by Mira Grant
And if I was going to be the kind of person who valued her life more than she valued the truth, I wasn’t going to be Georgia Mason at all. Unless I wanted to find someone else I was willing to be, this was what I was made for.
“We have to get Emily—the real Emily—away from the CDC, and get the kids out of here,” I said slowly. “They’re going to be civilians in a position to confirm my story. If I start posting while they’re still hostages, they won’t make it out of here alive.”
Steve cracked his knuckles. “Don’t worry about them. The First Lady still has friends in the Secret Service. We can extract the kids at any time.”
“Dr. Shaw is organizing a team to extract the First Lady from the CDC installation where she’s being held, and move her to a secure EIS facility near here,” said Dr. Shoji.
“The EIS has been a busy little secret government organization.” I looked levelly at Dr. Shoji. “If I do this, I need to know that we’re not replacing one bad deal with another. What are your plans?”
“I don’t speak for the EIS as a whole, and I can’t see the future,” he said. “But for the past ten years at least, we’ve been bleeding off the best recruits the CDC gets. We’ve been getting the members of your generation, the ones who want a solution that doesn’t always involve a bullet. I think that corruption is a risk for every organization. Even ours. But we’re going to be very busy for quite some time, just cleaning up the mess that’s been made for us. If the EIS is going to go the way of the CDC, it probably won’t be within my lifetime.”
“Whereas the CDC is a bad deal right now,” I said. “That’s fair. But you realize that if I do this, if I get involved, and you ever, ever start to cross the line—”
“I can’t promise what the future will be. All I can do is promise that the EIS will try to make sure we have one.”
I nodded. “Fine. Steve, get the kids out of here. Dr. Shoji, do whatever you need to do to get them to safety, and make sure Dr. Shaw takes care of Emily. Does anybody here have a gun I can borrow? The Secret Service confiscated all of ours.”
Rick blinked. “I was expecting you to ask for an Internet connection.”
“Oh, I’m going to need one of those, too, once we get everybody back together, but first, we have a job that requires weapons.” Steve unsnapped his sidearm and passed it to me. I accepted it before smiling coolly at Rick. “We need to go and kidnap the president.”
“And here my mother said a job in medicine would be dangerous,” said Gregory.
Rick didn’t say anything. But slowly, with an expression of almost painful relief, he nodded.
I regret to inform you that we have lied to you. Last year, when most of the site went “camping,” we were in actuality running for our lives, being pursued by no less an adversary than the Centers for Disease Control. Our flight began when Dr. Kelly Connolly, believed dead following a break-in at the Memphis CDC, arrived at our Oakland offices and asked for our help. The destruction of Oakland followed soon after. In the interests of concealing our location and activities, we were forced to present a cover story to the world. For this, on the behalf of the Factual News Division, I apologize.
We are not lying now. Please download and read the attached documents, which encompass everything leading up to our departure from Oakland. If they do not load, please visit one of our mirror sites. Continue trying. This is important. These are things you need to know.
We are telling you the truth.
—From Fish and Clips , the blog of Mahir Gowda, August 7, 2041.
The mosquitoes that swept from Cuba to the American Gulf Coast, resulting in the death of millions, did not arise naturally. They were genetically engineered by scientists in the employ of the CDC. Please download and review the attached documents for further details, including a full description of the life cycle of the modified yellow fever mosquito.
We are telling you the truth.
That will not bring my parents back to life.
—From The Kwong Way of Things , the blog of Alaric Kwong, August 7, 2041.
SHAUN: Thirty-eight
The man from the CDC kept on talking; to be honest, I had pretty much stopped listening. Alaric and Becks were paying attention and periodically asking questions that seemed at least vaguely connected to the things coming out of his mouth, so I figured no one would notice—or care—if I checked out for a little bit. As long as I didn’t start to drool, they’d probably figure I was just being a big, dumb Irwin and letting the smart people talk. That’s the useful thing about being a figurehead. Nobody cares if you’re an idiot, as long as you’re a useful one.
