Code(113)

The realization warmed me.

As I shifted my weight something jabbed me in the leg. I fished in my pocket. Pulled out a red plastic bar.

“Karsten’s flash drive.” Hi shot a quick glance at Tempe’s sliding door. “You keep it on you?”

“Of course. It might have the answers we need. I can’t risk losing it.”

I studied the slim drive lying on my palm. Wondered what secrets it held.

Mapped DNA? The metabolic truth of our mutations? A cure?

“You asked what next, Hi?” I placed the drive on the patio table.

Shelton and Hi turned to face me.

Coop trotted over and sat at my feet.

“We find out what happened to us.” I scratched behind my wolfdog’s ears. “The whole story. Then we figure out what comes next.”

I probed the new awareness swirling in recesses of my mind. Felt tantalizingly close to understanding. Then the feeling slipped away.

“It’s time to discover what makes us Viral.”





EPILOGUE





Chance Claybourne glared at the man standing before him.

He was sitting at the desk in his study. The colossus reminded him of his father, and he loathed using it, but the gleaming mahogany had a certain intimidation value he found useful.

Right then, he wanted to intimidate.

“Nothing else?” Chance spoke loud enough to be heard over the hammering in the courtyard below.

Claybourne Manor had weathered yet another hurricane. Though Katelyn had not left the property unscathed. Broken windows. Uprooted trees. An outbuilding reduced to a pile of rubble.

But the main house stood, strong as ever. Chance scoffed at the idea of evacuation. He’d lounged in his wine cellar, reading his Kindle, insulated from even the noise of the storm. The whole thing had been much to-do about nothing.

Chance reflected on a prior trip down those steps.

Tory Brennan. I was shot in that cellar, for God’s sake.

The man before him shifted. Chance didn’t offer a seat.

He needed this worm, but didn’t like him.

“They should not have been up there,” Mike Iglehart said. “The only person to ever work upstairs in Building Six was our former director, Marcus Karsten.”

Chance kept his face blank. “Karsten?”

Iglehart nodded. “He’s gone now. Murdered. It was awful.”

Chance regarded the devious scientist with distaste. He was the perfect mole, his allegiance purchased for next to nothing. It still surprised him. Iglehart obviously had some personal grudge against his employer.

“Why is that relevant?” Chance asked.

“I think those brats stole something,” Iglehart answered. “I’m certain the girl was hiding her hands. It might relate to the research Karsten was doing.”

Chance’s pulse quickened, but his tone remained flat. “Research?”

“No one knows. Karsten destroyed all the files.”

Chance considered the new information. Iglehart knew nothing about his connection to the project, or his role in the events surrounding Karsten’s death. Chance intended to keep it that way.

Karsten’s secret research. Tory and her obnoxious friends.

Was there a link? How? What kind?

He thought back to his talks with Madison. To his own odd experiences with those four.

The wine cellar three stories below him.

A deserted beach.

The basement of The Citadel.

Something is amiss.

“Ah . . . Mr. Claybourne?” Iglehart fidgeted. “Is there anything else?”

Chance shook his head tightly. “Dismissed. Keep your eyes open.”

Chance felt anger radiate from the man. Resentment that he, an accomplished scientist, was forced to run and fetch for a boy barely eighteen.

Chance smiled coldly. Money talks.

When the door closed, Chance opened a drawer and removed a large key ring. Then he rose and crossed to an ancient bureau against the far wall.

His father’s private cabinet.

He’d never seen inside it before the old man went away.

Chance unlocked the door, removed a stack of files, and returned to the desk.

For a long moment he stared at the folders.

His father had never mentioned their existence. He’d found them only a few weeks earlier.

One finger traced the lettering stamped onto each one.


Candela Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Marcus Karsten—Research Notes.

Top Secret.

“I will get answers,” Chance whispered.

He began reading for the hundredth time.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS



Code would not have been possible without the patient-yet-prodding efforts of our super-editor Arianne Lewin at G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Thank you for your tireless work in shaping this story, and for providing solid direction for the Virals series going forward. We are in your debt. Thanks also to Ben Schrank and Anne Hetzel for their thoughtful contributions to both this manuscript and the series. We appreciate you all.

More thanks to Don Weisberg at Penguin and Susan Sandon at Random House UK, who have backed these crazy Virals from the beginning, a fact for which we are eternally grateful. We also must thank Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, and the entire staff at William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, for everything that they do. You keep the electricity humming.