TWENTY-SEVEN

Where’s Dymphna?” I asked as we got out of the truck.

“She’s gone,” Sly said as he entered the code and the bridge sank once more under the water.

“Gone?” I said.

“Let’s go inside.” He motioned for us to precede him up the steps. As we approached the house, I saw a large box truck parked on the far side. I hated the thought of driving something so big and top-heavy down that narrow road. “She’s gone because she’s a genius and she knew that since I hadn’t insisted that you two ride in the back of the van, there was a chance you would come back. And a chance you’d be followed. We couldn’t risk her being here if that happened.”

The inside of the house was clean and seemed mold free. The windows were intact, and there were lots of them: north and south looking out onto the bay; west looking back at the salt marsh; and east, across the bay toward the barrier island that separated it from the ocean.

It was unfurnished, apart from a bedroll in the corner and a trio of folding chairs in front of a bank of windows.

Sly turned one around so it was facing the others and sat in it, gesturing for Rex and me to sit, as well.

I sat, and the chair creaked ominously under me.

Rex laughed. “Seems like a nice little chair. I think I’ll spare us both the embarrassment of flattening it.” He leaned against the wall and slid to a seated position on the floor.

Sly leaned forward and looked at him with his eyebrows raised. Rex turned to me and said, “You tell him.”

It took me ten minutes to explain what had happened the night before, what we had observed that morning, how we had put all those things together, and what we thought about it. Sly interrupted me once: when I first said, “Roberta,” he said, “Roberta? Ugh. What the hell was she doing there?” I found that extremely gratifying.

Other than that, he just listened, taking it all in. When I finished, he sat back in his chair, nodding slowly. “Huh,” he said. “So, what do you think we should do about it?”

“I think we need to find out what it means, for sure. I thought Chimerica would be interested in looking into it.”

He nodded again. “Yeah…okay. It sounds weird, but it’s probably nothing.”

“Probably nothing?” I said, annoyed at being dismissed so readily. “If that chicken carcass made those people sick, they could be out in the world making other people sick right now.”

Sly seemed to be making a point of not looking at me. “Well, it sure would help if we could get hold of that carcass you think made those people sick. So we could see what it’s infected with.”

“I tried to get it, but Ogden took it and said CLAD would test it. I assumed Chimerica would be better able to do that, right?

“Are you kidding? Absolutely. That’s Dymphna’s specialty. Or one of them.” He shrugged. “Well, I guess let’s see what CLAD comes back with and then we’ll have a better idea of what we should do next.”

“If that thing is infectious, if it did make those H4Hers sick, it could be spreading as we speak,” I said. “We need to tell someone, whether or we have the bird or not, right?”

“Um…sure,” he said.

I glanced at Rex and then back at Sly. “You don’t sound very sure.”

“No, no, it’s not that.”

“Then what?”

“No, you’re right,” he said. “I’ll tell my superiors.”

“By your superiors, do you mean Dymphna?”

“No.” He laughed. “I’m just kind of her local point person, while she’s in the area. I’ve worked my way up a little, but there’s a few levels between me and the governing council.”

Rex nodded, like he understood the hierarchy. I didn’t—and I didn’t laugh, either. “Right,” I said, “but maybe we could tell her about it anyway.”

“Yeah, okay,” Sly said. “I’ll see what I can do. And you’ll let me know what you hear from this Ogden guy. When are you going to talk to him?”

I looked at Rex. “I guess we’ll head over there now.”

He nodded again, then turned to Sly. “Are you going to be here later?”

“Nah. I’m headed back to the city, to New Ground. I need to talk to Jerry.”

As Sly walked us back out to the truck, he said, “You mentioned to Dymphna that Ogden said CLAD has some kind of plan to bring down the Wellplant network?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But I think he was just blowing smoke, trying to make himself and CLAD seem important.”

Sly shrugged. “Maybe. But if you can find out anything more about that, Dymphna wants to know.”

“Okay.”

He went over to the keypad and started keying in numbers. “Three-three-one-three, by the way,” he said.

“So now you trust us?” I said, as the bridge once again rose to the surface.

