Blackout (54 page)

“Yes,” said Dr. Shoji. “Those men and women died horribly, and they didn’t have to. That was when I realized it had to end. I stopped working on things that we didn’t need to do—and forgive me, Shaun, but finding a new way of bringing back the dead wasn’t something that needed to be a priority. We’d already done that. It didn’t work out well.”

“It’s cool,” I said.

Slowly, Becks said, “Kellis-Amberlee ‘raises the dead’ by turning the body’s electrical impulses back on. It’s
like a viral defibrillator that just keeps on working, and working, and working, until there’s nothing left to work with. If they got a clean brain scan off of Georgia after you shot her, that means her brain was turned on at the time. They took their scans off a living brain.”

Dr. Shoji nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “That’s how the technology works. It was originally intended to be a treatment for Alzheimer’s, a way of calling back memories that were still present, but had become… clouded, let’s say. Misplaced somehow. Once we realized that it could be used on the victims of Kellis-Amberlee, there was hope that we’d be able to bring them back to themselves—that memory recall could be used as a form of treatment, that, combined with antivirals and proper therapy, they could be cured.”

“So why didn’t it work?” I asked.

“The virus didn’t give up that easily. Nothing we did resulted in anything but agitation in the subjects. Some researchers, myself included, were concerned that we might actually cause the infected to become self-aware. People with rabies are aware that they’ve done horrible things. They simply can’t prevent themselves from doing them. No one wanted that with Kellis-Amberlee, and so the project was suspended.”

“Why didn’t you publish?” asked Becks.

“For the same reason the government is shooting everybody with a reservoir condition,” said Alaric. “If they let it get out that people are still thinking, no one’s going to pull the trigger. And then there won’t be anyone left to do the curing, because we’ll all be zombies.”

I frowned. “I’m not following.”

“They’re saying that once someone is infected, the virus takes over, but they’re still in there.” The engines might be soft, but they were loud enough that I hadn’t
heard George walking up until she spoke. I turned to see her standing beside me, hair still rumpled from sleep, sunglasses in her hand. She looked at Dr. Shoji and asked, “Do zombies think?”

“No,” he said. “The virus does their thinking for them, thank God, because Alaric is right. If people stop shooting because they’re afraid of committing murder, we’re all going to die. But there’s a chance—not a huge chance, but a chance—that zombies dream.”

George nodded, leaning against the seat next to me. “That’s what I thought you were going to say. How long before we land?”

“We have about an hour before we begin our initial descent into Washington D.C.,” said Dr. Shoji. “How are you feeling?”

“Exhausted. I need a Coke.”

I was never going to get tired of hearing those words. “I’ll get you one,” I said, standing. “I needed to get another coffee anyway.”

She slid into my seat, flashing me a quick, grateful smile. Then she leaned forward, posture making it clear that she was asking Dr. Shoji a question. Probably more things about zombies thinking. Whatever it was, they would fill me in later.

I walked to the self-serve kitchenette at the back of the plane, pulling a can of Coke from the refrigerator unit before pouring myself a cup of blessedly hot coffee. There were wrapped cheese and turkey sandwiches in one of the cold drawers over the coffee machine. I took down three of those—one for me, one for George, and one for the first person who asked where their sandwich was. We needed to keep our strength up if we were going to go take on the United States government. Which was, by the way, insane.

You should know
, said George.

I didn’t reply. It felt weird, trying to reject that little inner voice when it was the only thing that had kept me even halfway functional in the months following the real Georgia’s death, but I couldn’t have them both, and given the choice, I’d take the George I could share with other people. That made her real. I needed real. I needed real to anchor me to the world, because otherwise I was going to slip right over the edge.

Going all the way crazy seemed a lot less appealing now than it had a few weeks ago. I used to view a total break with reality as a sort of psychological permission to spend the rest of my life—however long or short it happened to be—with George, and maybe even be happy. Having a living, breathing woman with her face made me admit that it wouldn’t make me happy. The George in my head wasn’t the real thing. Neither was the clone, if you wanted to get technical, but I’ve never been a technical guy. I needed Georgia in my life. I chose the one who was sitting in the cabin, waiting for her Coke.

Alaric had come around surprisingly quickly, after he finished yelling at us for not keeping him updated while we were in Seattle. Typical Newsie; he was less upset about the CDC raising the dead than he was about us not sending him regular reports. He’d spent about half an hour quizzing George on everything he could think of while Becks and I were getting us packed to go. She must have passed, because when he was done, he’d looked at me, said, “It’s her,” and started listening to her like she’d never died in the first place. If only it was going to be that easy for everyone.

“What did I miss?” I asked, walking back over to the group. George stuck her hand out as soon as I was close
enough. I passed her the Coke and a sandwich, and was rewarded with a brief smile. She was wearing her sunglasses again, even though she didn’t technically need them. We were all frankly more comfortable that way.

“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.