by Mira Grant
This is as close as we could get to an ending. The world goes on. Zombies or no zombies, political conspiracy or no political conspiracy, the world goes on.
I think I like it that way.
—From Living Dead Girl , the blog of Georgia Mason II, May 17, 2042.
Who wants to see me wrestle a zombie moose?
—From Hail to the King , the blog of Shaun Mason, May 17, 2042.
MAHIR: Forty-two
The phone rang at half-three in the morning, waking both Nan and Sanjukta from a sound sleep. Nandini glared as she levered herself from the bed and left the room, following our infant daughter’s wailing. I swore, rolling over and grabbing my cell off the bedside table, bringing it to my ear before I was done sitting up.
“This had best be bloody important, or I’m letting my wife give you what-for,” I snarled.
“Mr. Gowda, this is Christopher Rogers, from the All-Night News. I apologize if I woke you—I thought I had calculated the time difference between London and San Francisco correctly.”
Smug bastard. I could hear it in his voice, the vague self-congratulatory tone of a reporter who thinks he’s put his subject off balance. “How did you get this number?”
“Mr. Gowda, I have a few questions, if you don’t—”
“I bloody well do mind. This is an unlisted number, and I know what you’re calling about. You want to know where the Masons are, don’t you?”
Silence greeted my question. That was a sufficient answer in and of itself.
“When will you people learn to listen? I don’t know where the Masons are. No one knows where the Masons are. They disappeared after the management of the CDC was given over to the EIS. Last anyone saw of either of them, they were in an unmarked car heading God-knows-where.”
That wasn’t entirely true. The last time I saw them was on the border between the United States and Canada, when Steve handed them the keys to their own van, which was waiting for them on the Canadian side. They mailed back all the bugs the CIA had planted a week later, and they were gone.
It was true enough. Every version of their disappearance ended the same way, after all: and they were gone.
“Mr. Gowda, your site is still syndicating blogs provided by both Masons. We find it difficult to credit your continued insistence that you do not know their whereabouts.”
“You little nit. They’re using relays put in place by Georgette Meissonier. So far as I know, your FBI has been trying to unsnarl that woman’s mad coding since before she died. What makes you think I could do it from here? I’m a reporter, not a computer technician.”
Nandini came back into the room, Sanjukta held against her chest. She cast a glare at me, demanding, “Who is it?”
“Another reporter. I’m getting rid of him.”
“Let me.”
“Not sure he deserves that yet, dear.” I turned my attention back to the phone. “My wife is about to take the phone off me. You’d best hang up, and never call this number again, or I’ll have you cited for harassment. Surprisingly, your government takes quite an interest in my complaints.”
Emily Ryman had taken her place beside her husband while pictures of her clone, killed during the attack on the White House, were shown to the world. President Ryman was found guilty of betraying the public trust. He was not found guilty of treason. He had been coerced, he had been afraid for the lives of his family, and he had been uncovering a treasonous group within his own government. He barely escaped being hailed as a hero.
Shaun and Georgia’s reports had a great deal to do with that, and President Ryman’s gratitude to the Masons had transferred to the site when they vanished. Having the President of the United States indebted to me had proven very useful in some situations—such as this one.
“Mr. Gowda, please. The people have a right to know.”
“The people know everything they have a right to know, Mr. Rodgers. I’ll be hanging up now.” They didn’t know there was no cure. Someday they would—someday we’d take back India, and a great deal more of the world beside—but not yet. The world wasn’t ready. Too many shots would go unfired, and too many more would die in the blind hope that their loved ones would be among the saved. Recovering from the first Rising took us twenty years. It might take twenty more to reach the point where we could recover from the second one.
“Mr. Gowda—”
I hung up on his protests and stood, dropping the phone onto the bed. “I’m sorry about that. Let me take her. You get some rest.”
“I hate that those people call here,” she complained, placing Sanjukta gently in my hands.
I drew my infant daughter close, smiling down at her sleepy face, her dark eyes almost closed. Looking up, I said, “I hate it as well. They’ll stop eventually.”
Nandini snorted her disbelief and climbed back into the bed, rolling over to face the wall. Her breathing leveled out in minutes, telling me that she had drifted back to sleep.
Sanjukta was less obliging. I left the bedroom, walking slow circles around the living room as I waited for her eyes to close. “Would you like to hear a story, my love? It’s about some very brave people and the way they tried to change the world.”
I wasn’t lying to that reporter when I told him I didn’t know where Shaun and Georgia—the second Georgia—were. They sent their posts and articles via blind relay. They sent their very rare postcards much the same way. So far as I knew, they were somewhere in the vast empty reaches of Canada, making a life for themselves. Maybe they had come back into the United States to rejoin Dr. Abbey—a few of her letters had led me to believe she might have seen them, at least briefly—but I doubted those would ever be more than visits. The Masons had lived and died in the public eye. Now, finally, they were free of it, and they were living for themselves, rather than living for anyone else. I wasn’t going to be the one to take that away from them.
