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I was so intent on the lights and what they could mean about my future that I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me over the drone of the positive pressure units, or feel the hypo until it was pressed against my neck A wash of cold flowed over hts, settling on a steady green Thenat all

the question I have been asked most frequently since my transition from the traditional news ive up an established career to strike out into a new field, one where hed at, but would actually work against ardlike that?

For the most part, I’ve replied with the pretty, expected lies: I wanted a challenge, I wanted to testthe news Only that last part is true, because I do believe in telling the truth And that’s what I’ Her name was Lisa She was smart, she was beautiful, and, above all, she was as crazy in love withday I was going to be a journalist, and she was going to be a teacher—a career path that got put on hold when, three days after graduation, the pregnancy test caladly It was the only test we passed

Our son, Ethan Patrick Cousins, was born on April 5, 2028 He weighed eight pounds, six ounces And routine testing of his bodily fluids and vital signs revealed a syste with the Kellis-Amberlee virus Hisit; further tests showed that the virus had set up ca her or changing her life in any way Our son was not so lucky

I was fortunate I had nine good years with my son, despite the precautions and quarantines his condition entailed He loved baseball On his last Christmas, he wrote to Santa Claus and asked for a cure, so “Mommy and Daddy won’t be sad anymore” He underwent spontaneous viral amplification two months and six days after his ninth birthday Posthuht of sixty-two pounds, six ounces Lisa took her own life And me? I found a new career

One where I’m still allowed to tell the truth

—Fro of Richard Cousins, April 21, 2040

Nineteen

I woke in a white bed in a white roo white sburned by the overhead lights before I realized that I’d openedon hts, and it hadn’t hurt at all A lack of sensitivity to pain is one of the ns of early Kellis-Amberlee amplification Was that why the CDC decided to attack us? Was I in some sort of fked-up research facility? Ruht be true

Cautious now, I reached up to touchabove my eyes, balanced to put next to no pressure on either the bridge of my nose or the sides ofpolarized UV-blocker strips for hospital treatment of retinal KA for about fifteen years now They’re expensive as hell—just one can add five hundred dollars or ile, to boot—but they filter light better and less noticeably than any other treatmentI was just a CDC kidnap victi about the situation that I was able to find this reassuring

I began studying the room It was empty, except for me, the white bed with its white sheets and white duvet and white pillowcases, a white bedside table with foaes that rendered it effectively useless as a weapon, and a large tinted “mirror” that took up lass, looking into the sterile hallway beyond There was no one watching my room That spoke well for uards out there if I was infected, assu they had some reason not to have just shot me already

If it hadn’t been for my ocular condition, that “physicians watchis streamlined now, all micromesh sensors and carefully concealed wireless monitors It’s as much for the protection of the doctors as it is for the coo into the rooo into viral amplification at any o into a safer profession Like journalism

Not that journalism seemed particularly safe at theforup with virus-dark eyes as the infection took hold and the essential core of her dissolved I got the feeling she alould be there For the rest of

Kellis-Amberlee is a fact of existence You live, you die, and then you co to eat your former friends and loved ones That’s the way it is for everyone Given what ht seee impact on my family, but the fact is, all that happened before Shaun and I were old enough to understand The virus is background noise to us If it hadn’t existed, Shaun and I would have found so that didn’t involve poking zombies with sticks Until Chuck and Buffy, it had never actually taken anyone away from me It touched people I cared about It killed acquaintances, like the security guards we lost in Oklahoma, or Rebecca Rys But it never touched me Not until Memphis