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In the control room, a young man with a patchy beard sat before a computer and pointed to the screen.

  “So the database she’s been working on, for her thesis. It’s really surging. This idea of hers for a crowdsourced reporting portal, it was nothing short of brilliant. From what I can tell, even kids are getting involved as, like, miniature science projects. Within a couple months, maybe less at this pace . . . it could yield some interesting insights.”

  His small audience of one woman and two men nodded in agreement but didn’t comment.

  “How much attention is it getting otherwise?” one asked.

  He looked to the woman who posed the question and tried to read her flat, controlled expression.

  “Well . . . I only monitor traffic, not IP sources. I could run a—”

  One of the men interrupted him. “Run it. Cross-check against all concerned parties. Tighten surveillance. And get eyes on the ground in Woods Hole. Now.”

  CHAPTER 3

  * * *

  Stevigson Farm, Woods Hole, Massachusetts

  A massacre of crabs, potatoes, and corn lay out across the porch table, a few shrimp shells in the mix, between Rory and Byron. Byron had opened beers for them—another handy skill he’d taught himself upon arrival at the farm—while they watched the sunset over the wheat fields.

  “Did I tell you that new registrants at the database jumped fifty percent last month?”

  Byron looked over in shock. “Really? From all over or just one pocket?”

  “All over,” Rory nodded. “I’m up to twenty-seven hundred nationwide. I might be able to report something preliminary soon for the thesis.”

  “Wow. That’s worthy of a cheers!” he grinned, clinking his bottle to hers. “Oh, I almost forgot something special I got you. I traded with Kathleen Stewart, who dropped by while you were out getting the crabs.” Leaning back to the satchel he carried on the farm, he produced two bright orange, kidney-shaped items not much bigger than crab apples.

  “Mangoes?” Rory breathed out disbelievingly. “Dad, that’s amazing. I miss mangoes so much.”

  “Well, save the seeds. We’ll put them in some compost and start a grove. Who knows—they’re probably in the right climate now!” he chuckled.

  She kissed his cheek and sat back to admire the fruit as if it were a gold-and-diamond necklace. “Some people have a hard time keeping such a positive outlook, you know. On my site, in the forums, I had to add an FAQ about why we don’t count loss due to suicide.”

  Byron sent her a sidelong glance but let her finish without clarifying.

  She continued, “Too many kids out there have parents that gave up, without even being infected. They lost so many of their own, or maybe they needed insurance money. It’s amazing you’re able to stay so positive.”

  Byron took a long breath in, then out. “When your mom and I were kids—before we even met—we knew it was coming.”

  Rory’s head whipped around. “How?”

  “John Donne once wrote, ‘There is no health; physicians say that we at best enjoy but a neutrality,’” Byron recalled, and Rory glared at him for a more serious answer. “We were smart. Like you. We read. We paid attention. History warned of it, current bacterial evolution was a huge red flag. I think that a lot of people knew. They just didn’t want to believe it would be so bad. But when it began . . . Persy and I admitted to each other that it was no real surprise. The only surprise was that it wasn’t us. Some people turn to religion in hard times, and we, well . . . we turned to each other. And science. It helped us cope. Helped us prepare and survive.” And helped us prepare you.

  Byron took a long sip of beer. Fireflies began to flicker in the early dusk, flirting with each other among the plants. “I’ve never liked the idea of suicide. But then, I’ve never been in as terrible a spot as people who consider it. It’s probably as much a genetic risk as a social one.”

  “You mean the propensity toward it just . . . isn’t in some people’s makeup?”

  He shrugged. “It’s hard to prove or disprove a negative, but yes, that’s my suspicion. So when I say this, I say it with a disclaimer of my own ignorance: at this point, no matter how bad things are, there may be more opportunity than there ever was before. More opportunity to survive, to flourish, to do better than our forefathers. That’s how I want you to approach life.” He took another swig before rummaging in his pocket and producing a harmonica.

  “Dad. Really?” she sighed.

  “Practice makes perfect.”

  “You’re perfectly awful.”

