Mort(e) could sense that the plague was coming. Perhaps the ants already knew about it, and they were testing the animals’ loyalty. Or their competence. Regardless, EMSAH was inevitable. Quarantine was sure to follow. For all Mort(e) knew, this was the quarantine: an old veteran sequestered in a dead city, chasing ghosts. Forever.

The investigation files arrived in a laptop computer delivered by Bonaparte. Mort(e) opened a video of Wawa sitting at her desk, the drab surroundings of the barracks behind her. Wawa went over the list of suspected infections, along with the incidents that had been piling up, all involving ritualistic suicides or murders, with the quarry incident being the largest event yet. And there were already three more cases since then.

Wawa would focus her efforts on the quarry for now. She had to investigate a symbol painted on the hoof of one of the deer, written in a language no one recognized. A linguist in another sector was trying to translate it. This same symbol, she added, was found etched into the side of a trailer at the quarry. Wawa concluded the video by telling Mort(e) to begin interviewing witnesses at the other sites; to gather clues; to make sure the army medics collected blood samples from everyone; to note any irregularities; to ask questions but to answer none. And above all, he was to keep things quiet. The settlers were already talking about quarantine.

So he set out, flashing his newly acquired ID badge at the homes of dogs, cats, squirrels, rats, reformed farm animals. It was hard not to think of Tiberius, who would have relished the opportunity to decode the mysteries of the plague. Mort(e) never shared his dead friend’s enthusiasm for this kind of work, and instead made up for it with a grim determination, an unemotional understanding of the hand he had been dealt. This was his most honed skill, the one around which all the others revolved. He owed it to Tiberius to see things through. And to Sheba. He was working for two dead friends now. And maybe with some luck, he could make a small difference in this war.

His first stop was at a house full of rats. Because the rats hated bright light, the windows were boarded up. Most of the inhabitants stayed in the basement, which they expanded with new tunnels and passages that would link all the rodent homes in the area, thereby recreating the labyrinths of subway systems and abandoned buildings from which many of the rats came. This exclusivity was officially discouraged, but people made an exception for the rats. They were among the most productive members of the new society, and they weren’t hurting anyone.

A member of their little colony, a scrawny female named Victoria—the rats loved regal names—rounded up a new brood of babies and led them into the bathtub, where they all drowned. The others found the bodies, moistened from the steam, while Victoria lay dead with her veins opened up. When Mort(e) tried to get the rats to explain, they all spoke at once. They would not listen when he told them to shut up, to speak one at a time. From what he gathered, Victoria had done nothing out of the ordinary prior to the incident, which was even more chilling than if she had. If she had simply snapped, then it had to be some kind of affliction of the brain.

Victoria was born before the Change, something that all the suicides had in common so far. But as was the case with so many of the rats, her life was improved by the war, not harmed by it. She had not taken her upgraded brain for granted. By all accounts, she was determined to make things better for her kind, and for all animals. Victoria was one of the rats who had planned the tunnel project, and she chose the day on which the first phase was completed to kill herself in a very public fashion.

It seemed far-fetched that she was trying to send a political message until Mort(e) read the files on the deer suicides. All of them worked at the quarry, another project that helped the community become independent. So these deaths could have been some kind of sabotage. But there was no evidence, and no connection between the saboteurs.

Mort(e) checked everything: the deer and the rats had not been in the camps together, had not fought in the war, did not come from the same parts of the country. The similarity between the two cases remained a coincidence. Still, it nagged at him. Had they received messages regarding dead loved ones as he had?

To add to the confusion: the autopsies and blood tests were coming up negative, with no physical signs of the virus. Perhaps a new strain of EMSAH—impossible to detect, and far more lethal than before—had been unleashed. He could not say that out loud yet, even though it was screaming in his head.

It was the violent murder scene at the home of a family of dogs that made Mort(e) accept that he was facing an EMSAH outbreak. Or something worse, if such a thing was even possible. The family consisted of a husband and wife, two daughters, and the wife’s mother, an old mixed-breed who would probably not live to see another summer. The father—a mutt named Averroes—was a member of the Bureau. He had worked his way up, starting with dead human removal before being appointed the Assistant Director of Sanitation. They even gave him his own SUV with the Bureau logo on the door, and his neighbors saw him driving to and from the plant. In a rebuilding sector, this job afforded great respect. The dog was quite good at it. He was a genuine believer in the future that the Queen offered.

