Feed n-1

by Mira Grant

  “George—”

  “We need a testing kit.”

  Rick’s voice was surprisingly strong, considering the circumstances. Shaun and I turned to face him. He was white-faced and shaking, but his voice was firm. “Shaun, I know you don’t want to hear this, and if you want to hit me later, that’s fine, but right now, we need a testing kit.”

  Storm clouds were gathering in Shaun’s expression. He knew Rick was right; I could see it in his eyes and in the way he wasn’t quite willing to look at me. If he hadn’t known, he wouldn’t have cared that Rick was calling for a blood test. But because he did, it was the last thing in the world he wanted. Well. Maybe not the last thing. Then again, it was starting to look like the last thing had already happened.

  “He’s right, Shaun.” I placed the dart on the counter next to my keyboard. It was so small. How could something so small be the end of the world? I barely noticed when it hit me. I never thought it was possible to overlook your own death, but apparently it is. “Don’t just grab a field box. Get the real kit. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right.” The XH-237 has never had a false result; it’s one hundred percent accurate, as far as anyone can tell.

  Shaun would never believe anything else. He was staring at me in open disbelief. He was denying this as hard as he could. So why wasn’t I? “Georgia…” he began.

  “If I’m overreacting, I’ll buy a new one with my birthday money,” I said, sagging backward in my chair. “Rick?”

  “I’ll get it, Georgia,” he said, starting for the medical supplies.

  I closed my eyes. “I’m not overreacting.”

  Almost too quiet for me to hear, Shaun whispered, “I know.”

  “I brought the bag,” said Rick. I opened my eyes, turning toward his voice. He held up a Kevlar-reinforced biohazard bag. I nodded and he put the bag on the counter, before stepping away. We knew proper protocols. They’d been drilled into us for our entire lives. Until we knew I was clean, no one touched me… and I knew I wasn’t clean.

  Moving with exaggerated care, so both Shaun and Rick could see me every inch along the way, I reached for the bag and thumbed it open before picking up the dart. Dropping it into the bag, I activated the seal. It was a matter for the CDC now. Its people would break the seal after it was turned over to them, and what happened after that wasn’t my concern. I wouldn’t be around to see it.

  I looked up once the bag was sealed and set aside. “Where’s the test kit?” It felt like the muscles in my eyes were relaxing. It could be psychosomatic, but I didn’t think so. The viral bodies responsible for the perpetual dilation of my pupils were moving on to greener pastures. Like the rest of my body.

  “Here,” said Shaun, holding it up. He stepped closer and knelt in front of me. He was only inches outside the federally defined “danger zone” for dealing with someone who might be amplifying. I shot him a sharp look, and he shook his head. “Don’t start.”

  “I won’t.” I extended my left hand. If he wanted to administer the test himself, he had the right. Maybe it would make him believe the results.

  “You could be wrong. You’ve been wrong before,” Shaun said, sliding the testing kit over my hand. I flattened my palm until I felt the tendons stretch, and gave him the nod to clamp down the lid. He did, pinning my fingers in their wide, starfished position.

  “I’m not wrong,” I said. Dull pain lanced my hand as the needles—one for each finger, and five more set in a circle at the center of the palm—darted out, taking blood samples. The lights on the top of the unit began to flash, cycling from green to yellow, where they remained, blinking on and off, until one by one, they started settling into their final color.

  Red. Every one of them. Red.

  Tears prickled against my eyelids. It took me a moment to realize what they were, and then I had to resist the urge to blink them back. Kellis-Amberlee never let me cry before. It was damn well going to let me cry now. “Told you I was right,” I said, trying to sound lighthearted. All I managed to sound was lost.

  “Bet you’re sorry,” Shaun replied. I raised my head and met his shocked, staring eyes with my own.

  We sat that way for several moments, looking at each other, waiting for an answer that wasn’t going to come. It was Rick who spoke, voicing the one question we all wanted to ask and that none of us was quite prepared to answer.

