“Yeah.”
“So what’s the fourth column?”
Becks spoke, voice heavy with dawning horror. She’d managed to figure things out just a little faster than the rest of us, and she didn’t sound happy about her epiphany. “Oh, my God. It’s—that’s the number of people with reservoir conditions who died, isn’t it?”
Kelly nodded.
I squinted at the numbers. They didn’t seem to mean anything. I was about to open my mouth when George said, very quietly, Lookat column two again, Shaun.
I looked. And I understood.
“This can’t be right,” I said, suddenly cold. Reservoir conditions don’t increase the odds of viral amplification; they actually tend to reduce them, since most people who suffer from a latent form of KA wind up even more paranoid about infection than the rest of the population. People like George, who went out into the field, or Emily Ryman, who kept raising horses even after she developed retinal KA, were the exception rather than the rule.
Kelly sighed, opening her eyes for the first time since her lecture had begun. “That’s what I thought,” she said, looking right at me. “I ran the numbers over and over. I had an intern pull the census data six times. It’s all accurate.”
“But—”
“Less than eleven percent of the population suffers from reservoir conditions. Last year, they accounted for thirty-eight percent of the KA-related deaths.” Kelly’s tone was grim. Suddenly, her exhaustion was starting to make a lot of sense. “Statistically speaking, this can’t be happening.”
“Maybe it was a glitch,” suggested Dave. “Statistical anomalies happen, right?”
Becks snorted. “Yeah, and respected CDC doctors totally help their employees fake death by clone over statistical anomalies. It happens all the time.”
“The data goes back ten years, and it’s consistent all the way through. Every year, more people with reservoir conditions die than can be supported by reasonable projections—not from spontaneous amplification, not because they were stupid, not for any reason that I can find. And no one’s ever said, ‘Hey, maybe something’s wrong here.’ ” She paused, shaking her head a little. “That’s not right. There have been project proposals that would have addressed these numbers, and somehow they always get shut down. There’s always something more important, more pressing, more impressive. Politics get involved, and the reservoir conditions get pushed to the back burner. Again, and again, and again.”
“So what, you think it’s intentional suppression?” asked Alaric.
“Last year, there was a six-billion-dollar study on a new strain of MRSA that’s cropped up in two hospitals in North Carolina. We could have done it on a third of the budget and half the manpower. It was busywork. There’s so damn much busywork.” She rubbed her temple with the heel of one hand, frustration evident. “The CDC is supported by the government. We’re supposed to be an independent organization, but that isn’t how the funding works out.”
“Was Tate involved?”
The question was soft, reasonable; it took me a moment to realize that I’d asked it.
“Not with that study,” said Kelly. Hope flared and died immediately as she continued: “He was one of the supporters of continuing cancer research. You know, since cancer will become a threat again once Kellis-Amberlee has been cured. So more and more of our budget goes to things like that, and reservoir conditions just get ignored.”
hink itight="0em" width="27">“How big a chunk of the CDC budget are we talking about?” asked Alaric. “Eleven billion dollars.”
Dave whistled, long and low. “That’s not chump change.”
“No, it’s not. I’d say maybe twenty percent of our research budget is actually being spent on research into Kellis-Amberlee-related conditions. The rest of it keeps getting siphoned off into studies that look good, but don’t do anything.” Her frustration was evident. “It’s like we’re being stopped from finding out what this virus really does.”
Probably because you are, said George.
“I didn’t know that was possible,” I said. “You’re the CDC.”
“And somebody has to pay the bills.”
“Right.” I stood abruptly, stalking back into the kitchen with my mostly full Coke in one hand and the stack of papers in the other. Behind me, Kelly started to ask where I was going, and was quickly hushed by Becks. Becks understood. Becks always understands.
The kitchen was cool and dark and, most important, empty. I put my things down on the counter, turned to face the wall, and began, methodically, punching it as hard as I could. The sound echoed through the room, gunshot-loud and soothing. My knuckles split on the fourth blow. I started feeling a lot better after that. I generally do. Pain clears the fog in my head, enough that I can think again. Besides, as long as I’m punching walls, I’m not punching people.
