Blackout: Book 3 of The Newsflesh Trilogy

by Mira Grant

  “Dr. Shoji was explaining the landing plan,” said Becks. “We’re going to set down at the Montgomery County Airpark in Maryland, and drive from there.”

  “The airport has been owned by the EIS since shortly after the Rising,” said Dr. Shoji. “We’ve managed to resist all CDC efforts to buy it from us, and since we’re still officially on the books as a functional organization, they haven’t been able to simply take it. There’s a ground crew waiting, and they’ve promised to have a vehicle ready.”

  “How are we going to get off the property?” asked Becks. “I don’t suppose you’re running a completely unsecured airfield less than fifty miles from the nation’s capitol.”

  “We’re good, but we’re not that good,” said Dr. Shoji. “You’ll take a blood test when you deplane, and another when you exit the airport. Both will be performed on EIS equipment, and logged in our mainframe. If the CDC is tracking you by blood test results, they won’t get anything from us. We stopped sharing all our data a long time ago.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?” asked Alaric.

  “Isn’t human cloning illegal?” asked George. She opened her Coke and took a long drink before adding, “The CDC isn’t playing by the rules anymore. Why should anyone else?”

  “What a wonderful world we’ve made for ourselves.” Alaric scowled, slumping in his seat. “I’m getting sick and tired of everybody double crossing everybody else. Can’t something be straightforward?”

  I raised my hand. “I’m just here to hit stuff.”

  Becks glared. The anger in her eyes was impossible to miss, no matter how hard I might try to pretend it wasn’t there. “Don’t you dare, Shaun Mason. You may have been here to hit stuff once, but things have changed since then, so don’t you dare. You don’t get to go back to pretending you’re an idiot just because you have Georgia here to hide behind, you got me? I won’t let you. Even if you try, I won’t let you.”

  A moment of awkward silence followed her proclamation, each of us trying not to look at Dr. Shoji, who had just witnessed something that felt intensely personal, at least to me. That wasn’t something that should have been shared with anyone outside our weird little semi-family.

  Dr. Shoji clearly knew that. He stood, clearing his throat as he jerked his chin toward the sandwiches in my hand. “That’s a good idea. You should all eat before we land. I don’t know how much opportunity we’re going to have to stop once we hit the ground. We can’t risk any of you taking CDC-operated blood tests before we get to where we’re going.” That said, he turned and walked away, heading back toward the cockpit. In a matter of seconds, the four of us were alone again.

  We looked at each other. Finally, Becks took a slow breath, and said, “Shaun, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said—”

  “It’s okay.” I shook my head. “It’s true. I spent a lot of time letting George do the thinking for both of us, because I could get away with it. I’ve been doing all the thinking for a year now. I don’t think I can stop. But that doesn’t mean I want to do anything at this point beyond smashing things and shooting people and making sure this ends. You get me? This is going to end.”

  “No matter what?” asked Alaric, almost defiantly.

  I turned to look at him. Out of all of us, he was the one who still had something to lose. His little sister was with the Masons. If he died, she’d wind up staying with them. There were too many orphans in the world to take one away from an apparently loving family. They’d probably be more careful with her than they were with us, but that didn’t make them good parents, and that didn’t make them good for her. Not in the long term.

  “If you need to get out at any point, you get out,” I said. “But aside from that? For me and George? Yeah, no matter what. If this doesn’t end here, they’re never going to stop coming for us. So it ends, or we end, and either way, I won’t blame you for running.”

  “Thank you,” said Alaric quietly.

  “So what are we doing?” asked Becks. “What’s the plan? Does anybody have a plan? Or did we just get on a plane with this guy and cross the country because, hey, at this point it was the only stupid thing we hadn’t done?”

  “Rick was involved with the program that had me cloned,” said George. “Dr. Shoji is taking us to Rick. Rick wouldn’t have done this if he didn’t think it was absolutely necessary.”

  “Wow, you mean people don’t arrange to have their dead friends brought back at huge financial and ethical cost just because they miss them?” asked Alaric dryly.

