Page 42 of Ember Rising

We pass an ambulance, all its tires slashed. Looters have picked it clean. A man staggers nearby, so drunk he probably doesn’t know what’s happening around him.

Finally, we make it. Unfortunately, several people followed us. While I pound on the unmarked door, Deb calls out to them.

“Don’t come any closer! We will shoot!”

“What’s in there?” a man asks.

“Back off!” She fires a warning shot. “The next one goes in your chest!”

Someone opens the door a crack. I show him my ID, and he opens the door the rest of the way.

Deb and I rush in, the man who opened the door closing it and sliding a heavy steel bar into place to secure it. Within seconds, people are pounding on the door.

“They won’t get through,” he says.

He’s a stocky man, his white dress shirt smeared with dirt and sweat. I can tell from the dark circles beneath his eyes that he’s slept about as much as we have in the past two weeks.

“Is the secretary ready to move?” I ask him.

“I don’t know.” He puts his hand out to shake mine, but immediately withdraws it. “Guess shaking hands is a bad idea. I’m Shawn Westmore. FBI analyst. We’re quarantining in small groups in case people have been exposed and aren’t symptomatic yet. The secretary is in an office down that hallway. Next-to-last door on your left.”

“Anyone else want to evacuate?”

“One of my buddies I’m quarantined with is communicating with his wife on a radio. She’s a congressman’s chief of staff and she said some people are going to the aqueduct to try and hold it. Can we go there?”

“No. Our orders are to get the secretary to St. Elizabeth’s.”

He shakes his head. “We heard the virus is there. We’ll stay here. I’ll wait to secure the door when you go.”

If we can’t keep a government intact, others will take over. They won’t care about rebuilding or a clean water supply. Things can—and will—get worse than they are now. But I can’t make people care about that when they’re mostly worried about their own survival.

Deb follows me down the hall to the room the secretary’s in. When I knock, a blond woman who looks maybe twenty covers her mouth, overcome with emotion.

“Thank God. Get me out of here.”

“Where’s the secretary?” I ask.

She opens the door all the way and stands aside, pointing to a corner of the room, where a woman in a battered navy pantsuit is crumpled in the corner. She has blood on her chest, which is visibly moving up and down as she strains to breathe.

“Does she have the virus?” Deb asks the blond.

“Yeah, and she’s coughing all over the place. I’m one of her interns. The other two are dead.”

“Madam Secretary.” I go to her, getting down on one knee.

“Don’t!” The blond woman yells at me, her voice thick with emotion. “She has it and there’s nothing we can do. We need to get out of here.”

I ignore her, leaving Deb to handle it.

The secretary is clutching something that looks like a briefcase, but is made of reinforced steel. Her long, dark hair has blood caked in it. Air wheezes in and out of her with every labored breath. She moves her cracked lips, trying to form a word.

“Move,” she rasps.

“We can’t move you like this.”

Her eyes widen. She opens her mouth again, barely whispering a word. “You.”

You move.