Maggie didn’t look happy about being sent off to outfit the Doc, but she did it; that was really all I could ask of her. I stayed in the living room, getting a few posts up on the site and making it clear that we’d been nowhere near Oakland when the bombs came down. While I was at it, I surfed over to the medical blogs to see what they had to say about the “death” of Dr. Kelly Connolly. With the way they were going on about her—lost scion of one of the CDC’s proudest heritage families, rising young star of the virology world—you’d think she’d been on the verge of curing Kellis-Amberlee, not just slaving in the CDC salt mines with the rest of the peons.

That’s the power of good press, said George dryly.

I chuckled, and got back to work.

Alaric came into the room with a half-eaten piece of toast in one hand as I was firing off an e-mail to authorize the continuing sale of Dave’s merchandise line. “Did you see the crime scene photos on the gossip sites?” he asked. I nodded. He continued: “This is, like, Invasion of the Body Snatchers levels of scary. I always knew cloning technology was better than we saw here on the fringes, but the CDC employs the best doctors in the world, and even they couldn’t tell it was a clone.”

“Could be worse.”

“How?”

“I have no idea. But it can always be worse.” I glanced toward the kitchen door. “Where’s Becks?”

“She’s helping Maggie with Dr. Connolly.” He took a bite of toast, sitting down at dical blonitor next to mine. “I don’t think she wanted to leave them alone together.”

“I always knew she was smart.”

Alaric grunted as he logged on and started working the message boards. I leaned over to “supervise,” which really meant “look over his shoulder, drinking a Coke and pretending to pay attention.” He ignored me. I took his tendency to shut me out while he worked personally at first, until George assured me that he’d always done the same thing to her. He was just one of those people who really liked to focus on his work.

I love how you ignore the inherent impossibility of me telling you something you didn’t already know, George said.

“Don’t start with me,” I said, and took another drink of Coke. That’s normally enough to shut her up for a little while. When that doesn’t work, I zone out in front of the news feeds. Comforting for her, educational for me. Everybody wins.

It’s true.

“It’s a shitty thing to say and you know it.”