so long as no one cut the power.
I grabbed a can of Coke and swung the door shut, turning toward the table as I popped the tab. “Hey, guys,” I said, as amiably as I could manage. “So how were things while Becks and I were on location?”
“Mahir announced the hiring of ‘Barbara Tinney’ and helped Kelly get her first post up while I monitored the footage you were beaming out of the CDC,” said Alaric.
“Really? Cool. What was it about?”
“The psychological impact of isolationism on the development of human relationships,” said Kelly. I looked at her blankly. She amended: “Cabin fever makes people shitty roommates.”
“I’m sure it’s a real ratings grabber,” I said, after a suitable pause. “Alaric?”
He took the cue with grace, saying, “I was able to get about a dozen reports cobbled together after things went south, and we had them online before anyone else picked up on the outbreak. Mahir has every on-duty Newsie and about half the Irwins running follow-ups now. The CDC’s only comment so far called it ‘an avoidable tragedy,’ and said they were looking into possible failure of the airlock seals that are supposed to separate the treatment areas from the employee locker room.”
“Which is bullshit,” said Kelly. “Those air locks were designed to withstand a nuclear war. There’s no way they could just fail.”
“Good to know,” I said, sipping my Coke.
Ask whether any of the reports include the conference room, said George, with a sudden, strange urgency in her tone.
“Okay,” I muttered. More loudly, I asked, “Uh, hey, Alaric? Did any of the reports Mahir put together include footage of me and Becks sitting in the conference room waiting for the director to come back?”
Alaric blinked and nodded. “How did you know? That was the second one he put up. He said the time stamp was important to get out there in the public record.”
George started to explain. I cut her off, saying, “The time stamp on the conference room footage means they can’t try to pin the outbreak on us. There’s no way for us to have spent that much time sitting together, waiting, and be the ones who damaged the air lock seal.”
You’re learning, said George, approvingly.
“Time stamps can be forged,” said Maggie. Alaric, Kelly, and I all turned to look at her. She shrugged. “You just shouldn’t put too much faith in the time stamp. It’s not going to save you by itself. That’s what my family has lawyers for.”
“Thanks for that little ray of sunshine, Maggie.” I turned to Kelly. “So, Doc, was there any way to know that we were walking into a deathtrap? I mean, at this point, I trust the CDC about as far as George can throw you, but it still seems a little extreme, burning a whole installation to take out two reporters.”
Kelly frowned. “But Georgia is—oh.” She stopped midprotest, comprehension flooding her expression. “No. I didn’t. I’m starting to realize that my… my former employers”—she spat out the word “former” like it tasted bad—“may be capable of some pretty horrible things, but I never suspected they’d do anything like that. I wouldn’t have let you go if I knew.”
“The sad part here is that I bet they have more nasty surprises for us. Just wait.” I sipped my Coke, studying Kelly’s face for signs that she was fraying. The Doc was holding up better than I expected; all I saw in her eyes was exhaustion, both physical and mental. The rest of us were tired, but we were also trained for this sort of shit—or as trained as you can be for something that’s never supposed to happen. “Well, we got out alive. That’s something. Alaric, how’s our market share?”
“Up four points last time I checked, with the expected uptick in our closest competitors,” said Alaric, not missing a beat. “Three of them are crying hoax and two more are claiming that we’re endangering our licenses by behaving recklessly in hopes of increasing our ratings.”
I snorted. “Because ‘behaving recklessly’ is suddenly not in the job description? Amateurs. Let ’em find their own potentially fatal government conspiracies.”
“Can we not?” Maggie picked up a stack of plates and began putting them away in the cupboard. “I think one is more than enough at any given time, and since they have a tendency to spread, I’m not sure a second one wouldn’t wind up getting all over us, too.”
“Fair enough.” I tossed my empty can into the recycling bin. “You said there was a potpie?”
“Yes, and you said you’d tell us what happened.” Maggie put away the last of the plates before taking down the oven mitts and opening the oven, producing a covered ceramic dish that smelled like it was less than half a mile shy of Heaven. She set it down on one of the open spaces at the table.
“Caffeine, then food, then exposition.” I grabbed a fork from the dish drainer before moving to sit down. The potpie smelled even better up close. The bulldogs agreed: two promptly appeared from the next room, sitting by my feet in perfect, implacable begging positions. “Remind me again why we didn’t all move in with you years ago?”
“Because I live in the middle of nowhere, and that isn’t actually an asset for anyone who isn’t a pure Fictional.” Maggie went back to putting dishes away. “Now talk, or I’m going to take back your dinner.”
“Anything but that.” I stabbed my fork into the piecrust. “How much of the footage have you guys watched?”
“Enough,” said Alaric grimly.
I nodded. “Okay, then.” I took a bite of potpie, swallowed, and began talking, starting with the point where Becks and I drove away from the motel. Moythiur time at the CDC had been fairly well-documented by the cameras we carried, but they’d been simple recorders, not full-on field deployments. There were things they missed, like most of Director Swenson’s reactions, and everything in the emergency tunnels.