  “What do we do now?”

  “Do?” Shaun frowned at him, looking utterly and honestly perplexed. That expression was enough to terrify me, because he looked like someone who didn’t understand the idea that before too much longer, I was going to be making a concerted effort to eat him alive. “What do you mean, ‘What do we do?’”

  “I mean exactly what I said,” Rick said. He shook his head, gesturing to me. “We can’t just leave her like this. We have to—”

  “No!”

  The vehemence of Shaun’s reply startled me. I turned toward him. “No?” I repeated. “Shaun, what the hell do you mean, ‘no’? There isn’t room for ‘no.’ ‘No’ is over.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “I know exactly what I’m saying.” Rick was pale and shaking, beads of sweat standing out on his forehead. Poor guy. He didn’t sign up for political assassinations when he decided to join the so-called “winning team.” Despite that, he met my eyes without flinching and didn’t try to avoid looking at me. He’d seen the virus before. It held no surprises for him. “You’re the closest thing we’ve got to a virologist, Rick. How long do I have?”

  “How much do you weigh?”

  “One thirty-five, tops.”

  “I’d say forty-five minutes, under normal circumstances,” he said, after a moment’s consideration. “But these aren’t normal circumstances.”

  “The run,” I said.

  He nodded. “The run.”

  Viral amplification depends on a lot of factors. Age, physical condition, body weight—how fast your blood is moving when you come into contact with the live virus. If someone gets bitten in their sleep without waking up, they may take the rest of the night to fully amplify, because they’ll be calm enough that their body won’t be helping the infection along. I, on the other hand, got hit with a viral payload a lot bigger than you’d find in a bite, and it happened while I was running for my life, heart pounding, adrenaline pushing my blood pressure through the roof. I’d cut my time in half. Maybe worse.

  It was already getting harder to think; harder to focus; harder to breathe. I knew, intellectually, that my lungs weren’t shutting down. It was just the virus enclosing the soft tissues of my brain and starting to disrupt normal neurological functions, making normally autonomic actions start intruding on the conscious mind. I’ve read the papers and the clinical studies. I knew what to expect. First comes the lack of focus, the lack of interest, the lack of capability to draw unrelated conclusions. Then comes hyperactivity as the circulatory system is pushed to overdrive. Then, when the virus reaches full saturation, the coup de grace: the death of the conscious mind. My body would continue to walk around, driven by raw instinct and the desires of the virus, but Georgia Carolyn Mason would be gone. Forever.

  I was dead before the lights flashed red. I was dead the second the hypodermic hit my arm, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. But there was something I could do before I went.

  Turning to Shaun, I nodded. There was a long pause—almost too long—before his expression calmed and he returned the gesture, looking more sure of himself, more like himself, despite the tears running down his cheeks.

  “Rick?” he said.

  Rick turned to him, shaking his head. “You can’t beat this. There’s no beating this. She’s gone. You need to realize that. She’s gone, and I’m sorry, but we have to—”

  “Get me the medical kit from under the server rack,” Shaun said. I had to envy him the calmness in his voice. I couldn’t have stayed that calm if he were the one undergoing explosive viral amplification. “Th
e red one.”

  “What do you—”

  “Do it!”

  The words were barely out of his mouth before Rick was rushing to the front of the van, digging under the seat for the med kit. Mom packed it for us a million years ago, for use in absolute emergency. When she put it in my hands, she said she prayed we’d never have to use it. Sorry, Mom. Guess we let you down good this time. But hey, at least the ratings will be high.

  I let out a long, shuddering sigh that somehow transformed into hysterical giggling. I bit my tongue before the giggles could turn to sobs. There wasn’t time for that. There wasn’t time for anything except the red box, and the things it held, and maybe—maybe, if I was lucky—one last article.

  Rick came back to Shaun’s side, holding the box at arm’s length. His expression was cold. He didn’t think Shaun would be able to do it. He didn’t know him as well as he thought he did. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the seat, suddenly tired.

