Lord, she hated it when big dumb guys were right. Especially when they were right about being taken to the middle of nowhere by fellas up to no good. She particularly hated that.

The truck stopped.

"You're up, Annie," Wallace said quietly.

She shook all the way to her bones. Up front, doors slammed. Boot soles hit pavement. If her heart pounded any harder, she wouldn't have to fake a thing. She tried not to look fearful; hell, she tried not to tip over. One of the two goons from up front appeared at the truck's back gate.

"We there already?" Wally asked.

The goon didn't look at him. "Got engine trouble. You need to get out."

"Okay." Wally unfolded himself from his spot on the bench, looked over at Main. "Ladies first."

"Thanks, Wally." She stood, and her knees wobbled. The goon unlatched the gate, swung it open. Main gasped, doubled over, and fell on him.

It was a considerable jump from the back of the truck to the road, even for a gal not her age; it was an even bigger jump when you were likely to land square on either your damn head or a bullet. Main closed her eyes to the cartwheeling world. She felt her goon stumble; she didn't see him fumbling to keep his hold on his automatic. She hit the pavement, and the wind went out of her. Her eyes jolted open in time to catch Wally hitting her goon in the jaw with a fist like a headache ball; goon number two rounded the truck, and Red came out of the back like Bruce damn Lee and knocked him flat. It was over just like that. That damn easy.

Wally grabbed her hand in his mighty paw, hoisted her off the blacktop. "Good job, Annie."

"You guys watch too many movies." She took a deep breath, blew out hard. "Hell, gal'd think you're Randolph Scott."

"Take that as a compliment, ma'am." Wally grinned. "I'm drivin'. Red, get on the horn t' Leeds. Tell 'em we're on the way."

"Yessir." Corporal Jeffries, hopped up on adrenaline, scrambled to the truck's cab.

"What about them?" Main nodded toward the goons.

"Leave 'em. Let 'em hobble back t' Infinity. Leeds'll have that place closed down, crap like this goin' on." Wally swaggered forward along the truck, swung himself into the cab. "Annie, get their guns."

He started the truck; she heard the gearbox grind; she grinned and muttered: "Now, how'n the hell'd I know you'd say that--?"

One gun, one slender army automatic, and she heard Red say: "Shit--!"

The other automatic, heavy and gray, and up in the cab Wally asked, "You cut yourself, Red--?"

She was wondering whether she should check the goons for ammo; up front, Red was saying, "There's a damn-- Look: there's a damn razor blade taped to the handset."

Naw. They'd have bullets enough in the loaded clips. Wasn't that far to Leeds anyhow. Main walked up alongside the truck. "Slide over, Red. I ain't ridin' in the--"

The truck lurched forward, rolled. A tire nearly chest-high nearly ran over Main's foot; she jumped back. From the cab came a shout, a series of shouts, thumping, thudding. The truck rolled on, gained momentum.

"Wally--? Red--?"

She froze for a moment, there in the middle of a narrow strip of blacktop under a raining sky in West Yorkshire. Then she walked after the truck; then she ran. It went maybe a hundred yards before it met a gentle curve; it continued straight on even as the road didn't; it nosed heavily into a grass-grown ditch and bucked up against a low stone wall. It stopped, hung there, its motor rumbling in the rainy air.

Main slowed to a trot. "Wally? Red?"

The passenger-side door creaked open, and Red stumbled out into the ditch. He nearly fell; he staggered, his movements jerky and wild.

Something about the way he moved--

Main stopped. She was maybe thirty feet from him, give or take. "Red--?" she called.

There in the ditch, Red turned toward her. He went rigid, his arms out at odd angles, like they weren't his arms at all. Then he ran at her.

Christ, he was movin' fast--

His face was fixed in a snarl, his lips pulled back from his teeth, and she could hear him panting wildly as he crested the ditch and came at her. He was clawing the air with his hands.

She dropped one of the automatics; she flipped the safety on the other.

