“Look, my parents are out there,” Emily said, “I have to go see them. They’re by Border Station Three. They might have survived the blasts.”

The sickly faces of their group of thirty people now looked at her.

“Emily, you can’t…” Jack begged, “You can’t leave us, you’re the only healthy one left somehow. None of us can *cough cough* walk that far!”

“I… It’s been a week. I can’t wait anymore!” Emily said, “You have a group, I’ve helped set you guys up with shelter and enough canned food to last for another week or two. But I’ve got to find my family. I’ve done everything I can.”

“We’ll die,” Jack pleaded, “We’re getting sick. In a few days you’ll be the last one that can move. Please…”

“I… Bye. I’m sorry. I have to go. And I got you the anti-rad medication. That should help. And I’ll do one last run for supplies for you guys. I promise.”

There was a long argument, but after a while everyone, even Jack, accepted her leaving and wished her best of luck on her journey. Something that made her feel even worse about it somehow.

She wanted to stay, to keep helping them. But her parents were out there in who knows how much danger. Even with their big group, they’d already been attacked four times by people desperate for the food stockpile they’d managed to scavenge. Luckily Jack and a few of the other guys were still healthy enough to brandish some metal pipes and wooden bats to scare them off before things got too dangerous.

But everyone was getting sick from the radiation except for Emily. Who knew how long that would last? Until Jack and the others weren’t strong enough to defend the others anymore?

And she had gotten the medications from a nearby pharmacy. She was lucky she had recognized the drug in the counter from some of her side research at CODA International lab. If they took them properly then it should help treat their symptoms of the radiation poisoning. And since they knew the name of the drug now, they should be able to scavenge for more in the city if they needed to. It should be at almost any pharmacy nearby, it was used to treat other things besides radiation poisoning too.

She had to go, the uncertainty of what had happened to her parents gnawed at her. And there was Sean to worry about too in the city filled with people infected with the deadly virus. Her deadly virus.

So she left after doing one last scavenging run for medication and canned food for the group. She took a bicycle that she’d scavenged and started her long trip around the perimeter of the city where the roads were still relatively clear with a scavenged backpack of supplies on her back.

She hadn’t packed much food or water. For some reason she didn’t have to eat too much anymore. She had just taken tiny portions so the others could have more for the last week. And she still felt good, not that hungry at all despite spending over a week only eating scraps and drinking sparingly.

Maybe whatever it was had also stopped her from getting sick from the radiation? Was that why she still was so healthy while everyone else seemed to be getting sicker all at once?

She kept biking across the outskirts of the city. There were people peering at her from the windows of the building, all of them with sallow faces and sunken eyes.

Several groups of men chased after her shouting while brandishing spiked clubs as they saw her backpack even if they coughed and stumbled as they chased her. She pedaled harder and was able to outpace even the ones with their own bikes after a few minutes. Her seemingly endless stamina helping her once again. It was becoming difficult to deny that the stamina was anything but supernatural. Maybe she really had gotten superpowers somehow.

What a shitty origin story, why couldn’t she have fallen into a vat of acid or something instead? Why did it have to happen like this?

She kept moving, biking around the perimeter of the city that was perpetually dark now with the ash filling the sky and blocking out the sun even at midday. It was oddly cold out even in the height of summer. The temperatures were more what Emily would have expected for early fall right now.

After a long time and several close calls where several gangs almost ambushed her and managed to throw her from her bike, she finally made it around the perimeter to the other side of the city. She was almost lucky that none of the cars were working right now. She shuddered to imagine what might have happened if the men in those gangs had managed to catch up to her.

She looked at the map that she had been using to navigate as she rolled to a stop in the middle of the street. She inspected the map for a bit and peered between it and the mangled street signs on the middle of the intersection. She had never used a map to navigate before so she had to stop and recollect herself whenever she got lost or after she had to flee somebody who had tried to attack her.

Luckily CODA had strict restrictions against buying guns, so nobody had shot at her yet. Although she had seen a few of the men waving the guns threateningly as she fled, even if none of them actually ended firing them at her. But only a few were armed, so hopefully she should be safer once she left the urban areas and was in more of the countryside.

After finding her position and planning out the next section of her route, she tucked the map back into her backpack and zipped it back up and continued on her journey.

As she moved the urban landscape slowly turned into the suburbs. But for some reason people were just as sickly here as they had been in the city as she kept biking.