It took Mort(e) a day to piece it together, but based on blood spatters, footprints, and the placement of some dog hairs and a tooth, he was able to figure out roughly what happened on the day that Averroes died. The next-door neighbor, a dog named Thor, apparently entered Averroes’s property. He was most likely trespassing, or bringing some unpleasant news, because an altercation ensued. Not content to merely repel the invader, Averroes chased Thor onto the adjoining property, where he stabbed Thor to death. He propped the victim on his couch with one hand on the armrest, the other slung across his belly. Mort(e) couldn’t figure it out. Why make someone comfortable in his chair after killing him? Was it an apology, a realization that this act of vengeance had gone too far?

When Averroes’s mate and children returned from a day spent roving in the woods, he had dinner waiting for them. The meal was poisoned, and they died within minutes of taking their first bite. Then Averroes took a piece of biscuit with him to the bathroom. He gazed at himself in the mirror and swallowed the poison.

Luckily, the mate’s mother was at the hospital, picking up her ration of vitamins and supplements. Averroes probably planned to kill her when she returned but had lost patience and panicked, knowing that it was only a matter of time before Thor’s death caught up with him. When Mort(e) visited her, she sat in a rocking chair wearing a hoodie, her muzzle sticking out from the blue cotton. The older ones unnerved him. There was always the question of how much they had unlearned after years of worshipping a human master and defending their slave home.

Her name was Olive. She told him the details, not bothering to complain about having to go through it all again. Averroes, she explained, had not done or said anything unusual. Then again, he was a quiet one, anyway. He often relieved stress by digging in the yard. This had been his master’s house, and the act of burying something, sniffing it out, and digging it up again reminded him of a simpler time.

When Olive was finished, she stood up and headed for the kitchen. The teapot whistled, and Mort(e) thought that she was fetching something to drink. Instead, she returned with a silver necklace. “If my daughter had worn this,” she said, “she’d still be alive today.”

Mort(e) extended his hand for it. The medallion had an image of a bearded man in robes, a perfect ring around his head. St. Jude, it said. He had seen one before, but could not remember when or where. “Why would she still be alive?”

“St. Jude is the patron saint of lost causes,” Olive said.

“So the medallion would have reminded your daughter to—”

“It wouldn’t have reminded her of anything,” Olive said. “You soldiers are like robots, you know that? I’m telling you that St. Jude would have protected her.”

Mort(e) stopped himself from asking how much exposure she had had to her son-in-law. It was a moot point now.

“And I don’t care what you say,” she continued. “Write it in your report. Tell the ants I’m crazy. You’re all spying on me anyway, right?”

That was correct. Mort(e) thanked her for her time and tried to leave. She insisted that he take the medallion, pointing out that the army had already ordered her to undergo the battery of physical and cognitive tests proving that nothing was wrong with her. “Other than being an old bitch,” she said. “No law against that.”

When he refused again to accept the medallion, she told him it could be part of his investigation. “I don’t care if you’re a cat, squirrel, whatever,” she added. “You need St. Jude’s protection more than anyone if you’re in this line of work. I can feel it.”

Mort(e) took the medallion, promising to return it. She laughed and told him that she would probably be dead by then.

“And you won’t want to give it back, anyway,” she added.

MORT(E) WENT HOME. By then, he had converted the Martinis’ garage into a command center. That way, he could remove the investigation from the house entirely. On the floor of the garage, he drew out a map of the entire sector, first in plain white chalk, and then in more detail with colored pencils. He needed to be able to stand in the middle of it and think. Still not satisfied, he decided to make the model three-dimensional, with cardboard boxes and rocks to depict some of the larger buildings and structures, and a hole in the cement foundation—dug with a pick axe—to indicate the quarry where the deer committed suicide.

He hung the medallion from his desk lamp, where it dangled beside his computer screen, the image of the pious man swinging like a pendulum on a clock. Despite the late hour, Mort(e) decided to call Bonaparte. It was something Culdesac liked to do, to show the underlings that the boss could rouse them from their sleep on a whim. Bonaparte answered groggily, which compelled Mort(e) to sound even more chipper.

“The murder scene,” Mort(e) said. “I want you to round up a few people and dig up the backyard. Tell me what you find.”

“We could get a truck over there in the morning—”

“Now, Specialist.”

“Okay, I’ll get right on it.”

Bonaparte sounded annoyed. Mort(e) was not proud of it, but part of him liked spreading the misery around. If the Red Sphinx wanted him to work on this investigation, they would have to deal with him on his terms.

Mort(e) rose from his chair to get some water. That was when he spotted the raccoon through the window. The creature stood in the middle of the grass, facing the garage.

Many animals, especially those who had not been pets, seemed to have liberal views of property. This same raccoon may have even rummaged through the Martinis’ trash before the war. So many of these bottom-dwellers had waited out the conflict living on garbage and grubs. Still, the messenger bag slung over the raccoon’s shoulder showed that he must have had some function other than creeping around at night.

