Janice Lee

Janice Lee has wanted one thing for as long as she can remember: to be a successful journalist. It’s a goal that’s kept her focused through endless hours of studying in her parents’ cramped apartment, dead-end jobs that paid her college tuition, and a seemingly unending stream of “pay your dues” reporting assignments.

Most others in her position would have given up or sold out, but not Janice. Of course, her relentless pursuit of a singular goal should not be mistaken for patience; “patience” and “Janice Lee” don’t belong in the same sentence. Or paragraph, for that matter.

Luckily for her, the story of the century came stumbling out of a Chinatown alley and into her camera shot one night. The story’s name is Alex Hawking—a coughing, wheezing twenty-something whom she first took for a typical New York City weirdo, babbling about men in black chasing him. If it weren’t for a split-second view of something inexplicable, she’d have gone home to yet another night of frustrated hopes.

Every instinct she has screams that Alex’s story, no matter how improbable, paranoid, or downright bizarre, is true. But how does a rational, educated professional reconcile the idea of a globe-spanning secret society that has infiltrated government and law enforcement, and manufactured a super-microbe to boot?

There’s no way to be sure, except to follow the story, wherever it leads her. After all, opportunities like this come only once in a lifetime.