of view, probably it’s not the best, but it looks like somebody finally shut down that lunatic in Denver. My guess would be NSA, or else one of Lear’s little pets finally got to him. Either way, the dude’s off-line in a permanent way.”
Last Stand in Denver: Guilder had watched his videos, like everybody else. You had to hand it to the guy for balls. Theories abounded about his identity, the general consensus being that he was ex-military, Special Forces or SEALs.
“So what’s the bad?”
“New numbers just came in from the CDC. It seems the original algorithm failed to take into proper account just how much these things like to eat. Which I could have told them if they’d asked. Either that or some summer intern moved a decimal place when he was daydreaming about the last time he boned his girlfriend.”
Sometimes talking with Nelson felt like trying to corral a five-year-old. A genius five-year-old, but still. “Please, just spit it out.”
Nelson shrugged. “As it now stands, based on the most recent projections, it appears we’re looking at a more succinct timeline. Something on the order of thirty-nine days.”
“For the coasts you mean?”
“Um, not exactly.”
“What then?”
“The entire North American continent.”
A gray shadow swooped over Guilder’s vision; he had to sit down.
“A response is already in the works at Central,” Nelson continued. “My guess is they’ll try to burn it out. Major population centers first, then anyone else who gets left behind.”
“Christ almighty.”
Nelson frowned. “Small price to pay, on the whole. I know what I’d do if I were, say, the president of Russia. No way I’d let this jump the pond.”
The man was right, and Guilder knew it. He realized his right hand had begun to tremble. He reached for it with his left, trying to bring the spasms under control while also making the gesticulation seem natural.
“You okay there, boss?”
His right foot had begun to shake as well. He felt the incomprehensible urge to laugh. Probably it was the stress. He swallowed effortfully, a taste of bile in his throat.
“Find that girl.”
Once Nelson was gone, Guilder sat in his office for a few minutes, trying to collect himself. The trembling had passed, but not the impulse to laugh—a symptom euphemistically known as “emotional incontinence.” Finally he just gave in, ejecting a single, cleansing bark. Jesus, he sounded possessed. He hoped nobody outside had heard.
He departed the building, got his car from the garage—a beige Toyota Camry—and drove to his townhouse in Arlington. He wanted to clean himself up, but this suddenly seemed like work; he poured himself a Scotch and flipped on the TV. It hadn’t taken long for each of the networks, right down to the Weather Channel, to brand the emergency with a catchy slogan (“Nation in Crisis,” etc.), and all the broadcasters looked harried and sleep-deprived, especially the ones reporting from beside a highway somewhere—a cornfield in the background, long lines of vehicles creeping past, everybody pointlessly honking. The whole country was seizing up like a bad transmission. He checked his watch: 8:05. In less than an hour, the middle of the country would go dark.
He heaved his disobedient body from the couch and climbed the stairs. Stairs—that had been a concern for the future. What would he do when he could no longer climb the stairs? But it hardly mattered now. In the master bath he turned on the shower and stripped to his shorts, standing before the mirror while the water heated. The funny thing was, he didn’t look especially sick. A little thinner, perhaps. There was a time when he’d thought of himself as athletic—he’d run cross-country at Bowdoin—though those days were long past. His line of work, with its attendant demands for secrecy, had made marriage impossible, but well into his forties Guilder had managed—well, if not to turn heads exactly, then at least to keep himself occupied. A series of discreet affairs, everyone apprised of the facts. He had prided himself on the well-managed quality of these encounters, but then one day it had all simply stopped. Glances that might have been returned slid past him, conversations that before had merely served as elaborate preambles went no place. Inevitable, Guilder supposed, but nothing to cheer about. He surveyed his reflection, taking stock. A square-jawed face that had once looked rugged but had long since sagged at the jowls. A scrim of thinning hair swept back over his scalp, trying not quite successfully to conceal the ghostly white presence of his scalp.