The lab was in disarray. To be expected after the tragedy their work had caused.

"Come now, Mary, it will be very easy to suggest that we hold no blame in any of this! We carry no responsibility for this tragedy. It isn't our fault!"

Her very unladylike snort greeted his words. "Funny, Franklyn those are the words that the media has used to excuse the devastation we caused. We are responsible, we are all responsible! It was no act of God. They rushed our work and instead of standing our ground and insisting it wasn't ready, we caved and allowed that vaccine to be released. We should have been more careful. We should have insisted on having more time to complete our work. If you are not going to assist me then you're against me and you're against seeking justice for the wrongs we perpetrated." She stared at him silently after finishing her impassioned speech. He couldn't refute anything she'd said, she knew that. He couldn't argue against her words because it was all true.

The governments had rushed them through producing the vaccine that had been meant to stop the onslaught of the new, virulent influenza that was quickly sweeping across the planet. The side effects caused by the vaccine were devastating. More so than the effects of the virus.

The sad, resigned look that filled his eyes told her all that she needed to know, and when he turned away to leave their small government lab it left her with no choice. They had worked side by side in this lab for more years than she cared to remember. Tears filled her eyes, making her vision hazy, yet they were clear enough to aim the pistol she lifted.

"I am so very sorry, Franklyn but I must do this, or all will be lost. We owe it to future generations to make at least a small attempt to fix what we've broken." Her finger squeezed the trigger before she could change her mind.

He never turned, though it was clear by the way he hunched his shoulders and the little hesitation in his steps that he had heard the words she'd spoken. There was no time to mourn, no time for her to wallow in regret over how things had turned out. Though it was late and the building was mostly deserted, it wouldn't take long for the security personnel to come and investigate the sound of the gunshot. As quickly as she could, she stashed his body in a storage closet, gathered all the pertinent data pertaining to their research, and loaded all the files onto a disk. They would come for her, she knew that. The government wouldn't want this to get out, they wanted their culpability in this tragedy to remain a secret. If they caught up to her she was as good as dead.

She fled the laboratory building. The damaging evidence needed to be preserved. The information may have some way of fixing what they had done. All she needed to do was keep it safe until someone could work through it and fix what they'd done. She wasn't going to allow the government to bury this so they could save face. She could never be that cruel. If she had the time she would do the work herself, but they would catch her.

Others had tried to stand up and tell the world what had really happened and they were quickly silenced.

The politicians were dooming all of humanity so those government officials could come together, smile, and shake their heads over the tragedy that had unavoidably swept over the world. They pretended they had no idea what had gone wrong and the media, the people, bought it all. They claimed it had been some sort of naturally occurring disaster. Something preordained.

An act of God. It wasn't in her nature to step back and allow that sort of farce to take place, not when she could put a stop to it.

She drove aimlessly as her mind turned over plans to preserve the data. "Where do I hide the information? It needs to be preserved but I also need to be certain someone with the knowledge will someday find it." An idea struck her and she made a quick turn.

She didn't have much time. The data would be safe for the time being and she prayed that someone trustworthy would eventually find it. She focused on her mission. It would do no good to dwell on what she'd done this night. On the loss of her beloved husband, her life, and her work. The data must be preserved or all would be lost.

***

The reporter looked into the camera with a suitably aggrieved look as she spoke. "Tragedy has once again struck the U.S. research team. The bodies of Lanette and Franklyn Adams were found dead this evening in the lab they shared. It was an apparent case of murder-suicide. No note was found to indicate the reason for their deaths. Police are speculating that depression was the cause. A spokesman for the government-run lab told police that the couple had been deeply upset by the failure of the vaccine." The reporter paused a moment before continuing. "This makes six deaths in total since the failure of the vaccine. Government officials lamented the loss of two such brilliant minds and have offered counseling to the remaining scientists."

***

The two figures moved through the darkened, dilapidated building, a flashlight led their way

"Tell me again why we're digging through this place?" the woman asked her companion.

The question elicited laughter from the man. "Sweetheart, look at this place! It's a veritable gold mine of information! It's all waiting to be discovered, but it's been left here to molder. No one cares about learning anymore."

"Honestly, Michael, no one uses libraries for a reason," she grumbled and stepped around piles of discarded books and broken tables. "The most anyone uses books for nowadays is to fuel a fire. This place is a shambles. How do you expect to find anything in here?" She kicked at a stray pile of books and sent them tumbling.

