by Mira Grant
“Especially since they’re killing journalists,” said Ben. “Georgia Mason.”
“She found a way to make people listen, that’s for sure,” said Dr. Abbey. “I never thought of martyrdom as a way to keep something from getting buried. But hey, whatever works for you. People know there’s a problem now. That’s a big improvement over where we were a few weeks ago.”
That could just as easily have been us. We’d discussed what it would take to keep ourselves from being discredited, our names ruined and our families devastated; we’d never considered that letting ourselves be killed might be the answer. It wasn’t worth it. Maybe the Masons would think it was, but the Masons were zealots. They’d been born to the news, and if they died making it, they wouldn’t think their lives had been wasted. I didn’t want that. I wanted to live. I wanted to grow old with Audrey by my side, watching Ben teach his grandchildren to operate a ham radio. I wanted to see a thousand things I’d never seen, do a thousand things I’d never done, and not become a footnote for the sake of a story that had never really been mine and had never been meant to be.
There were too many bodies littering the road behind us for us to turn back now. John. Amber. Mat. Poor, sweet Mat, who’d only wanted to make the world more beautiful and more fantastic than it had ever been before. Let Georgia Mason be a martyr. Let her brother be the standard-bearer for her cause. We had other stories to tell, other leads to chase. Maybe one day, we’d be the ones remembered for breaking this one, if we could just get far enough away to do it without dying. I wanted to live. More than anything, I wanted to live.
“We need to get to Canada,” I said, reaching out and taking Audrey’s hand firmly in mine. “We’ll tell you whatever you want to know, all of us will, but then you’re going to help us find a way out of this damn country.”
Dr. Abbey raised both eyebrows this time. “Why would I do that?”
“Because she”—I nodded toward Jill—“figured you’d want to learn things about the CDC. Secret things. That means you probably like them about as much as we do at this point, and that means you’re probably in the market for things you can do to piss them off. Getting us out of the country is guaranteed to piss them off. I promise.”
Claws clacked on the linoleum behind us. I turned. A black dog the size of a full-grown ram was standing in the doorway, massive head lowered, ears pricked forward.
“That’s Joe,” said Dr. Abbey. “Or, as I like to call him, my ‘I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to’ card. Joe would like me to ask, again, why I would help you get to Canada.”
“Because Audrey’s going to tell you whatever she knows, and Ash is going to help with any home repairs you need, and I’m going to compile everything we have on this political cycle,” said Ben. “We’re going to let you suck us dry, and then you can give the CDC one last fuck-you by showing us to the border. Doesn’t that sound like a good deal? You get everything, and you get to know we’ll probably survive in case you need us again.”
Slowly, Dr. Abbey began to smile. “All right,” she said. “Tell me everything.”
CODA
Don’t You Want to See the World?
Sometimes the right thing to do is to walk away.
—AISLINN NORTH
I never said I wasn’t a coward.
—BENJAMIN ROSS
Next time someone tells you the American political process is fair, point them to the short career and brutal death of Susan Kilburn. I’m sure they’ll find it very educational.
—FROM IT WASN’T THE WIND, THE BLOG OF FRANKLIN GELLER, NOVEMBER 7, 2040
We know who you are. We’ll catch you one day. Watch your ass.
—ANONYMOUS COMMENT ON IT WASN’T THE WIND, NOVEMBER 8, 2040
Twenty-three
Everyone saw the footage.
It didn’t make as much of a splash as Georgia Mason’s last blog post—it’s sort of hard to top a reporter reporting their own death by government conspiracy—but everyone saw the footage, because it was the sort of thing you couldn’t not see. We were living in an abandoned vacation home in the woods of North Vancouver when it happened, running the lights and heat off an old generator that broke down as often as not, stealing wireless from the sky, and we still saw it. It was one of those moments that made the world stop, if only for a few seconds.
The election results had come in, and Peter Ryman was the new President-elect of the United States, with Richard Cousins—that sweet man who had stopped to talk while we were all in Wagman’s employee lounge—standing as his Vice President. He’d been giving speeches and shaking hands when someone realized that the defeated Democratic candidate was nowhere to be seen. Susan Kilburn had simply slipped away in all the chaos, ducking her handlers and her disappointed campaign staff.
She reappeared on the roof of her hotel some fifteen minutes later, wearing a bathrobe, with her hair tied neatly back from her face. “Hello,” she said, and the microphone she had clipped to her collar picked up her voice and bounced it back to the world. People began to turn. Parties began to stop. In our ever-monitored world, she was captured on film as soon as she began to speak.
