Smirking, I pulled off my ear cuff and dropped it into my shirt pocket, twisting to face Maggie and Kelly. “They’re on their way, and yes, Maggie, Alaric’s going to pick up dinner. He said they’d be about an hour. Why are we ordering dinner if you’re making pancakes?”
“It gives me something to do with my hands, and Mahir’s got to be hungry after becoming an international fugitive from justice.” Maggie handed Kelly another egg. “I’ll tell the house to transmit our normal order, plus three.”
“Fair enough.” I got up and crossed to the fridge, pulling out a can of Coke. “Make me a couple of pancakes, will you?”
“Already planning to.” Maggie took the bowl from Kelly. She looked inside, sighed, and started picking bits of eggshell out of the batter. “I’m assuming things are pretty bad for him to have come to us this way.”
“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.”
“Not sure what that is, but there’s coffee and tea downstairs. Also dinner. Maggie had Becks and Alaric swing by the House of Curries on their way back from whatever the fuck it is they were doing out there.” I probably should have cared more about what my team was up to when they weren’t working directly on the whole “possible globe-spanning conspiracy” thing, but to be honest, I didn’t have the time or the energy. I trusted them not to get themselves killed while I wasn’t looking. That was all I had left to give them, and it needed to be enough.
“Right.” Mahir rubbed a hand through his hair, doing nothing to improve its spiky disarray. “Is there someplace I can wash my face and slap on a couple of stimulant patches before I have to come down and face humans?”
“Bathroom’s across the hall.”
“Brilliant.” He offered me a wan, distracted smile and stepped into the hall, heading for the bathroom. I put a hand on his elbow. He stopped, blinking at me. “Yes?”
“I’m glad you’re here, even if it does mean the shit’s finally hitting the fan,” I said, and hugged him.
George and I weren’t raised to be physically demonstrative. Having parents who treat you as a ratings stunt will do that. Mahir knew that. There was a pause no longer than the time it took for him to catch his breath, and then he was hugging me back, shoulders sagging slightly as he let go of some weight I wasn’t quite aware of yet, but doubtless would be soon.
“Thank you,” he said. His smile as he let me go was a little stronger. I turned to head downstairs as he walked into the bathroom, shutting the door behind himself.
The air downstairs smelled like hot cur
ry, garlic naan, and the sweet, pasty nothingness of white rice. Maggie was unpacking bulging paper sacks from the House of Curries onto the counter while Alaric, Becks, and Kelly sat at the table, trying to stay out of her way. The bulldogs were gone, and the connecting door to the front room was closed, indicating the location of their banishment.
Hail, hail, the gang’s all here, said George, quietly.
“Yeah,” I muttered, pausing in the doorway and watching them. Becks was hiding a laugh behind her hand, probably in response to something Alaric had said. Maggie kept rocking onto her toes, like she was dancing to a private beat. Even Kelly was relaxed, sitting in her chair and watching the others with a faint, puzzled smile on her face. This was my team. Maybe it wasn’t the one I would have put together on my own—out of all of them, Becks was the only one I really trusted in the field, and she was also still the one I had the most trouble talking to. Alaric was never actually field certified, since the shit hit the fan while he was still prepping for his tests, and Maggie had never needed to be, being a Fictional and all.
Footsteps behind me signaled Mahir’s approach. I turned to face him, asking, “Hey, you’re cleared for fieldwork, right?”
Mahir frowned at me. He’d slicked back his hair and done something to wipe away most of the more visible signs of exhaustion. He hadn’t been kidding about the stimulant patches. He’d pay for that later. Then again, we were going to be paying for a lot of things later, assuming we lived that long.
“In the United Kingdom and European Union, yes, in the United States, no, although I can travel on my U.K. license for up to ninety days as a visiting journalist. Why?”
“Just wondering.” I stepped to the side, sweeping one arm grandly toward the kitchen. “Ladies and gentlemen, Mahir Gowda!”
“Boss!” said Alaric, sounding delighted. As a Newsie, he answered directly to Mahir, and counted on Mahir to make me understand when I was being unreasonable. Having us both in the same house probably seemed like an excellent way to cut out the middleman. I couldn’t honestly say that he was wrong.
Becks didn’t do anything as gauche as shouting. Standing, she walked over to Mahir and threw her arms around his shoulders, hugging him tightly. He hugged her back, just as tightly. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said.
I looked away, feeling uncomfortably like a voyeur, and found myself looking at Kelly instead. She was watching the scene in front of her with an almost wistful expression on her face, like a kid who wasn’t invited to the party.
She gave up her whole life to come here and tell us what she knew, and she can never go back. The people in this room, we’re all she has. And she’s never going to be part of things the way Mahir is.
“Right,” I muttered. Louder, pitched for an audience of people who actually existed outside my head, I said, “Something smells great, Maggie. Please tell me it’s dinner, and not a sadistic new kind of air freshener.” I brushed past Mahir and Becks, still embracing, and moved toward the counter.
Maggie flashed a smile my way. “Oh, it’s dinner. All the containers are labeled, and I made sure to get extra Aloo Gobi this time, so you won’t be able to eat it all.”
“You’re seriously underestimating my capacity for devouring curried cauliflower.” I reached for a plate.
That was the signal for everyone to start grabbing plates, utensils, and whatever combination of things they were planning to eat for dinner. Mahir ate like he was starving, and the rest of us weren’t much better. I wasn’t the only one who understood what Mahir’s arrival meant. This might be the last peaceful meal we had for a while, and none of us wanted to be the one to disrupt it.