It took her three days to finally reach Border Station Three. Or the small town that had sprung up around the border checkpoint over time.

Emily’s heart dropped as the buildings were more and more destroyed as she kept biking. Eventually she stopped seeing any more people and her eyes started stinging while the air seemed to burn her slightly like a fizzy soda when she breathed it in. But she kept moving, and eventually reached the edge.

The town was gone. It had been hit with another nuke, a massive crater in the center of where the main road should have been.

Emily knew where her parents had been staying. They had been in this crater, their hotel nothing but rubble now scattered across the bottom of the crater.

“Are… did they make it out?” Emily asked herself hopefully as she stared into the crater.

No, no they didn’t. The whole town was bathed in radiation. Even if they were on the edge of the town when the bomb dropped then they’d be dead by now. Just like Jack and everyone we left behind. Everyone who lived in CODA territory is doomed. The radiation levels are too high, they’ll all die over the next few weeks no matter what medication they take. But… let’s keep going, right? Our brother is still quarantining in the closest city in the American Democracy faction. I don’t remember what happened exactly… But we still have some time left. We have to get there quickly to save him. The nukes didn’t land there, I’m sure.

“Right, Sean,” Emily said a little desperately, “He’s away from all of this, he could have survived. At… At least one of them has to have survived. I can’t be all alone.”

Emily took her bike and started circling the crater all on her lonesome. No movement or sign of people anywhere around her except for the rubble and piles of ash that she had to maneuver around as she moved through the shattered streets. The air was cold and she was wearing a breezy t-shirt and pants. The wind bit at her skin, yet somehow she never had to stop and her fingers gripped tightly against the handles of the bike never turned blue or went stiff.

She felt… fine. What a joke, that she would feel so amazing after losing everything. No, not everything. There was still Sean. He was still out there, waiting for her to come help him. She had to find him before something horrible happened.

— — —

Emily stopped her bike and stared at the concrete bunker, looking between the bodies of the soldiers and people, all turned to burnt husks by the nuclear explosion in the town behind them. The mummified and blackened bodies of the soldiers still stood holding their warped weapons within the bunker while piles and groups of more bodies were outside lying on the ground. Several of the cars and vehicles parked around were destroyed and pitted with gunfire that must have come from the bunker defending the road.

All the people trying to flee to CODA to escape the deadly virus… The image of the scene seared deeply into Emily’s mind as she looked at it. She turned away and kept biking down the road. It was eighty miles to the city where Sean was sheltering in. From what she could see after an hour or two weaving through the built up traffic in her way, the road was mostly clear and undamaged once she was a little farther from the border.

She should bike through the night. It would be hard to see, but on the open midwestern plains she should be able to mostly follow the straight road without worrying about straying off the path. And maybe her endless stamina would let her skip a night of sleep too in her emergency.

So Emily did that. She biked through the day and night, constantly pedaling and never feeling tired. At night she didn’t even have a flashlight to give her light. It was electronic too and the one she had found didn’t light up even after she replaced its batteries. But it was a full moon so when she squinted she could see the road and dodge the few obstacles or disabled cars in her way.

It was the morning of the third day that Emily finally saw the edge of the city. She had just kept her head down and pedaled as quickly as she could as she traveled while trying to not think of anything much as she moved. And with her stamina, she ended up moving quickly with the wind rushing across the short fuzz growing on her scalp from when it had been burned away by the nuclear explosion.

Emily grimaced. Sean was alive. Her brother was here, he was the only person she had left. She had to get to him.

She slowed her bike as she saw a ring of military vehicles on the road in front of her blocking the way. She eventually decided to keep moving after a second’s hesitation. She had to get through to Sean. She knew roughly where his apartment was. Even if she was trapped in the city’s quarantine then she could use her newfound superpowers to protect him. Somehow. She wasn’t sure how rapid healing would help Sean, but she’d find a way.

The men in green mottled uniforms shouted at her and she slowly slid to a stop and let her bike fall to the ground and raised her hands above her head. Two humvees with mounted machine guns were parked on either side of the road with their weapons pointed directly at her. There was a pile up of cars between them that would have blocked Emily’s way through if she had a car.