He shrugged as he sifted through a pile of books stacked on the floor. "I don't know. Just because the place is a wreck it doesn't mean there isn't something useful here."

She released a deep sigh. "Come on, after all this time I'm sure the rats have chewed through most of it. It's been decades since anyone actively used a library."

They continued moving deeper into the library. She trailed her fingers through the layer of dust on a table that leaned precariously to one side due to a missing leg. All that held it up was a chair that was shoved beneath the end with the missing leg.

"Hold up, Laura! Look CDs!"

"I swear you and your music. You have plenty of those disks, you could build a home with them. Do you honestly need more?"

"Hush now, music brings joy." He began humming as he thumbed through the cases and pulled several out, checked the disks, and stuffed them into the bag slung across his body. "Ooo, shall I take this one," he asked with a chuckle and held up the CD.

"Oh lord, please no."

He grinned and popped open the case to check the CD. "It's sad, Journals was one of Justin Bieber's lowest-selling albums. The kid probably could have gone places if he wasn't such a ..." his words trailed off.

His wife clucked her tongue at him. "Behave, it isn't nice to speak ill of the dead."

"Sorry, love." He pulled the disk free of the case. "Well, what do we have here? This is not a CD."

She stepped closer to him. "No, it isn't. What is it, it's pretty?"

"This, my dear, is an M-Disc."

"And what is that?"

"It was invented in 2009. These lovely little disks are supposed to last for a thousand years. You write them once and your data is safe and protected. The Department of Defense tested these babies in 85% humidity and temperatures up to 185°."

"How do you know so much about these disks?" she asked.

"Because I read. See, libraries aren't useless." He winked at her. "Whatever is on this disk must be important. It didn't end up here by accident. Someone hid it for a reason."

She snorted. "Hid it? In a Justin Beiber CD? Honestly, you can't be serious, Michael?"

"Seems like a good place to hide it to me. No one would think to look here." He waved the case in the air. "As you said, no one uses libraries anymore. Once the flu and the vaccine destroyed the government's infrastructure, things like libraries were forgotten in favor of survival. Let's get back to the lab and see what's on this disk."

He shoved the disk into his bag and headed for the back of the building. "Let's go out the back. I want to avoid that Enforcer patrol that was hanging out on the corner. I don't want to risk losing this disk.

"Michael, we're government scientists, they wouldn't take anything from us!"

"I'd rather not risk it," he told her as he pulled her behind him down a set of stairs into a basement. He made a delighted sound when he found a back door. "I knew there had to be another exit! Dammit, the thing is locked."

"Do get out of the way," Laura told him. She hefted a pipe she found leaning against the wall, and shoved it through the hasp of the lock that held the chain closed that ran through the door's handles.

"What are you doing with that?"

She grinned at her husband. "I love you, dear, but there are times that you are quite clueless." She gave the pipe a quick twist and the old, rusted lock broke. She tossed the pipe into the darkness that surrounded them, it hit the floor with a loud clang and sent rats scurrying away with loud squeals of protest.

"You constantly surprise me with your talents," he told her and bent to kiss her cheek. "Let's go before they figured out that we went out the back."

They returned as quickly as possible to the government-owned lab where they both worked.

Michael took a seat at his computer. "All right, let's see what's on this."

"Can our computers read that disk?" she asked as she stepped up beside where he sat. "It's nearly a hundred years old."

"Our devices are set up to read just about everything. Even things that are considered obsolete. Makes it easier to gather information."

"Why do I not know this?"

"Because you don't like to read memos, darling," he replied with a chuckle as he loaded the disk. It whirred and after a minute or two a window popped up. He read the label on the folder that appeared. "The end is nigh? Either someone has a sick sense of humor or we screwed up."

"Well no sense turning back, open it." She waved a hand at the screen.

He looked up at her. "Maybe this isn't a good idea."

"Open it." She placed a hand on his shoulder as he clicked to open the folder.

He pursed his lips as he stared at the files that the folder contained. "I don't believe this."

She leaned closer to the computer. "What is it?"

"It's ... everything!"

"Michael, stop being cryptic. What do you mean?"

"These are files. All of them! It's every clinical trial, success, failure, every right, and wrong the scientists who created the vaccine did. Memos and protests that the vaccine wasn't ready to be distributed. It's all of it. Right here on this disk! Do you know what this means?"

"If anyone sees this ... if they discover that the government knew the vaccine wasn't ready ..."

"No, with this towork from we know what went wrong! We'll be able to fix it!" He jumped up andhugged her. "We can finally fix it!"