001. one by one dropped the revellers!


The phone had been ringing for several minutes. It had vibrated through Beyonce’s cover of “Fever” twice, Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly,” and was just finishing Johnny Cash’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” for the third time when Pestilence sauntered out of the shower. He’d sung along to all the ring tones and now the screen was informing him that he had six new messages. A less god might have ignored that – already knowing exactly what the messages contained. But Pestilence had always prided himself on his interpersonal skills, and it struck him as vaguely bad manners to leave those messages on his voicemail. Whistling softly, he pounded typed in his password and left the phone on the cabinet. He wasn’t going to actually waste time listening to them; really, it wasn’t as though he didn’t already know what they said.

There was a situation at work. Somehow the press had gotten information about the measles outbreak in the Midwest that was somewhat more serious than the CDC was admitting – even in house. The story would be on the evening news and probably make the front page of tomorrow’s paper. Pestilence already knew it had been splashed all over the web. He’d double checked that before taking his shower.

“Killing Me Softly” started again, after the last message had played. Humming softly, he finally answered his phone.

“What? Oh. Yes. Uh huh, yeah, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Just prep a statement for tomorrow’s papers about the outbreak and it’ll blow over. Yeah, sure, no worries. Trust me, everything will be just fine.” Grinning savagely to himself, Pestilence close the phone and tossed it onto the desk. The measles report was going to brushed off the front page quickly, of that he had no doubt. Mostly because he’d already convinced his very gullible contact at the Post that there was a large quantity of Anthrax missing from a government lab.