The worst of it was, he wasn't making a sound, not a damn sound. Just the in and out of his breath, which was coming to her as clearly as the pounding of her heart in her ears. She raised the automatic, steadied her gun hand with her free hand.

Like her daddy always said, Two hands, Annie. Always use two hands, girl. Two hands and--

She squeezed the trigger. Bang and a kick clear to her shoulder caps. Red mist burst from the back of Red's skull; his head jerked back, and over he went. He landed on his back on the road and lay still.

She kept both hands on the gun as she went to him. Red lay there, a blackish hole where his left eye had been. His right eye was blood-red, fixed on the gray sky.

"Hell," she said. "Aw, hell."

She continued on to the ditch, clambered down, approached the truck on the driver's side. One last time, uselessly, she called: "Wally--!"

Nothing, but she couldn't but know it already. She held the automatic in her right hand, pulled the truck door open with her left. Wally sat there, slumped against the steering wheel, looking at her with those dumb tiny eyes of his. He was looking at her, and he wasn't looking at her, and his eyes were dead dull blue. Not red. He was looking at her without looking, and his head was turned one way while his body was all twisted another. He looked like a pack of dogs had been at him.

She stepped back from the truck, and it was like all the bones went out of her shoulders. She stood there in the rain and started to cry.

"Hell. Aw, hell. Hell, Annie. Can't stay here, girl. Come on."

She came up out of the ditch. Red was still there; back farther, the two goons from the truck weren't. She couldn't see them anywhere. Likely they were running back to Infinity; more power to 'em. If they weren't-- if they were planning to jump her-- Hell. She'd just shot a friend; at this point, killing two would-be killers could hardly add further tarnish to her Hippocratic oath.

She set off down the road; just ahead a white sign lettered in black read "Leeds 25 km." Still the damn rain, but there was plenty of daylight left, and she was wearing good shoes. With luck, she'd be at the Leeds base in four hours.

"Hell of a way to see Bronte country, Annie," she muttered. "Let's get going."


"You ready for that 'one more,' Jim?" asked John Isaacs. He had about him an air of heightened energy, as though he'd stopped off for an espresso. Or a line of cocaine. He'd been gone just under twenty minutes.

He sat; Jim sat back down, too. "Sure."

"So, uh-- Wait. You need anything? Restroom? Water?"

"No."

"Okay." Isaacs settled himself in his chair, straightened his tie, pressed the button on the micro-recorder. "Major West. Henry West. He's mauled, yes; but he's got bits of glass on his clothes, embedded in his scalp. Automobile glass. You know anything about that?"

"You tell me."

"We know that there's a cab parked outside that cottage you were holing up in, you and the girls. We know it's got a busted back window."

"Don't miss much, do yeh?" That's what he'd been looking at, then. Piotr. That Russian bastard.

"What we don't know is who was driving it. When-- presumably-- Major West went through its back window."

"I was."

"You were."

"Yes."

"See, uh, Jim--" Isaacs kicked back in his chair, rocked it on two legs. "I took a minute to confer with my legal team, the guys talking to Hannah and Selena. You were shot, weren't you? Selena told us you were shot."

"Yeah--"

"Who shot you, Jim?"

Jim's pulse was thrumming, hard, in his throat. "Major West."

"Gut shot, yes?"

"Yeah."

"Shot in the belly, and you're driving the getaway car."

"Yeah."

"So, uh, what happened to West?"

"I--uh-- I hit him."

"With--"

"With th' cab."

"He shoots you-- the once-- right there, right there in the rum-tum-tummer, and you get in the cab and back over him. While he just stands there."

"Yeah."

"That is so Tony Curtis. 'Spartacus.' You know that one, Jim? Kirk Douglas, gladiators, big uprising, and at the end they're all-- man, they're all keen as hell to be crucified in his place. 'I'm Spartacus! No-- I'm Spartacus--!'"

Jim swallowed. "I don't understand."

"Sure you do. See, Jim, that bit right there-- that bit about you driving? That's not what the girls are saying."

