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The four agents stood outside the latest victim’s house, double-checking their Hazmat suits to ensure some protection against this unknown illness. Sobered from the morning antics, they listened as Julilly explained the situation.

“Bree-Anna Richards was one of the first cases brought into the hospitals. From what we were told, her symptoms were severe from the beginning, and it wasn’t long before… well, Bree-Anna was the first to die from whatever this is.”

“But if she…” Brian started, but stopped when Julilly continued.

“Her case was pretty bad, but she’s not the reason we are here. A few hours after her death, her sister Sophie started to show the signs. The CSIS was brought in with Sophie’s case. The hospital could not explain why Bree-Anna seemed fine one minute and was dying the next and Sophie’s symptoms progressively got worse. Sophie and her sister shared a room at home and were in close contact; their case may provide some insight into this disease.”

“What about the parents and the rest of her family?” Brian questioned out loud.

“When Sophie became sick, they moved from their house into a hotel. None of the others are showing signs, but since Sophie progressed slowly, there is no guarantee that the rest of the family will not contract it.”

“Why are we just now investigating this house?” Nick blew up. “If Bree-Anna was the first infected, why now? Why didn’t we come here first?”

“Nick, the CSIS have investigated this house. Our agents have been all over and couldn’t find anything. Dr. Carter was giving Sophie some experimental treatments that she seemed to be responding well to. And we weren’t sure there would be anything to find here, since Bree-Anna’s case was so old. Now, we need to find something, and since Bree-Anna was the first to show up in the hospital, we thought that…”

“Perhaps the first cases hold the key,” Red chimed in. “Terrence Phillip was also one of the first to be brought in, yet it seems that even though he came in after Bree-Anna, he seemed further progressed. It was some of the same treatments Dr. Carter used on Sophie that kept Terrence alive as long as he was.”

“Unfortunately, the first ones infected are harder to determine; many of the sick are not showing up until the symptoms reach their peak and are unable to speak at that point. Bree-Anna and Terrence shared the common thread of being fine one minute and violently ill the next, which leads us to believe they were among the first infected,” Julilly added.

“So if we can find a link between the first infected, we might stand a chance at determining the cause and ultimately discovering an antidote,” Red mused.

“That’s what we believe and are banking on. Now shall we?”

Nick lead the group towards the house. As they trooped across the lawn in their bulky suits, he was reminded of the scene from ET, where the government scientists invaded the house. “EEEEEE-Teeee… phone home…” he warbled in his best ET voice.

“Nick, shh!” hissed Red, casting a warning look towards the dead girl’s parents, who were waiting at the front door to meet them and answer their questions.

The entryway of the house immediately walked them into the front room, set up as playroom for the children younger than either victim. Toys were scattered everyone. Brian closed his eyes and hoped none of the younger children would catch what Bree-Anna and her sister had. In a matter of a few steps, the crew was at the stairway leading upstairs. Brian looked ahead into the dining room and kitchen and wondered how many times they hit their arms on the chairs and cabinets; the passageway between them narrow.

When Nick reached the top of the stairs, he couldn’t help himself. He leapt up the final stair, starting again, “That’s one small step for Nick…”

“Nick...” Red and Julilly groaned in unison, and Brian added, “Not again…”

They entered the girls’ room at the top of the stairs and looked around. Posters of pop groups – The Backalley Boys, The Moffatts, and The Jonas Brothers – adorned the walls. The two beds were up against opposite walls; Bree-Anna’s bed was next to the window. CDs lay scattered on the floor in front of the CD player, clothes tossed on the floor and draped over the beds. A long table sat on the only other free wall, chairs askew from the last time they were used, which, the group assumed, wasn’t recent, as papers covered the seats of the chairs, as well as the desk.

“How are we supposed to find anything in this room to help?” Nick scoffed.

Red opened her case and pulled out some swabs. “Here.” She handed some to Nick. “Start swabbing surfaces.” Everyone grabbed some swabs and spread out in the room. Cautiously, they started to swab different surfaces in the room, hoping to find the source of the infection.

Nick poked Brian with a clean Q-tip, holding it up like a finger. “El-li-ott…”

Brian turned away, shaking his head. “I can’t believe my cousin allows you to work for him,” he muttered, going back to his own swabbing.