Cramming six people around Maggie’s table was surprisingly easy. I’ve never known anyone who entertained as much as she does, or was as willing to adjust for strangers on a moment’s notice. Being in her kitchen was almost like being in one of those old pre-Rising TV shows, the ones where everyone seemed to wind up sitting around eating from the same bowl of mashed potatoes and talking about their day. We didn’t have mashed potatoes, and I wasn’t interested in sharing the Aloo Gobi, but we did have rice and samosas and other things to pass around. Mahir turned out to be surprisingly good at talking to Kelly, who got a little more relaxed with every minute that passed.
The best intentions weren’t enough to stop the clock. All too soon, we were putting down our forks, finishing our drinks, and falling into an expectant silence. Maggie stood, starting to clear the table; Alaric and I moved to help her. She waved me back to my seat. “Stay where you are,” she said. “You’re going to need to ride herd on this madhouse, and that works better when you don’t have something to distract yourself.” She didn’t wave Alaric back down. I guess she figured he could do his part from the sink if he had to.
Mahir cleared his throat. “I’ll just go get a few things, shall I?”
“I think it’s about that time,” I agreed. “Get ready to explain some crazy science, Doc.”
Kelly smiled a little. “It’ll be my pleasure.”
Maggie returned to the table, handing me a Coke as she sat down to my left. Alaric sat next to Becks, leaving a space between us for Mahir. The air in the kitchen seemed to be getting heavy, pressing down on us like a lead weight.
It was almost a relief when Mahir returned with an armload of manila file folders, their contents bristling with multicolored tab dividers. At least this meant that we weren’t going to be waiting anymore. “I have virtual copies of everything here,” he said, dropping the files onto the table without any preamble. “I didn’t want to e-mail things, since there was a chance I was being watched after what happened with Dr. Christopher.”
“The Australian?” I asked.
Mahir nodded. “Precisely. I might not have been under surveillance before that, but the odds increased rather substantially after I got someone deported. That’s when I realized it might be best for everyone if I came here.”
“Makes sense.” I glanced toward Alaric and Becks, saying, “One of the scientists Mahir went to talk to about Dr. Abbey’s research got kicked out of the country.”
Alaric whistled, long and low. “That’s not fooling around.”
“No, it’s not,” said Mahir, with dry gravity. “What we have here is a combination of the material that was originally sent to me, the material provided by Doctors Tiwari and Christopher, some supplemental research I was able to request from Dr. Shoji of the Kauai Institute of Virology before I felt it was unsafe to make any further out-of-country contacts, and finally, the files I was able to retrieve from Professor Brannon’s mail drop before it was shut down. I don’t have copies for everyone, but there’s enough here to keep us all predicting the end of the world until well past dawn.”
“Who’s Professor Brannon?” asked Becks. “Because I’m feeling a bit like I missed a memo somewhere.”
“Professor Brannon…” Alaric frowned. “He was a world-renowned expert in the behavior of Kellis-Amberlee. He spent his entire professional career identifying and studying viral substrains. He…” Alaric’s eyes went wide. “He shot himself last week. It was a devastating blow to the epidemiological community. No one saw it coming.”
“I’m afraid that was my fault.” Mahir handed him one of the file folders. “He’d been studying the virus in lab conditions. He’d never had the time to devote to studying it in the wild. I suppose we all require some measure of specialization in order to keep our heads above water.”
Alaric started flipping through the folder in his hand, eyes narrowing in a focused “the rest of the world might as well not be here” way. I used to see that look on George’s face a lot.
Kelly, meanwhile, looked horrified. “Professor Brannon is dead?” she asked. She sounded genuinely stunned. “But… but… Professor Brannon can’t be dead. He can’t be.”
“You knew him?” I asked, reaching for a folder.
“I attended one of his lectures while I was in medical school. It was about the ways that Kellis-Amberlee
inherently differs from a naturally occurring virus—” She glanced around at the rest of us, taking in our expressions, and cleared her throat before saying, “Naturally occurring viruses have a primary host, something where they, um, retreat when there isn’t an outbreak going on. Like malaria, which is bacterial, but still sort of applies. Even when there isn’t a malaria outbreak going on, the mosquitoes are still infected. That’s how it can keep coming back, no matter how many times we think we’ve cured it in a human population.”
“What does that have to do with Kellis-Amberlee?” asked Maggie.
“Nothing. That’s sort of the point.” Kelly shrugged. “Kellis-Amberlee doesn’t have a natural reservoir. It’s infectious across all mammalian species. Even things too small to amplifyn sustain the virus—mice, squirrels, everything. It’s completely endemic. Curing the human race wouldn’t do any good unless we could cure the rest of the planet at the same time.”
“Huh. Okay.” I looked to Mahir. “So he was a lab guy, you showed him Dr. Abbey’s work, and then he shot himself. Why?”
“There are several potential reasons, but I think this is the main one.” Mahir began laying out a series of graphs. They didn’t make much sense to me, at least on the surface; each showed two jagged lines, one red, one blue, one going up as the other went down. The red line would occasionally fight against its descent, managing a brief upward spike, but it would inevitably get quashed by the blue line as it arced unstoppably toward the top of the paper.
All of us squinted at the pages. Kelly paled, clapping a hand over her mouth. She looked like she was going to throw up. Alaric shook his head.
“This can’t be right.” He tapped one of the pages, next to the start of the blue line. “This strain occurred in Buenos Aires only six years after the Rising. It was one of the first signs we had that Kellis-Amberlee was mutating outside a lab setting.”