“Turn back!” A uniformed man who appeared to be in charge shouted from where he stood just in front of one of the humvees on the side of the road. Hardened electronics, Emily realized with a start. Military vehicles would still be working, their vehicles were probably still able to run even with the bombs’ EMP.

“I have to get in there! My brother’s inside!” Emily shouted back, “Please, I… I have to go in. Just let me through.”

“No one in or out!” The leader shouted back, “Executive order of the president declaring martial law. Go back the way you came and find somewhere else to go.”

“I don’t care about your stupid president!” Emily snapped she glanced at the little tag on the man’s chest, “Major Smith. I’m from CODA, not your backwards run down country! But my brother’s in there, and I’m not going anywhere else but to him!”

There was a short pause, “You pretentious CODA assholes,” the man swore, “You people are the ones that caused all of this, brought the world to shit. Now beat it or you’ll be shot for refusing to comply with a lawful order of the military. I don’t want to hear anything else from you.”

Emily took a half step forward to argue, but the leader drew his pistol and pointed it at her threateningly and she stopped. He flicked his pistol to gesture back to her bike sitting on its side. She paused.

“Well?” the man said with a growl, “Are you going, or are you getting shot?”

Emily took a step back and lowered her hands before making her decision and sprinting back to her bike and moving away.

It took thirty minutes before she lost sight of the blockade. But they were only on the road. Emily turned her bike to the side and started pushing through the fields of corn lining the side of the road. Her bike was able to push through it slowly with her pedaling as hard as she could, but it was slow going. But she should be able to sneak through into the city if she wasn’t right by the military and soldiers guarding it.

She made her way through in the vague direction of the city. She could see the tips of a few of the skyscrapers occasionally to make sure she was going the right way. But other than that she was completely lost among the high stalks of corn in the fields.

There was rumbling like a plane or drone flew above her as she moved. But she paused to stop moving and waited and after a few minutes nothing else happened. So she kept moving.

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The field of corn ended after another few hours. The sun had reached its maximum and just started lowering in the sky now. Maybe two or three in the afternoon by Emily’s guess as she emerged from the field. There was the suburbs right in front of her, the edge of the cornfield merging right with somebody’s backyard.

Emily started biking confidently on the roads towards the skyscrapers in the distance. Everything was eerily silent as she looked around. There wasn’t even the sudden movement in the windows like if people were quarantining inside their houses. The back of Emily’s neck prickled as she kept moving through the eerily silent streets.

After ten minutes she suddenly stopped as she saw a military humvee in her path with the same officer from before stepping out of the side door. Another man stood manning the turret above the vehicle that was pointed at her again.

“Don’t know how you managed to get through those fields so fast on the bike,” the officer, Major Smith, said with his pistol dangling down at his side unholstered, “But this is your last chance… Ms. CODA. We’ve got infrared scans of the whole perimeter. You’re not getting through. We don’t have the resources to stop you more than this once. So go, or you’ll be shot on sight next time.”

“I…” Emily said only to flinch as there was a loud boom and pain bloomed in her chest. She fell to the side off of her bike gasping as she grabbed the left side of her chest where the bullet had entered.

“This is what all you bastards deserve for releasing that virus on us,” the officer said, “No one buys that Empire crap. CODA did this. You’d come back, try to sneak in again. I saw it in your eyes. I’m just saving all of us some time.”

Emily kept gasping and desperately clutching her chest despite the pain having already stopped. She looked up only to see the military officer standing there with a pistol aimed at her from only a few feet away.

There was a loud boom and Emily felt something hit her skull. Everything went black as the bullet entered her brain before she could make another noise.

— — —

The blackness bloomed back into light and Emily started to panic. Was she dead? Was this the afterlife? No, she still had to save Sean! She couldn't go into the light just yet! But then the light resolved into color as sensation returned to her body.

“What…?” she rasped.

Don’t move! They think you’re dead! Just wait until you’re sure they’re gone. Close your eyes, now! Listen to me, little Emily. Just close your eyes and stay still right now! Don’t move a muscle!

Emily stiffened for a moment before forcefully relaxing her body and shutting her eyes. Just before her lids closed she saw the back of the military officer, his pistol holstered at his side as he walked away from her body.

She lay there only breathing very slowly as she played dead as best as she could.

The vehicle rumbled and slowly receded into the distance for a few minutes until she couldn’t hear it anymore. She cracked open her eyes a fraction and saw that the road in front of her was empty.