  There was a pause, all four of us looking at each other wide-eyed. Then we all burst out laughing. Becks leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees as she shook with laughter. Alaric sank back in his seat. George leaned sideways, her shoulder pressing into my hip, and tried to cover her mouth with the hand that wasn’t holding her soda.

  Becks was the first to get herself back under control. Straightening up, she wiped her eyes and grinned at Alaric. “Glad to see you’re feeling up to being an asshole again, Kwong,” she said.

  Alaric half saluted. “Just doing my part for Assholes Anonymous of America.”

  “Somebody has to,” I said. I sat down in Dr. Shoji’s abandoned seat, tossing the last turkey sandwich to Alaric before taking a sip of my still-warm coffee. “So basically, we’re going to hit the ground running.”

  “Do we ever do anything else?” asked Becks.

  “No,” said George.

  I toasted her with my coffee. “And thank God for that.”

  Becks laughed again as she stood and made her way back to the kitchenette. Alaric started unwrapping his sandwich. I smiled one more time at George before unwrapping my own sandwich and taking a large bite. We needed to keep our strength up. I had the distinct feeling that not only would we be hitting the ground running, we were probably never going to slow down again. Our lives—all our lives—had been measured in calms between storms for a very long time. Even when we were dead, in George’s case. Well, this was the last calm, and I was going to enjoy it while it lasted.

  I’ve always lived my life—

  No. That’s a lie.

  Georgia Carolyn Mason, b. 2016, in the final year of the Rising, d. 2040, during the Ryman campaign, always lived her life by one simple commandment: Tell the truth. Whenever possible, whatever it requires, tell the truth. This blog was for opinions and personal thoughts, because those, too, are a part of the truth. No one is truly objective, no matter how hard we try, and unless people knew where her biases were, they couldn’t know when to read around them. Georgia Mason lived to tell the truth. Georgia Mason died to tell the truth. It’s not her fault some people couldn’t leave well enough alone.

  I am not Georgia Mason. I am not anyone else. I am a chimera, built of science and stolen DNA and a dead woman’s memories. I am an impossibility. These are my biases. These are the things you need to know, because otherwise, you won’t be able to read around them. I am not her.

  But my name is Georgia Mason.

  And I am here to tell you the truth.

  —From Living Dead Girl, the blog of Georgia Mason II, August 10, 2041. Unpublished.

  Listen to the clone girl. She’s got some pretty good ideas, and oh, right, if you so much as look at her funny, I’ll blow your fucking face off. We clear? Good.

  —From Hail to the King, the blog of Shaun Mason, August 10, 2041. Unpublished.

  GEORGIA: Thirty-three

  Despite Becks’s dire predictions, no one shot us out of the sky. The computerized voice of the autopilot came on over the intercom as the plane touched down on the main runway of the Montgomery County Airpark, saying, “Welcome to Montgomery County, Maryland, where the local time is nine fifty-seven P.M. Thank you for flying with the Epidemic Intelligence Service. Please remain seated while the sterilization crew secures the plane. Any attempts to get up and move about the cabin will result in the immediate activation of security measure Alpha-16.”

  “Meaning what?” asked Shaun.

  “Mean
ing the plane fills with knockout gas and we stay unconscious until somebody comes along and shoots us full of the counteragent,” said Alaric. We all turned to stare at him. He shrugged. “While some people were taking naps and fucking around with their guns, I was reading the security information card. Well. Security information booklet. They take security seriously around here.”

  “They are the EIS,” said Becks.

  “Which has meant basically jack shit for the last twenty years,” said Shaun.

  “They saved me,” I said. “They can secure us as much as they want.”

  That killed the discussion. We looked at each other, then toward the front of the plane. There was still no sign of Dr. Shoji.

  “You know, if he was planning to double-cross us, this would be the best time to do it,” said Shaun.

  “If he was planning to double-cross us, wouldn’t he have just crashed the plane somewhere over Iowa?” asked Alaric.

  “Not if he wanted to live,” said Becks. “And not if he wanted to dissect us. I mean, Shaun’s immune, Georgia’s a clone…”

  “And I’m an asshole,” said Alaric helpfully.