They’re never going to give her back to you, murmured Georgia. There was a faint echoing quality to her words, and I knew that if I turned my head she’d be there, watching me, waiting for me to admit that she was right. That scared me almost more than the things she was saying. I used to welcome the hallucinations, viewing them as the only way I could see her anymore. Now… I knew I wasn’t going to go un-crazy as fast as I went crazy. But the idea of being left alone with a voice in my head and the occasional delusional vision was suddenly terrifying. I got her back. Why the hell wasn’t the world going to let me keep her?
You don’t need to worry about their little replacement. The world will let you keep me, she said. Just you and me, forever. That’s what you said you wanted, isn’t it? You volunteered to be a haunted house.
“Shut up,” I muttered, trying to keep my voice low enough that no one else would notice.
It didn’t work. “What was that?” asked the doctor, attention swinging back around to me.
Uh-oh. “Uh…” I began.
“He talks to himself,” said Becks, matter-of-factly. “I’m actually impressed that this is the first time he’s done it. Just ignore him and keep telling us why immune response in babies is enough to cause reservoir conditions, but not enough to avoid spontaneous amplification when they cross the sixty-pound threshold.”
“He talks to himself?” The doctor frowned at me like I had suddenly become an exciting new medical mystery. I wondered how he’d feel if he knew I was immune to the Kellis-Amberlee virus. He’d probably start asking whether he could dissect me—assuming he cared about asking. George had already proven that people were now a matter of crunch all you want, we’ll make more. Maybe he already had Shaun II baking in one of their cloning tanks, ready for his triumphant decanting.
Fuck. That.
“Turns out being forced to shoot the one person in the world you thought would outlive you in the head sort of fucks with your sense of reality,” I said coldly. “I mean, my choices were a nice, mellow psychotic break with talking to myself and the occasional voice in my head, or climbing the nearest cell tower and playing sniper until somebody came and gunned me down. I figured option A would be better for my long-term health, if not my sanity.”
“And you still listen to him? You still do what he says?” asked the doctor, his attention swinging back to Becks and Alaric.
Alaric shrugged. “Sure. He’s the boss.”
“Fascinating.” The man from the CDC shook his head as he turned toward President Ryman. “You see the power of trust? Once you believe a person won’t mislead you, you keep believing it, even after you realize they’ve gone insane. This plan may actually work.”
“Or maybe not,” said George. “It’s a little bit of a coin toss right now, if you ask me.”
The doctor whipped around, eyes widening. “What are you doing?”
His reaction made me realize she was really here, rather than speaking into the dark inside my head. I turned to see George standing in the doorway, an unfamiliar gun in her hands. She had it aimed squarely at the doctor’s chest. Rick was behind her, expression grim, standing next to a man I didn’t recognize. Steve was nowhere to be seen.
“If you so much as twitch, I swear, I will shoot you,” said George.
The doctor ignored her, reaching for his pocket. The sound of the safety clicking off was ver
y loud. He froze. “You’re making a mistake,” he said.
“Maybe your mistake was focusing so hard on my replacement that you forgot to give me an off switch,” replied George.
“No, they gave you one,” said the stranger. “We just took it out before they had the chance to use it.”
“Oh, right,” said George. “Silly me. I always forget about the excruciatingly painful nonelective surgeries.”
The doctor’s eyes got even wider, if that was possible. “Dr. Lake?” he demanded, looking toward the unfamiliar man.
The stranger smiled, the expression bordering on a snarl. “I resign,” he said.
“So this is mutiny.” The man from the CDC slanted his eyes toward President Ryman and his remaining agents. “This is treason.”
None of the Secret Servicemen were reaching for their guns, and the look on President Ryman’s face wasn’t shock or outrage—it was relief, like this was what he’d been waiting for all along. “You’d know about that, wouldn’t you?” he asked. I’d never heard him sound so bitter. “Treason? That’s something you at the CDC have been experts on for quite a while.”
