Blackout (29 page)

“Ma’am?” asked the older guard.

“I realize you’ve been working primarily in Level 1 and 2 areas, but my primary lab is maintained in the Level 3 wing.” Dr. Shaw glanced to me as she spoke, giving me a brief but meaningful look that chased away any doubts I may have had about my fate. If I were still Dr. Thomas’s pet subject, he would never have let me enter a Level 3 biohazard lab. He approved this. He was done with me.

All CDC properties start at Level 1, including the
bathrooms and reception areas. No special training or equipment is needed to enter one. Level 1 biohazard facilities work with agents that don’t harm healthy adult humans. Level 2 biohazard facilities work with things that
can
harm healthy adult humans, and will usually have some precautions in place to deal with contamination. It’s only once you hit Level 3 that you start needing major protective gear. With the door standing open, I could hear the faint hiss of air being drawn into the hall, caught by the negative pressure filters. Airborne dangers could get in, but they would never make it out.

The guards stared at the sign. Dr. Shaw cleared her throat. “Gentlemen?”

The younger guard actually jumped. “Ma’am?” he asked.

“I realize you’re simply trying to do your jobs, but I assure you, no amount of staring at the wall will get us to my lab. Can we proceed?”

“Just a moment.” The older guard murmured something to his companion before raising a hand and tapping the skin behind his ear. “I’ll be right back with you.”

“Subdermal communications implant,” I muttered. “Slick.” Buffy would have loved to get her hands on one of those. With the way I went through the ear cuffs I used to contact my team, something subdermal would have—would have—

I touched the top edge of my left ear, where my ear cuff should have been. I hadn’t even thought about it since waking up, and now that I remembered it, I felt naked without it. Somehow, I found that reassuring. It was one more piece of evidence that I was still me, even if I was someone else at the same time. For the first time, I felt myself feeling sorry for the Georgia Masons who had been cloned, studied, and killed before me.
How many of them ever knew they weren’t the woman they thought they were? How many of them touched their ears, feeling naked and wondering whether they’d get the chance to be properly clothed ever again?

I hoped none of them. If they hadn’t been able to escape—and clearly, they hadn’t, because I wouldn’t have been here if they had—then there was no reason they should ever have needed to feel like this.

The guard finished his muffled conversation with whoever was on the other side of his connection and turned to face Dr. Shaw, tapping the skin behind his ear one more time as he did. “I apologize for any delays we have caused you,” he said, stiffening to ramrod-straight attention. “My superior informs me that you have security of your own beyond this point, and that our services will not be required.”

“Thank you for confirming that,” said Dr. Shaw, with a smile that could have been used to chill water. “Now, if you gentlemen would please let us pass, I have a series of tests to begin.”

“Of course.” The older guard stayed where he was. The younger stepped out of Dr. Shaw’s way as she advanced toward the door. He mumbled something that could have been “Ma’am,” or could have been a short prayer of thanks. I didn’t hear it clearly, and I didn’t care. We were getting away from the guards. That was what really mattered here.

Kathleen entered first, followed by George, Dr. Shaw, and finally, me. The door slid shut behind us as soon as my heel cleared the doorway. Dr. Shaw reached out and pulled the piece of paper off the bottom of the sign, folding it neatly and tucking it into the pocket of her lab coat.

“Never underestimate the power of a man’s fear, Georgia,” she said, sounding almost distracted, like
part of her was no longer paying attention. “Level 3 labs are no more dangerous to the well prepared than eating at an Indian take-out. Yet somehow, just the name is enough to strike fear into the hearts of man, even though each and every one of us is a walking Level 4 biosafety lab in this brave new world we’ve created.”

“Words have power,” I said.

“True.” She shook her head. “Well. This way, please.” She began to walk briskly down the hall, heels cracking hard against the tile.

Kathleen and George exchanged a look. “Excuse me, Doctor?” called Kathleen.

“Yes? What is it?”

“Do you want us to come with you, or do you want us to initiate cleanup procedures in lab bay two? You’re going to need it later tonight.”

Dr. Shaw paused, head tilted at what was clearly a contemplative angle, even when viewed from behind. Finally, she nodded. “Yes; that sounds like the correct course of action. Georgia, come with me. We really
do
need to get started.” She started walking again, not looking back. I hurried after her.

We passed through three more doors, each of which Dr. Shaw opened with a swipe of her key card. The second door also required a fingerprint check; the third was equipped with a retinal scanner. This was starting to look less like a Level 3 biosafety facility, and more like some sort of maximum security prison for the infected. The distant, steady hiss of the negative pressure filters just made that thought more difficult to shake off.

I was getting distinctly uneasy by the time we reached the fourth door. This one was flanked by blood test units that looked disarmingly like the ones we had in the garage back in the house in Berkeley. “You’ll
need to provide a sample for analysis,” said Dr. Shaw. “It’s just a technicality, at this point in the facility, but it came with the security system, and we couldn’t disarm it without deactivating several other functions.”

“What functions?” I asked, moving toward the testing unit on the left.

“All will be made clear shortly.” She slapped her palm flat against the right-hand testing unit, cleared her throat, and said, “Identification, Danika Michelle Kimberley, authorization beta alpha zeta nine four nine two three. Designation, investigative physician. Affiliation, Epidemic Intelligence Service.” Her accent was suddenly British, softer than Mahir’s, with a rolling edge that I’d heard only from bloggers who lived and broadcast near the Welsh border.

I stared at her. “What—?”

“You are accompanied,” said a bland, pleasant male voice from a speaker set somewhere above the door. “Please identify your associate.”

