Director Swenson walked the full length of the conference table to sit at the head. Alpha male posturing if I’d ever seen it. The gesture was designed to say “This is mine and I am in charge here”—I was sort of surprised he didn’t lift his leg and piss on something. Urine’s a natural bleaching agent, right? It would explain how they kept everything so damn white.
Becks and I trailed along behind him like good little peons, finally sitting down next to each other on the left-hand side of the table. Becks took the seat closer to the director. Sure, I was technically in charge of our little fact-finding expedition, but of the two of us, I was the one more likely to launch myself for his throat, and we wanted to avoid that if at all possible. Attacking high-ranking CDC officials isn’t really the best way to get what you want.
“Now, then,” said the director, gracing us with a fatherly smile as warm as it was artificial. “What can I do for the two of you? I’ll admit, I was a bit surprised that you didn’t phone ahead. That’s standard for most representatives of the media.”
“Yeah, we’re really sorry about that,” I said, not bothering to inject the slightest note of apology into my tone. “See, we’d usually call ahead, only I managed to leave my address book—where did I leave that again, Becks?”
“In your office,” said Becks promptly. She knows her cues. With as long as we’ve been working together, she’d better.
“Right, in my office.” I bared my teeth at Director Swenson in an approximation of his smile. The corners of his mouth twitched downward, confusion flickering in his eyes. That was good. I wanted him off balance. “That’s sort of the problem, since my office is—my office was, I guess—in Oakland, basically right at the center of the zone that got firebombed. We were out camping when the quarantine came down, but not all my people made it out.”
“I see.” Director Swenson leaned back in his chair, expression smoothing into careful neutrality. The confusion in his eyes faded, replaced by wariness. “You’re very fortunate. That outbreak was particularly bad.”
“Yeah, how did that happen as fast as it did? Isn’t the CDC supposed to prevent things like that?” asked Becks. I shot her a sharp look. She ignored me, attention focused on Director Swenson like a sniper focuses on a target.
She had friends inside the blast zone, said George. Not just Dave. Civilian friends.
It was all I could do not to wince. I’d been withdrawn since George died, which meant I never really bothered getting to know the neighbors in our bucolic little part of Oakland. Becks was a hell of a lot more gregarious. She probably knew everyone on our block, not just in our building, and could recite the names of the deceased without cross-referencing the Wall. And now we knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the CDC was involv in something nasty. Put it all together, and I’d basically primed her to go off. The question was whether being stuck in the blast radius was going to be a good thing or a bad thing.
“It appears that someone in the area had been illegally breeding American pit bull terriers for use in dogfights,” said Director Swenson, smoothly as you please. “From what we’ve been able to reconstruct, one of the dogs became infected and attacked the others. The pack attacked their handler when he came to see what all the noise was about. The dogs were able to escape, and those large enough to amplify went on to infect individuals all around the area. It became too large to contain shortly after.”
It was a textbook example of a no-win infection scenario. That was the problem. Textbook examples almost never happen in the real world. I saw Becks opening her mouth, probably to say just that. I clamped my hand down on her thigh under the table, squeezing hard. The pressure was enough to cut her off. She shot me a confused look. I tried to look like I was ignoring her, and cleared my throat.
“Would’ve still been nice if you’d sent, I don’t know, a rescue helicopter or something for folks inside the blast radius, but that’s beside the point,” I said smoothly, keeping my hand clamped on Becks’s thigh. “Anyway, I’m sure you understand why we couldn’t call ahead, having lost your number in the explosion and all.”
The explosion didn’t wipe the CDC’s phone number off the Internet, but that didn’t really matter; my excuse was plausible enough that Director Swenson couldn’t get away with calling me a liar, and artificial enough that we both knew I was lying. His nostrils flared slightly from the strain of keeping his expression neutral. I smiled.
“Yes, absolutely,” said Director Swenson. “Now, to what do we owe the honor of this visit?”
“To get a little background, make sure we’re on the same page and everything, you remember my sister, Georgia Carolyn Mason?” Becks winced at the sound of George’s name, probably thinking of my recent tendency to fly off the handle whenever George came up in conversation. In the back of my head, George snorted with brief amusement but didn’t say anything. This was my party. She was going to let me be the one to send out the invitations.
Director Swenson nodded. “I’ve seen her file. Her death was—any death is tragic, but what she accomplished, even after the point of initial amplification, was—it was amazing. You must be very proud.”
“She died in the field,” I said, as flatly as I could. “Just the way she would have wanted to go.”
“I’m sure that must be a great comfort to you.” He sounded like he meant it, too. My hand clenched tighter on Becks’s thigh. It took every inch of self-control I had to peel my fingers away. She didn’t make a sound, even though the way I was squeezing must have hurt.