Nilla! Rule Five: Everyone follows the rules, eventually.

Q: Ive heard theres a vaccine available but the government refuses to release it until its been thoroughly tested. But we need it now!

A: In any time crisis there will be rumors that defy easy debunking but you have to assume that if something sounds too good to be true it probably is. There is no vaccine. If someone tries to sell you vaccine, report them to the authorities immediately.

Q: My mother/brother/sister/lawyer was in California, in one of the relocation camps, on 4/8, the day they announced CA was overrun. How long will it be before we get some news out of the camps?

A : At the present time, we just dont know. Every effort is being made to resecure California but for now all we can do is wait and pray.

[FEMA "Straight Facts about the Epidemic" website FAQ, posted 4/8/05]

They were civilians. You can't just pop American civilians in the head... it's effed up. He was saying before it was just a disease. That there might be a cure.

Yeah, officers say a lot of things. You get used to it. Bannerman Clark opened his eyes and saw his uniform socks. He saw the place where he had darned a hole in the left one, saw the angular shape of his large toe beneath the thin fabric, like something carved out of soft wood. Someone had removed his shoes.

He sat up and saw them placed neatly by the side of his cot, lined up so that he could just step into them. They'd been polished and relaced. Some of them were kids! A lot... a lot of them were kids. They're asking too much of us. First the draw-down, then stop-loss and midtour extensions and no freedom leave, and, and... what happens now? Do we stay here and pull CQ duty forever? Do we live here, in a prison, when everybody else is dead?

You have someplace else to go? Soldiers outside his door, trading gossip. As they had for the last hundred thousand years, since war was invented. Clark didn't worry too much about their bitching. He'd had a staff sergeant in Vietnam, back when he looked to staff sergeants for his orders, who had smiled and showed a full set of very white teeth every time he heard a troop complain about conditions on the firebase or about the jungle patrols or how hard it had rained the night before. A soldier with time to bitch, he had told Clark, is a happy soldier. It's when they don't talk at all you have to keep one eye on the back of your shirt.

Sergeant Willoughby,that had been the man's name. If he had a first name he'd never shared it with the likes of Clark. He pushed his narrow feet into the shoes and tied them tight, his breath constricted in his chest as he doubled over. That was just age. Standing up carefully to avoid a head rush he looked around for his cover. The boonie hat was gone-his peaked uniform cover was back. A message from Sergeant Horrocks. Trigger time was over-the new duty was garrison duty, which meant proper uniforms and a more rigid chain of command. The elegance of the message appealed to Clark. A good platoon sergeant must be half Mussolini and half Martha Stewart and Horrocks was a very good platoon sergeant.

They say troops are AWOL all over the Midwest. Going back for their families. Ca n you believe that? I thought about it in Iraq, I think everybody did-we used to talk about it after lightsout, made plans for it even. Nobody ever did it. You would have got shot.

You still will, don't kid yourself. Keep your nose clean, keep your ass dry, keep your head down. You saw the bodies they pulled out of that trailer. Man, don't talk to me about that shit. Don't even look at me while you're thinking it.

Desertion? Had it come to that? Vikram would have more information. He buttoned up his uniform top and donned his cover. Time to get back to work. He felt strangely good, at least healthy-maybe all he'd really needed was a nap. He should feel shell-shocked, he thought. He should be wracked with guilt. He had just shot one of his own soldiers, and even if she was dead she had been- Dead. She had died, while he watched, and then she had gotten up and stumbled toward him. Of course, his rational side insisted, she had been infected, not dead. She had been covered in fluids and tissues from the infected man, the man whose brain Clark had, had shredded, so obviously she had been infected, even if-even if he had personally seen her bleed out. Even if he had watched her die.

He needed to think about that. He needed to consider all the implications. He also needed to put it out of mind altogether if he was going to continue to function.

Shh! I hear him moving around in there, get your foodhole shut, alright? Clark cleared his throat discretely and opened the door of the warden's office. In the corridor beyond the two MPs stood at attention against a steel wall painted in flaking tan. Their salutes were perfect.

At ease, Clark ordered, and they relaxed fractionally. You two head down to the DCAF, if you're hungry. I'm safe for now, thank you. He turned the opposite way, toward the prison's nerve center.

On the way he passed a window and was startled to see it was dark outside. Had he slept that long? Normally he woke like clockwork. In the prison yard soldiers with red lens flashlights were sweeping the open area between the fences. So far none of the infected-the dead-the victims of the Epidemic had wandered into the prison's valley but it would happen. They might be out there even now, stumbling toward the warmth and the food trapped inside. He couldn't see them in the dark, of course, so he hurried into the operations room.

Racks of server hardware had been crammed into the small office and the floor was a hazard of unsecured cables. All the equipment made it ten degrees warmer in the room, when added to the body heat of the half-dozen specialists plugging and unplugging the modular components.

At the far end Vikram stood before a massive flatscreen monitor. He was reading from a printout of an Excel worksheet while a specialist inputted coordinates on a wireless laptop. Woods Landing, Wyoming. That will be, now, let me look, call it forty degrees thirty seconds north, one hundred and six degrees mark west, we do not need to be so exact, yes? Given our resolution? The date for this location will be March the Seventeenth. Oh! The day of Saint Patrick.

