I smiled, picturing my stubborn German boyfriend, giving these Amazons a hard time. “I guess he wasn’t all that crazy about being man meat.”

“Yeah. Whatever. Just keep me away from the crazy lunatics. That’s all I care about.”

“I hope you’re not talking about my girls,” said Kiersten, arriving at the top of the stairs.

“Heck no, Kiers. We’re talking about the crazies down the street,” said Alejandro, stepping over to be next to her.

She barely spared him a glance.

I stared at her, picturing her as the youngest girl on a college campus, working in a science lab, coming up with all kinds of brews and cures and things. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. But anyone could say crap like that these days and we’d all just have to believe it. I could tell them I was an Olympic-hopeful track star and they’d have to believe me.

“What?” she said, looking at me in challenge.

“What, what?” I said back, trying to look innocent.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She turned to Alejandro. “What’d you tell her?”

He shrugged. “Nothing secret. Just that you’re a scientist with some mad skills.” He turned his attention to me. “You should have her tell you about the virus that killed our parents and stuff. Pretty crazy shit.”

My mouth dropped open. For a second I couldn’t speak.

“Maybe another time,” she said, gesturing over Alejandro’s head, motioning for a girl to come join us. “Take him to the fire, would you? We’re going to do the cleansing ritual.”

Alejandro raised his eyebrows a few times at me suggestively. “See you ‘round, Bryn.” And then he jumped down the stairs, two at a time.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “He seems pretty enthusiastic.”

She smiled absently. “Yeah. We do prefer them that way. Bodo gave us some trouble.” She looked at him, pushing up his chin with her finger. “I did so want him to come around, though. He would have been worth it.”

I reached up and took her by the wrist, gently but firmly moving her hand away from him. “Hands off, Kiersten. We have a deal. Bodo is mine.”

“Man meat,” he mumbled, sounding like he was weeping. “I am not a hamburger. I am Bodo!”

I stepped over and rubbed his back. “That’s right, babe. You’re not a hamburger. You’re my boyfriend, and I love you.” It slipped out, but he was unconscious, so it didn’t matter that it had been done in front of a megalomaniac and while he was tied up.

Bodo’s head snapped up. “You luff me!” He was grinning again, his chapped lips looking pitiful.

I leaned in and kissed him gently on the mouth. “Yes. I do. Now just relax and let the mushrooms wear off. We’ll get you home soon.”

“Okay,” he said, lazily. Then he looked at Kiersten, his expression turning to one of hate. “I told you. I am Mr. Bryn, not Mr. Kiersten.”

She laughed. “He’s nuts, you know that?”

I smiled. “Yeah. I know. Friggin’ Germans.”

We stood quietly for a minute, both enjoying the moment of girl-connection that was unexpected for me and from the looks on her face, for her too.

“Where are you going when you leave here?” she asked. “You with those indians out in the swamp?”

“Native Americans. And no, not anymore. But, you know, if you could not advertise them being out there, that’d be good. They don’t mean anyone any harm or anything. They want to do what you’re doing.”

“Yeah. I know. But hey, if you’re trying to keep a lid on the whole secret society out in the swamp, that’s too bad.”

“Why?”

“Because everyone knows about them already. The fucknuts down the street were already planning their invasion.”

I huffed out a heavy breath. “Well, I’m glad we put a stop to that, then.”

She laughed bitterly. “That’s what you think. They aren’t the only ones out there.”

“I know. I saw some up north.”

She shook her head. “No, you’re not getting it. They have a network, that goes from the Keys all the way up to Georgia … maybe farther. Word’s out on you, girl.”

“What?” I said, whispering, unable to use my regular voice because my throat had closed up in fear.

She lifted her eyebrows. “You didn’t know?”

I shook my head silently.

“You’re the girl that bit that guy’s balls off, right?”

My mouth dropped open. “How … how …” I shook my head, trying to wrap my brain around the concept. “How could you possibly know that?”

“I told you. Those assholes have friends everywhere. Or at least people who don’t want to cross them. You bit the nuts off one of their fucking kingpins. Or one of his nuts anyway. You left enough of him intact to generate an awful lot of hate. That guy’s coming for you, and trust me, they know you’re here.”

I felt sick to my stomach. “We need to get out of here,” I said thickly. I waved for Winky to come over.

Kiersten shook her head. “Not gonna happen. He’s not going anywhere for about …” She lifted his chin again, prying one of his eyes open, “… three hours. At least.”

“How do you know?” I asked, my head drowning in possibilities and probabilities. I couldn’t sort it all out. Winky and Rob came up the stairs in time to hear her answer.

“I’m good with chemistry.” She could probably see from our expressions that it wasn’t a good enough explanation, so she kept talking. “Doesn’t matter. What you really want to know is that I was working on a project at school that was being funded by the government. I was low girl on the totem pole, but I was privy to everything they were doing. I cleaned the rat cages and sterilized the equipment. They were close to cracking the code to the virus that killed everyone off, but they just didn’t get there in time.”