  “Get your fiddle.”

  “I think we scare the chickens.”

  “No, they like to hum along.”

  She gave a dramatic sigh and went inside, returning with her violin. Perching on the porch table, she ran the bow across the strings, wincing at the first couple notes before she felt the training kick in and the notes fall into her mind, aligning with the whine of her father’s harmonica. At the height of their song, a howl picked up in the woods not far away, nearer to the marshes. They both paused, turning to smile at each other.

  “He’s back,” Rory whispered.

  “See, we have one fan.”

  Rory woke before sunrise the following morning to a clear, almost cool morning. As she gathered eggs from their few hens, she felt oddly anxious, as if she’d forgotten an important event or appointment for the day. It wasn’t anyone’s birthday that she knew, and the calendars didn’t reveal any special events for the farm, but the nagging tension in her neck wouldn’t ease, so she decided exercise was the best approach. Leaving a note for her father, she slung her backpack, loaded with water, a meal, and tools, over her shoulders, and then she headed for the eastern shore. A three-mile hike would be a good morning start.

  About a mile into the hike, she began to wonder if the anxiety was intuition. She felt . . . watched. Stopping, she used the excuse of sipping some water to scan the tree line. Rory found her shadow lurking among small bushes, lying low, so she pretended not to see him and resumed her hike. Tracking him in her peripheral vision was difficult but possible, and he followed for another mile. At this point, it only seemed fair to give him a chance—he hadn’t attacked yet, so perhaps he was friendly.

  So she stopped, nearer to the trees, and sat on a rock. He watched, no longer bothering to hide. Rory pitched him a piece of her breakfast bread.

  “I see you,” she called, and the wolf stared back stoically. He kept his distance, but when the bread was thrown closer to him, he nosed forward and took a bite. She managed to tease him to getting about twenty feet from her, but then he suddenly caught wind of something, perked his ears south, and disappeared. “Next time I’ll bring the fiddle,” she chuckled as she resumed her hike.

  By the time she reached the eastern docks, the sun was high enough to be blinding off the water, and the day was already warm. Her father’s small skiff, proud but useless, still floated true at the small marina. At least she’s dry. Turning potato peels into biofuel was unlikely, but she’d been reading up on small motors and had thought of a few repairs that might help it run again. Giving him back that small pleasure would be a worthwhile effort, and she cracked open the motor hatch and laid out her tools and notes like a lab technician setting up a new experiment.

  An hour later, she had run through every creative curse she knew, motor grease was streaked to her elbows, and Rory was resolved to give up. Maybe she could trade some eggs with Jake Andersson—he always seemed handy with engines. Her neck prickled as it had all morning at the thought of him . . . he had such a creepy habit of staring.

  If she could just get this gasket replaced, it might tell her the downstream issue in the motor, but reaching it required an extra elbow joint. Already she was sprawled awkwardly on her side, trying to find the leverage to loosen the gasket cover. It was too far for even her long arm. She pulled her knees up and tried to put her weight into it. With her left hand, she gave the stuck gasket cover one more attempt at loosening. Greasy fingers
slipped, and her knuckles slammed into the engine block.

  “Motherfucker!” she squeaked out through clenched teeth. Head down, pulling her arm back out, she lifted her eyes on another curse. A face across the bars of the stern from her—dark, male, and disfigured—had her jumping back in terror so abruptly that she knocked her head into the doorway to the hatch, and stars filled her eyes. “Oh, oww . . .” Rory moaned, holding her head and trying not to fall down the stairs.

  “Are you all right? I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to scare you.” The man was suddenly aboard the boat, and though she tried to open her eyes, the pain was briefly so intense that she decided to just breathe carefully and calmly while she fumbled for her knife on the deck. A warm hand covered hers, placed the knife in her right hand, and folded her fingers around it. “It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said simply, and she thought briefly that his voice felt like a tiger under a blanket.

