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With no real idea where ere going, and nothing I could do to help, I contentedup the site archive on the local server and reading as we drove down the length of Washington State and into Oregon This was a slower,for information; I could take the ti at, rather than just clicking the next report as quickly as possible There was even a link to the site’s financials I was somehow unsurprised to see that Shaun hadthee of the site’s overhead I was one of the higher-profile journalist deaths since the Rising That , and made my previously unpublished op-ed pieces lucrative, even when they’d been written to parallel events that happened years before That’s the hu to slon and look at the train wreck

Becks kept watch froer seat while Shaun drove The route he chose involved a disturbing nulorified footpaths He drove the that he and the others had been through since I died, they probably were I stopped reading and leaned back inthe faet whenever I forcedI never thought I’dabout et back

This wasto follow the Ry along with us If I’d just been willing to workit one step at a tiht to the top--

Then someone else would have died in my place, and in Buffy’s place, and so this drive This was all going to happen eventually The only thing that uished one journalist frouish gossip from the real headline story: We were the ones on the scene when everything went down We weren’t better We weren’t worse We were just the ones standing in the blast radius

Everything that happened from there was inevitable

That didn’t absolve us of blaet told and the wrong secrets get out--but even if eren’t innocent noere then We really believed in ere doing It wasn’t our fault that rong

I drifted off reading Alaric’s analysis of the political situation after Ryman’s election--situation nor developes to the rules for deter--and woke to see the first rays of false dawn painting the edge of the sky in shades of pollution pink and caution tape gold Becks was driving Shaun was asleep in the passenger seat, his head lolling back and his htly open He looked exhausted

Becks lanced at the rearviewmine, and raised one eyebrow That was all she needed to do; the e couldn’t have been easier to understand if she’d posted it on the front page of our news site

I nodded I understood, and I wasn’t going to hurt him Not if I had any choice in theI cleared on We’re almost there"

"There where?"

"Shady Cove"

I paused, trying to convinceIt didn’t work Finally, I demanded, "What?"

Shaun didn’t flinch Becks replied, "Shady Cove, Oregon Our friend Dr Abbey has a lab there Right now, anyway She’ll probably move it soon Possibly after she demands that we let her dissect you"

"In Shady Cove"

"Yes"

"But there’s nothing in Shady Cove" Shady Cove, Oregon, was on the list of cities abandoned after the Rising, when the econoreat to balance out the benefits We’d take it back soress demanded we leave the dead with no country of their own Until then, Shady Cove would stand empty, just like Santa Cruz, California, and Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, and Warsaw, Indiana, and a hundred other towns and cities around the world

"That’s why she has her lab there," said Becks curtly, before leaning over and snapping the radio on Further conversation was renderedus, loudly and with enthusiasht, eyes open, hand going to the pistol at his belt "Wha--"

"Settle, Mason We can’t all be as polite as the wakeup call at Maggie’s fancy-ass hotel," said Becks, turning the radio down again now that its purpose had been achieved "We’re alround the heels of his hands against his eyes, wiping the sleep away This ti the pistol fro off the safety Once he was done, he twisted in his seat, shooting his old, farin in my direction "Sleep well?"

"Like a rock," I said I alht not take that well Like it or not, Shaun was going to be a little sensitive about that sort of thing for a while Possibly forever