  Everyone laughed nervously. There was a soft “thump” as the plane stopped rolling down the runway, followed by the sound of clamps affixing to the wheels and windows. This was one plane that wouldn’t be flying anywhere until it was certified infection free. Blue antibacterial foam began cascading down the windows, blocking our view of the airfield.

  “The foam they use to sterilize planes costs eight dollars a gallon,” said Alaric. “It takes approximately two thousand gallons to sterilize a plane this size.”

  Becks gave him a sidelong look. “Why do you know these things? What inspires you to learn them?”

  “It impresses the ladies,” said Alaric. They both laughed. Shaun didn’t. I turned to look toward the front of the plane, and waited.

  The blue foam slowed from a torrent to drips and drabs, finally stopping altogether. A steady stream of bleach followed it, washing away both the remains of the foam and any biological agents foolish enough to think that hitching a ride on an EIS plane was a good idea.

  “Overkill much?” muttered Shaun. I surreptitiously reached over and squeezed his knee.

  Alaric must have heard him, because he held up the security information booklet and said, “If they had any reason to believe we’d flown through or over an active outbreak, they’d be rinsing the whole plane down with formalin. Twice. And we’d be praying the plane was properly sealed, since otherwise, we’d probably melt.”

  “It’s just our way of saying ‘thank you for flying EIS Air,’ ” said Dr. Shoji, shrugging on a lab coat as he emerged from the cockpit. His black T-shirt and shorts were gone, replaced by khaki pants and a loudly patterned Hawaiian shirt covered with purple and yellow flowers. I raised an eyebrow. He shrugged. “It’s camouflage. I’m supposed to be the visiting director of the Kauai Institute of Virology—which is technically true, even if I’m not here on the business of the Institute—and this is what they expect. I’d wear shorts if I thought I could get away with it, but the CDC dress code forbids exposed legs. Something about caustic chemicals.” He waved a hand, clearly unconcerned.

  “Why are you up and moving about the cabin?” asked Shaun. “Not in the mood to get gassed because you had a cramp, thanks.”

  “Ah—sorry.” Dr. Shoji produced a small remote from his pocket and pressed a button.

  The “fasten seat belts” sign turned off, and the voice of the autopilot said, “We have finished external decontamination. Please rise and collect all personal belongings. An EIS representative will be waiting on the jet bridge to confirm your current medical condition and offer any assistance that may be required. Once again, thank you for flying with EIS Air. We appreciate that you have many choices in government-owned health services, and would like you to know that the EIS has always been dedicated to the preservation of the public health, above and beyond all other goals.”

  “Wow. Even the private planes have to say that shit,” said Shaun.

  Alaric stood, snagging his laptop bag from the overhead compartment as he asked, “By ‘offer any assistance,’ do they mean bandages or bullets?”

  “I don’t know.” I stood, stretching, before retrieving my jacket from the overhead bin. I shrugged it on, checking to be sure my holster was covered. I probably wasn’t legally allowed to carry a concealed weapon—my field license almost certainly expired after I died—but I wasn’t going to tell unless someone asked me. “It probably depends on your test results.”

  “You are a ray of sunshine and I don’t know how we got by without you,” said Becks.

  I nodded sympathetically. “I’m sure it was hard. But it’s all right. I’m here now.” Inwardly, I was ecstatic. She was acknowledging me in the present tense. She was admitting that, real Georgia or not, I was the one they had. And it felt wonderful.

  “If you’re done squabbling with each other, please follow me,” said Dr. Shoji. He walked back to the plane door, where he opened the control panel next to the lock and pressed a button. There was a hiss as the hydraulics released, and the door slid open, revealing an airlock. I closed my eyes, shuddering.

  We were going into an EIS facility. An endless succession of white halls and people dressed in medical attire rose behind my eyes. I pushed them aside. It wasn’t like I had a choice. If I wanted to develop fun new phobias, however justified, I was going to deal with them. However I had to.

  Shaun’s hand was a welcome weight on my shoulder. “Hey,” he said. “It’s cool.”