  She opened her eyes to see him crouched close, watching her with concern. Her vision was still a little blurry. She saw his eyes first, dark amber and watching her with an intensity that unnerved her. He looked only thirty years old, but strangely marked as if someone had tattooed or painted his face with indigo ink, once around his square right jawline and down his neck, and then again from his forehead down across and under his left eye to widen and wrap under his left ear. He wasn’t disfigured, but he wasn’t meant for magazine covers. His hair was short, almost military in its severity. His eyes looked genuinely concerned.

  “Are you okay? I’m sorry I startled you. I was just going to offer to help.”

  She gripped the knife but nodded.

  Rory sat back on her rear, her knees ahead of her and her knife across them. “Who are you?” she whispered.

  “Navy.” He offered a slight smile, and she got the impression he was out of practice at it. “You?”

  “Rory.” Taking a long, deep breath, she lifted her left hand and frowned at its odd shape. Two fingers lodged in an unnatural angle.

  “That looks painful.” Navy could see the skinned knuckles were only a minor injury; it was the two jammed fingers that would really hurt. “How do you do with pain?”

  “I’m pretty tolerant. What are you going to—oh, my God! Oh, fuck, oww!” Rory shrieked as he jerked her fingers back into alignment, and then she sucked in a violent breath between clenched teeth as the sharp stinging pain subsided into a dull throbbing ache. She exhaled slowly and focused on his again as he wrapped a bandana around her battered knuckles and tied it carefully. His eyes, amber brown and tinged with green, seemed to have a gleam of admiration. “It’s really unwise to do that to a woman holding a knife in her other hand.”

  Navy nodded. “Fair point. But if you don’t unjam them right away, the swelling makes it too painful later.”

  After another few deep breaths, Rory felt in control again, and her vision was clear. He couldn’t help but respect her for managing her own pain that well, but he was still a little concerned that she’d given herself a mild concussion.

  “All right, Navy. I guess you’re just passing through?” She nodded to his large pack on the dock.

  He sat back from her and pushed to his feet. He was tall, as tall as her father, and considerably stronger looking.

  “Probably. Unless you’re willing to pay for boat repairs.”

  She raised a dark blonde brow over blue-green eyes. “Where are you from?”

  “I was in the military. Now I’m not.”

  Rory waited a beat, then stood. “I can’t pay money, just food. I can’t even promise you’ll have a job, but we could use an extra hand at our farm for the harvest month. My father will need to agree.”

  Navy nodded at her understandingly. “I’d appreciate it.”

  Byron saw his daughter’s arrival from a bird’s-eye view of the farm. Repairing solar panels on the roof of their farmhouse gave him the altitude to view over the orchards and wheat fields to the pair approaching from the eastern shore. Using the folding binoculars he always kept handy, he examined their visitor closely.

  Rory had always been a bit of a savior of injured birds. Thankfully she had no real idea of how helpful she could be to them, so he was able to limit her engagement with sick neighbors, ill or injured wanderers that floated up from time to time. If she had truly understood, he suspected her choice of doctorate would have been in direct patient care. Ignorance was more than bliss these days. It was protection.

  Which was why the more-than-healthy-looking stranger striding alongside her was already causing the hairs to prick on Byron’s neck. Aside from his bizarre choice in tattoos, he was tidy enough to seem like a salesman and carried himself with almost military bearing. No other visible tattoos revealed a loyalty or side interest, and his pack was as nondescript as his pants and shirt.

  With a sigh, Byron soldered the last loose wire and headed down his ladder to meet them near the front poor.

  “Dad, this is—” Rory began, but Navy cut her off.

  “Afternoon, sir. I’m passing through and met your daughter by chance at the boat docks. My name is Navy.”

  Byron cocked an eyebrow at the name. “How eponymous.”

  Navy didn’t acknowledge that with a reply, but blinked as if to say the joke hadn’t gone over his head.

  “Byron Stevigson.” Byron let the quiet slowly expand in the warm air.

  “Dad, Navy gave me a little help on the boat. He’s willing to do more repairs, for room and board. I thought we might use an extra pair of arms with the apple harvest, maybe the wheat also.”

  Byron and Navy eyed each other. “Where are you from?”