  “You can go now, Rick,” I said. “Take my bike and the gray backup drive. Get as far away as you can, then hit a data station and upload everything to the site. Free space. No subscription required. Creative Commons licensing.”

  “What is it?” he asked, curiosity briefly overriding his determination to see me dead. Bless you, Rick. A journalist after my own heart, right up to the end.

  “Everything I died for,” I said. My eyes were starting to itch. I took my sunglasses off and threw them aside as I rubbed my eyes. “Files, bank records, everything. It’s just everything. Now get out of here. You’ve done everything you can.”

  “Are you—”

  “We’re sure,” said Shaun. I heard the box pop open and the distinctive snap of polyvinyl-Teflon gloves. They’re nearly impossible to tear and so expensive that even the military only uses them under special circumstances. Shaun always insisted we carry a pair. Just one. Just in case. “Take my extra body armor. There’s always a chance they’re still shooting out there.”

  “Do you think they are?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No. I guess it doesn’t.”

  I listened as Rick moved around the van. He pulled Shaun’s body armor out of the closet where it was stored and yanked it on over his clothes, snaps and zippers fastening with their quiet, distinctive sounds. It kept me distracted from the sounds that were coming from Shaun’s direction, the sloshing, snapping sounds as he got the injector cartridges ready.

  “Thanks, Rick,” I said. “It’s been one hell of a ride.”

  “I… right.” I heard Rick’s footsteps approach; the scrape of metal as he lifted the drive from beside my computer; then his retreat, until the door creaked open and he stopped, hesitating. “I… Georgia?”

  “Yes, Rick?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I cracked my eyes open, allowing him a small, mirthless smile. For the first time that I could remember, the light didn’t hurt. I was going into conversion. My body was losing the capacity to understand pain. “That’s all right. So am I.”

  For a moment, he looked like he might say something else. Then his lips tightened and he nodded, before undoing the latches on the door. That was the last exit: When the van was locked again, it would detect infection and refuse to open for anyone inside.

  “Shaun? Train’s leaving,” I said, quietly. “You want to jab and go?”

  “And let you finish this without me?” He shook his head. “No way. Rick, you be careful out there.”

  Rick’s shoulders tightened and he was gone, stepping out into the evening air. The door banged shut behind him.

  Shaun sat down on the floor in front of me, the injector in his hands. It was a two-barrel array, ready to deliver a mixed payload of sedatives and my own hyper-activated white blood cells. Together, the mixture could slow conversion… for a while. Not for long, but if we were lucky, for long enough. Expression staying neutral, he said, “Give me your right arm.”

  I held it out.

  Shaun pressed the twin needles to the thin skin at the bend of my elbow and a wash of coolness flowed into me as he pressed the plunger home.

  “Thanks,” I said, shivering.

  “That’s all we’ve got.” He opened a biohazard bag and dropped the used injector into it before sealing the top. “You’ve got half an hour, tops. After that—”

  “There’s no guarantee I’ll be lucid. I know.” He rose, walking stiff-legged across to the biohazard bin and dropped the bag inside. I wanted to run after him, wrap my arms around him, and cry until there weren’t any tears left in me, but I couldn’t. I didn’t dare. Even my tears would be infectious, and the sedatives he’d shot into my arm weren’t going to work any miracles. Time was short.

  I still had work to do.

  I swung back to my monitor, trying to swallow away the dryness as I heard Shaun moving behind me, taking one of the spare revolvers out of the locker by the door and loading it, one careful cartridge at a time. What was it the reports said? The dryness of the mouth was one of the early signs of viral amplification, resulting from the crystal blocks of virus drawing away moisture and bringing on that lovely desiccated state that all the living dead seem to share? That seemed about right. It was getting harder to think about that sort of thing. Suddenly, it was all just a little too immediate.

