For several long moments, I couldn’t speak, I just squeezed him tight, holding on like I was never going to let go, anchoring myself to him. Only at that moment did I realize how much my lungs and legs were burning from the run, and how filthy I was from the dust and grit of what had just happened at the farm. I sobbed once, and he did, too.
“I was so worried about you,” I finally whispered, the side of my face pressed against his chest. I could feel his heart thumping in his chest.
“Me too,” he said softly, the rumble in his chest louder than the words leaving his mouth. “I thought Cronos had abducted you again.”
“He did,” I said. “Well, abducted or rescued, depending how you look at it. I got away from him and went back for you, but you were already gone.” I pulled back to look at him, gently turning his head to look at the jagged cut at his temple, along the hairline. “Are you okay?”
“Cuts and bruises. You’re okay?”
I nodded.
He took a breath. “I’m so sorry about Dymphna,” he said, without letting it out.
His face became a blur as my eyes filled with tears again. He pulled me to him once more, smoothing my hair as he drew me inside and closed the door behind us. The holovid was on in the background, playing breathless local news coverage.
“What about Dara?” I asked.
“She’s okay. She went to find Sly. They’re setting up a meeting at the coffee shop tomorrow morning, to get together some of the Chimerica bigwigs in the region, tell them what happened to Dymphna and figure out what to do next.”
I could see from Rex’s face that he had something else to say. And I could tell it wasn’t good.
“What is it?” I asked.
He nodded toward the holovid. “Things have been deteriorating, even since this morning.”
He caught me up while he made us tea. “The super-flu is spreading really fast,” he said. “Over a hundred cases now, twelve dead, forty in critical condition.”
“All in a matter of hours?” I said softly. “I know Dymphna told us to go with CLAD, Rex, but…this is still all our fault.”
Rex held me by the shoulders and slowly shook his head. “No, it’s not. Wells created the virus. Those idiots took it on themselves to start trouble and grab that bag.” He pointed at the mayhem on the holovid. “That’s not on us.”
I knew on some level he was right, but on some level, I was, too. “So what’s next?” I asked quietly.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. The governor is talking about declaring a health emergency in the city, but he’s getting a lot of pushback from some of his cabinet and the head of the legislature. They’re even talking about impeaching the governor, or recalling him.” He gestured at the holovid. “There they are now.”
The crawl at the bottom of the image said STATE LEADERS OPPOSE GOVERNOR’S PLANNED EMERGENCY DECLARATION. Above it was a panel of politicians from across Pennsylvania. It was a diverse-looking group—different ages and genders and ethnicities and political parties—and it included the secretary of Health and Human Services.
But they did have one thing in common.
I turned to Rex. “They all have Wellplants.”
He nodded, his eyes filled with worry. “I noticed that. Not exactly sure what it means.”
I wasn’t sure, either.
“How connected do you think they are?” I asked, watching the holovid as the health secretary spoke and the others stared at him with identical expressions.
“What do you mean?” Rex asked. He tensed as he said it, as if he knew what I might say, maybe even as if he wanted someone else to say it out loud before he did.
“Well, you know how right before the H4Hers started throwing stuff at me, Howard Wells looked right at me, and then all the other Plants did, too—they all turned and looked at me at the same time, with the same expression.”
He leaned against the kitchen counter, slowly nodding.
“And then back at the vertical farm, Stan and the other two with him, they moved like machines, like one machine. They were totally synchronized.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I noticed that, too.”
“And Ogden said he’d been picking up strange, synchronized communications,” I stared at the holo image again, and he followed my gaze.
“They are networked, right?” he said. “I mean, we knew that. Dymphna said so. And Wellplant advertises the communication part of it.”
“Yeah, but what if it’s…more than that?”
He nodded, rubbing his chin, as if he had considered that and he was considering it some more. Then something seemed to catch his eye, and he said, “Oh no.”
I turned to follow his gaze, and saw a BREAKING NEWS graphic, over a crawl of text that said ANONYMOUS ACCUSER: HOWARD WELLS BEHIND RECENT FLU OUTBREAK.
“Oh, crap,” I said. “Do you think that’s CLAD? Do you think they went ahead, even after everything Dymphna said?”
“They wouldn’t have, would they?”
We both sat on the sofa, across from the holovid, as the view cut to the news anchor, a young guy whose ruddy cheeks were flushed with nervous excitement.
“Joining me now is Ainsley Sinclair, who has been following this breaking story for us. Ainsley, what can you tell us?”
The feed cut to Ainsley Sinclair, looking equally amped and more than happy to tell quite a lot.
“Well, Dorian, the accusations were widely distributed less than an hour ago in the form of a letter faxed to news organizations and government health and law enforcement agencies around the world, and they have caused quite a stir. While the document provides no actual proof, the level of specificity has been described as compelling by experts familiar with Wells’s companies and those on the front lines of the flu outbreak that has been spreading through attendees of the recent Humans for Humanity convention. The letter alleges that the flu virus is a particularly virulent new strain of the H7N7 virus, intentionally altered to make it more lethal, that it was created at a Wells Life Sciences-owned poultry facility in Northern Delaware, and that the initial cluster of cases involved people who came into contact with an infected chicken from that facility.”
“That’s like, word for word what Dymphna told Cronos,” I said. “And what we told him, too.”
Rex nodded as the reporter continued.
“No motive is given for the development of the virus or its release,” she said, “but the letter makes a point to specify that those who have gotten Wellplants were also immunized against the flu. A spokesperson for Howard Wells has vehemently and categorically denied the allegations.”
The image cut to a gray-haired man in a suit, standing at a bank of microphones in front of Wellplant Corporation headquarters. The text at the bottom of the image said DONALD WESTEN, CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER, WELLPLANT CORPORATION.
“These ridiculous allegations are absurd, entirely baseless,” Westen said. “They are nothing but lies, and frankly I am outraged that so many media outlets are reporting them, and, not to put too fine a point on it, exposing themselves to legal action. Maybe it’s because so many mixies have worked their way into positions of power or celebrity that people are afraid to bring it up, but I also find it striking that no one is looking into the most likely source of this flu—that once again, by making themselves part animal, the mixies have put us all at risk, inviting deadly viruses to jump from pigs and birds and whatnot, to the mixies or chimeras or whatever you want to call these semi-human creatures, and from there to the good, God-fearing people out here just trying to live their lives. And it’s not the first time this has happened, either.”