He spent three hours at the media office, going over facts, dates, chemical formulas, and medical information. He waited while the reporter—now augmented by half a dozen coworkers, editors, and lawyers—called two of the gulden hospitals to confirm facts. Chay had deliberately kept news of the virus at a very low-key level, so that the medical community knew of the disease but not its origin and not its ramifications. As the magnitude of the event began to sink in, the members of the gulden press grew more and more grim.

“This will dissolve the city,” said one of the lawyers who had been called in for consultation. “This is civil war.”

“Then should we rethink?” asked a reporter. “Not run it?”

“Have to run it,” was the brief response of the man Nolan assumed was the managing editor. He seemed to be in charge of the whole group. “We would be just as guilty as Cerisa Daylen if we didn’t. People will live or die because of this story.”

“The city will go up in flames,” the lawyer said, shaking his head.

“There’s more,” Nolan said. “Maybe worse.”

“That’s hard to believe,” the managing editor said.

“Jex Zanlan has found a weapon with which to fight back.”

“What kind of weapon?” the lawyer asked. In a slow, clear monologue, Nolan told them. There was a long blank silence once he had finished speaking.

“You’re right, it’s worse,” the managing editor said faintly. “It’s not a war, it’s a complete meltdown. We could have a ghost city in three days.”

“That’s why I thought somebody ought to know,” Nolan said.

The lawyer was staring at Nolan strangely. He was slight of build, for a gulden, with pasty skin that bespoke too much time spent indoors, snatching food at random. “But why tell us?” he demanded. “Why tell anyone?”

Nolan rose to his feet. He was weary beyond telling, and he still had one more stop to make this night. “Because it was the right thing to do,” he said.

“I don’t know that I would have done it in your place,” the lawyer said.

Nolan turned to go. “Then Cerisa Daylen and Ariana Bayless have already won.”

Out into the cool dark of the deserted city. He was in the central district, not six blocks from the Complex, and limos for hire were cruising the streets, looking for passengers. It would be a tidy sum to ride from here into the residential neighborhoods on the southern edge of town, but Nolan flagged one down anyway. All he could think about was sleeping, going to bed and forgetting everything about this evening, everything about his life. He would dream, insignificant and anonymous, and if he was lucky, he would wake without remembering who he was.

He had never been that lucky.