  “Maine. Among other places. I’m, um . . . retired military.” Navy’s voice dropped a register, but Rory couldn’t read into his tone at all. She watched curiously as he and her father eyed one another as if they both were tailors sizing the other for suits. Rory had known her father too long to be intimidated by him, but she knew when he was applying those techniques to others. Navy, meanwhile, she found mildly intimidating just standing next to her. His size, his piercing gaze, and the dark markings across his visage were disarming.

  “Rather young for retirement.”

  Navy nodded but didn’t comment. “I’m happy to stop traveling a while and help, or to move on if you prefer.”

  Byron extended a hand, and Navy shook it firmly. Turning over the younger man’s hand, he chuckled to himself and offered a smile. “You’ve got the hands of a lobsterman’s son. They can leave a mean mark, can’t they?”

  Now Navy looked surprised, and a reluctant smile warmed his face. “Hurts like hell when they do.” Watching him get caught by the surprise of his own grin, Rory felt a weird jump in her chest. He’d hardly said ten words on the walk back from the boat.

  “Got a few of those scars myself. You can stay and help, in exchange for repairing the boat and helping around here. If I decide you’re not helping, you leave when I say, and the rules are . . . whatever the hell I say when I decide to say it. Fair?” Even Rory was impressed with that policy speech.

  “HUA,” Navy said like a salute, abruptly respectful again. Heard. Understood. Acknowledged. “Where can I start?”

  Byron’s gaze switched to Rory. “Start by telling me why your hand is broken.”

  The first week with Navy helping was a pleasant shock for Byron and Rory both. While only asked to help with a few specific tasks, by his third morning with them, he was up before them both to take on chores they’d never asked him to do. Rory found him chatting with the chickens before sunup.

  Coffee in hand, just out of his sight, she watched him examining the hens in their nests. His broad shoulders seemed tense as he crossed his arms and studied them. After a few moments of consideration, he cleared his throat and spoke, softening his deep voice a little.

  “It’s probably impolite of me to do this, so I’ll just apologize in advance. I don’t usually go prying into people’s homes like this. But I’m pretty sure you don’t have any need
for these.”

  “You know, you don’t have to sweet-talk them out of the eggs, right? They just plop out.” Rory sipped her coffee as she watched him slip a hand under a hen’s nether regions and smoothly turn up a bright gray egg. Considering the hand, she was frankly impressed the hen didn’t seem to notice.

  “Plop out. Technical jargon?” Navy guessed. “I was mostly just hoping to avoid being bitten.”

  “Pecked. The meanest ones lay the best eggs.”

  “How do you avoid drug-resistant salmonella? I thought I’d read that’s a big problem.”

  Rory nodded. “It’s more likely among large farms. We vaccinate, though.”

  He cocked his head without looking at her. “There’s a vaccine for salmonella that works?”

  She straightened abruptly, her coffee sloshing over the edge. “No. But I . . . I guess we’ve been lucky.” In a smooth change of subject, she added, “The neighbors have, too, with our chicks. I should up the price.” When he turned to watch her expression, she was gone.

  He left to work on the boat after breakfast and didn’t return until lunch. Rory was working the garden when he surprised her by kneeling down and starting to pull weeds. She had to admit, she wasn’t sure if she’d expected him back, but he had left his pack inside the room they had given him.

  “Oh. Hello.”

  “Hello.”

  “How are . . . things?” she chuckled when he didn’t say anything to her.

  “Fine.”

  “Navy, really,” Rory laughed. “I’ve had barn cats more chatty than you.”

  He met her teasing smile with a flat expression. “You didn’t hire me to chat.” Rory was taken aback, but she couldn’t quite look away from his eyes, that squarely locked jaw. The cruelty of the remark stung, and with her limited chances at social interaction, it hurt more deeply than she expected. She suddenly realized that she might be a terribly unappealing person to speak with. Who would have warned her?

  “I . . . I’m sorry,” she finally decided to say. He was honest, why can’t I be? Rory thought. “You deserve to be paid better if I expect friendship.”