Blackout (37 page)

W
e left the Brainpan and returned to the Agora. Breaking into the CDC in broad daylight would take a stupid plan and render it actively suicidal—not something I was in a hurry to do, all indications to the contrary aside. Besides, even if it had been full dark, I would have insisted on going back to the resort. There was no way we were going to take Maggie into the field with us. Not for something like this.

She was silent during the drive, almost shrinking in on herself as she listened to Becks and Mahir arguing about the best ways to bypass CDC security. She’d been a part of this team almost from the beginning, but that time was coming to an end, and we all knew it. When this was over, if she was still alive, she wouldn’t be one of us anymore.

I parked the van in the Agora garage and twisted around to face her. “Maggie, I—”

It was too late. She was already out of the van and on her way to the airlock door. I froze where I was, not sure what I was supposed to do.

“Let her go.”

For a moment, I thought the voice was Georgia’s. Then I lifted my head and saw Becks looking at me.

“She’s made her choice. That doesn’t mean she feels good about herself. Let her go. We can talk to her when we get back.”

If we get back
, said George.

“Yeah,” I said, answering them both, and unfastened my seat belt.

We didn’t talk as we followed Maggie’s path to the airlock. The lobby was empty when we arrived. Somehow, that wasn’t much of a surprise. We didn’t discuss our next move. We just split up, each of us heading for our own room to do whatever it was we had to do in order to feel like we were ready. If you can ever feel ready for something like this.

Becks and I hadn’t had much time to get unpacked—or much with us to unpack—but there was enough that it took me about fifteen minutes to get everything together, double-checking the ammo in every gun and the straps on every holster. I even retied my boots. It never hurts to be overprepared. Then I stopped, looking at the empty room, and closed my eyes.

“This is all I’m going to leave behind,” I said aloud. “No apartment. No belongings. No family. Just a hotel room that won’t remember me tomorrow.”

“I’ll remember you.” Georgia’s hand on my shoulder was gentle. I started to turn toward her. “Shhh. Don’t open your eyes. Just come with me.” She tugged me to the bed, pushing on my shoulder until I sat. “Now you’re going to get some rest.”

“George—”

“Don’t argue. You don’t do well on sleep dep. You never have. Now, go to sleep. You have hours to kill before the sun goes down.”

She was right. I knew she was right, just like I knew she wasn’t there; she was the part of my mind that gave a damn about keeping the rest of me alive. I still took an unimaginable amount of comfort from the feeling of her hand on my shoulder as I fell backward on the bed, eyes still closed, gear still on, and let myself drift off into sleep.

My dreams were full of screaming. I saw my team die half a dozen times, in half a dozen ways. Oddly, that helped, because every time I saw one of them get killed, I saw something else that wouldn’t work for getting us into the building alive. We were going to need to be careful, and quick, and never hesitate.

The light in the room was dimmer when I finally opened my eyes. George was gone, but that didn’t matter; she’d be back, and soon. She always came back.

I went to the bathroom, splashed some water on my face, and then began the final preparations to depart. I was loading my pockets with clips when a speaker hidden somewhere in the room chimed, and the voice of the Agora said, “Mr. Mason, I apologize for the interruption, but Mr. Gowda has been trying to reach you for the past fifteen minutes. I didn’t want to wake you. Will you accept the call?”

“If I don’t, he’ll probably wind up coming down here to yell at me,” I said, still working. “Hell, I’m surprised he hasn’t already. I’ll take it.”

“Thank you.” The Agora went silent, followed by another chime.

“Shaun?” It was Mahir this time, sounding worried. Business as usual, in other words.

“Hey, Mahir. What’s up? Aren’t you like, three doors down? This takes ‘lazy’ to a new level, don’t you think? Then again, I just spent the whole day asleep, so
who am I to talk?” I couldn’t fit any more clips in my pockets. That was a bummer. I picked up my tablet, clipping it to my belt. There was one nice thing about this particular suicide mission: We’d downloaded floor plans for all the major CDC installations as part of our research weeks ago, right before we followed Kelly into the Memphis office and got her killed. Seattle was a major enough office that we had pretty good blueprints. It didn’t show any secret tunnels, but it had the public areas. At least we wouldn’t be lost while we were rushing off to our deaths.

