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The bug at the Portland CDC yielded nothing useful; either they’d ed to find and destroy it, or it hadn’t survived the decontamination process One more possible information source down the drain The wor a little bit better They kept finding old research papers and short-lived projects buried in the bowels of one server or another We added the

Mahir had a few local scientists illing to at least discuss the situation with him; he didn’t tell us their nas I was better off not knowing until I had to It see, but after the second day, he stopped calling or e- His reports still went up on time, and he still did his ti looked fine--but he wasn’t keeping up nore I listened, reed with her She was usually right about when I needed to wait and when it was okay to barrel on ahead I just wasn’t sure howended a little over teeks after the destruction of Oakland and our arrival at Maggie’s The house phone rang, ignored by the huie, and the Doc, as struggling to write an article about the pros and cons of exposing children to the outside world She was having a lother deadlines now that she didn’t have Mahir to help

The answeringThere were a few minutes of silence, followed by the voice of the house co politely, "Excuse me, Shaun Do you have a moment?"

I hate machines that sound like people

"sh," I muttered The house computer had learned not to pay attention when I spoke that quietly--I guess evencurve for crazy--and continued to wait for my reply until I said, "Yeah, sure What’s up?"

"There is a call for you"

"I guessed that part Who is it?"

"The caller has declined to identify hihty-seven percent chance that he is of British nationality, although I ain with any accuracy The call has been placed from a local number The exact number is blocked Would you like me to request additional information?"

I stood so fast that I knocked my Coke over Soda cascaded across the table and onto the carpet I ignored it, lunging for the phone next to the kitchen door Maggie was right behind , "House, is the line secure?"

"This end of the line is secured according to protocol four, which should be sufficient to block anything but a physical wiretap I am unable to determine the security standards of the other end of the line Do you wish to proceed?" The voice of the house was infinitely patient, ie and I looked like ere on the verge of hysterics

"Yes, darabbed the receiver froave the phone a panicked look "Where is he?"