“Gone?” Emily whispered as she opened her eyes a little wider and looked around without moving her body at all.

Yes, they’re gone for now, little Emily. But you’ve got to get up now. They have infrared cameras. They’ll realize that they made a mistake when you’re still warm on their next scan whenever that is. We have to rush into the city and get lost into the crowd as quickly as possible before they can catch us and realize that you’re still alive.

Emily stood and put a finger through the hold in her shirt right over her heart. She wiggled it a bit and the fabric moved with it. She reached up and felt her face that was matted with wet blood. And the perfectly smooth skin where the bullet had struck her.

“I… died,” Emily said in shock, “Everything went black. He shot me in the head. I was dead, and now I’m here.”

Emily didn’t say anything for a few seconds and put her finger back into the bullet hole in her shirt.

“I… I guess these powers are better than I thought they were,” Emily said to herself, “But he said they have IR scans. I should go and get lost in the city. Who knows what they’ll do to me if they figure out that I’m… Immortal or something.”

She stood and went back to her bike and traveled farther into the city. But even after the shock of what had just happened, the feeling of dread suddenly washed over her as she kept biking into the silent city. There were a few people in the street, but all eyed her warily and shied away from her. None spoke to another and there were no vehicles running across the city.

There was sound now, of quiet muttering and shuffling. Coughing and retching coming from the alleyways. But none of the hustle and bustle that you’d expect from a living city.

She finally found Sean’s apartment building after a long journey, avoiding the residents of the city just as they avoided her. She went up and pressed the button to buzz the apartment with her ‘Stenton’ last name on it before realizing that she was being stupid. Of course that part didn’t work, it was electrical and it must have been taken out by the EMPs. The EMP blasts would have been continental, not localized to just one city, so it must have taken out everything electronic, even this far away from CODA.

She looked around and hid her bike behind the dumpster in the alleyway to the side of the building. It wasn’t ideal, but hopefully nobody would steal it while she was gone.

She went to the front door of the apartment complex and pulled out a large knife from her backpack. Who knows who was in there besides Sean, best to be careful. She carefully hit the window with the base of her knife and smashed a little corner of it out. She reached her hand in and unlocked the outer door and walked inside before closing it behind her again. The inner door was locked.

Emily looked to the little corner of the window on the outer door that she had broken when she reached in. It was fine, she’d come down and fix it somehow later…

Emily went up the stairs to the door of Sean’s apartment on the fifth floor and stood there for a moment. She raised a trembling fist to the door and stared at the wood. Was… was he still in there? Was he alive? After over five minutes of struggling with herself, she finally let her fist fall and knocked on the door.

She waited and heard some shuffling inside the room.

“Hello? Sean? It’s me, Emily,” she whispered, not wanting to disturb or alert the rest of the block that she was here.

There was a pause. “Emily?” Sean’s voice whispered from the other side, “Is that really you?”

“Yeah. It’s me,” Emily said, starting to choke up as she heard his voice again.

The door opened and there Sean stood, looking tired and like he hadn’t shaved in a long time. But safe and healthy. He quickly waved her in with his eyes darting to the sides of the hallway. Emily rushed in and Sean quickly shut and locked the door behind him.

“Emily, what…”

Sean stopped talking as Emily wrapped him up in a hug and started crying in relief.

“I was so worried about you, Sean,” Emily managed to choke out between her sobs, “Thank god you’re okay.”

“Me?” Sean asked in confusion as he tentatively hugged her back, “What about you, Sis? I… You were right there. If you made it then… Did…”

“No,” Emily said softly, “They’re all gone. Luke, Mom, Dad. We’re all that’s left.”

Sean drew back, “What? But… If you made it out then… Maybe they made it out too? The bombs couldn’t have hit everywhere, surely.”

Emily shook her head, “It’s… I’m just glad that you’re safe. I… I’m a special case. One of the bombs was dropped almost directly on top of Mom and Dad’s hotel.”

Sean’s expression crumpled and he collapsed heavily onto the couch a few steps behind him, looking defeated.

“And Luke?” Sean asked heavily, “What about him?”

“He… He was with me. He didn’t make it.”

“Oh. So you were… at the edge of the blast then? Made it out in time before the radiation clouds spread to your area? And… Luke? Something happened?”

“Not… not exactly. I got superpowers. I can heal really fast now.”