After almost an hour of working, with complete silence from everyone, including Nick, Red capped the last swab and put it in her case with the rest.

“Let’s go speak with the parents,” Julilly stated, as she headed back outside. While Julilly asked the parents questions, the others listened.

“What did you find in there?” Bree-Anna’s father asked.

Julilly shook her head and bypassed the question. “What can you tell us about Bree-Anna’s activities the day before she was sick?”

Bree-Anna’s father shook his head. Her mother thought for a few minutes before giving her answer. “She was at a friend’s house. Someone she met recently, I believe. Bree-Anna always made friends so easily.” Tears started to flow from the mother’s eyes, and it was a few minutes before she felt ready to continue. “I just remember she was excited.”

“Can you tell us the girl’s name?” Nick interjected.

“It was unusual; I remember that.” She blew her nose in the crumpled tissue in her hand. “Natalie something-or-other…”

“Spice...” the father added. “That part I remember, because is seemed strange.”

“Natalie Spice,” Nick repeated. “Do you know an address for this young lady?”

Both parents shook their heads, before a fresh stream of tears rolled down their cheeks.

“You’ve been a great help,” Julilly consoled. “Would you mind if we took one more look around the girls’ room before we leave? If we could get in contact with the girl Bree-Anna was with that day, we might learn more about what made her ill.”

“Of course not,” the mother sniffed, waving vaguely towards the stairs. “Do what you need to do.”

“Anything that could help Sophie,” the father agreed, nodding in earnest.

Julilly lead the team back upstairs to the girls’ bedroom. “Anyone remember seeing any reference to this girl, Natalie Spice?” she asked the others.

They shook their heads slowly, trying to remember, but coming up short.

“What about her computer?” Nick suggested, nodding towards the PC that was set up on the desk between the girls’ beds. “Maybe there were emails or IMs, tweets, that sort of thing. I can check.” He was no Pearl, but he knew his way around a computer.

“Good idea,” said Julilly. “We should take her cell phone too, if she had one.”

“I’ll check with the parents,” Brian volunteered, and they heard him clumping downstairs in his bulky suit.

To Red, Julilly directed, “Let’s re-check drawers, book bags, anywhere she might have kept notes from this girl, maybe an address or phone number.” While Nick sat down in front of the computer, the two women worked around him, pulling out desk drawers, unzipping backpacks, leafing through notebooks, emptying purses.

The girls’ computer had been shut down. When it finally booted up, Nick first launched the internet. The browser opened to a website he’d never been to before: a black background behind a layout with bright orange flames, with a header that read Complete Mayhem. Scanning the page, he quickly realized it was a website for stories of some sort, a type of archive where writers could post their work.

Why, he wondered, did the girls have this website as their home page? It had to be a favorite website, one they must have frequented regularly. He wondered if one or both of them had posted stories on this site. If he could find their accounts, maybe there would be clues, or at the very least, links to point him in the right direction – to email accounts, social networking sites, and the like.

A stroke of luck! As he started to read the main page more closely, a line of text caught his eye: You are currently logged in as Moffatts-Chick-404. Score! Whichever girl used this website, she had set her account to log her in automatically. Pearl scorned such practices, as they led to identity theft – really, Nick thought, they just took some of the challenge out of her job, and when it came to technology, Pearl loved a challenge. He, on the other hand, was not the skilled hacker she was and thanked whichever of the girls had sped up his investigation. It felt almost like a cheat in a video game, a shortcut, he thought, grinning in anticipation, as he clicked the link for “Account Info.”

On the menu that loaded, there were lots of options for managing stories and series and reviews. He bypassed these and clicked on a link that said “Edit Bio,” hoping for a look at the user’s current “bio.” The page opened to a form that was already filled in with information.

“Bingo,” he muttered to himself, when he saw “Bree-Anna” entered in the name field.

“Find something, Carter?” asked Julilly, looking up from a small notebook she’d opened on Bree-Anna’s bed.

“Maybe. I’m in Bree-Anna’s account on this website that came up… it’s some kinda writing site, where you can post stories.”

“Yeah? So did she post any?”

“Dunno, haven’t gotten that far. It’s definitely her account though.”

“Well, good. Keep looking.”

“You got it, Jewel.” His eyes fixed on the screen, Nick didn’t notice Red roll her eyes before going back to the drawer she was rifling through.

