She ended the call before they could sting her any worse. She didn’t need the distraction of Kentucky right now, especially when knowing that Camille was somehow part of Magenta. Yaya, too. Doc would have to hurt each of them again. The Board weighed on her back as she descended stairs, walked dormant hallways, their lights flickering. ABP wanted to see the end of their monster movie.

The end of Magenta.

Doc punched a code into one keypad, strolled through a brief, empty hall, and then crossed another keypad. Icy mist seeped around gray cabinets, their doors frosted over. She grasped one handle, tugged until it opened, and withdrew the refrigerated vials.

Always a dice roll with what sloshed inside. In some, it caused sterility.

Others grew tumors. Sometimes it conjured up a strange form of super-fertility, generating twins and triplets, but then at times those siblings were never born.

This was, after all, a zygote-eat-zygote world. Instead of twins, out might come a chimera.

In the lab, she pushed needles into the vials and loaded several syringes with INZ9-00. She then placed the syringes in a small case, splashed water on her face, bundled up, and carried the compound down to the lobby.

And for the first time in over thirty years, the double-zero virus met the outside world.

30

Newark had never been so quiet. Burnt-out car husks dotted the streets, but Magenta’s rampage had ended some time ago, and no fires flickered. Much of the city loomed dark, broken only by streetlights and a smattering of stars across the cloudless night sky. Their cold distance felt different in winter, Doc reflected, but she couldn’t say how.

Unplowed snow layered the asphalt, and her car made slow progress.

Panicked evacuation warnings played from the radio at low volume, a soundtrack to looking for Yaya.

The search did not take long. Doc’s next turn brought her to face a row of two-floor apartment buildings. A golden streetlight beneath them illuminated a pink tentacle, its rootlike tendrils spread across each brick face. Doc wheeled the car sharply to dodge where it jutted into the street and then followed.

Somewhere, the root led to its trunk.

A voice sang on the wind. “Come to us.”

Never urgent, only beckoning with patience as she paused at intersections in case another vehicle came charging through.

None did. Empty streets, empty buildings. The city of Newark was dead.

And beyond? No, she couldn’t let Magenta spread. At the next intersection, its green, yellow, and red lights meaningless without traffic, Doc eyed the black case beside her. One of those needles jabbed into Magenta’s muscle would reinfect her with fresh double-zero. Her mercy might end there, and she would crush Doc like everyone else in the city, but the effect would be irreversible.