  I opened my eyes and forced a smile, glad that my sunglasses kept him from seeing my eyes. He knew how scared I was if anyone did—I was still enough of the woman I’d been programmed to be to react in ways he recognized—but that didn’t mean I needed to shove it in his face. “Cool,” I echoed, and followed him into the airlock.

  I was expecting to find men in cleanroom suits waiting for us with blood tests in one hand and guns in the other, ready to shoot if our results were anything other than perfect. It was a little odd that the EIS had a manned jet bridge, rather than using one of the safer, more convenient automated systems, but it was possible they hadn’t wanted to attract the attention a major renovation would draw. They were trying to keep the CDC from taking them seriously, and being the kind of small, unassuming organization that still needs to process incoming passengers by hand would help with that.

  I wasn’t expecting to find a smiling woman with ice-blonde hair loose around her shoulders, wearing a lab coat over a blue tank top and jeans. She smiled when she saw us, the expression lighting up her face in a way that would have seemed impossible when I thought her name was Dr. Shaw and she was dancing to the CDC’s tune.

  “Hello, Georgia,” said Dr. Kimberley. She looked to the rest of the group, assessing them each in turn. “Who are your friends?”

  “Dr. Kimberley.” I had the sudden urge to hug her—another point of deviation, as my memories were quick to inform me. I stiffened instead, rejecting the alien urge. “You made it out of the building.”

  “I did, barely; we were able to delay the cleansing sequence long enough to get into one of the incinerator shafts, and climb from there to the roof,” she said. “Gregory is safe as well. We’re both hopelessly compromised, but we’ll find a way around that. We always do.”

  “Such is the life of the epidemiological spy,” I said. I half turned to the others, gesturing to each in turn as I said, “Rebecca Atherton, Shaun Mason, and Alaric Kwong. The staff of After the End Times. This is Dr. Danika Kimberley. She saved my life.”

  “I’d say she was exaggerating, but she’s not,” said Dr. Kimberley. She looked toward Dr. Shoji, who was hanging back, waiting for us to finish. “Were there any issues?”

  “None. Our flight plan was approved without a hitch. No mechanical troubles, and the plane was swept for transmitters before we left and three times during flight. We’re clean.”

  “Thank God f
or that,” she said fervently. She rummaged through the bag she had slung over one shoulder, producing five slim-bodied testing kits with the words EIS OFFICIAL USE ONLY stenciled on their sides. She handed one to each of us and said, “We use these for internal testing, which means they don’t upload to any servers but our own. If any of you come up positive, you’ll be isolated for six hours before we make a final determination.”

  Becks paused in the act of opening her test kit. “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “It means that if you have any chance of recovering from the Kellis-Amberlee amplification process, you’ll have started to show signs by the end of that time. If you haven’t shown any signs, we can either decommission you or retain you for further testing. We’d prefer to keep you, of course—undamaged live subjects are difficult to come by—but the choice would be yours, providing you made it before you finished amplifying.”

  “You should absolutely be on the Maryland tourism board,” said Becks, and slipped her thumb into the kit.

  There was a moment of quiet as everyone waited for confirmation that we were still among the legally living. Shaun watched the ceiling rather than watching the lights blinking on the test kits. Each set of lights blinked at its own tempo, analyzing the blood sample the kit had taken, looking for signs of seroconversion. One by one, they settled on a steady green. Clean. All of us were clean.

  I elbowed Shaun in the side. “It’s good,” I said. “You can come down now.”

  “Huh?” He looked down, eyes fixing on the green-lit test kit in his hand. “Oh.” He cast a quick sideways glance at my kit and visibly relaxed, some of the tension going out of his jaw.

  Dr. Kimberley plucked the kit from his hand, sticking it into a small biohazard bag, which she then made disappear into the bag on her shoulder. The other kits went into a separate, larger biohazard bag, which she pushed into a chute in the side of the jet bridge. Then she smiled, not quite as brightly as when we first deplaned, and said, “Well. I suppose we’d best be moving along. Follow me.”