“I’ve got her cell phone,” Brian announced as he strode back into the room a few minutes later, holding up a hot pink cell phone, bedazzled in silvery rhinestones. “I looked through her contacts, though, and no Natalie.”

“Really?” Julilly looked up again, her forehead creased. “That’s weird. If she was spending time with this girl, you’d think she’d have her number stored. Are you sure she’s not there under a nickname?”

“I don’t think so. See for yourself.” He tossed her the phone casually, and she caught it, immediately going to flip through the contacts herself. “Find anything, Carter?” The Rok asked, coming up behind Nick.

Nick had clicked through to a page that displayed the stories Bree-Anna had posted. “Didn’t your mama ever tell you it was rude to read over people’s shoulders?” he muttered, as he scrolled through the list of stories, skimming their titles and summaries. Brian ignored him. “They all have the same characters – Bob… Clint… Scott… Dave… and, well… her. Bree-Anna.” He moved his cursor over a graphic that accompanied one of the stories. It showed the faces of two young men, along with a teenage girl. The men’s pictures looked like professional portraits, but the girl’s appeared to be an amateur photo. “Is that her? Is that the dead girl?” he asked.

“I dunno,” murmured Brian. “Julilly?”

Julilly got up from the bed and came over to look. “That’s her,” she confirmed. “So she’s writing stories about herself and these guys? Are they famous?”

“They’re The Moffatts.”

Everyone looked around at Red Jewel, who had crept up behind them. Brian looked astonished, Julilly mildly impressed, but Nick smirked and opened his mouth to make a joke at her expense.

Before he could utter a word, though, Red pointed at the screen and added, “It says so right there. ‘Category: Fanfiction > The Moffatts.’”

“Ohh…” they chorused, and Brian added, “Good eye.”

Red grinned. “You should have recognized them, Nick. Terrance Phillip had posters of them in his bedroom, remember?”

“Psh,” Nick scoffed. “Count on a chick to notice shit like that – eh, Rok?” But he had noticed it, he recalled now. Inwardly, he’d ripped on the Phillip kid for the boyband posters on his walls.

“Good thing she did,” Brian replied. “You reckon it’s coincidence, or could this be the connection we’ve been lookin’ for?”

“That they’re both fans of The Moffatts?” Nick was doubtful. “How could that have made them sick, though?” Realizing the joke had made itself, he quickly added, “I mean, obviously I can imagine the painful side effects their music would have, but… well, how do you account for the purple pee?”

Brian actually snorted. Red rolled her eyes, but was unable to suppress her grin. Julilly’s eyes, though, were narrowed; she was thinking hard. “I think we should look into this. I’m not sure it is a coincidence. Really, how many Moffatts fans are there, even in Canada?”

“Call me clueless, but… who are these Moffatts guys, anyway?” asked Brian, looking sheepish. “I thought I was fairly in-the-know on my music, but I guess not…”

Julilly chuckled wryly. “You’d only remember them if you were ‘in-the-know’ in the late nineties. Consider them Canada’s answer to Hanson, or the Jonas Brothers of a decade ago. As far as I know, they were never as popular as either in the States. though. I’m surprised to find they still have fans here. But that’s why I think it’s more than coincidence. We could be onto something here…”

Nick frowned, looking around the room. There was a poster of The Moffatts on Bree-Anna’s side of the room too, perhaps even one of the same ones Terrance Phillip had up. But how could the Moffatts connection have anything to do with the mysterious virus from which they’d both died?

“Are the Moffatts still together?” asked Red, looking at Julilly. “I mean, they’re not still playing concerts or anything like that, are they?”

“No idea,” said Julilly. “I don’t follow the music scene in Toronto much; I’m usually between Ottawa and Halifax. But I have a contact at a radio station I could call; he might know if they’ve had any recent events in the area.” She excused herself and left the room to make the call.

Nick returned his attention to Bree-Anna’s computer. He noticed a link at the top of the website that said “Community” and clicked it. It took him to a message board that supplemented the site. “This could give us some insight,” he remarked, tapping the screen. “If she posts here, too, she might have mentioned some kind of event she and Terrance both could have been at.”

