Every Last Drop by Charlie Huston Page A

you can shrug off such things. However sentimental.
I look at my bare foot, rub the stump that used to be my big toe, flaking away scab. —I only killed her mom.
He squints. —So you've claimed before.
He leans back, his chair giving a little squeak. —A persistent little lie, that. —I only killed her mom.
—A lie I have some trouble penetrating. Why you should be reluctant to take
credit for her fathers death. Repugnant man.
—What can I say, I take credit where its due. I only killed her mom.
I look out of the light, into the darkness, back into the light. —The other thing got her dad.
He picks his pen back up.
—Other thing. Gullible as you are in so many things,  I am still somehow disappointed that you embrace that particular bit of superstition.
Nothing else to say. Seeing as I'm not superstitious.
He puts the end of the pen to his chin. —Another time then.
I peel an especially long and stringy bit of dead skin loose from my foot, look at it and drop it on the floor. —The girl is out of control?
He grips the pen in both hands, flexes the shaft. —Yes.
He bends it just to the breaking point, holds it there, relaxes, looks at it as it springs back into shape, and sets it aside.
—Yes. She is out of control. —In what way?
He aligns the pen with the right-hand edge of the desk. —She has declared a new Clan.
He shifts the angle of the gun, bringing the length of the barrel true with the top edge of the desk.
—Using her wealth to disseminate word through the community. Bribing otherwise loyal members of the Clans to help spread word of this new “Clan.” She has made it clear that any and all are welcome in her...
He looks through the gloom to the ceiling. —Her new organization.
He looks back at the desk, tapping the stack of folders flush with one another.
—Uninfected herself, she is enlisting other uninfecteds to carry word off the Island. Daylight travelers. Renfields and Lucys.
He brushes some unseen fleck of matter from the corner of the desk. —She is, in all these dealings, loud and highly visible. We do not exist within a vacuum. The uninfected world is the medium in which we are forced to live.
Vibrations cannot reach us without first traveling through that medium. Yes, those vibrations must be decoded, but that does not mean that others cannot learn the code. She is putting us all at risk. This is not solely a matter of Coalition doctrine being controverted, this is a case in which the concerns of all the Clans are being drawn under fire by the willful hand of a child who is not even of our ilk.
I stop fiddling with my toe and give him a look. —Of our ilk? Christ, Predo, is that a little racism I hear?
His fist shatters the desktop, pen and papers flying, gun dropping to the floor. —She is trying to find a cure!
His foot lashes and the desk skitters down the ballroom trailing splinters and kindling. —A cure!
His fists ball, knuckles whiten.
I point. —Your ties a bit askew there, Mr. Predo.
He closes his eyes and his mouth twists slightly.
His eyes open. —Word will spread.
I nod. —Yeah, I know.
He lets a breath drop in, lets it out.
—Infecteds that know no better will flock to her. There will be desertions from the Clans. Refugees from off the Island. —I know.
He opens his fists, flexing his fingers back, relaxing them. —Our careful balance will be undone. —I know.
He shrugs the collar of his jacket back into place. —And when she fails, there will be chaos and discord.
He runs fingers through his hair, brushing his bangs back into place. —And finally.
He touches the knot of his tie, pulls it straight. —We will have war.
He tugs at the French cuffs of his shirt. —And we will all die.
The throbbing where my eye was comes from the nerves regenerating. Id be better off if the Vyrus left them dead. Not like they're gonna have anything to plug in to. Without that eye, they'll just be raw and disjoined. Something that can cause pain while serving no real purpose.
I