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"You don’t know that," said Mo herself back under control That probably wasn’t good "They ot loose while ere in the Memphis CDC, Ms Mason" Becks’s voice was as calm as it was unexpected Mom’s head whipped around to stare at her "If it hadn’t been for the stor--they would have been confined to Cuba They would never have reached the coast without the wind to help them"

"So?" dehtful; the sa occurred to her in the ht She’d wake me up and whisper inme stories I only half heard, but that would be posted on our site within the week

"What?" Mom turned back toward him, and consequentially, toward inated in Cuba They’re on record as a mutation Some sort of horrible trick of natural selection"

"You don’t believe that, do you, Mr Mason?" asked Becks "Doesn’t it seem a little pat? Twenty years of no insect vectors, and then one coht time to bury a news cycle no one wants to deal with? If it hadn’t been for the storht now The Cuban tragedy would be do the news for the next year, and no one would ever hear about a break-in at a CDC facility, or about the corruption leading to the death of Dr Kelly Connolly, granddaughter of the "

"But Tropical Storu on a big ol’ wind sweeping in and carrying their nasty little pets to Aot buried, and so did a lot of innocent people It was a mistake It still did its job You never heard about any of that, did you?"

"No" Dad stepped up behindto stand beside Mo her stance as she adjusted to include his"

"So either I’ve gone entirely out of uess, since I talk to ed to take et us And whoever it is, they illing to gamble with the Kellis-Amberlee virus in order to keep us out of the headlines" I took a breath "Lots of kids died in Florida, Mos that hadn’t been chained up properly Not because their parents did anything wrong They got bit by mosquitoes, and it killed them, and it wasn’t fair Just like what happened to Phillip wasn’t fair"

"I told you not to talk about hier in her voice wasn’t there, and the tears were beginning to overflow her lower lids, starting their slow tracks down her cheeks She looked old, and tired, and like the woman I’d only ever seen in pictures taken before I was even born She looked like soet to Florida because the family of one of our team members was there when the storm hit His parents died His little sister’s still alive We proet her out"

Dad shook his head "That’s not going to happen, son"

What? dee

"What?" I asked, half a heartbeat later