"But--"

"Selena's saying you buckled. Understandable: gut shot hurts like hell. I'd be crying, buddy: no lie. Nothing to be ashamed of. Hannah's saying she was driving. She was driving, and she backed West into a whole mob of infected, and they tore him apart."

"No--"

"My advice, Jim-- You want my advice, right--?" Isaacs tipped his chair back onto all four of its legs, leaned forward, parked his forearms on the table. "Let her take the hit. She's a juvie."

Jim said nothing. It struck him again, like an actual physical blow: awful hopelessness. In the last few days, the last day especially, he'd grown utterly unacclimated to it. Isaacs was watching him. He sat for maybe thirty seconds, sharing Jim's silence, and then he said, "You're taking all this remarkably well. Better than Selena, anyway. Burns set her straight on what you were in for, and she parked one on his nose."

"She did what--?"

"Hauled off, and 'BAM.' Boy's gonna be blowing red for hours. Nearly had to put her in restraints."

"I want to see her." This bloody naked room, the stale air. God, it was as though he'd been asleep. Suddenly Jim was on his feet. "I want to see her. I want to see her now. Now--!"

Before him, John Isaacs smiled calmly. "Buddy, okay. Jim, it's fine." He stood. "I'm sure Burns won't mind a break. Right this way."


Less than twenty feet down the powder-gray hall, another door. Isolation Lab 2, stenciled in black on the wall. Isaacs knocked, opened the door. It was a room exactly like Jim's. On one side of the metal table sat a dark-haired man in a dark suit. Burns. It had to be. His nose was blotched and trickling blood; he was dabbing at it with a handkerchief. Across from him sat Selena. Behind her stood the soldier who'd likely been standing guard outside, before Selena had "parked one" on the had-to-be-Burns' nose.

"Jim--" she said. But she didn't get up; likely Burns, behind the stinging extension at the center of his face, had outlined for her an if-then scenario connecting the concepts "move" and "get shot."

He set aside his handkerchief. "What's up, John?"

"You are, buddy." Isaacs grinned. "Hell, she pegged ya, didn't she? C'mon, let's take five. You too, G.I. Joe. Give these kids a minute alone."

Jim watched her as the room emptied; she watched him. Alone, no pretenses: she came to him, and he wrapped her in his arms.

"I thought we made it." Selena pulled him close, held him tightly. "Jim, I thought-- God, I thought it was over."

"We'll get through this. It's gonna be okay."

"They're talkin' about hanging you, Jim."

"Shh, love. Oh, darlin', shh-- No one's hangin' me." He pulled back just far enough to look at her face, to meet her eyes. "Jesus, Selena: think. Think. What if--"

"What?"

Maybe it was the fear in her eyes; his own fear stepped aside, made way for something akin to courage. The thought came to him even as he voiced it: "What if they're fucking with us?"

"What are you saying?"

He again pulled her close, whispered: "I don't think they're lawyers."

Her breath was warm on his ear: "What are they, then?"

"I dunno. Scientists. Maybe even-- maybe even th' ones who made it. The virus."

"What do they want with us?"

She was relaxing against him, ever so slightly. If he closed his eyes-- and he did, just for a moment-- he could pretend they were back at the croft, warm in their bed, talking quietly in the darkness of a Cumbria night. "All those questions about the mansion. Things at their worst, and they want t' know what kept us tickin'. They want t' know what kept us alive."

"So they can-- Christ, Jim, we have to get out of here."

"Yeah, we do."

A sharp knock at the door; Selena started against him. Isaacs called: "One minute, you two. Wrap it up!"

Jim caressed her cheek, looked into her eyes. Then he kissed her deeply. "I love you, you know that?"

"Yeah. I love you, too."

"They give you meds tonight, you palm 'em, yeah? I'll come for you. Half three."

"How--"

"I'll find a way. Place'll be dead quiet. We'll find Hannah; we'll go."

"Okay." She kissed him. "Behave yourself 'til then."

"'Til then, darlin'."

The door opened. Jim looked over at Burns, smiled. "And don't be beatin' on that fella. Here t' help us, he is. Aren't yeh, Mr. Burns--?"