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The EIS--the Epideence Service--was founded in 1951 to answer concerns about biological warfare in the wake of World War II EIS agents were responsible for a lot of the earliest efforts against infectious pandemics Without them, smallpox, wild polio, and malaria would never have been eli Amberlee and Kellis flu trials, the accidents that led to the creation of Kellis-Aht never have occurred They’ve always had a reputation for ruthlessness, focus, and getting the job done It’s too bad the Rising put an end to most of what they did In a world where there’s only one disease ood for?

But the branch held on No matter howshifted, the EIS endured Every time there was a whisper of corruption fro the ru up the mess Most people wrote them off as a bunch of spooks who refused to admit they weren’t necessary anymore I’d always been one of those people

Maybe it was tiory caht ory spoke to uards Dr Thouard Dr Tho to let me believe Shaun was dead I probably couldn’t actually afford to trust either one of theiven a choice between the two…

If the EIS illing to getto bank on my ability to escape fro ontoand find out as going on, because when Gregory and his friends brokeopen

I didn’t dream of funerals this ti hand in hand through the empty hall where the Republican National Convention was held, and nothing was trying to kill us Nothing was trying to kill us at all

The difficulty with knohat so is and how it operates is that you’re likely to be wrong, and just as likely to be incapable of ad it We for to thee That’s why so enerationto identify theenerations that caard them as normal parts of life rendered teh shelf They think soain I think they know they’re wrong They just can’t admit it, and so they wait to die and leave the world to us, the ones ill tear all those death traps down

So down the misassumptions, falsehoods, and half-truths that stand between it and you So that anybody wants to do And so we can do

--Froia Mason, originally posted on July 16, 2041

I keep writing letters to my parents Letters that explain what happened, where I went, why I ran Letters that tell them how much I love theain Letters about how s, and my bad-movie parties, and my freedom I sometimes think this ht after the Rising, only the threat of the infected was never personal They didn’t kill all those people because they wanted to, or because their victims knew sory and because the people were there Soat all With us, it’s personal We asked the wrong questions, opened the wrong doors, and Alaric will try to say that it was never

I always knew there was an ele with it willingly because these people are my heart’s fa letters toI’m sorry, and I miss them, and I may not make it home

So far, I haven’t sent any of my letters I don’t know if I ever will

--Frodalene Grace Garcia, July 16, 2041 Unpublished

Four

Dr Abbey’s screening rooinally the Shady Cove Forestry Center’s privatebored tourists and wide-eyed school groups about safely interacting with the woods I’ve watched a few old DVDs that Alaric dug out of the roo with the woods"away slowly if you saw a bear Personally, I think "safely interacting with the woods"a crossbow and a sniper rifle whenever you have to go out alone I’ll never understand the pre-Rising generation… but sometimes I wish I could It must have been nice to live in a world that didn’t constantly try to kill you

The screening roo with Dr Abbey Now, barely a month later, it was as close to state-of-the-art as could be achieved with secondhand parts and cobbled-together wiring That was Alaric’s doing I’ eventually--this wasn’t the first tiie got unco-ass screen So she batted her eyes at our last surviving tech genius, and Alaric, as probably glad to have so to distract hi switches The result was soht have been proud of, if she hadn’t been, you know, dead