There was a time when that thought would have made me uneasy, rather than reassuring me. It’s amazing what has become comforting since the start of the Ryman campaign.

“Alaric tried to get in touch with me.”

My head snapped up. No one respects radio silence like a Newsie. It’s practically one of their sacred creeds, right alongside “protecting your sources” and “off the record.” “Did he say why?”

“No, and that’s why I’m concerned. The message he left was basically ‘you know this matters, or I wouldn’t be doing it,’ over and over. I already tried dialing one of his burn phones.”

“And?”

“There’s no response. I’ve left a message and sent an e-mail to one of Dr. Abbey’s encrypted addresses, but—”

“Do you want to stay here and keep trying to reach him while Becks and I go to the CDC?”

“What? No.” Mahir actually sounded offended. “I didn’t come this far to be left sitting on the stands when things are finally getting interesting. I do intend to return to my career once I’m no longer a wanted
fugitive, and the more I can learn, the better my prospects will be.”

“You’re a natural-born snoop, Mahir,” I said, and picked up my pack. “You ready to blow this taco stand?”

“Have you ever even
seen
a taco stand?”

“Sure. There was one right next to campus. Are you ready to
go
, Mahir?”

He sighed, attempts at levity dismissed in an instant. “Yes. Much as I’m afraid of what’s to come, I rather do believe I am.”

“Good. Meet me in the hall.”

“Shall do.” There was no dial tone, but something about shape of the silence filling the room told me that he’d hung up. I slung my pack over my shoulder and turned to head for the door. I didn’t look back. There was nothing there to see.

Becks’s room was between Mahir’s and mine. I had barely finished knocking when her door swung open. “Yes, Mason?” she asked.

“You ready to go?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be. I’ve been waiting on you.” She was dressed almost exactly like I was: a charcoal-gray T-shirt, camouflage pants, combat boots, and way too many weapons to be on her way to a tea party. Her hair was slicked back in a tight, no-nonsense ponytail. This wasn’t an expedition intended to be filmed and sold by the download. This was serious work.

She raised an eyebrow at my assessing look.

“Something wrong?”

“No. Just thinking how much it sucks that we can’t post any of this.”

Her grin was sudden, the flash of white teeth there and gone almost before it had fully registered. “Someday this story is going to make us legends.”

“Only if it doesn’t make us dead,” I shot back, and then winced, waiting for Georgia to say something. She didn’t. I wasn’t sure whether that was a good sign or not.

Becks looked at me with concern. She’d clearly seen the wince, and was waiting to see what it was going to mean. “Boss?”

“I’m good. Come on.” I turned to head for the elevator, waving for her to follow me. With barely a moment of hesitation, she did.

Mahir met us in the elevator lobby. “Are we ready?” he asked.

“That is a question for the sages, not for us, Mahir,” I said. “But we’re going either way, so what the fuck does it matter, right?”

He took that answer in stride. None of us said anything as we got into the elevator and rode down to the lobby. The concierge smiled at us politely, like journalists stormed through his hotel every day. I waved, and we walked on, to the van.

I had unlocked the doors and was about to get inside when Becks caught my elbow, saying urgently, “The jammer.”

“… shit.” If the Masons could use that thing to track us—still unproven, but still likely—then so could other people. The Monkey’s people had known we had it. That made it a liability if we were going somewhere sensitive, like, say, the CDC. “Got a hammer?”

“I’ve got a better idea.” She picked up the jammer, dropping her backpack on the passenger seat, and turned to walk back toward the hotel.

I blinked. “Mahir? You want to logic that one out for me?”

“The concierge is supposed to be the hotel’s private
on-call miracle worker,” said Mahir, hoisting himself into one of the rear seats. “Presumably, she’s gone to ask him if he has access to an industrial-grade furnace of some sort.”

“Rich people are weird,” I said, and got into the van.

Becks returned about five minutes later, looking smugly pleased. She hopped into her seat, pushing her backpack to the floor, and slammed the door before announcing, “The staff of the Agora is more than happy to dismantle any unwanted professional equipment we may have, and can promise the utmost discretion in the destruction of the individual components.”

“Is there anything money
can’t
buy?” I asked.

Immortality
, said George.

I grimaced and started the van.