Clark's thin lips twitched in something reminiscent of a smile. His friend had a way of staying cheerful despite circumstances that had seen them both through many a losing battle. Still working tirelessly, I see, while the old man gets his beauty sleep, Clark said. The specialist on the laptop turned away and looked busy, knowing he wasn't supposed to be part of this conversation.

It is the epidemiology data, Bannerman. Vikram handed him the worksheet and Clark scanned it.

Sanchez mentioned it to me before she was killed, he assented. It was what she wanted to talk to me about when she called me down to the Bag. It was her crowning achievement. Vikram tapped the flatscreen monitor to show Clark a map of the United States. Tiny dots covered most of the west in several different colors. Clark imagined he knew what they represented-every known appearance of the Epidemic. She had learned, as did we all, that this is no virus, and no bacterium. So she went on the hunt for some other villain. And this is what she found.

There were too many dots. Bannerman stopped scanning the screen and looked down at the paper in his hand. Each incident was listed with a place name and a date, with even a time of day listed for many entries. He flipped to the bottom of the sheet, to the oldest data. This can't be right. These dates... they go all the way back into last year, some of them. I arrived here in the middle of March, what was it, the eighteenth? The nineteenth. The Epidemic was three days old then.

Lieutenant Sanchez thought not so much. She believed it started earlier but that we missed the signs. Her notes are maddeningly vague and of course we cannot ask her what she was thinking.

What about her crew? Clark asked. Were any of them epidemiologists? Vikram nodded. Three of them, good doctors all, but military doctors. She gave them orders and they followed without any questions. She let them know nothing of what she was doing- and that is standard operating procedure only. That is not the mystery. She had them look up newspaper articles, mostly. You remember the outbreak of violence last year that had the media so excited?

Yes, of course. I mostly attributed it to anger over the election. That's what the the newspapers told me, anyway. Vikram nodded. I have seen the clippings. I have read myself a story about a dog that ate its owner before it was put down. About a mother who tore her babies to pieces. Missing children. Serial killers. Bad batches of the drugs like PCP. Lieutenant Sanchez looked at these and many more and saw evidence of a larger trend." Vikram touched the systems specialist on the upper arm-the approved zone. Please show him now.

The screen filled in with what could have been a spiderweb or the root pattern of an ugly tree. Clark felt his breath leaking out of him. This changed everything. He reached for his cell phone. The Civilian had to know about this. Everyone had to know about this.

It's not a disease at all, I do not think, Vikram said, rubbing his beard. It is more like a radiation. Or perhaps it is magic.

Clark shot him a warning glance and pressed SEND.

NO VACCINE, NO PEACE!!!! Sheriffs Office in Clark County has some according to insider eyewitness but no plan to distribute to the people! WTF!!!1 If I was WHITE like YOU, could I have my innoculation then, OFFICER???

["unDead Amerikkka" electronic newsletter, distributed via email 4/9/05] Men with machine pistols and brown baseball caps patrolled Terminal Two of McCarran international airport in Las Vegas. They moved in teams of two or three. One of them lead a pair of Doberman pinschers directly past where Bannerman Clark sat, waiting for the next flight to Washington.

They don't have any badges, Clark observed t o the man sitting next to him in the cocktail bar. He sipped at his ginger ale-a little sugar always helped with his jet lag-and watched one of the dogs shove his snout into a trash can. No insignia. Is this new? He had never been to Las Vegas before, and was only there now because it was the last airport in the West that hadn't been overrun. A military helicopter had brought him that far but lacked the range necessary to get him to the Capital.

The businessman sitting next to him hunched his shoulders, wrinkling his tweed jacket and looked at Bannerman with some surprise. This is the only city in a hundred miles that isn't crammed full of dead maniacs and you're worried about identification? They're private consultants. We don't ask a lot of questions about them, and you shouldn't either. Excuse me, I have a flight to catch. He dropped a five on the bar and hurried off.

Who had hired the private consultants? The mayor of the city? Organized crime? It wasn't Clark's jurisdiction. Yet when he finally arrived in Washington twelve hours later (after an unannounced layover in St. Louis where he was not allowed to deplane) he found more private consultants at Ronald Reagan, though at least these wore some insignia on the back of their flak jackets: KBR. A man in a KBR vest with a long, fluttering mustache checked his ID before he was herded into the baggage claim, even though he had no bags to pick up.

At least the driver of the car that picked him up at the terminal was military -a regular army corporal with a stubbled dimple on the back of his head. In Georgetown the corporal gave him a snappy salute and indicated the door of a building Clark had never seen before. It was not the same building where he'd met with the Civilian the first time, nor was it anywhere near the Pentagon. There was no sign on the door except for the street number.

Inside he found what must have been a cheap hotel at one point in its life-cycle. It had been converted into office space, the rooms on the first floor broken down into cubicles, but it took Clark a while to find anyone inside. Finally a man in a buttoned-down white shirt lead him to a conference room and knocked on the door. Inside the Civilian sat silhouetted before dust- and fly-specked Venetian blinds, a fresh box of Marshmallow Peeps on the table in front of him. Mission creep, he said, and stuffed one of the treats in his mouth.