Finding Bree-Anna’s posts on the forum turned out to be easy. All he had to do was click on a members list and scroll down until he found her screen name. Then he could view her recent posts.

The most recent was a survey she had filled out. He scanned her responses eagerly, but there was nothing remarkable, nothing telling there. Some of the answers seemed made-up anyway: he hadn’t recalled seeing a 2008 Lexus or a 2007 Mercedes – the cars she, at fifteen, supposedly owned – in the driveway. Disappointed, he was about to click the back button, but Brian suddenly said, “Hey!”

“What?”

The CIA agent jabbed his hand towards the screen. “Scroll down! Look at the name of the next poster… ‘Moffatts-Spice’? As in, Natalie Spice??”

Nick’s eyes widened. “Moffatts-Spice,” too, had filled out the survey. First question: What is your first name?

First answer: Natalie.

“It’s her!” he said excitedly. But there were no contact details in the survey, and when he clicked on the girl’s profile, all he found was an email address.

“An email address, that’s something,” Brian said, encouraged. “We could email her, if nothing else. Can those be traced? Email addresses?”

“Not sure, but IP addresses can. Only the moderators of this board would be able to see that, though. I wonder if Pearl could hack for us and trace hers.”

Nick fiddled with the watch on his wrist, the one which did everything but tell time. A few seconds later, Pearl’s face appeared on its digital screen. “Yo Pearl, I need a favor.”

He could just make out Pearl wrinkling her nose on the tiny screen. “Don’t ever say ‘yo’ again, Carter; you sound like Drums.”

Nick felt a familiar jolt in his gut at the mention of their former ally-turned-enemy. The last time he’d seen Drums, he had been clinging, literally one-handed, to a mast of Dr. Rough’s pirate ship, the stump of the hand Nick’s sword had severed bleeding copiously. Dr. Rough’s helicopters had come to whisk him away, but Nick didn’t know if the guy was even still alive…

“So what do you need?” Pearl’s voice broke into his memory.

“Oh! Uh – I need you to do some hacking for me. I’m on this message board, and I need the IP address of one of its members and a trace for it, down to the physical address, if you can get it.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. Give me the URL and the username.”

Nick relayed the information. A few minutes passed before Pearl’s voice crackled through Nick’s watch once more. “Okay, Carter, I got your address. Ready?”

Nick grabbed a pen and a sticky note from Bree-Anna’s desk. “Ready,” he said. It was cumbersome to write with latex gloves on, but he copied down the address as Pearl dictated. He had just finished when Julilly returned. “Hey, I’ve got an address for Natalie Spice!” he announced, waving the sticky note in the air.

Julilly snatched it out of his gloved hand and squinted at it. “What?? No, that can’t be right. That address is here. This house. Bree-Anna’s address.”

“What?” Nick took the sticky note back and stared at it. “Hey, Pearl,” he said into his watch, “This isn’t right. The address you gave us is the house we’re at right now, investigating a girl’s death, but that’s not what we want – we’re looking for her friend’s address. The girl with the username I gave you.”

“That’s what I traced, Nick. ‘Moffatts-Spice,’ right?”

“Right… and it traced here??”

“Sure did.”

“Okay… well, can you look up the IP address for ‘Moffatts-Chick-404’ then?” Nick asked, grasping at straws.

It took Pearl only a minute or two. “Nick, their IPs are the same,” she said. “That means they’re using the same computer… Likely, they’re the same person, with two different accounts.”

Nick looked from Julilly, to Brian, to Red, in confusion. “So, what, Bree-Anna just made up this Natalie girl? Why would she do that?”

“Simple,” smirked Julilly, holding up her phone. “My contact confirmed there was a Moffatts reunion concert in Toronto on Saturday night, the night before Bree-Anna was admitted to the hospital. Maybe her parents wouldn’t let her go. So she said she was at this friend Natalie’s house instead.”

Nick still felt bewildered. “But why make her an account on a message board too? Isn’t that taking it a little far?”

“She probably had different reasons for doing that. But don’t ask me to explain the psychology behind teenage girls, Carter; we’d be here all day. Listen, we know there was a concert; we just need to prove that Bree-Anna and Terrance Phillip were both there and then find out how many others were, too. I’m going to go back downstairs and see if Bree-Anna’s parents know anything about the concert. Then I’ll call Terrance Phillip’s mother and ask her, too. Julianne, why don’t you contact Dr. Boulet and see what she can find out at the hospital? Carter, keep searching her computer for any proof that she was at that concert, and Littrell, search the room again – look for ticket stubs, souvenirs, anything like that.”