  My hands were still hovering above the keyboard while my mind struggled to find a beginning when I felt the barrel of the gun press against the base of my skull, cold and somehow soothing. Shaun wouldn’t let me hurt anyone else. No matter what happened, he wouldn’t let me hurt anyone else. Not even him. Not more than I already had.

  “Shaun…”

  “I’m here.”

  “I love you.”

  “I know, George. I love you, too. You and me. Always.”

  “I’m scared.”

  His lips brushed the top of my head as he bent forward and pressed them to my hair. I wanted to yell at him to get away from me, but I didn’t. The barrel of the gun remained a cool, constant pressure on the back of my neck. When I turned, when I stopped being me, he would end it. He loved me enough to end it. Has any girl ever been luckier than I am?

  “Shaun…”

  “Shhh, Georgia,” he said. “It’s okay. Just write.” And so I began. One last chance to roll the dice, tell the truth, and shame the devil. One last chance to make it all clear. What we fought for. What we died for. What we felt we had to do.

  I never asked to be a hero. No one ever gave me the option to say I didn’t want to, that I was sorry, but that they had the wrong girl. All I wanted to do was tell the truth and let people draw their own conclusions from there. I wanted people to think, and to know, and to understand. I just wanted to tell the truth. In the van that had carried us across a country, and through the last months of my life, with my brother standing ready to pull the trigger, my hands came down, and I wrote.

  Was it worth it?

  God, I hope so.

  RED FLAG DISTRIBUTION RED FLAG DISTRIBUTION RED FLAG DISTRIBUTION

  CREATIVE COMMONS LICENCE ALERT LEVEL ALPHA

  SPREAD TO ALL NEWS SITES IMMEDIATELY

  REPOST FREELY REPOST FREELY REPOST FREELY

  FEED IS LIVE

  My name is Georgia Mason. For the past several years, I’ve been providing one of the world’s many windows into the news, chronicling current events and attempting, in my own small way, to offer context and perspective. I have always pursued the truth above all other things, even when the truth came at the cost of my own comfort and well-being. It seems, now, that I pursued the truth even when it would mean my life, although I was unaware of it at the time.

  My name is Georgia Mason. According to the time stamp on the field test unit (model XH-237, known for reliability and, God help me, accuracy), I legally died eleven minutes ago. But for now, at this moment, my name is still Georgia Mason, and this is… I guess you can call this my last postcard from the Wall. There are some things you need to know, and we don’t have much time.


  As I write this, my brother is standing behind me with the barrel of a gun pressed against the back of my neck, where a blast will sever the spinal cord with the smallest possible spray radius. In my bloodstream, a large dose of sedatives mixed with a serum based on my own immune system is running a race against the virus that is in the process of taking over my cells. My nose isn’t clogged and I can swallow, but I feel lethargic, and it’s hard to breathe. I tell you this so you’ll understand that this isn’t a hoax, this isn’t some sophomoric attempt to increase ratings or site traffic. This is real. Everything I am about to tell you is the truth. Believe me, understand, and act, before it is too late.

  If you’re viewing this from the main page of After the End Times, you’ll see a download link labeled “Campaign_Notes.zip” on the left-hand side of your screen. Possession of the documents behind that link may be considered treason by the government of the United States of America. Please. Click. Download. Read. Repost to any forum you can, any message board or photo-sharing site or blog that you can reach. The data contained in those files is as essential to our freedom and survival as the report of Dr. Matras proved to be during the Rising. I am not overstating the data’s importance. There isn’t enough time for that.

  Neither is there enough time for me to repeat the facts that are already codified and ready for you to download. Let this suffice for all the things I cannot say, do not have the time to say, will never say, and wish I could: They are lying to us. They are willfully channeling research away from the pursuit of a cure for this disease, and they are doing it under the auspices of our own government. I don’t know who “they” are. I didn’t live long enough to find out. Governor Tate served their interests. So, I regret to say, did Georgette Meissonier, previously a part of this reporting site.