Clark removed his cover and stepped forward. I have something I'd like to show you, he began, but the Civilian's eyes didn't move at all. He looked deep in thought.

Mission creep, he said again. Powell Doctrine. A million Mogadishus.

Clark stepped a halfstep closer. Excuse me? he asked.

You'll have to forgive me, Bannerman, the Civilian drawled. I'm coming down from my afternoon dose of hillbilly heroin. I have a bad back, you see. A really. Really. Bad back.

He did not ask Clark to sit down, nor were there any extra chairs in the office. It's a shame about Los Angeles. And, uh, Colorado, right? Colorado. They had some nice scenery there. I really need to revelocitize. Hold on. Marcy! he shouted. Not even an intercom in this office. Marcy! I need my pick-meup!

A young woman brought in a tray and set it on the desk. It held a glass full of ice and a can of Red Bull. The Civilian ignored the glass and drank straight from the can. Good of you to come out, Bannerman. I appreciate the face time. Listen, there's someone I need you to meet. You ready? Need to freshen up?

No, I- Clark looked down at his briefcase. With your pardon, though, there are some papers I need to show you. This is crucial material. I know that, Bannerman. I heard what you said on the phone. Now come on. I'm counting on you for my dead cat bounce. Did you know you were the only military type to come out of Denver without losing a single troop? He held up a hand for patience though Clark had not interrupted him. It's definitely a shame about Sanchez. Read all about her, wish I could have met her. Come on. The person we're meeting for lunch will want to hear about your papers. The Civilian rose from the desk and headed out the door. It was all Clark could do to keep up.

He protested a few times that they should really talk in private first but the Civilian just smiled. Clark played along-he needed the man. He needed the authorization to put together the last two pieces of the puzzle. He needed satellite time.

And he needed to find the blonde girl. She would have information that he crucially needed. She would be the answer he sought. She had to be. They moved quickly through the maze of the dilapidated office building, weaving through rows of cubicles and passing through two steel fire doors. Finally they arrived at a corner office in the third floor of the building. A keycard reader had been installed hastily next to the door, the plaster underneath broken and crumbling. The Civilian swiped a card through the slot and they stepped inside.

An aged woman in an immaculate business suit rose from behind a desk and hurried toward them. Her face was so slack and bloodless that Clark reached for the sidearm that he'd left in Florence.

I'm not dead yet, Captain, the woman said, her mouth an unmoving slot in the middle of her face.

Botox, the Civilian whispered behind his hand. This is not a town that respects wrinkles, not anymore. Special Agent Purslane Dunnstreet, she said, and took Clark's hand. Her skin felt as dry as paper. Welcome, she said, waving one skeletally thin arm expansively, to the War Room.

Clark looked around at the office, a cluttered room maybe fifteen feet by fifteen feet. Paper in every conceivable form filled the room, stacks of it on the carpet, rolled sheets like scrolls stuck into actual pigeonholes, bound volumes squeezed into overloaded metal shelving units. One wall was lined with dozens of old grey enamel filing cabinets. A row of laser printers sat on the floor by the window, wired to a beige desktop computer. Page after page rattled through their mechanisms, filling the air with the smell of baking toner, more paper being created by the second.

Agent Dunnstreet, meet Bannerman Clark, my favorite metrosexual. Clark, Purslane here is an old spy, one of the original Cold Warriors. I've never met anyone who hates Communists more.

Jesus has taught me, Dunnstreet said, her frozen eyes piercing the Civilian, to hate the sin, not the sinner. Communism is a perversion, a sick compulsion of thwarted self-hatred. Communists are persons, and as persons they can be re-educated, re-oriented, brought back into the flock. Most of them. The fact that this country is longitudinally trending Republican should demonstrate that much.

Yeah... anyway... she's been back here since the sixties. She was, what, NSA originally? She was funded all through the Reagan years and then got funded down under Clinton. Except nobody bothered to check if she was still here. She came in day after day, her very existence so heavily classified the Dems didn't have a chance of rooting her out, and kept up her lonely vigil. After 9/11 she surfaced again, or at least she chose to remind certain well-placed individuals that she was still here. Her particular field of expertise appealed to the DHS and she was rolled up under Ridge and friends... now we've reached a kind of tipping point and she has become one of the most important people on the planet.

Clark frowned. I'm sorry, but I don't understand. What exactly do you do? Dunnstreet folded her arms across her narrow chest. I deal in abstracts, Captain, intangibles that I keep in a ledger book and next to them I copy down numbers, as I may. I'm a hypotheticals modeler, a what-if specialist. For the last forty years I have been positing one terrible scenario after another, and plotting ways to deal with them should they ever arise. In specific I have been imagining a land war fought on the territory of the United States. This is Warlock Green, my masterwork. She gestured at the printers humming under the window. These are the operational parameters and legal instruments necessary to win such a war. It is a fail-protected strategythat I stand behind one hundred per cent.

The Civilian beamed. Warlock Green is a protocol for the end of the world.