In the twentieth chapter of Deadline, this is just endless pain, I swear. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Deadline.
Chapter Twenty
I can’t.
- A full Internet blackout. No uploads, no GPS, no cell phones, no backing up data or recordings or images, and THIS CHAPTER ALREADY IS TERRIFYING. Great. Great!
- I don’t doubt that the CDC tracks clean blood results. They clearly do. I don’t trust them.
- These people live in a world where a pharmaceutical company keeps insurance companies in line. Holy shit.
- For real, when they were parking, I got this sudden burst of uneasiness within me, and I just wanted them to turn around and leave. I felt awful about this. It couldn’t end well!
- Is it okay if I imagined these four characters walking into the CDC as if they were Spike, Drusilla, Angel, and Darla in “Fool for Love”/”Darla”? Yes? Okay, because that’s exactly what I did.
- Knowing how many things could go wrong within a CDC facility, I expected each entry point to present some horrible twist. Bravo, Grant, the suspense in this chapter is unreal.
- Fuck those sniper slits. THEY MADE ME SO NERVOUS. I’m actually surprised Grant didn’t utilize them in the narrative somehow because THEY WERE RIGHT THERE. Just sitting there being all creepy.
- Becks, stop reminding me and everyone in the story that there’s no backing out anymore. Stop it. You’re freaking me out.
- Oh, you have to enter Dr. Wynne’s lab one at a time? NO. NO. THIS ISN’T GOOD.
- Oh, that went better than I expected. Well! They made it inside! They’re all alive! Dr. Kelly didn’t betray anyone!
- What is the “settlement problem in the immune response”?
- Honestly, once I got to the ridiculous, dense, and complicated monologuing/exposition dumps, I knew I had to make a list for this review because it would be the only way I’d understand this. Ultimately, I’m not even sure I do understand everything quite yet.
- HAHAHA HOW GREAT IS DR. WYNNE’S ENTRANCE? Actually, wait, in hindsight, IT UPSETS ME. I was about to write this whole thing about how hilarious it is that he walks into his own lab and immediately has guns pointed on him, but then I remembered the latter part of his big ol’ villain speech where he admits that he knew that people were in his lab.
- Fuck Dr. Wynne, for the record. Fuck him forever.
- I can’t even read the beginning of the team’s confrontation of Dr. Wynne, especially when Dr. Kelly steps out. I am so glad he is dead and I hate him. Did I mention I hate him? I hate him.
- As soon as Georgia started interrupting, I got that pang of terror in my stomach. Why did she tell Shaun to stop at the exact moment he began to theorize that Dr. Wynne was trying to protect them?
- “He never questioned her death. He must have known. Shaun –“
- No no NO NO! NO, OH FUCK YOU. FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK THEY ARE PRETTY MUCH TRAPPED IN THE CDC WITH THE VERY MAN WHO TRIED TO MURDER THEM ALL. FUCK!!!
- THIS IS A MILLION TIMES WORSE THAN ANYTHING I COULD HAVE GUESSED. Oh my god, I thought he was a friend. But he sent Dr. Kelly to After the End Times because he knew Shaun would call in everyone from the field, putting the entire group in one building with a person who shouldn’t exist. HE DID IT TO TRAP THEM. And he killed Dave in the process.
- Fuck you, Dr. Wynne, I am done with you WHY AREN’T YOU DEAD YET.
- Once he started to insult Shaun, I honestly expected Shaun to simply blow his head off.
- The worst part about this is that Shaun recognizes that Dr. Kelly has lost the whole fabric of her world throughout this journey. And while he doesn’t feel that much pity for her, he knows that she’s hurting a lot. And then here she is, standing in front of the only friend she thought she had in this establishment, and she just found out she was nothing more than bait.
- Fuck.
- GODDAMN IT, HE HAS KELLY NOW, GOD. WHY. WHY IS THIS. WHY.
- what the fuck WHAT THE HELL. TATE WAS INTENTIONALLY OVER-THE-TOP TO DISTRACT SHAUN so help me gods I am so done with everything forever.
- Bless you, Becks, for asking Dr. Wynne why on earth people are so obsessed with revealing their dark plans before they try to kill the protagonists. I generally like genre-savvy characters.
- I mean, I knew this could get worse. I knew it! I just didn’t know how it could get worse. What’s so upsetting about chapter twenty is how terribly this has backfired. The team just showed the CDC the faults in their security, and now they’ll be able to fix it. They have guaranteed that the CDC will have a great cover story to portray the After the End Times team as nothing more than violent and obsessed criminals. It’s worse than a trap. Oh my god, FUCK. They’ll all die completely reviled. I can’t. I can’t.
- The CDC wants to control Kellis-Amberlee. As Dr. Wynne explains, they want a version of the virus that DOES WHAT THEY WANT, and all reservoir conditions complicate that.
- No, that can’t be a real pen, I don’t get it OH MY GOD KELLY JUST STABBED DR. WYNNE IN THE NECK WHAT IS HAPPENING.
- no there are darts shooting everywhere NO THIS CAN’T BE GOOD, NO, NO NO NO.
- shaun just shot him HELP
- oh my god BECKS SHOT DR. WYNNE TWICE IN THE HEAD.
- I just started crying when Kelly revealed that there was a needle in her chest. Look, I don’t have the same personal stake in this as Shaun, so i genuinely felt bad for her this whole time. She believed she was helping the world at the CDC, and her whole life has continuously fallen apart over the past few months. Now, the doctor she looked up to not only used her as bait, but just shot her with live Kellis-Amberlee, guaranteeing her death. She’s dead, and there’s no way around it. The tragedy here was too much. In this moment, Becks and Shaun are genuinely sorry for Kelly. It took them this long to feel that, but it’s the end.
- Fuck.
- Kelly reminds Shaun of Buffy at the end. h e l p
- So Kelly provides the necessary distraction in the last moments of her life, allowing the survivors to escape. I respect her for that so much.
- “We’ve left too many people behind. And somehow, the running never seems to end.”
- A disaster. It was a disaster. Where the hell do these people go from here???
This goddamn book, I swear.
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