Page 85 (1/1)

There are times when I miss Buffy I ht up until she sold us out--but there are times when I really miss her I could have handed her my report and told her to anza ready to go al the request She was the best at what she did Everything she did, which was sort of the probleetting a lot of people killed She said she was sorry when she came clean I believed her then, and I believe her now Sometimes people make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes are the sort that don’t allow for second chances

Doesn’t make her any less dead, or make me miss her any less

In the end, I chose three short fil them into my article in the places where they’d have the most impact, or at least look like they were there for a reason I dropped a note in theoff-line for a few hours and that I was only to be disturbed if the world was ending Even then, they were supposed to get clearance frouarantee I’d be left alone, but it would slow people down Sort of like setting a snooze button on reality

It wasn’t until I stood that I realized how sore I was I stretched until so in my shoulders popped That was the cue for half the , while the other half seeer," I said, and walked toward the kitchen

Alaric was gone, probably off doing his tie boards I’d say better hiI’d wish on anybody Becks and Maggie were still sitting at the table, watching the unco Kelly the way cats watch mice She turned towardpathetically relieved If I was her idea of salvation, things must have been really nasty while I was in the other rooet a shower"

Kelly’s look of relief died "Don’t you want to finish your potpie?"

"No, I’et for the nex few hours? I need to catch so to be useless too You’re running yourself too hard"

"You’re probably right" I paused, a thought hittingwe planted in the conference roo up on the live index now, and I want to know the second it picks anything up"

"Decontamination will take a few days," said Kelly If she had opinions about the legality of bugging CDC installations, she was keeping the until that’s done"

"Well, then, I guess I’ll have plenty of tiht, and try to get sohtful look as I turned to go

Making it up the stairs took more effort than it should have I was so damn tired It seemed like too much trouble when I could sit down and sleep perfectly well on the steps I knew I needed to shower Strict field protocols said I should have showered the second I got to the house, like Becks did It can really screw up your insurance if you don’t go through proper decontaed trip into the field, but there are loopholes to the law, if you kno to use the the trip to Dr Abbey’s lab, and CDC offices are counted as some of the few public places not considered hazard zones My failure to scrub up like a good little boy was strictly legal, and I are enough of erously close to anything infectious I just didn’t want to go to bed feeling like I’d never be clean again

The showers in Maggie’s house are another ah money and don’t care how much of it you spend The showers in the Oakland apart of air locks, computer-controlled water sprays, and si scrubbed down by industrial robots that didn’t give a damn whether you were comfortable with the process They didn’t quite perforie’s place, on the other hand… When her parents set her up with a place of her own, they took "spare no expense" seriously Sos I’d seen only in azines and in articles about people with more money than sense

The entire bathrooenuine porcelain fixtures, the kind that can get broken or splinter, thus beco full replacelance that the room was divided into two sections, since the main section contained the toilet, a full-sized sink, and an antique claw-footed bathtub All you had to do to get inside was open the door--no blood tests required If you were the sort of person who could ignore the heavy curtain covering one wall, you could pretend that it really was a pre-Rising bathroom, and that all that zombie nonsense had never actually happened

I closed the bathroom door and crossed to the sink, where I eie keeps for exactly that purpose Once I was sure I wouldn’t accidentally sanitizemy clothes--shoes and all--into the bathroom hamper As soon as I activated the shower, a chute in the bottom of the hamper would open and send my clothes for automatic sterilization No human hands would touch thelanced at my reflection and scowled I looked exhausted, and I was starting to develop bags underthe Irwin circuit any e he posts