“This is Georgia Carolyn Mason, version 7c. Designation, electronic journalist, human clone, presently listed as deceased in the main network. Affiliation, Epidemic Intelligence Service.” Dr. Shaw—Dr. Kimberley—sounded calm, and slightly bored, like she was reciting a shopping list. “Georgia, put your hand on the panel, if you would? I’d rather not be standing here when the security system decides we’re a threat and floods the hall with formalin.”

“Uh. No. That would be bad.” I pressed my hand against the flat testing panel, feeling the brief sting as the needles bit into my palm. A cool blast of antiseptic foam was released through a slit in the metal, cooling the small wounds the needles had left behind, and the light above the door began to flash, red to yellow to
green and back again. The light stabilized quickly on green, and the door unlocked with a click.

“Ah, good,” said Dr. Kimberley. “Come along, Georgia.” She pulled her hand away from the test panel and pushed the door open, revealing yet another standard-issue CDC lab.

Well. Standard issue except for the three technicians who were standing just inside with guns in their hands, aiming them at the door. I recognized the one in the middle as James, from Dr. Shaw’s—Dr. Kimberley’s—other lab. The others were new to me.

Dr. Kimberley sighed. “Oh, yay,” she said, deadpan. “This is quite my favorite part. Is it Tuesday? It’s Tuesday, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Dr. Kimberley,” confirmed the technician on the left, a curvy, medium-height girl with a riot of carroty-red curls barely confined by her headband.

“Brilliant. In that case…” Dr. Kimberley pointed to the girl. “Matriculate.” She turned and pointed to James. “Alabaster.” She turned again, pointing to the tall, dark-skinned man on the end. “Polyhedral.”

All three technicians lowered their guns. “Glad to have you back, Dr. Kimberley,” said James. “Did you encounter any trouble?”

“None that couldn’t be handled.” Dr. Kimberley turned to me, offering a small, almost apologetic smile. “I was able to depart with what we needed, and that’s what matters. In the meanwhile… Georgia, I do apologize.”

“What?” I blinked at her. Maybe it was everything I’d been through in the past few days, but I was suddenly afraid I’d trusted the wrong people. “What are you talking a—”

And then the syringe bit into the back of my arm, and the world, such as it was, fell away, leaving me in darkness.

Acquisition of the subject has been successful. We will begin analysis immediately. If Gregory is correct, and she is truly close enough to the original to be viable for our purposes, well…

I can only hope she’ll find it in her heart to forgive us for what we must do. Expect further communication as soon as possible.

—Taken from a message sent by Dr. Danika Kimberley, July 31, 2041. Recipient unknown.

Ms. Hyland is gone. All the chaperones are gone. It’s just us kids now, and I don’t know how much longer the food will last… us kids, and the soldiers outside. They don’t let us out of the building, even during the day, even if we promise to wear lots and lots of bug spray. There isn’t any hot water. Some of the soldiers are going away. I don’t know what’s going on. I just know that I’m scared. Hurry, Alaric. Please, hurry.

I don’t know how much longer this can last. But I don’t think it’s going to be long enough, if you don’t hurry.

My batteries are dying. I may not be able to write for much longer.

Hurry.

—Taken from an e-mail sent by Alisa Kwong to Alaric Kwong, July 31, 2041.

T
he drive from Berkeley to Seattle takes fourteen hours if you use major roads and avoid serious traffic. It takes twenty-three hours if you stick to back routes and frontage roads. We split the difference, risking our cover several times in order to eke out a few hundred miles on I-5 before returning to the shadows, and made it from city to city in just under nineteen hours.

We didn’t stop in Shady Cove. Tempting as it was, there was too good a chance that we were being followed—and too good a chance that if we stopped there, we’d never leave again. Dr. Abbey tried to send us to the Florida hazard zone, and we failed. Fine. Barring another way to do the same thing, she’d probably insist we stay and start looking for a way to evacuate us all to someplace that was guaranteed to stay mosquito-free.

“I hear Alaska’s nice this time of year,” I muttered.

“What’s that?” George looked up, blinking still-unfamiliar brown eyes at me in honest confusion.

“Just wondering where we could run when this is over. The mosquitoes are going to be pretty damn hard to kill.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged, returning to her study of the jamming unit. A lock of her hair—it was starting to need a trim—flopped forward, falling in front of one eye. I resisted the urge to lean over and brush it aside. Unless I was having a really crazy day, she’d just vanish if I tried to touch her, and I needed the company too much to have her leave again. Becks had been asleep in the back since we crossed the border into Washington. Without my hallucinatory sister, I would be totally alone, and I wasn’t sure how much longer my own wakefulness would last.

“What do you mean, ‘maybe’?” I asked.

“Like Dr. Abbey said, an insect vector for Kellis-Amberlee didn’t just
happen
. They’re probably the product of some lab like hers, full of scientists who think ‘I wanted to see what would happen’ is a perfectly valid justification for doing anything they want.”

“Yeah, and?”

George looked up again, brushing the hair out of her eyes with a quick, economical wave of one hand. This time, she looked almost annoyed. “Shaun. You
know
this. There’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know. Why are you pretending you need me to say it?”

“Because I’m not pretending.” I shrugged, trying to keep my attention focused on the road. I didn’t want to get so wrapped up in arguing with her that I needed to pull over; not only would that potentially attract attention, but it would annoy the hell out of Becks if she woke up before we started moving again. “Maybe you can’t tell me things I don’t know, but I
need
you to be the one who says them. That lets me believe in them.”

“You are a strange, sick little man, Shaun Mason.” George sighed. “The mosquitoes were made. Man’s creation,
just like Kellis-Amberlee. If you were going to build killer bugs to spread the zombie plague, wouldn’t you put in a little planned obsolescence?”

Despite the fact that George could only use words I knew the meaning of, I had to pause while I tried to remember what “obsolescence” meant. Sometimes it’s annoying having hallucinations that make me feel dumb. “You mean they’d be built to break down?”