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mottled with dark, almost black bruises, and a small, wet-looking sore had erupted on her nose. Her chest looked like someone had cut a wedge out of it, a crater of scabby gore that seemed nearly to have consumed her shirt and thick hooded coat.
    “Fucking hell,” I whispered as I heard steps behind me and turned my head to find Jabali there, shutting the door carefully behind him.
    “Keeps gettin’ worse,” he said. “She didn’t look this bad a few hours ago. Keeps on keeping on, whatever this shit is, even after you’re dead—no pity. Mel had us burn poor old Pick, you know? Said she didn’t want him eaten up.”
    I looked back at Glee and forced myself to approach her. Her eyes were open and looked so normal, so clean and untouched, I didn’t want to look at them. Standing over her, I reached down and pushed her eyes shut, flinching a little as I touched her cold flesh. I’d killed a lot of people. I’d killed a lot of people and not lost much sleep over it, but as I stared down at the kid I realized I was trembling. I touched her red hair, which seemed darker than I remembered against her suddenly pale skin. She was starting to smell, and I looked up at the ceiling, blinking and trying to control myself.
    “Fucking hell, ” I muttered. I looked down at her again and startled—had her chest just … twitched? I stared down at her. I was losing my mind. I’d been hunted, crashed a hover, played dead, and now found out the only three people I could possibly have called friends were all dead, and not peacefully. I was losing my fucking mind.
    I closed my eyes and ground my teeth, still trembling. “Burn her,” I said quietly. “If this shit is still … spreading, then fucking burn her. Okay? Then get your shit together. We’re heading back uptown.” I turned and pushed past him, intending to drink until my hands stopped shaking. I scratched at the wound on my neck. Newark, I thought. “Someone in the Department of Public Health wanted to talk to me. So let’s go talk.”

VIII
    Day Five: You’ve just Killed me
    Watching us, the two Crushers stood with their thumbs hooked into their belt loops, their uniforms sagging and wrinkled. One was a round, moon-faced Asian whose mouth worked absently in a constant chewing motion. The other was tall, pale, and rail thin, his pants too short for his legs, a thin, wispy beard shooting off his sharp chin. They slouched at the flimsy metal gate set up across Eighth Avenue and watched me approach with what they imagined were hardassed stares. The wind was a constant moan around us, dry and dustless, all the snow held in the gelatin-like yellow slush that clung to everything, making the world look rotted.
    “Avery,” the tall one said as Jabali and I stopped in front of them. I was wearing my Special Occasion suit, for when I needed to overawe my business partners with my wealth and material success. It was a little floppy in the arms and legs but close enough, and expensive looking. When going uptown to deal with civilians, it paid to look the part. I’d cleaned up Jabali as much as I could, which wasn’t saying much, but he’d pass if he kept his mouth shut.
    The checkpoints had gone up in record time overnight, and they’d drawn all the Crushers from the reserves, putting everyone on active duty. New York felt strange to me, thinned. Walking up Hudson Street in the morning there’d been elbow room to spare, and the people who were out pushing through fat flakes of acidic snow and the muffled, sound-eating air all seemed to move faster, scuttling as quickly through the street as they could. Rumors were already coming fast about a sickness, and people were staying indoors. I’d seen some dead bodies, too, just slumped here and there, looking like some wild animal had torn into them, the deep blue bruises on their necks and arms burst open, bloody, and no one willing to get near enough to them to move them off the street.
    “Officer Stanley,” I said to the