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Becks looked perplexed "Did we sign up for a se?" I held up a hand for quiet She snorted, and subsided

Kelly continued: "The first cases of confir ‘live’ in isolated parts of the body--the reservoir conditions--were identified in 2018 Theyup before then, but we didn’t have the capacity to track them The infrastructure was still too broken down for that to be an option"

"Makes sense," I agreed The Rising left the medical co the first to be infected, leaving the hospitals of the world severely understaffed even after the initial battles of the Rising had been fought and technically won I say "technically" because it’s hard to call a conflict with that kind of casualty rate a victory There are still hospitals and people who can use theuess we’ll have to count that as a win, for now

A ses of Kelly’s lips "I could start listing the index cases for the known reservoir conditions, but I doubt you really care, and they aren’t that applicable in this situation They showed up one by one, they didn’t follow any perceptible pattern, and they were as incurable as the parent virus That’s what matters to the story: Once you have a reservoir condition, you have it for the rest of your life"

She’s got that right, said George bitterly She developed retinal Kellis-Amberlee while ere little, and she had it until the day she died Kids in our high school used to tease her about it and threaten to steal her sunglasses They never did, though There was always too ious

That’s bullshit, by the way You can’t catch the live form of Kellis-Ae didn’t sweat the live virus It just lived inside her eyes, all the tiet loose to play with the rest of her body

Which it eventually did

I had to force ain, before I could really start dwelling on what had happened to George This wasn’t the time "So what’s the moral of our story?" I asked, relieved when my voice sounded halfway natural "Reservoir conditions suck?"

"Reservoir conditions represent a viral behavior with no known purpose or explanation," contributed Dave Everyone but Kelly turned to look at hiy courses before I went to Alaska It see"

"Ah" Dave was in Alaska last year when half the staff died He was probably safer on the frozen, zombie-infested tundra than ere in Sacra ironic about that I paused "Wait, are you saying no one knohat the reservoir conditions do?"

"There are theories" Kelly sounded suddenly evasive I eyed her Her expression was practically aanything at all

She should get soe

I didn’t say anything I just waited