“I don’t know that they’re any worse than they were yesterday, but I think they’re about to get pretty bad, yeah.” I couldn’t stop thinking about Mahir’s casual mention of divorce papers. I’d given his wife shit since the day they got married, but that didn’t mean I wanted her to leave him. He was risking everything to be here with us. Hell, he’d been risking everything since the day he agreed to come back to the team. I just hoped we could live up to the degree of faith that he was putting in us, because I really wasn’t sure anymore.
Just keep breathing, advised George. It’s too late for any of us to turn back now.
“Got that right,” I muttered, and cracked open the Coke, taking a drink before asking, “Doc, what do you know about viral parasitism?”
Kelly stared at me. “What?”
“It was something Mahir said before he went upstairs to crash—the virus acts like a parasite in people with reservoir conditions, and that teaches their bodies how to cope with it better. I’m not quite sure what he meant, but I figure you’ll be able to translate for us when we sit down for the big meeting.”
“I…” Kelly frowned thoughtfully. “It’s not a common theory, but I’ve heard it before. It basically says that the virus can change its behavior, go from being a strict predator to a sort of symbiotic parasite.”
“Isn’t that what both source viruses were originally supposed to do?” asked Maggie, turning on the stove. She began pouring dollops of batter onto the griddle, filling the room with the hot, sweet scent of cooking pancakes. “We were supposed to catch them and then keep them forever, like… I don’t know, weird immortal hamsters that cured cancer.”
“Only these hamsters developed rabies.” I sipped my Coke. “If it’s something people already know about, is there any reason for someone to get deported for studying it? Viral parasitism, I mean. Not hamsters.”
“No,” Kelly said, firmly. “There’s no good reason for someone to be deported for studying viral parasitism.”
“That’s what I thought.” I leaned back in my seat, sipping my Coke, and watched Maggie make pancakes. Kelly went quiet, a speculative expression on her face. I could almost see the wheels turning as she got herself a glass of water and sat down across from me, both of us waiting for the pancakes to be ready.
Mahir’s arrival changed everything. We’d been treading water, writing our reports, studying the material we got from Dr. Abbey, and waiting for something to happen, because something always happened when we got too comfortable. We’d long since passed the point where we could back out safely—maybe we passed that point the day George and I decided it would be a good idea to go out for the Ryman campaign. I don’t know—but that didn’t mean we’d exactly been hurrying toward the end game. We’d been waiting to see what would happen next. Now that Mahir was with us, it was time for things to start moving again.
I wasn’t ready. I don’t think any of us were, or really could be. I just knew that it was too damn late to back out. It had been too late since George died.
Maybe it was too late before that, and we couldn’t see it. I don’t know.
Mahir hadn’t come downstairs by the time Alaric and Becks showed up. The security system announced their approach long before the familiar growl of the van’s engine became audible. Maggie had plenty of time to clear away the mess from the pancakes and set out dishes for dinner. “Shaun, go wake our guest,” she said, starting to rummage for forks. I blinked at her, and she grinned. “I figure he’s likely to hit someone if he’s startled, and he’d probably feel bad if he hit a girl.”
I couldn’t argue with that—it was too true—and so I grunted my assent, finished off the last of my Coke, and went trudging up the stairs to the room that had been mine until just a few hours before. The door was shut, and there were no signs of motion from the other side. I raised my hand, hesitating before I actually brought it down in a knock.
“He looked exhausted,” I said.
We’re all exhausted, George replied. He needs to explain things sooner or later.
As soon as he explained all the way, any chance we had of postponing the future would be gone. It would end when he opened his bag and pulled out the files he hadn’t shown me yet, and there would be no taking it back, because there never is when the truth gets involved. “Can’t it be later?” The plea in my voice surprised us both, I think, me more than her; George has always known me better than I know myself. I used to do the same favor for her.
It already is, she said, quietly.
She was right, and because she was right, I brought my hand down and knocked on the guest room door. “Yo, Mahir. Alaric and Becks are here with dinner.”
There was no response.
I knocked again, harder this time. “Mahir! We can sleep when we’re dead, my man!” Part of me couldn’t help remembering how bleak he’d looked, how deep the circles under his eyes had been. If we can sleep when we’re dead…
Stop it. You’re just freaking yourself out, and that’s not going to do anyone any good. Knock again.
I didn’t knock: I hammered. “Mahir!”
The door opened. Mahir was still dressed, his clothes no more wrinkled than they’d been before—they’d long since passed the point where a little thing like a nap was going to do anything to hurt them—and his hair was sticking up in uneven spikes, making him look like some sort of apocalyptic prophet. “Is it morning already?” he asked. Exhaustion thickened his accent, making it border on unintelligible. “I’d murder for a cuppa.”