The man from the CDC’s eyes widened in exaggerated shock. “I don’t understand what you’re implying, Mr. President.”
“Emily’s safe,” said George. “The EIS has her. Steve’s getting the kids out of the building. They can’t hold your family over you anymore.”
“Do you think it’s that simple?” asked the man from the CDC. “We’ve had a long time to get to where we are today. You’re making a large mistake. People have died for less.”
“People have died for nothing,” George shot back. “And no, I don’t think it’s that simple. But I do think you made one major tactical error when you invited us here.”
The man from the CDC sneered. “What’s that?”
“We’re the ones that people listen to… and we’re the ones who learned about backups from Georgette Meissonier.” George smiled. “Anybody here who doesn’t have six cameras running, raise your hand.”
Not a single member of my team raised their hand. Becks grinned. Alaric smirked.
And the man from the CDC, perhaps realizing that he was finished, moved. Jamming his hand into his pocket, he pulled out the pen he’d been holding before, aiming it at the president. The Secret Servicemen shouted something, grabbing Ryman’s shoulders. Not fast enough. There was no way they’d be able to get him clear fast enough. I didn’t think. I just jumped, putting myself between the man from the CDC and President Ryman half a second before I heard the sound of Georgia’s gun going off.
The man from the CDC froze, looking slowly down at the spreading red patch in the middle of his chest. The pen dropped from his hand and he fell, crumpling to the floor. The last sound he made was a hollow thud when his head hit the tile. It was almost comic, in a weird way.
No one was laughing. They were all staring at me. Becks had a hand covering her mouth, and Alaric looked like he was about to be sick. Only Georgia didn’t look distraught; mostly, she looked confused. Lowering her gun, she asked, “What is that?”
I looked at the needle sticking out of my chest, anchored in the flesh a few inches to the right of my sternum. It hurt a little, now that I was thinking about it. It would probably hurt more once the adrenaline washed out of my system.
“Oh,” I said, my words almost drowned out by the sound of one of the Secret Servicemen emptying his gun into the man from the CDC’s head. “That’s a problem.”
You know what’s awesome? Assholes who do all their research, and have all the pieces of the puzzle, and can’t be bothered with anything that doesn’t fit the picture they’ve decided they’re putting together. You know. Idiots. The kind of stupid you can manage to achieve only by being really, really smart, because only really, really smart people can reach adulthood without having any goddamn common sense.
Seriously. Thank you, smart people, for being absolute idiots. I appreciate it.
—From Adaptive Immunities , the blog of Shaun Mason, August 7, 2041. Unpublished.
Kill me once, shame on you.
Kill me twice, shame on me.
Kill my brother? Oh, it’s on. And you are
not
going to enjoy it.
—From Living Dead Girl , the blog of Georgia Mason II, August 7, 2041. Unpublished.
GEORGIA: Thirty-nine
Everyone stared at the needle sticking out of Shaun’s chest, their expressions showing varying degrees of shock and horror. I put the safety back on my borrowed gun and slowly lowered it, shoving it into the waistband of my pants.
No one said anything. One of the Secret Service agents pulled President Ryman back, putting more distance between him and Shaun. I tried to force myself to swallow. I remembered being hit by a similar needle in Sacramento, although mine had been attached to a syringe. “Shaun?” I said, very softly.
“The CDC weaponized Kellis-Amberlee a while ago,” said Shaun. He grimaced as he pulled the needle out of his chest. “Okay, fucking ow. Could we go with a slightly less ouch-worthy doomsday weapon next time? Not that I don’t appreciate it failing to, you know, puncture my lung or something, but that stings.”
“Put the needle down and step away from the president,” said one of the Secret Service agents. His gun was in his hand, and from his tone, he meant business.