Especially not now. They were clever to vanish when they did, while the world was still reeling from their final revelations. Things exploded not long after. The new director of the CDC, Dr. Gregory Lake, publicly redirected their research into reservoir conditions and possible vaccination paths, while privately redirecting it into spontaneous remission and transmittable immunity. Oversight committees were called, and arrests were made through all levels of several governments. The world slowly began to change as the people began, finally, to rise.
Maggie recovered, and remained with the site. Her parents even assisted in funding replacements for the equipment we’d lost, both to disaster, and when the Masons insisted on reclaiming their van. Alaric and Alisa moved in with her; Alaric and Maggie will be getting married in the spring, mirroring the ceremony into several virtual worlds for the sake of those of us who have had quite enough of the United States for now, thank you very much.
Alaric took over the Newsies; one of our more promising betas—another George, amusingly enough, although he goes by “Geo” to prevent confusion—took over the Irwins; and I? I took over the entire operation, with Maggie as my second. We work well together. Maybe it’s not as flashy and exciting as it was during the Mason era, but it does well enough by us.
We changed the world. That’s all the news can hope to do, I suppose.
The last postcard I had from the Masons came not a week before that reporter’s early-morning call. It summed up the whole situation rather neatly:
“Still having a wonderful time. Still glad you’re not here
.
All our love—G&S.”
Sanjukta sighed, drifting back into sleep. I kissed her on the forehead as I turned to carry her back to her own room, where I settled her down on the mattress of her crib. She fussed, but didn’t wake.
I drew the blanket over her and backed out of the room, pausing in the doorway to whisper, “They may not have lived happily ever after. But they lived happily long enough.”
And then I turned, and I went back to bed.
Acknowledgments
Well: here we a
re. The story of the Masons is finally told, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the assistance of an amazing assortment of people. As before, they ranged from medical professionals who worked with both humans and animals to gun experts and epidemiologists. Blackout has been an incredible adventure to both research and write, and I am grateful to everyone who has contributed to its creation.
Michelle Dockrey once again lent her incredible eye for blocking to the action scenes and logistics to my work, improving the book beyond all measure in the process. Brooke Lunderville consulted on medical standards and processes, while Kate Secor not only edited, she tolerated endless dinners where I talked about horrible viral outbreaks over dessert.
The entire Deadline Machete Squad returned for this book, and I remain honored by their willingness to work with me to make sure it comes out mostly right. Priscilla Spenser and Lauren Shulz joined the Squad for the first time with this book, and did incredible work. Many thanks to them all, and to the endlessly patient, endlessly tolerant, absolutely wonderful staff of Borderlands Books, who have put up with more from me than any one bookstore should.
Most of all, on this volume, I must thank DongWon Song, my editor, and Diana Fox, my agent. Both of them put in hours upon hours improving and refining the text. They are truly amazing people to work with. (Not to discount all the other amazing people at Orbit, both US and UK. A special thank-you must go to Lauren Panepinto for her amazing cover design. I am seriously amazed by the work she does.)
Finally, and once again, acknowledgment for forbearance goes to Amy McNally, Shawn Connolly, and Cat Valente, who put up with an amazing amount of “talking it out” as I tried to make the book make sense; to my agent, Diana Fox, who remains my favorite superhero; to the cats, for not eating me when I got too wrapped up in work to feed them; and to Tara O’Shea and Chris Mangum, the incredible technical team behind www.MiraGrant.com. This book might have been written without them. It would not have been the same.
Both the CDC and EIS are real organizations, although I have taken many liberties with their structure and operations. To learn more about the history of the EIS, check out Inside the Outbreaks: The Elite Medical Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, by Mark Pendergrast. (Thanks to Bill McGeachin for supplying my copy of this wonderful book.)
Rise up while you can.
extras
www.orbitbooks.net
meet the author
Born and raised in California, Mira Grant has made a lifelong study of horror movies, horrible viruses, and the inevitable threat of the living dead. In college, she was voted Most Likely to Summon Something Horrible in the Cornfield, and was a founding member of the Horror Movie Sleep-Away Survival Camp, where her record for time survived in the Swamp Cannibals scenario remains unchallenged.
Mira lives in a crumbling farmhouse with an assortment of cats, horror movies, comics, and books about horrible diseases. When not writing, she splits her time between travel, auditing college virology courses, and watching more horror movies than is strictly good for you. Favorite vacation spots include Seattle, London, and a large haunted corn maze just outside of Huntsville, Alabama.
Mira sleeps with a machete under her bed, and highly suggests you do the same. Find out more about the author at www.miragrant.com.
introducing
If you enjoyed BLACKOUT, look out for
COUNTDOWN
AN EBOOK ONLY NEWSFLESH NOVELLA
by Mira Grant
The year is 2014, the year everything changed. We cured cancer. We cured the common cold. We died.
This is the story of how we rose.
When will you rise?
COUNTDOWN
“The Rising is ultimately a story of humanity at both its very best, and at its very worst. If a single event were needed to represent all of human history, we could do worse than selecting the Rising.”
—MAHIR GOWDA
“People blame science. Shit, man, people shouldn’t blame science. People should blame people.”
