Free Infected: Lesser Evils by Andrea Speed

might be of interest. There was a domestic incident last week, where a woman shot her transformed husband with a shotgun, she said he broke down the basement door and started attacking furniture before going after her, and she was shocked because his transformation cycle had ended three days before. The evidence seems to back up her story, but now I’m wondering if I should have his tox screen fast tracked.”
    “Where was this?”
    “Bremerton.”
    “Huh. No wonder I hadn’t heard about it.”
    “Hey, neither did I ’til I started going through files. ’Cause you know how we cops love our paperwork.”
    “It’s the funnest thing in the world.” Roan wedged the receiver between his shoulder and ear, so he could free his hands to open his top dresser drawer and pull out a pair of boxers, mainly because he was cold. “So you think this is a thing.”
    “Both you and your crazy old doctor lady have convinced me this is a thing. I don’t think Ava was the first, just the first one we noticed because her behavior was so atypical.”
    “Has Rosenberg found anything?”
    “So far? Well, she found a near chemical match last I heard. The weird stuff in Ava’s bloodstream seems pretty close to burn.”
    Had he heard that right, or was the combined and dichotomous feeling of postcoital afterglow and self-loathing making him slightly aphasic? “Burn?”
    “You know, M80, glowstick, gleam—it’s a new club drug. From what I understand, a new, “cleaner” form of Ecstasy with a cokelike kick.”
    “Wow, how out of the loop am I? I’ve never heard of this.”
    “And you call yourself a gay guy? I always knew you were really straight.”
    “Yeah, I’m just into buttfucking for the affirmative action benefit.” That got a chuckle out of Seb, which was nice because it was so rare. Seb was often loath to show any kind of emotion at all on the job, but Roan had come to understand it was a protective measure on his part. He didn’t want to get too hurt, to be disappointed by the people he couldn’t help, so he kept himself numb. “Is acting like Cujo a side effect?”
    “See, now that’s the real weird thing. The known side effects of the stuff seem to be dehydration, nosebleeds, heart palpitations, respiratory distress, a lot of Ecstasy-style stuff. To my knowledge, this hasn’t caused a psychotic break in anyone, although it’s a new drug and seems to be Northwest in origin. Maybe it hasn’t been around long enough for the psychotic breaks to be noticed.”
    “Or maybe it’s only in infecteds.” There was no way that made any kind of sense, but as soon as Roan said it, it felt true. Was that it? Had it not been noted because normal people taking it didn’t have that kind of reaction?
    He heard the squeak of Seb’s chair as he sat forward. Somewhere behind him in the station, an audibly drunk guy was repeatedly yelling, “What about my rights?” “How would that work, Roan?” He wasn’t dismissing it; he sounded intrigued.
    “I don’t know. I suppose that’s something I’ll have to ask Rosenberg.”
    “Could a drug do that?” Roan almost answered, but realized it was rhetorical; Seb was just musing out loud, weighing the possibilities. “We just don’t know enough about the virus, do we? We still don’t know where this fucker came from.”
    “My personal favorite is alien PETA members.”
    “It would explain a lot.”
    “Tons.”
    “Ah shit, gotta go, Dixon’s headed this way.”
    “Duck under the desk.” Dixon was one of those cops who was a terminal fuck-up. No one ever knew how they kept their jobs, or why they persisted at it when they were so bad at it. It was one of those mysteries with no answer.
    “Too late. Let me know if there’re any developments.”
    “You too.” He hung up wondering if a drug could possibly be responsible for all the cat freak-outs. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, but why infecteds only? That part didn’t make sense.
    Once he was sure he