Taking up their assignments, the two Jewels left the room to make their contacts, leaving Brian and Nick alone in the bedroom. Brian moved to Bree-Anna’s dresser and opened the top drawer. “Man, I feel weird pokin’ through a fifteen-year-old girl’s britches,” drawled Brian, holding up a lacy pair of panties between his fingertips.

Nick snorted. “Did you really just use the word britches?” he replied incredulously, before turning back to the computer. “Anyway, you should be used to it, coming from Hicktucky or wherever the hell you grew up. I thought y’all hooked up with your sisters and cousins down in those there parts.”

“You know, for a bigshot secret agent, you’re damn ignorant, Carter,” The Rok replied. Nick could tell County Boy was trying to keep his voice light, though he was seething underneath that easygoing façade. He smirked to himself.

Some clicking around led him away from the Complete Mayhem site entirely and onto a YouTube account Bree-Anna had posted in her profile. It was her own, as evidenced by the dead girl’s smiling face in a screenshot of one of the videos. He clicked play and felt a strange ripple of sadness as a sweet-faced, blonde girl grinned into the camera. He could see the poster-covered wall in front of him behind her in the video, as she started gushing how much she loved her favorite band, The Moffatts. She had shot the video in this very room, just over a week ago, according to the posting date. It was eerie to realize how quickly the mystery virus had taken hold of her and claimed her life.

“Hey, I think I found somethin’,” said Brian from the other side of the room. “A glow stick and a button, with those guys’ faces-”

“Shut up, I’m trying to watch this,” Nick snapped, focusing back on the YouTube video.

“… I never thought I would get to see them in concert, but guess what? On Saturday night, I’m going to…” Bree-Anna ducked out of the frame for a moment, apparently reaching for something on her bed, and then popped back into it, holding up a ticket with a gleeful grin on her face. “… THE MOFFATTS!!!”

“AHA!” Nick shouted.

At the same time he was pausing the video on a frame of Bree-Anna holding up her ticket, Brian gasped, “Ow!”

“What?” Nick turned around. Brian was still at the dresser, holding up his left hand. He appeared to be examining his index finger. “What’d you do?”

“You startled me. I stuck myself,” said Brian, sounding dumbfounded. “With this.” He held up a pin-on button; the pin part was open.

“Ouuuch…” said Nick in his ET voice.

Brian ignored this. “Like I was trying to tell you,” he added irritably, “it’s got the Moffatts on it.”

“Sorry.” Nick swallowed. “Did it go through your glove?”

“Course it went through my glove; it’s a pin.”

“Are you bleeding?”

“I dunno… I’m fine; I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’m just gonna go wash it out real good and get a new pair of gloves.” Brian hurried out of the bedroom, leaving Nick by himself.

He swiveled back to the computer, looking at the image of Bree-Anna beaming behind her ticket. He clicked play again. “Oh my god, I’m SO excited!! This is gonna be the best night of my life!!” she squealed, bouncing a little on her bed.

All of a sudden, he was overwhelmed by that strange feeling of sadness. It wasn’t the best night of your life, he realized. It was the last night.

Julilly and Red burst back into the room a few minutes later. “Find anything, Nick?” Julilly asked brusquely. Without waiting for an answer, she rushed on to say, “Bree-Anna’s parents are clueless, but the Phillip mother confirmed that her son was at the Moffatts show on Saturday. She said he was making a scrapbook page about it when he collapsed Sunday night.”

“Bree-Anna was there, too,” said Nick, gesturing at the computer monitor. “She showed her ticket in this video.”

“Did you find the stub?”

“No, but Littrell found a button and a glow stick that were probably souvenirs.” He wondered if Brian was still getting cleaned up in the bathroom, but before he could mention what had happened, Julilly nodded, a broad smile splitting her face.

“That’s all the confirmation we need. Next stop on the trail: the Air Canada Centre.”

“Where’s that?” asked Nick.

“It’s where the concert was held,” said Julilly. “And I have a feeling it’s where we’ll find another piece of the puzzle.”


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