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George’s anshen it ca because you’re scared of losing o away one day?
"Yes No I e, and I sure as shit need you right now, but I have to wonder sometimes if this is my life If this is the rest ofas you keepto look at a mountain and say "I should cliirl and say the sahed a little, and added, But what do I know? I’, George You always did" I put ainst the steamed-up mirror If I squinted a little, and didn’t letback at me and not my own blurred reflection "I miss you"
I know But that won’t keep irls’ roo his hair, and Kelly was back in street clothes The CDC costu The hair extensions were gone, and she had a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes to hide her features froround color Becks had put her rifle away She was leaning against the wall next to the door, expression one of bland detach inside "Who feels up for pizza?"
"What took you so long?" asked ecks
I shrugged, s out with myself before I could co," said Mahir, dropping the towel and grabbing his jacket off the bed Kelly and Becks followed I brought up the rear, pausing to close and lock theas alked toward the van… but in the back of
It has been a pleasure and a privilege blogging for you over these past feeeks Thank you for your insightful questions and for your coreat deal about what does--and doesn’t!--work in this for I promise to take these lessons, and this experience, withsappy… thank you, all of you, for continuing to care as oing to get, and I think it’s ile part of it, even the ones that aren’t currently a part of our lives You are the reason that someday, when this disease has been defeated, the aain, and people will laugh and live and love just the way they always have Thank you for sharing yourselves withof Barbara Tinney, June 23, 2041
Twenty
I’ht We were on an Internet blackout while s
tationary: no uploads, nothat could be traced to prove ere ever here That alsoon our phones could activate their GPS chips We’d been scrupulously careful since leaving Weed We just had to hope we’d been careful enough
It was the blood tests that worried me You can’t survive in America without at least one blood test a day, and possibly--probably-- blood tests at toll booths and convenience stores all the way across the country, and if the CDC was so clean results, ere screwed
Oh, the CDC swears they don’t track clean results, only the ones that come back positive for a live infection, but no one knows for sure Legally, they’re not allowed to track clean results It’s considered an invasion of privacy If there’s nothing to indicate that a person is at risk of a Not tracking, and not --which is e have that handy little ruling to depend on See, the insurance companies would love an excuse to analyze the blood of every person in the country, looking for pre-existing conditions Ironically, the insurance co pockets that can norh, but the pharmaceutical companies makthem look like paupers, and the pharmaceutical companies didn’t want to lose their custoe any we can thank Garcia Pharmaceuticals for
We left theThe sky was still pitch-black, and the streets were deserted We planned to arrive at the CDC about fifteen minutes before the janitorial staff, stash the van in the h a side door while the grounds were still mostly deserted It was a risky approach, but it was no worse than any of the other ideas we’d coie’s van was generic enough to be ignored, without crossing into the overly generic "plain white van with blacked-out " That sort of thing attracts attention by virtue of being designed to be ignored
Kelly and I were the only ones awake in the van for the first hour of the drive She sat next to er seat--another risky approach, since her death was big news for weeks in the Memphis area "Local hero doctor dies in the saddle" is the sort of headline that has legs Newsies like stories like that; they can go back to that well again and again when things get slow, o dry At the sae roads and through the shortcuts only a local would know The thing that er also made her a major asset