The Seattle branch of the CDC wasn’t technically in Seattle at all; it was across the lake, in Redmond. The facility was located on part of what used to be the main Microsoft campus, before the Rising demonstrated every possible flaw in their architecture. The CDC bought the site when the rebuilding of the area was getting underway; it was viewed as a major coup, since at the time, having a CDC installation nearby was seen almost as a magical talisman against further infection. That hasn’t changed much in the last twenty years. People would rather live near the CDC than in areas with good schools or excellent hospitals. The CDC will keep the zombies away.

I chuckled as I drove, largely because laughter stood a chance of keeping me from screaming. Becks kept herself busy cleaning and double-checking her guns, while Mahir monitored the GPS. The only conversation consisted of directions, given quietly and with calm efficiency, like we were going to be graded on
how fast we got there. The Cat’s instructions included the location of a secure parking garage formerly connected to a grocery store. The store was long gone, but the garage remained, free-standing and abandoned. With the CDC so close, regular patrols checked the area for signs of zombie infestation. We’d be safe there, as long as the roof didn’t collapse on us.

No one was in sight as we turned off the road and into a back alley that led to the old employee entrance to the parking garage. I parked in the darkest corner I could find, despite the fact that every instinct I had told me to avoid those shadows. Our headlights didn’t catch any motion. I still signaled for the others to stay quiet as I turned off the engine. It ticked for a few seconds before stilling into silence.

Nothing moaned or shuffled in the darkness. We were alone. “Clear,” I said.

“This place gives me the creeps,” complained Becks. “Is there a reason we keep winding up in places that should have stayed in their horror movies?”

“I guess I just know how to show a girl a good time.” I opened my door, sliding out of the van. My boots crunched on the broken glass and gravel covering the pavement.

“Then what are you showing me?” asked Mahir.

“I’m not sexist. I can show a guy a good time, too.” I looked between them. “You all cool?”

“I’m cool,” confirmed Becks.

“I haven’t been ‘cool’ since arriving in this godforsaken hellhole you persist in claiming is a civilized nation. I am, however, ready to go violate a few more laws,” said Mahir. “I believe at this point we’re simply waiting on you.”

I’m ready when you are
, said George.

“I thought you were supposed to keep me out of trouble,” I said, not caring that Becks and Mahir would hear me. We were long past the point where I could get any mileage out of pretending not to be crazy.

I gave up
.

“Well, folks, even the girl who lives in my head says it’s time to go, so we’d better get moving. According to the directions, we have a quarter-mile to go before we even hit the fence.”

“Which means total silence and trying not to fall into any unexpected holes,” said Becks dryly. “This
isn’t
my first rodeo.”

“No, but it’s mine, so I appreciate the repetition,” said Mahir. “Is the fence likely to be electrified?”

“Yes, but that’s what these are for.” I held up a pair of rubber clips. “They’ll bridge the current and let us cut through the wire. We’ll have to leave them behind when we run, but at least we’ll be
able
to run.”

Mahir eyed the bridgers. “Buffy’s work?”

“Dave’s.” I smiled a little. “He’d love this shit.”

“He’d already be halfway to the fence,” said Becks.

“Whereas we still need to get moving,” said Mahir. “Is there anything else I should know about the area?”

“Lots of blackberries, very little ground security according to the Cat’s schematics; they don’t patrol all that much. Once we’re inside—”

“We run, we keep our heads down, and we pray.”

“I do love it when you have a concrete plan, instead of making it up as you go along,” said Becks dryly. She pulled a pistol from her belt. “Let’s move.”

The Seattle night seemed surprisingly bright after the darkness of the parking garage, the moon and the distant glow of streetlights providing more than sufficient light. Mahir lagged at first, but found a pace that
kept him between me and Becks, all three of us tromping over the broken ground as quickly and quietly as we could.

The quarter-mile between the van and the CDC was mostly open fields. We hunched over as we crossed them, running low through the tall grass. No floodlights came on to mark our trails, and no alarms went off that we could hear. Arrogance was working in our favor once again—the CDC’s, not ours. They’d been heroes since the Rising, and anyone who tried breaking into one of their installations wound up on trial for treason, if they were lucky. We’d always come in via legitimate entrances, whether we were supposed to be there or not. It had been so long since their external security was tested that they weren’t prepared for a small group of people who really wanted to get inside.