Mort(e) lifted the door of the garage and was immediately overcome with the sweet stink of a feral raccoon, thick as mist. He scrunched his eyes, forcing his senses to grow accustomed to the assault.

The raccoon did not move.

“Are you lost?” Mort(e) asked.

His eyes adjusted. There was something wrong with the raccoon’s face. With his whole head, really. The raccoon’s neck had been split open, and the severed chin and jaw pointed straight upward. But where there should have been the pulsing insides of the throat was, instead, a face. A human face.

All thought left Mort(e)’s mind. Now there was only movement. Calculating distances. Erasing fear and doubt. This was the counterattack he had been trained to expect. His hind legs tensed, his tail straightened. Mort(e) leapt at the intruder, his clawless hands ready to land on the man’s chest. But the man was fast. Before Mort(e) could seize the human, a piercing noise paralyzed him. A screeching sound that rattled inside his brain like an angry insect. Mort(e) collapsed. With his hands on his ears in a futile attempt to block the noise, he tilted his head up to see that the man held some metal device, about the size of his hand. Whatever it was, it seemed to focus the noise on Mort(e) like a laser.

The noise stopped. The ringing in his head lasted for a few seconds before fading out.

“Get up,” the man said.

“Who are you?” Mort(e) asked.

The noise again, like a horde of ants invading his skull. It was so human of this raccoon to answer a question with more punishment.

“Quiet,” the man said. “Get up and go to the garage.”

Mort(e) obeyed. The temporary fog of the raccoon smell had already begun to disperse.

“Sit down,” the man said.

Mort(e) sat in the chair at his desk. The man closed the door halfway. Perhaps he wanted an easy escape in case Mort(e) somehow overcame the stun weapon.

The human sat on a nearby stool and placed the bag on his lap. The suit, Mort(e) noticed, had been built from the hide of a real raccoon. The mask was perched on the crown of the man’s bald head. He had brown skin. The stubble of a beard framed his jaw. The device remained firmly in the man’s hand, the pad of his thumb poised over the power switch.

“I am Elder Briggs,” the man said. “I know you have a lot of questions. Please feel free to ask them.”

The words had been chosen carefully, most likely rehearsed. They give away so much in their eyes, Culdesac had told him in their human interrogation training seminar years before. You have to watch the eyes. It’s harder for them to lie, and yet they do it so often.

Briggs’s pupils quivered. He was clearly in awe of Mort(e). Perhaps Briggs had been given a photo of him to study.

“How did you get here?” Mort(e) asked.

Briggs sighed. “You’re starting with a question that you can’t possibly expect me to answer,” he said. “Let’s say I dropped in.”

“How many humans are with you?” Mort(e) said. “How many are in your resistance?”

“Too many for the Queen’s taste. Enough to fight.” Briggs grinned. It made him more difficult to read.

“What is it?” Mort(e) asked.

“Most people would have asked ‘why’ next. But you’re a warrior. Always analyzing the tactical situation.”

“I imagine you’re here because of my investigation,” Mort(e) said.

“EMSAH,” Briggs said. “I suppose anyone under the Colony’s control is investigating EMSAH in one way or another.”

“Is there an EMSAH outbreak in this sector?”

“Of course.”

“Are you causing it?”

“Absolutely.”

Mort(e) chuckled. I guess this concludes my investigation, he thought.

“The question you should be asking,” Briggs said, “is not, ‘Is this EMSAH?’ Of course it’s EMSAH. EMSAH is everywhere. We did a good job spreading it around. No, the question you should be asking is, ‘What is EMSAH?’ And, ‘Why are the ants so afraid of it?’ ”

“Can you answer these questions for me?” Mort(e) asked.

“The Archon decided that you should find out on your own,” Briggs said. “She is our leader. Besides, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Am I infected?”

“I’m afraid you could be.” There was an impatient trembling in Briggs’s voice. Mort(e) could not tell if it expressed regret or satisfaction.

“So the scattered reports about people getting sick,” Mort(e) said. “Is this EMSAH?”

“Probably.”

“But they’ve been testing negative so far.”

“Maybe your test is not keeping up with the disease.”

“And the suicides?” Mort(e) asked.

“EMSAH,” Briggs replied.

“The murders, too?”

“EMSAH, yes,” Briggs said. Now he was being nonchalant.

“Do you control the ones who are infected?”

“We do not control them. We try to guide them.”

“So you guided them to commit suicide?”

