Deadline

“We have enough gas to get us past Little Rock—after that, I want to get freaky,” I said. “Mahir, get us a route that doesn’t involve the roads we used to reach Tennessee. Try to get a whole new set of states if you can.”

“Why are you asking me?” Mahir asked peevishly. He started tapping a staccato pattern on the screen of his phone, calling up a more sophisticated GPS mapping program. “I’m the only one in this car not native to this damn continent.”

“Great. That means you won’t have any stupid preconceptions about what to avoid.”

“What, bad neighborhoods?”

“I was thinking more like Colorado, but sure, whatever.” I made a sharp turn onto yet another frontage road, causing Becks to whack her shoulder against the window. She swore, but didn’t yell at me. Our escape was too important to interrupt for silly things like fighting amongst ourselves. “Becks, we still clear?”

“Unless the CDC has invisible cars, yes,” she snarled.

“Good enough for me.” I pulled a disposable ear cuff out of my pocket and snapped it on, tapping the side to trigger the connection. “This is Shaun Mason activating security protocol Campbell. The bridge is out, the trees are coming, and I’m pretty sure my hand is evil. Now gimme some sugar, baby.”

Mahir stared at me with undisguised confusion. “What the f**k was all that about?”

“Single-use phone. I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t activate it by mistake.” The ear cuff beeped as the connections were made, routed through half a dozen dummy servers and half a dozen more firewalls.

Fire-and-forget phones are about as secure as it gets, providing you don’t mind spending a few hundred bucks to make one call. That call can’t last for more than six minutes, and it has to end with the total destruction of the phone you used to make it. But yeah, it’s secure.

“Well, that’s definitely one thing no one’s going to say on bloody accident!”

“Exactly. Now get back to finding us a rabbit hole to dive down.”

The beeping stopped, and Alaric’s voice came down the line, asking, “Shaun? Is that you? Where are you?”

“That’s a good question, and no matter how secure I think this line is, it’s one I’m not going to answer. We have a maximum of six minutes talk time before we become traceable, so I want you to get Maggie and set your phone to speaker. Got me?”

“She’s right here,” said Alaric. There was a clicking sound. When he spoke again, his voice was tinny and a little distant, like it was coming down a tube. “Go.”

“Right. Wynne sold us out. I don’t know if he was always dirty or if they got to him after the election, but I’m not sure it matters. He’s dead. So’s Kelly.” I winced as I realized that there was one more unexpected tragedy to her death. “Shit. We can’t even put her on the Wall. She officially died months ago, and it wasn’t because of the infected.”

“Damn,” whispered Alaric. The seconds were ticking away from us, but we still fell silent for a moment, considering the magnitude of the tragedy in front of us. The Wall is a virtual monument to the people who’ve died because of Kellis-Amberlee. It started during the Rising with bloggers and doctors, college students, and soccer moms—anyone and everyone who came out on the losing end of the zombie apocalypse. We’ve kept it up since then. The blog community views it as a public service and a vital reminder that none of us is safe; that it never really ended. Maybe the infected don’t roam the streets the way they did once, but they’re still here. They’re never going away. And names keep going up on the Wall.

George’s name is up there. So is Buffy’s, and Dave’s, since he died during an outbreak. Hell, even Tate’s name is on the Wall. He killed my sister, but the Wall doesn’t judge. George used to call it the ultimate monument to truth, a universally accepted model of the world as it is, not as we want it to be. There was no way we could pretend Kelly died because of any reason other than Kellis-Amberlee… and because of that goddamn clone, she was never going to go up on the Wall.

I guess there’s nothing in the world that can’t lie to us, said George, sounding subdued. I think I’m glad I died before I found that out.

There was nothing I could say to that. I cleared my throat, shattering the silence. “We’re on our way home. I can’t tell you how we’re going to be coming—it’s not safe, and I’m not sure—but I want you to stay inside, lock yourselves down, and don’t go out for anything. I mean anything.”

“The dogs—” started Maggie.

“That’s what you have security for! Call them out of the woods and make them take the little crap factories out for walkies. Dammit, Maggie, I don’t think you understand how deep the shit is right now. Alaric, start backing up our databases everywhere you possibly can. Send encrypted copies to everyone in the employee database, everyone who’s ever been in the employee database, your ex-girlfriend, your ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, everyone.”

“Everyone?” asked Alaric.

I hesitated.

Do it, said George.

“Yeah—everyone,” I said. “Make the flat-drop. Encrypt the files first, to slow things down, but make it. We’ll deal with it later, assuming there is a later. Both of you, make sure your wills are up-to-date. Maggie, tell your Fictionals to stay the f**k home until further notice. I don’t want anyone coming within a hundred miles of Weed if they have a choice in the matter.”