BOOK I Point of Infection Sometimes you need lies to stay alive. —SHAUN MASON The only thing we have in this world that is utterly and intrinsically ours is our integrity. If we give that away, we may as well stop fighting, because losing that battle is what loses the war. There’s nothing worth that. —GEORGIA MASON I got another interview request yesterday from some brand-new baby blogger who’s looking for a scoop and wants to know how I’m “coping.” That’s apparently the only thing anyone thinks I’m doing these days. I’m “coping.” There are days when I feel like I’m never going to be allowed to do anything else. I’m going to walk through my life being Shaun Mason, the Dude Who Copes.Copes with a world filled with stupid people. Copes with a life that doesn’t include the one person who ever really mattered. Copes with everyone asking him whether he’s “coping,” when the answer should be totally obvious to anyone with a brain. How am I coping? I miss George, and the goddamn world is still full of zombies, that’s how. Everything else… Everything else is just details. And those don’t really matter to me anymore. —From Adaptive Immunities, the blog of Shaun Mason, February 17, 2041 One Our story opens where countless