Page 139 (1/2)

Although not at Dana’s level, the men were all quite brilliant: Robert McMasters, the president and CEO of the energy company Exelon; Cody Ha.s.san, who had apparently been an up-and-coming jazz musician; and Jeremy Ellis, a young geneticist who held multiple Ph.D.s. McMasters was hard at work on preserving the power grid. Ha.s.san helped craft the messages to send through Brownstone’s network. Ellis was already modifying facilities at the University of Chicago so he could study both the biology of the Chosen Ones, and how to defeat the humans’ inoculation formula.

All four of them were afraid to make a noise. They all sensed Steve’s fury. That, and their eyes kept flicking to the two huge bulls that stood behind him.

Three workers sat in front of his three laptops. All three screens showed the same YouTube video. Steve pointed to the middle screen.

“Cooper Mitch.e.l.l shot this inside a building. Which building? What floor?”

Brownstone and the men said nothing.

Steve drew a black pistol from a thigh holster. The weapon had belonged to a cop. The cop didn’t need it anymore; he had tasted delicious.

Steve aimed it at Ha.s.san’s face and pulled the trigger. The gun kicked in his hand. Ha.s.san’s head snapped backward. He dropped, probably dead even before his limp body hit the floor.

Steve holstered the pistol. “I said … what building?”

Brownstone shook her head. “We don’t know, Emperor! The video quality is terrible. We can’t identify any key structural elements. We think it’s a hotel or an office building, but there’s over a hundred and thirty million square feet of office s.p.a.ce in the central business district alone. He could be anywhere.”

Steve looked down at the man running the middle laptop.

“Refresh,” he said. “And play it again.”

The man did as he was told. As the window came up, Steve looked at the number of plays: 132,512. The views were climbing, fast. He didn’t know if that was from uninfected watching it with a final sense of hope, his own kind watching it with a feeling of horrific dread, or a combination of both.

The video played. Steve wondered what Cooper would taste like. He’d never find out, of course, because Cooper was a walking plague.

If only he’d just let Bo Pan kill the man …

“Isolate his face from this video,” Steve said. “Then print pictures. Thousands of pictures.”

He turned to his four — correction, his three — top followers.

“Spread the word that everyone is to look for this man. Search every building, every office, every bas.e.m.e.nt. If someone finds him, kill him on the spot, whatever it takes.”