“Superpowers? What do you mean?” Sean asked as he peered at her skeptically, “Can we not joke? I just want to know everything and then… we can move from there.”

“I’m not joking,” Emily said. She took out her knife from her backpack and took a deep breath. Sean’s eyes widened and he leapt up as she dragged a long cut along the top of her forearm with a hiss of pain.

“Fuck, that hurts,” Emily swore as she put the blade on the little table set up in front of the couch. Sean watched in confusion as the cut on Emily’s arm stopped bleeding and healed in seconds. Emily wiped the blood off her forearm with her other hand and presented her arm to Sean for inspection. He grabbed it and turned her arm around and poked it for a few seconds silently, blinking in surprise and looking like he was still processing what had just happened.

“So, what? You can just regenerate now? You got superpowers?” Sean asked, “How? Can you do anything else?”

“I never seem to get tired,” Emily said, “And I don’t have to eat or sleep I don’t think. At least not so far. I stayed up for days biking here and I never got tired or had to sleep. That’s how I got here so fast.”

“That’s… But you must need energy. How would you be healing so fast unless it was using something up? It doesn’t make sense. Do you have to eat more when you heal? Maybe that’s it? Do you know if it slows down healing eventually?”

“I… don’t think so?” Emily said, “I, well… I don’t think I have to worry about it not healing me.”

“Why?” Sean asked suspiciously as he spotted her expression, “What do you mean? What happened?”

“Well, uhm,” Emily said before walking over to the other side of Sean’s couch and sitting down with a loud sigh.

“Luke and I were… we were right at the site of one of the bombs. It barely exploded two miles away. Everything was burned, the whole building destroyed. My body burned to a crisp before it healed back good as new. Luke… Luke was gone and I was the only one left. He was right in my arms and then he was gone.”

Emily looked down at her trembling hands and thought back to that moment. There was something missing. She had hugged Luke, they had said a few words. Then… it was all a confused mess of darkness and burning pain until she woke up again in the rubble. She just couldn't remember...

Sean grabbed Emily’s hands and stopped their trembling.

“Hey,” he said gently, “I’m sorry. But we’ve still got each other. It’ll all be okay.”

“How can it?” Emily whispered, “Mom and Dad are dead. My best friend is dead. Everyone in CODA city is dead in the explosions or from the radiation after. Who knows how many others died from the virus and the other bombs that were launched. How can it be okay?”

“We’re both fine. You more than ever, with your powers. We’ll make it fine. Big brother’s promise.”

Emily looked up at him. “Big brother’s promise?” Emily said with a weak chuckle, “You haven’t done any of those since we were kids.”

“I took care of those bullies at school when you told me how they were picking on you,” Sean said, “I delivered on my big brother promise back then didn’t I? And I’ll deliver on it now. We’ll get through this together. Things will get better, I’m sure of it.”

Emily searched his expression for a long moment before nodding.

“Thanks, Sean. Maybe you’re right,” she agreed, “As long as we have each other.”

— — —

“Are you sure?” Sean asked, “You haven’t eaten for days, Emily. Surely you should eat something?”

“No,” Emily said shaking her head, “We only have three weeks of food left even with rationing as it is. I don’t need to eat, but you do. You’re getting it all.”

“How long do you think the quarantine will continue?” Sean asked, “Surely they have to let us out sometime? Give us some of those CODA vaccines. It’s already been over a month since all of this happened.”

“You saw them from the roof. The military dragging out the bodies of the infected and throwing them in those big pits to burn. Shooting the ones that were still alive,” Emily said, “One of the officers tried to kill me. They’re not our friends. If they have any vaccines then they wouldn’t give them to us.”

“What do you mean?” Sean said, “Can’t they just make more?”

“No, if CODA is destroyed… then maybe not,” Emily said, “And with all electronics down and maybe wars going on in the aftermath of everything… we might not be getting a vaccine for a while.”

“Couldn’t you make some?” Sean asked, “You could go to them and give them the formula. You said you might know it, and be able to make it if you had the right equipment.”

“Well… maybe if I had the right tools and reagents. And the software program for protein design or something similar. It’s not something you can just write down. You need to have a software file and the right process to make it.”

“Maybe we can trade?” Sean asked hopefully, “The vaccine formula for safety? You think they would go for that? They’re assholes, but everything they’re doing is to combat the infection. Even if it’s brutal.”