—SHAUN MASON
May 15, 2014: Denver, Colorado
“How are you feeling today, Amanda?” Dr. Wells checked the readout on the blood pressure monitor, his attention only half on his bored-looking teenage patient. This was old hat by now, to the both of them. “Any pain, weakness, unexplained bleeding, blurriness of vision…?”
“Nope. All systems normal, no danger signs here.” Amanda Amberlee let her head loll back, staring up at the colorful mural of clouds and balloons that covered most of the ceiling. She remembered when the staff had painted that for her. She’d been thirteen, and they’d wanted her to feel at ease as they pumped her veins full of a deadly disease designed to kill the disease that was already inside her. “Are we almost done? I have a fitting to get to.”
“Ah.” Dr. Wells, who had two teenage girls of his own, smiled. “Prom?”
“Prom,” Amanda confirmed.
“I’ll see what I can do.” Dr. Wells took impatience and surliness as insults from most patients. Amanda was a special case. When he’d first started treating her, her leukemia had been so advanced that she had no energy for complaining or talking back. She’d submitted to every test and examination willingly, although she had a tendency to fall asleep in the middle of them. From her, every snippy comment and teenage eye roll was a miracle, one that could be attributed entirely to science.
Marburg EX19—what the published studies were starting to refer to as “Marburg Amberlee,” after the index case, rather than “Marburg Denver,” which implied an outbreak and would be bad for tourism—was that miracle. The first effective cancer cure in the world, tailored from one of the most destructive viruses known to man. At thirteen, Amanda Amberlee had been given at most six months to live. Now, at eighteen, she was going to live to see her grandchildren… and none of them would ever need to be afraid of cancer. Like smallpox before it, cancer was on the verge of extinction.
Amanda lifted her head to watch him draw blood from the crook of her elbow. Any fear of needles she may have had as a child had died during the course of her cancer treatments. “How’s my virus doing?” she asked.
“I haven’t tested this sample yet, but if it’s anything like the last one, your virus should be fat and sleepy. It’ll be entirely dormant within another year.” Dr. Wells gave her an encouraging look. “After that, I’ll only need to see you every six months.”
“Not to seem ungrateful or anything, but that’ll be awesome.” The kids at her high school had mostly stopped calling her “bubble girl” once she was healthy enough to join the soccer team, but the twice-monthly appointments were a real drain on her social calendar.
“I understand.” Dr. Wells withdrew the needle, taping a piece of gauze down over the small puncture. Only a drop of blood managed to escape. “All done. And have a wonderful time at prom.”
Amanda slid out of the chair, stretching the kinks out of her back and legs. “Thanks, Dr. Wells. I’ll see you in two weeks.”
Daniel Wells smiled as he watched the girl who might well represent the future of mankind walk out of his office. A world without cancer. What a beautiful thing that would be.
Dr. Daniel Wells of the Colorado Cancer Research Center admitted in an interview this week that he was “guardedly optimistic” about having a universal cure for cancer by the end of the decade. His protocol was approved for human testing five years ago, and thus far, all subjects have shown improvement in their conditions…
May 15, 2014: Reston, Virginia
The misters nested in the ceiling above the feeding cages went off promptly at three, filling the air in the hot room with an aerosolized mixture of water and six different strains of rhinovirus. The feeding cages were full of rhesus monkeys and guinea pigs that had entered five minutes earlier, when the food was poured. They ignored the thin mist drifting down on them, their attention remaining focused entirely on the food. Dr. Alexander Kellis watched them eat, making notes on his tablet with quick swipes of hi
s index finger. He didn’t look down.
“How’s it looking?”
“This is their seventh exposure. So far, none of them have shown any symptoms. Appetites are good, eyes are clear; no runny noses, no coughing. There was some sneezing, but it appears that Subject 11c has allergies.”
The man standing next to America’s premier expert in genetically engineered rhino- and coronaviruses raised an eyebrow. “Allergies?”
“Yes.” Dr. Kellis indicated one of the rhesus monkeys. She was sitting on her haunches, shoving grapes into her mouth with single-minded dedication to the task of eating as many of them as possible before one of the other monkeys took them away. “I’m pretty sure that she’s allergic to guinea pigs, poor thing.”
His companion laughed. “Yes, poor thing,” he agreed, before leaning in and kissing Dr. Kellis on the cheek. “As you may recall, you gave me permission yesterday to demand that you leave the lab for lunch. I have a note. Signed and everything.”
“John, I really—”
“You also gave me permission to make you sleep on the couch for the rest of the month if you turned me down for anything short of one of the animals getting sick, and you know what that does to your back.” John Kellis stepped away, folding his arms and looking levelly at his husband. “Now, which is it going to be? A lovely lunch and continued marital bliss, or night after night with that broken spring digging into your side, wishing you’d been willing to listen to me when you had the chance?”
Alexander sighed. “You don’t play fair.”
“You haven’t left this lab during the day for almost a month,” John countered. “How is wanting you to be healthy not playing fair? As funny as it would be if you got sick while you were trying to save mankind from the tyranny of the flu, it would make you crazy, and you know it.”