“Hello,” she said again, and followed it with, “My name is Susan Kilburn. I am of sound mind and body. I have congratulated my opponent, Peter Ryman, on defeating me. I hope he is a stronger person than I am. What I do now, I do for my family, and for the people I represent. The people who wished to control me will not be able to use them as leverage. Thank you, America, for the opportunity, however brief, to serve. To my poor bloggers… I’m so sorry. I hope you can forgive me.”
And then, without turning off the microphone, she stepped off the edge.
Her body burst when she hit the courtyard, some fifteen stories below. That part of the building had been designed to hold private events, weddings and engagement parties; it was architecturally isolated from the rest of the hotel. She died on impact, her organs rupturing and her skeleton shattering. The virus that had slumbered so patiently in her bloodstream could find nothing to resurrect. Like everyone who dies violently, she had created a biohazard, but she neither reanimated nor endangered anyone else. Susan Kilburn was a patriot to the end.
We were not.
People all over the Internet were asking why. Why did she do it, why would she kill herself when she had a cabinet position waiting for her, when she had the world at her feet, and could run again in four years. Me, I looked at the shadows in Governor Kilburn’s eyes, the absolute emptiness that lurked there, hiding in the body of a broken woman, and I said nothing. I already knew everything I needed to know. Oh, there were questions. What did they have over Governor Kilburn at this stage, what had they threatened, what could they do? But those answers were for someone else to chase down. Someone who was safe; someone who was staying. We were neither.
That night, I rousted Ben and Audrey, got them into the ATV, and started driving farther east. We had a long way to go before we’d reach the Irish embassy in Toronto, and most of the journey would be along the Trans-Canada Highway, long swaths of which were no longer maintained. But we’d make it. We’d get to the embassy, get tickets on the next transatlantic flight, and make for Dublin. I knew people who would take us in, help us get our feet back under ourselves. And Ireland, as I’d reminded myself so many times before, was a non-extradition country. Maybe the WHO would come after us. Maybe the EIS would try to follow. It didn’t matter. Whatever happened, we’d find a way to deal with it, and when we had our balance back, we’d disappear again. Australia was supposed to be lovely. Ben and Audrey were Americans, but there were ways around that. There were always ways around that.
Audrey was asleep with her head resting on the window; Ben was in back, lit by the soft glow of his computer screen. My family. Both of them, forever. And I was going to protect them, if it killed me. That’s my job. I’m an Irwin, after all.
Our part in this tale was done, and we were getting the hell out. Leave the lies to the living and the truth to the
dead. Nothing ever stays buried for long.
BY MIRA GRANT
Parasitology
Parasite
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Chimera
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Deadline
Blackout
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Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box (ebook novella)
Writing as Seanan McGuire
Rosemary and Rue
A Local Habitation
An Artificial Night
Late Eclipses
One Salt Sea
Ashes of Honor
Chimes at Midnight
The Winter Long
A Red-Rose Chain
Once Broken Faith
Discount Armageddon
Midnight Blue-Light Special
Half-Off Ragnarok
Pocket Apocalypse
Chaos Choreography
Sparrow Hill Road
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
BOOK I: Boom Tomorrow
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
BOOK II: If You Want It, Come and Get It
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
BOOK III: Blank Spaces, Blank Faces
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
BOOK IV: Where You Own What You Build
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
CODA: Don’t You Want to See the World?
Chapter Twenty-three
By Mira Grant
Orbit Newsletter
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Seanan McGuire
Cover design by Lauren Panepinto
Cover art by Rob Sheridan
Cover images by Shutterstock
Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
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First Edition: October 2016
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Grant, Mira, author.
Title: Feedback / Mira Grant.
Description: First edition. | New York : Orbit, 2016. | Series: Newsflesh ; 4
Identifiers: LCCN 2016013017| ISBN 9780316379342 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781478912781 (audio book downloadable) | ISBN 9780316379328 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Reporters and reporting—Fiction. | Virus diseases—Fiction. | Journalists—Fiction. | Zombies—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure. | FICTION / Horror. | GSAFD: Science fiction. | Horror fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3607.R36395 F45 2016 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016013017
ISBNs: 978-0-316-37934-2 (hardcover), 978-0-316-37932-8 (ebook)
E3-20160623-JV-PC