Someone was using the CDC’s budget to control their research. Someone was funneling research away from Kellis-Amberlee, into diseases that weren’t an issue anymore and problems that shouldn’t even have been on the CDC’s radar. And Governor Tate had been involved. The man who killed my sister. The man who changed everything. If Tate had his bloody little fingers in the pie…
If Tate was involved, so was whoever he worked for, said George, as calmly as I couldn’t. We have to help her. We have to find out what’s going on. This could be our chance, Shaun. This could lead us straight to the ringleaders.
“Yeah.” I stopped punching the wall, taking a shaky breath as I studied the new dent I’d created next to the half a dozen that were already there. We lost our security deposit a long time ago. “I know.”
Good.
If we helped Kelly, we could find out who was manipulating the CDC. We could find the people who ordered Tate to kill George. After that…
Maybe after that we’d both be able to rest.
I rinsed my hand in the sink, applying gauze and antibiotic cream before returning to the living room. There was no point in freaking Kelly out any more than the pounding noises doubtless already had. “Sorry about that,” I said. “I just needed to work through a few things.”
“It’s okay, boss, a said Dave. Alaric and Becks nodded their agreement.
Kelly bit her lip. “Is… is everything okay?”
“Not really, but we can pretend.” I walked back to my seat, belatedly realizing that my things were still in the kitchen. Oh, well. “So no one ever tried to figure out why so many people with reservoir conditions were dying?”
“Um.” Kelly blinked, apparently thrown by my return to the earlier topic. Then she nodded. “We got a new crop of interns recently. Very enthusiastic, very eager to prove themselves. One of them noticed the statistical anomaly while he was doing some filing, and he brought it to Dr. Wynne. What he said just didn’t sound right. I asked if I could look into it. Dr. Wynne was as surprised as I was, and he agreed.”
“That’s how you got started on this?” asked Alaric.
“I thought it was bad data. I thought I was chasing down a reporting error. Instead… this was huge. I put together a team of people I trusted once I realized what I was really looking at. Someone’s killing people with reservoir conditions in truly terrifying numbers.” She took a shaky breath. “And when my team started digging, they started killing us, too.”
“What?” Becks demanded.
Oh, shit, said George. I privately echoed the sentiment.
“There were eight people on my team when I started this study. Now I’m the only one left.” Kelly sniffled. I realized without any real surprise that she was on the verge of tears. “I need help. I didn’t know where else to go.”
Becks and I exchanged a look. Dave and Alaric did the same. Then everyone turned toward me, like they expected me to make the call. Oh, wait. With George gone, they did.
Crap.
It seems like everyone I work with has some great story about how their family shows support of their career in the news. Alaric’s father paid for his college education, no strings attached—scholarship by Daddy. Dave comes from this huge Russian family, and they’re all so proud of him they could explode. Maggie’s parents buy her everything her little Fictional heart desires, and Mahir’s parents are so happy with what he does that they send care packages to the office. Care packages from England, sent to an office where he doesn’t even work. That’s how cool with things they are.
Shaun may hate the Masons, but at least they supported what he chose to do with his life. No cotillions, no coming-out parties, no “Oh, honey, this is just a phase” or “Please, darling, it’s just one night.” Just one night, just one dance, just one silk dress, and the next thing I knew, I’d be just one more product of the Westchester Trophy Wife Factory, proudly producing quality goods since the days of the Mayflower. I am a card-carrying Daughter of the American Revolution. I can foxtrot, quickstep, waltz, and tango. I know how to plan a cocktail party, make small talk, and overlook a man’s personality, manners, and hygiene in favor of what matters: his bloodline and his bank account.
font size="3">These are the things my parents taught me. They raised me to be just like my sisters—sweet, pliant, pretty, and available to the highest bidder. It’s too bad I had other ideas. I am the shame of my family, the bad seed whose name will be quietly erased from the family tree the day after my picture gets posted on the Wall. I am the one who couldn’t be content playing nicely with the other children, and who had to go out and get her hands all dirty.
It’s days like this when I miss Georgia most of all. I may have abandoned the Newsies to go Irwin the second the opportunity presented itself, but she understood what I meant when I talked about my family, about not being sorry that I let them down. The things that made her a pretty lousy friend made her an excellent boss, and I think this would all be a hell of a lot easier if she were here.