My vision flashed red. The CDC had George’s blood for weeks after her death. Logically, I knew they’d been using that time for tests, as well as decontamination, but I’d never really allowed myself to think about it. The idea of them doing God knows what to her had never been a pleasant one, and the more I knew, the less pleasant it became. “You’re an asshole,” I said, conversationally. “We trusted you.”

“Shaun—”

“Fuck off.” I hung up and tossed the burn phone back to Dr. Abbey. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She tucked the phone into the pocket of her lab coat. “Satisfied now?”

“No. But it’s a start.” I turned to Kelly. “It’s your turn to talk, Doc. Make it count.”

“I…”

I glared at her. “Talk.”

She talked.

She kept her eyes on the floor the whole time, her voice tight and bordering on monotone. It was like she was trying to convince herself that she was giving a lecture, rather than being interrogated at gunpoint. The few times she did glance up, her eyes were filled with guilt, darting between us almost too rapidly to be followed. Then she’d look down again, her monotonous monologue never stopping. The expression on Dr. Abbey’s face—calculating and predatory—probably didn’t help. Then again, the fact that Becks was holding a gun pointed at the Doc’s head probably helped even less.

“The first reservoir conditions were identified in 2018. Four years isn’t long in human terms, but it’s centuries in virus generations. The Kellis-Amberlee virus had been replicating the whole time. Spreading. Changing. I mean, the first infected didn’t demonstrate mob behavior, but they started by the early twenties. That wasn’t an adaptation on the part of the infected. It was an adaptation in the behavior of the viral substrains driving them. Six of the fifteen strains we had identified by that point would cause the pack behavior. Nine wouldn’t. Ten years later, we could find only two strains that didn’t come with that instinct to infect before eating. Outside the ones we had stored in our freezers, that is.” She hesitated, shoulders tightening for an instant. Then, like some impossibly difficult decision had been made, she continued: “We tried cross-infection. Well. When I say ‘we,’ I mean scientists working at the CDC and USAMRIID. I wasn’t working with… I wasn’t a part of that project.” Kelly glanced up again, eyes searching desperately for a sympathetic face. “I wasn’t involved.”

“That’s when Dr. Shoji went off the reservation—he stuck it out as long as he could, but those cross-infection tests were the last straw,” said Dr. Abbey, in a casual, matter-of-fact tone. “You want to talk about the cross-infection tests? What those entailed, precisely? I’m sure these nice people would really love the gory details.”

Kelly took a deep breath as she looked back down. “They took… volunteers…”