I hit Important when I was halfway down my in-box. It was buried in thread updates, private messages from the moderators, and random posts from my mailing lists, and I almost didn’t click because I didn’t recognize the sender’s e-mail address. “Who the fuck uses ‘TauntedOctopus’ for a handle, anyway?” I asked myself. It wasn’t entirely a rhetorical question. I was hoping the sheer stupidity of it would be enough to make George speak up.

Instead, it was enough to make me stop, swear, and open the message. Who uses “TauntedOctopus” as a handle? Probably a woman who wears T-shirts telling you not to do it. Dr. Abbey.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Aren’t you a busy boy?

I admit I was surprised when I heard that the Portland CDC had been overrun by the infected less than twenty-four hours after you left me. You don’t waste time, and I respect that. Then again, it’s not like you have much time to waste. You’re not the only one who knows how to operate a camera, and I bet you dollars to donuts that somebody got footage of you and your little band of Merry Men on the trek out here. It’s just a matter of time before somebody figures out we were in contact, and then the shit you’re in will be so deep that it’ll make your current shit look like chocolate pudding. Don’t come back. We started tearing down the lab as soon as you left, and by the time you get this message (assuming you live long enough to get this message, which is by no means guaranteed), we’ll be on our way to a new location. The little “arrangement” I have with the CDC depends on a certain status quo, and you’re playing in dangerous enough waters that I can’t count on it right now. So hurry up and get your answers or get yourselves killed, will you?

The attachments on this message contain everything I’ve done to date involving mapping the structure of Kellis-Amberlee against the autoimmune oddities that cause the formation of stable reservoir conditions. I don’t have a mechanism for reversing them, or a reliable way to induce them in adult subjects, but there’s more than enough to prove that reservoir conditions are the result of the immune system beginning to learn to cope under supposedly impossible conditions. Most of the research won’t make any sense to you, but it’ll make perfect sense to the little CDC flunky who introduced us. Make sure she sees it. Tell her it all goes public if you think she’s holding out on you. See what she has to say after that.

You’re a brave idiot, Shaun Mason, and I’m sorry I never got to meet your sister. Almost as sorry as I am that you never got to meet my husband. Give my regards to the Merry Men, and tell them to sleep with one eye open, because you’re well on the way to pissing off some pretty damn important people. Good for you. Keep doing what you’re doing. Somebody has to.

Best wishes, and stay the fuck away from me,

Dr. Shannon L. Abbey