“It wasn’t just them working on it,” said Rob.

“No. It was the entire world - the first time a virus had been turned into a priority by every scientific body on the planet. Even the hacks were in on it. And they came damn close, too” she said, shaking her head in memory. “But then we lost some of the key players, and eventually it was just us - the rat cage kids - left. And we didn’t know what to do with what they’d found, so it all just disappeared. Samples were destroyed, the virus didn’t survive long outside of live hosts.”

“So it was a virus, then,” said Winky. “I mean, I heard it was genetic engineering in the tomatoes or something.” She half-laughed.

“There were several theories floating around. But that was the one that came out on top. Something they’d done, altering something or messing around with some man-made chemical weapon that messed up some bird’s DNA and then it spread from there.”

“Like that bird flu?” I asked, remembering vaguely when people in Japan were wearing surgical masks on the streets. They had pictures of it on the news. I was so young, though, I really didn’t know what it meant.

“Yeah. Like HIV started out with monkeys. Like mad cow disease started out with bovines. I mean, you mess with Mother Nature in your bid to conquer the world, and this is the crap that happens.”

“How’d we miss out on all the fun?” asked Winky. “Why’d they die and not us?”

Kiersten shrugged. “Believe me, everyone was trying to find out. They knew if they could isolate the one thing we had, that they didn’t have anymore and babies didn’t yet have, they’d find the key. But no one ever did before all the adults were gone.”

“So they never knew exactly what it was at all. That is so damn depressing,” said Rob.

“Maybe they did,” Kiersten said simply.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She smiled, without humor. “Do you really think there are no adults left anywhere in the world?”

“Uh, yes,” I said, feeling like I was being called stupid, but not sure why. Everyone knew all the adults were gone.

“Have you been to Europe? The Middle East? Did you check online?”

She was confusing me. “Uh, no?”

“Exactly. You have no idea what’s going on outside your little world, because you have no access to it. No more information superhighway. But maybe, just maybe, there are some communities that survived. Maybe there are groups of scientists who locked themselves away in an underground facility somewhere who are working on a cure now. Hell, maybe they’ve already found one.”

“That’s not possible,” scoffed Rob. “Is it?” He didn’t sound so sure anymore.

“I saw stuff you cannot even imagine,” said Kiersten. “Government programs and compounds and stuff, all over the world - and up until the epidemic, operating in secret, even from their own presidents. Like I said … this was the first time all of the groups around the world finally worked together.” She was pissed now. “To think of what they could have accomplished if they hadn’t been so focused on being number one and keeping secrets.” She shook her head. “Shameful. And never again.”

“That is just … so … insane,” said Winky. “I don’t know what else to say. That’s totally insane.”

“Yeah. And I thought we had everything all figured out,” I said.

“Does this change any of our plans?” asked Rob. “I mean, do we do things differently, now that we know maybe there’s hope of our world not being what we thought it was?”

I tried to think of how it should change what we were doing, but nothing came to mind. “No. We do what we talked about: get settled in and work on setting up our community. It’s the only thing we can do.”

Kiersten said one last thing before walking away and leaving us to sober Bodo up. “Well, whatever you do, wherever you go … better shore up your defenses, because they’re coming for you.”

Winky raised her eyebrows. “Coming for you? Does she mean you, Bryn? And who’s coming?”

I sighed wearily. “I bit a canner’s nuts off, or one of them anyway, and now he’s after me. And apparently all these canner groups are networked together.”

“Networked? Like computers?” asked Rob.

“Nuts? You bit someone’s nuts off?” asked Winky. “Man, that’s some hardcore krav maga. You’re gonna have to teach me that move.”

Rob winced.

“Yeah, Rob,” I answered, ignoring Winky. “They’re networked, like with messengers or something. They share info through their spies or by taking trips. I don’t know. Kiersten said they knew about me and you guys out in Kahayatle and were planning on taking us all out. But we got to them first.”

“Oh, shit,” said Rob. “That’s huge. We need to tell Kowi and them.”

“Someone needs to. Not to be a coward or anything, but I need to get the hell out of here and set up in that prison before the canners figure out where I am and come after me.” I looked at my friends. “They’ll take everyone with me.”

“No, they won’t,” said Winky, looking at Rob for confirmation. “We’re with you no matter what. No one’s safe from them. We all taste the same.”

“So what are we going to do?” asked Rob.

“Well, like you said, we need to warn the tribes. Can you do that?” I asked him.

“Yeah. But what are you going to do?” He was looking at Winky and me.

“We’ll go to the prison. If you still want to come, you can warn the others and then meet us down there.”

He hit me lightly on the arm. “You think Little Bee and I would let you face down those monsters alone, Nokosi?”