Emily considered it for a moment.

“Okay,” she finally said, “Okay. It’s worth a try. Before you start running out of food. We can’t go out there to scavenge. One of us might be infected by the virus…”

“What would that do to you? Wouldn’t you just regenerate it away?”

“I don’t know. But what if I could still spread it to other people even if I heal? I can’t let that happen. Especially to you.”

“Okay. So we’ll cover you up, then you’ll go? What about me?”

“I’ll come back for you,” Emily promised, “You just stay safe here. But we’re preparing first. I want to make sure I know what to say when I approach. You know this place better than I do. Help me think on what I should do…”

The two of them discussed for a long time on how Emily should go about it. They talked for the entire day planning, Sean being forced to eat a double ration of food to make up his calories from all the activity they had been doing. Something that made Emily feel guilty as his food stores dwindled even more. Emily’s stomach had small pangs, but more like craving a snack than anything deeper. Even if she hadn’t eaten in weeks by now.

They both went to sleep and in the next morning it was time for Emily to suit up. The air was cold and the wind biting, the ashy gray skies turning the sun into a red hazy orb at all times. The tail end of summer shifting into a deep winter over only the last few weeks.

Sean took several heavy jackets he owned and helped Emily put on as many as she could and not restrict her movement too much. All of it was Sean’s clothing, but it still roughly fit on her as she put on two pairs of snow pants, three jackets, and as many thin layers as she could top and bottom directly on her skin above and below her coat.

Sean helped her put on a ski mask, goggles, and thick winter gloves. Then he used up two whole rolls of duct tape sealing the gaps between each piece. Focusing on attaching the hems of the snowpants to her heavy boots, the gloves to her wrists, and the ski mask to her neck and the rest of the jacket.

He especially took care to make sure that the goggles were taped on tightly to the mask so that nothing would get through. The whole thing in the end should serve as a make do hazmat suit in case she came across somebody who was infected with the virus. Hopefully it would protect her enough to make a difference.

Her hair had grown out a few inches, so it tangled and was slightly uncomfortable under the material of the ski mast as she tried to look around as she stood there. The interior of the puffy layers were uncomfortably warm too. But with her new powers, Emily was able to ignore the uncomfortable sensation as she stood there feet slightly apart in a T pose with her arms raised as Sean walked around and inspected all the little seams in her suit. Occasionally he would rip off another length of tape and put it on a point that they missed.

After twenty minutes of this, Sean was finally done. He had worry in his eyes as he inspected her fully one last time.

“I think that’s it,” he said hesitantly.

“Thanks, Sean,” Emily said in a muffled voice through the ski mask, “Better to look ridiculous than be sick, right? You got the crowbar?”

“Right.”

Sean turned around and retrieved a crowbar that he’d bought right before everyone in the city had been forced to quarantine. He placed it into her hands that were covered in the thick winter gloves. It took her a few tries to get a firm grip on it with both hands before Sean let go.

“Stay safe, Sean,” Emily said, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“You stay safe too, Emily. Good luck.”

Sean hugged her, and she returned it with her puffy arms even if she could barely even feel it through all of the layers she was wearing.

“Alright, let’s go,” Emily said as Sean opened the door for her and she walked out into the main hallway. The two of them hadn’t even talked to the neighbors or even really seen them this whole time. Everyone was so paranoid about catching the virus that even within the same building they didn’t want to see each other due to the risk. But according to Sean all the people in this building had prepared stores of food or left for other places weeks ago. So they weren’t starving yet at least according to him.

Emily navigated down the stairs of the building carefully and walked back outside. There was a light dusting of snow falling on the ground. But it wasn’t white snow, but gray and mixed with the ash that still choked the skies above. Luckily the winds had been blowing the other way from them so far, so the radiation hadn’t come their way yet. Hopefully by the time it did the dosage would be low enough that it wouldn’t be a death sentence like it probably was for whoever was downwind of CODA city right now.

Emily held her crowbar at the ready and walked through the streets towards the edge of the city. The place where she knew the soldiers had set up camp. She shifted her grip on the crowbar. Hopefully this wasn’t a mistake. She just couldn’t help but think of the man that had shot her whenever she saw one of the soldiers patrolling the streets on their periodic raids to drag out anyone that was infected with the virus that they could find, dead or alive.