He shook his head. “Of course I trust you, but it’s not about that. Other people trust me to be discrete. It’s about security, and now I’m out here breaking this place down and getting everything out of here, including the pontoons, because I violated security protocols before when I brought you out here. Like I said, Dymphna decided it wasn’t safe to be here any longer, because she figured you’d come back at some point and there was no way to be sure you wouldn’t be followed. After today, none of us will ever come back here again. And don’t think I didn’t get an earful about it.”

As we got in the truck, I felt like a little kid who’d just been chastised, but Sly didn’t seem angry. He gave us a cheerful wave as we drove back across the bridge.

As soon as we were on dry land, the bridge sank back under the water.

Ogden was sitting on the front steps drinking coffee when we pulled up in front of his house. As we got out of the car, he stood, looking wary. “What are you doing here?”

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

He tilted his head at me. “I’m feeling fine. Why? How are you feeling?”

“We’re okay,” I replied. “Is Roberta here?”

“Roberta?” He seemed confused by the question.

“Yeah, aren’t you two partners?”

He scowled. “Hell no. That chimera’s trouble. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she can be helpful in a pinch. But otherwise, not worth the BS.”

I couldn’t help glancing at Rex, but he didn’t look over.

“They sent her to help, and she did that,” Ogden continued. “Now she’s back wherever she goes.”

“When did she leave?”

“This morning.”

“And she was okay?”

“Grumpy and rude, so yeah, perfectly normal.”

“Have your CLAD buddies tested that carcass yet?” Rex said.

Ogden snorted and shook his head. “Since last night? No, not yet. Why?”

Rex and I looked at each other.

“It’s kind of urgent,” Rex said. “Don’t you think?”

Ogden looked away. “I hear you.”

“Did you watch Howard Wells this morning?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I’ve seen too much of that asshole as it is. Why?”

“It’s probably nothing,” I said quickly. I wasn’t ready to trust him yet with details of our earlier conversation. “But after what Melanie and Earl said about people getting sick at the facility, we were worried the chicken might be diseased.”

He laughed again. “It was definitely diseased. That’s why it’s dead, I imagine. But that’s not surprising in one of those big poultry facilities.”

“Right. But we need to know what it was sick with. That’s what you’re supposed to be testing for, right? Pathogens and stuff? Like we talked about?”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “Come on inside.”

We followed him into the house, and as soon as we were inside, he turned to face us. “Okay, Jimi. Full story? It looks like CLAD doesn’t have the resources to do testing like that after all.” He shook his head then gave Rex a sidelong glance. “I guess maybe Chimerica isn’t the only one half-assing it a bit.”

“Chimerica has the resources,” Rex said. “We can do it.”

“They told me to throw the chicken out.”

“You threw it out?” I said. “Where?” I pictured a public trash can, and a municipal worker emptying it, getting the flu, spreading it around.

Ogden rolled his eyes. “I didn’t say I threw it out. I said they told me to throw it out.”

“So do you still have it?”

He looked at me, then at Rex. “Yeah, I got it.”

“Let us get it tested,” Rex said. “We’ll share the results with you, with CLAD, let you know what comes back.”

He looked at us both again, studying us, thinking, then he went into the dining room and opened the closet door, emerging a few seconds later with a bundle wrapped in a trash bag and duct tape. “Okay, so you’re going to tell me what you find, right?”

We both nodded and he handed it over. “Made me nervous having it in the house, to be honest,” he said.

“Okay,” Rex said. “We’ll let you know the moment we hear. What’s the best way to reach you?”

He laughed, spreading his arms. “I’m right here. Come and visit, I guess.”

Rex nodded. “Okay, so maybe not the exact moment.” Then he turned to go.

I paused before I followed him. “Ogden, earlier, you said CLAD was planning on taking down the whole Wellplant network. What’s that about? How are you planning on doing that?”

Ogden smiled and shook his head. “Just a little something I came up with. But I shouldn’t have said anything about that. You join up, become part of CLAD, maybe I can tell you more. Otherwise, I got no comment.”