Briggs shook his head. “Has it ever occurred to you that you are the ones who are compelling these people to commit these terrible acts?” he asked. “We know about you. You’ve always suspected that the Queen’s plans for your people would not work. That’s the reason why you walked away from the Red Sphinx. These infected ones, as you call them, they know what’s in store for them if they’re discovered. How can you blame them for fighting back?”

“So you’re saying that these events are not simply the results of a disease,” Mort(e) said. “They’re acts of protest. Sabotage.”

“A warning,” Briggs said. “A sign of what is to come.”

Mort(e) wanted to bring this human to the house with the dead rats in it. He wanted to shove the man’s ugly face into the tub so he could see firsthand what his species had done.

“Did you put that message in my basement?” Mort(e) asked, eager to change the subject. “The one about Sheba?”

“Yes,” Briggs said.

“Why?”

“Because it’s true.”

“That’s impossible.”

“The past few years,” Briggs said with a sigh, “have been a monument to the impossible. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Where is she?”

“On the Island.”

The word—along with the casual way in which this fugitive said it—made Mort(e) shudder. Whenever someone brought up the subject, his imagination conjured up images of Janet and the children, filthy and cowering, rounded up by Alpha soldiers, imprisoned in cages until they were summoned to partake in one of Miriam’s experiments. And who could say for sure that Miriam wasn’t also running tests on animals? And yet here was this human, holding Mort(e) hostage in his own garage, forcing him to imagine Sheba on an operating table.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

“It is your destiny to find her again,” Briggs said. “The Queen has feared it. Our prophet has foreseen it. The entire war depends on it.”

“Prophet?”

“An oracle, a messenger with the gift of sight,” Briggs said. “He tells us that you will find Sheba again. In doing so, you will save both your people and ours. Don’t tell me you’ve given up hope.”

“Destiny and hope,” Mort(e) said. “You are a relic, you know that? No wonder you lost. Besides, no one can get to the Island, anyway. She might as well be on Mars. I don’t care what your prophet says.”

“I have something for you,” Briggs said, reaching into the bag, his eyes still fixed on Mort(e). He pulled out a red plastic tube and slid it across the desk.

Mort(e) picked up the tube and examined it. There was a large glass eye at one end and a smaller one at the other. A telescope.

“We are not the monsters the Queen made us out to be,” Briggs said. “We are reaching out to you as friends.”

“Friends don’t spread diseases to their friends.”

Briggs smiled knowingly. “The first step to ending this war starts tonight.”

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Mort(e) asked.

“Look to Orion’s belt at midnight every night,” Briggs said. “What you’ll see will answer most of your questions about what has happened to the resistance.”

Mort(e) placed the telescope on the desk. It rolled before coming to a stop at the computer monitor.

“Do you know Morse code?” Briggs asked.

“The basics.”

“Relearn it, and we’ll be able to communicate with you. One day, perhaps very soon, we hope to be able to tell you how to get to the Island.”

“What does it matter if I get there?”

“It will show that the Queen has not destroyed everything,” Briggs said. “It will show that we are not simply the savages that she thinks we are. So much depends on it.”

He said the word we to mean both humans and everyone else, as if there was some kind of camaraderie among the species.

Briggs stood up and backed his way to the door. He extended his arm to demonstrate that he could still inflict pain if he felt threatened.

“There is a catch,” Briggs said.

“What’s that?”

“If you succeed in finding Sheba, it will trigger the largest outbreak of EMSAH yet. You’ll fulfill the prophecy, and the Queen’s experiment will be deemed a failure. She will respond with a total quarantine. We had a big debate about whether or not to tell you, but we decided that you should know.”

“What does EMSAH have to do with Sheba and me?”

“When you find out what EMSAH is, you’ll understand. All I can say for now is that the Queen has linked the virus to you.”

“That’s insane,” Mort(e) said. “If the Queen thinks I’m part of this EMSAH business, why doesn’t she send her daughters to kill me?”

“Her arrogance has blinded her,” Briggs said. “She thinks she can observe and report. Like this is another test of our weakness as a species. She thinks she can control you. But this is not a lab. And you are not an animal anymore. You can choose to go beyond what she has planned for you. She does not believe. The Queen is blind. And that will be her downfall. It is the downfall of all tyrants.”

Mort(e)’s gaze dropped to the floor in frustration. This talking in riddles was so human, so unlike the brutal simplicity of the ants. Of course the Queen didn’t believe—she simply knew.

“Remember: watch Orion’s belt at midnight,” Briggs said. “We’ll work on a way to get you to the Island. Good luck.”

The man scuttled under the half-open garage door, leaving behind a brief but intense spray of raccoon scent.

Mort(e) tapped the telescope with his finger. Swaying above, the St. Jude medallion reflected dull flashes of light from the lamp.