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--Taken from an e-mail sent by Dr Shannon Abbey to Dr Joseph Shoji at the Kauai Institute of Virology, June 27, 2041

Tiht when she told me I should aspire to be a trophy wife At least that would have reduced the odds ofzoain,of Rebecca Atherton, July 16, 2041 Unpublished

Two

Shaun! Look out!"

Alaric’s shout carabbed th and clumsiness characteristic of the fully a to sh-powered cattle prod

A look of almost comic surprise crossed the zombie’s face as the electrified end of the cattle prod hit its temple Then it fell I kicked the body It didn’t move I hit it in the solar plexus with my cattle prod, just to be sure Electricity has always been useful against zombies, since it confuses the virus that motivates theh you can actually shut them down for short periods of ti the headset to pick ot another dead boy down Send the retrieval tea to scan the trees, looking for signs ofelse that I could hit

"Shaun…" There was a wary note in Alaric’s voice I could practically see hi his hands in his hair and trying not to let his irritation coh the microphone I was his boss, after all, which meant he had to at least pretend to be respectful Once in a while "That’s your fourth catch of the night I think that’s enough, don’t you?"

"I’ed her own channel into the connection and snapped peevishly, "You’ve already got the record Four catches in a night is that anyone else has ed, ever Now please, please, come back to the lab"

"What will you do if I don’t?" I asked Nothing see, except for my infected friend, itched I zapped hiain The movement stopped

"Tords, Shaun: tranquilizer darts Now co fair How about you promise to bake me chocolate chip cookies if I come back? That seems like aaround before you ry? Immune doesn’t mean immortal, you kno please" The peevishness faded, replaced by pleading "Just coe, anyway, the little voice at the back of my head that’s all I have left of my adopted sister Some people say I have issues I say those people need to expand their horizons, because I don’t have issues, I have the Library of Congress You need to go back This isn’t doing anybody any good

"I don’t know," I said I used to be circuo all the way insane Madness is surprisingly freeing "Ih for you?"

Shaun Please

My so back to the stupid lab, I’ll go back to the stupid lab Happy now?"

No, said George But it’s going to have to do

I poked my latest catch one last time with the cattle prod It didn’t react I turned to stalk back through the trees to the ripped-up side road where the bike was parked Gunshots sounded from the forest to my left I paused Silence followed theain Maybe that see virtual corpses for Dr Abbey, the crazy renegade virologist who’d been sheltering us since ere forced off the grid Most of her lab technicians were either ex-military or trained marksmen They could take care of the stuff" depart the zombies home alive Fortunately for h of relief otten that he and Becks were listening in fro sense"

"Don’t thankto say to that I hadn’t expected the the connection, and kept walking

It had been just under a month since the world turned upside down Soround virology lab Sure,the head virologist, who I suspected of having fantasies about dissecting ans--but at least we kneas going on We had a place, if not a fully functional plan That put us way ahead of the surviving denizens of North A we’d never anticipated: an insect vector for Kellis-Amberlee

A tropical storm had blown so enough bite to transmit the live virus to humans No one had heard of an insect vector for Kellis-Amberlee before that day The entire world had heard of it on the day after, as every place Tropical Store" The virus spread initially with the stor on its own as the winds died down and the enuine apocalypse scenario, the sort of thing that makes trained medical personnel shit their pants and call for their , and there wasn’t a da we could do about it