“Shaun…” said President Ryman.
“Oh, right. You guys didn’t get the memo, did you? See, part of why they’re so into killing the people with the reservoir conditions—like, you know, George, or your wife, or Rick’s wife, who probably didn’t kill herself, and isn’t that a bitch?—part of why they’re so into that is because of whatchamacallit—”
“Antibody transference,” said Alaric. He relaxed as he spoke, some of the tension going out of his shoulders.
“Yeah, that. Turns out the reservoir conditions are sort of like, the middle step in us learning how to live with our cuddly virus buddies. People with reservoir conditions get better because they’re making antibodies. And then people who spend a lot of time with those people get something even better.” Shaun grinned at me. “We get to be immune.”
“What?” said President Ryman.
“What?” said Gregory.
“Can I get a biohazard bag over here?” said Shaun. He grimaced again. “And maybe some gauze or something? This really stings.”
“This is impossible,” said one of the Secret Service agents. He leveled his handgun on Shaun. “Sir, we need to get you out of here.”
“No,” said President Ryman. We all turned to look at him, even Shaun, who still looked perfectly lucid. Conversion takes time, but he should have been showing some of the outward signs of infection after being shot with that large a dose of virus.
“Sir?” said the Secret Service agent.
“I said no. We brought these people here because we were looking for a Hail Mary. If they’re going to give us one, we’re not going to turn our backs on them.” President Ryman’s gaze settled on Gregory. “I’m sorry, son. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Dr. Gregory Lake, sir. EIS.” Gregory produced a testing kit from his lab coat pocket, tossing it to Shaun. “If I may be so bold, this might help keep these nice gentlemen from shooting you before we can get out of here.”
“Practical and prepared. That’s what I like to see in a public servant.” President Ryman turned to Shaun. “Shaun…”
“I know, I know. Prove that this isn’t just preamplification crazy.” Shaun sighed as he popped the lid off his testing kit. “You know, George, if you’d just listened when I said I wanted to skip the presidential campaign and petition to go to Yellowstone instead, none of this would have happened.” He stuck his thumb into the opening.
I managed to smile. It wasn’t easy. “But imagine all the fun we’d have missed. Meeting Rick, that town hall in Eakly…”
“Burying Buffy. Burying you. I would have been okay with missing the fun.” The lights on his test unit
seemed to be confused. They were flashing, returning to yellow over and over again. Finally, the green light stopped flickering, and the red and yellow began to oscillate, like the unit was trying to make up its mind. The Secret Servicemen drew their guns.
I could see what came next as clearly as if it had already happened. Blood on the floor; Shaun falling, and no handy CDC madmen to bring him back to me. “Stop!” I shouted, putting both my hands up in front of me. “It hasn’t stopped yet!”
It hadn’t stopped. The light was still flashing between red and yellow—and as I watched, the green came back into the rotation. The flash began holding there, a little bit longer each time. “Fascinating,” murmured Gregory.
“You can’t dissect him,” I said.
“No, but can we have some blood? Say, a gallon? For starters?”
“We’ll see.” The light wasn’t flashing red at all anymore; instead, it was flickering between yellow and green. Then the yellow cut out entirely, and it was just green, uninfected, safe. I let out a slow breath, only then feeling the terror that had been burning in my veins the whole time. Shaun was safe. Shaun was going to be okay.
Shaun was holding up the green-lit test unit with an expression of vague amusement on his face as he asked, “Well? Does that clear me? Or do I need to do a little dance, too?”
“A little dance is never amiss,” said Alaric, straight-faced.
I started to move toward Shaun. Gregory grabbed my shoulder, stopping me. “Don’t.”
“What?” asked Shaun and I, in unison.
Gregory shook his head, not letting go. “He may be immune, but you’re not. If the virus on his clothing is live, it could cause you to amplify.”
“This gets better and better.” Becks glared at the body of man from the CDC. “I should have taken the headshot.”