Deadline

“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 f**king 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 Unpublished.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.”

Bitter amusement tinged her tone as she replied, So, what, they’re only supposed to die on mine?

I didn’t have an answer for that, and so I didn’t answer her at all. She took the hint, falling silent as the bike chewed away at the miles between us and our eventual destination. The van stayed visible in my mirrors, following at a close but careful distance. There were no other cars to be seen anywhere along the highway in either direction. A reflective yellow sign caught the light and threw it back at me as we went roaring past: CAUTION—DEER HABITAT.

Deer can grow to more than forty pounds and meet the standards necessary for Kellis-Amberlee amplification. We can’t wipe them out wholesale—ecological concerns aside, they’re herbivores, which means their food supply hasn’t been compromised, and they breed like the world’s biggest rabbits. Periodically, somebody introduces legislation to firebomb the forests and take care of the deer problem once and for all, and promptly gets shouted down by everyone from the naturalists to the lumber industry. I don’t have an opinion one way or the other. I just find it interesting that kids apparently used to cry when Bambi’s mother died. George and I both held our breaths, and then cheered when she didn’t reanimate and try to eat her son.

A small orange light started blinking at the top right-hand corner of my visor, signaling that the van was trying to open a connection. Did I want to talk to any of the people who were in the van? No. No, I did not. Did that mean I could get away with ignoring the call?

Unfortunately, no, it didn’t. Smothering the urge to hit the gas and drive away from the trappings of responsibility as fast as I could, I said, “Answer call.”

Becks spoke in my ear a moment later, voice rendered irregular and crackly by the sound of the wind whipping by outside my helmet. “Shaun, you there?”

“No, it’s the Easter Bunny,” I said. “Who do you expect is going to be answering my intercom? What do you want, Becks? We’re a long way from Maggie’s.”

“That’s actually what I wanted. We didn’t have time to prep the vehicles for another road trip before we left the—” She stopped, choking off the sentence with a small hiccup. Her voice was softer when she spoke again, making it even harder to hear above the roaring of the wind. “I mean, we’re not all that good for gas over here. I don’t know what your status is, but we’ve got about another fifty miles, tops, before we’re going to have an emergency.”

Fuck. “What does the GPS say?”