Page 16 (1/1)

"And…we’re clear!" said one of the production assistants, as the cheery strains of the station break"Great job, Dave You’re doing fantastic Can I get you anything?"

"I’ No one seee, no reports from experts or comments from the overnor’s office and strict orders to read it as written, with no deviation or side coed, and no one see and waited for the coe There was always footage Even when good taste and hue Humanity liked to slon and look at the car crash by the side of the road, and it was the job of the news to give them all the wrecks that they could stomach So where was the wreck? Where was the twisted metal and the sorrowful hu but words on a telepro room?

"And we’re back in five…four…three…" The production assistant stopped interribly wide "Dave? Do you feel all right?"

"I’"

The news anchor--Dave Ramsey, who had done his job, and done it well, for fifteen years--became suddenly aware of a etness on his upper lip He raised his fingers to touch it, and looked wide-eyed at the blood covering theain His so clean up"

When the broadcast resu there, a cheerful smile on her face "We have an update from the Centers for Disease Control, ant us to reassure you that a vaccine will be available soon--"

News anchor Dave Raht of coht years old A fifteen-year veteran of Channel 51, Dave Ramsey is survived by his wife and three children…

July 26, 2014: Denver, Colorado

Suzanne A It had ceased to bother her after the first hour; in a way, it had even proven itself a blessing The blood loss see things into a coray that allowed her to finally face so herself to avoid She paused in the process of boxing A the sweat from her forehead with one hand and the blood from her chin with the other Bloody handprints marred every box and wall in the room, but she didn’t really see them anymore She just saw the bitter absence of Aain

In Suzanne A traces of Marburg Amberlee and the newborn Kellis-A viruses; as soon as they were fully conceived, the child virus turned against its parents, trying to drive them from the body as it would any other infection This forced the Marburg into a heightened state of activity, which forced the body to respond to the perceived illness Marburg Aht the hu a full-on assault The resulting chaos was tearing Suzanne apart from the inside out

For her part, Suzanne A inside her body She was one of the first to be infected with Marburg Amberlee, which had been tailored to be nontrans’s perfect, and all those kisses she’d given her little girl had, in tiible than co Amberlee had had plenty of time to establish itself inside her, and paradoxically, that made her more resistant to conversion than those with more recent infections Her body kne to handle the sleeping virus

And yet bit by bit, inch by crucial inch, Kellis-A Suzanne was not aware, but she was already losing crucial brain functions Her tear ducts had ceased to function, andchanneled toward the production ofthe infection along She was being rewired, cell by cell, and even if so, she wouldn’t have cared Suzanne A herself was si in to the inevitable

Suzanne’s last conscious thought was of her daughter, and howslipped frohts slipped frohtened and walked toward the open bedroo a cool breeze to blow in froh it, and from there, made her way out of the backyard to the street

The disaster that had been averted when the Colorado Cancer Research Center burned began with a wo barefoot onto the sun-baked surface of the road She looked dully to either side, not really tracking what she saw--not by any hu to walk toward the distant shouts of children playing in the neighborhood park It would take her the better part of an hour to get there,sloith the jerky confusion of the infected when not actively pursuing visible prey

It would take less than tenhad co had come home