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“Huh?” I twisted around to look at hi okay?” He peered atabout Rebecca You drive? My head hurts tooto look concerned I don’t like to let hioing too fast for the cops to catch up “You sure?”

I tossed him the keys Usually, I don’t like to be in the car when he’s behind the wheel, but usually, I don’t have a bunch of dead people, a distraught presidential candidate, and a splitting headache to contend with “Drive”

Shaun gave me one last worried look and turned to head for the van I followed and cli rather uncharacteristic concern for , pulling out at a reasonably sedate fifty or sothat the brakes could be used in situations other than “band of zo the road ahead” I settled deeper intomy eyes closed, and started to review

When I said that the facts on the outbreak at the ranch didn’t add up, I’d been half-expecting to find solect or possibly of an intruder who kicked off the wholeit to be blah to trigger ht here” In short, a blip, a little bit of nothing that didn’t change anything

Rebecca Ry

We’d known for weeks that Tracy’s death—and thus probably the entire Eakly outbreak, although there wasn’t anything conclusive that could be used to prove it—wasn’t an accident, but we’d had no real proof that it was anything e of an opportunity to cause a little chaos Now the chances of two randoroup of people were sot smaller when you stopped to consider that the man who connected both incidents was one of the current front-runners for the office of President of the United States of A

And it was also very, very bad, because whoever was behind it thought nothing of violating Raskin-Watts, and that meant they’d already crossed a lineThis was terrorisauto blessed di an eyebrow, I turned toward hi relieved “Hey You fell asleep We’re here”

“I was thinking,” I said pri, “andHow’s the head?”

“Better”

“Good Rick’s already here, and your crew is driving him up a wall—he’s called three times to find out e’d be on site”

“Any word fro out of the car The parking garage was cool and fairly full Not surprising; when the senator booked our rooms, he put us in the best hotel in town Five-star security doesn’t co with motion sensors that keep constant track not only of who’s where, but how long they’ve been there and what they’re doing Stay down here walking in circles for a while, and Shaun and I could get a whole ne of hotel security Thata story that was al towith rich people’s security systee

“She’s still at Chuck’s, but she says the servers are prepped to handle whatever load we ask them to and that the Fiction section won’t have a response for a day or two anye should go ahead and run without her” Shaun sla toward the elevators that would let us into the main hotel “She seemed pretty shaken up Said she’d probably sleep over there tonight”

“Right”

Likeat the Embassy Suites Business Resort, a fancy name for a series of pseudo-condos that offered less transitory lodgings than our own high-scale but strictly te roo could actually take a bath in Ours came with a substantial array of cable channels, two queen-sized beds that we’d shoved together on the far side of the rooly robust electrical systeed to trip the circuit breakers twice, and for us, that’s practically a record

The elevators were protected by a poor-lass doors opened at our approach, then slid closed, sealing us into a slass doors barred us froured to handle up to four entrances at a tih to take advantage of that illusionary convenience If anyone failed to check out as clean, the doors would lock and security would be called Going into an air lock with someone you weren’t certain was uninfected was a fore in

Shaun tookbefore we split up He took the leftht

“Hello, honored guests,” said the warned to conjure up reassuring thoughts of soft beds, chocolates on your pillow every lass doors “May I have your room numbers and personal identifications?”