Blackout

Seven

Dr. Shaw’s tests were actually soothing, despite the partial nudity and the being touched by strangers. She was calm and professional, leading her team with an unwavering precision that gave them a degree of serenity I hadn’t previously encountered at the CDC. Everyone else I’d dealt with had been uneasy when forced to come into direct contact with my skin, like being a clone was somehow catching. Dr. Shaw’s assistants showed no such discomfort. They affixed their sensors without hesitation, even peeling them loose and sticking them back down in new configurations. It was so matter-of-fact and impersonal that it was almost wonderful.

I didn’t realize I was starting to drift off until Dr. Shaw cleared her throat and said, “It would help us measure your waking brain wave patterns if you would do us the favor of remaining awake while they’re being recorded.”

“Oh.” I opened my eyes, offering her a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s understandable. You’ve been through a great deal. Still, the cause of science must take precedence over comfort.” She leaned forward to affix a sensor to my forehead. Her lips almost brushed my ear as she murmured, barely audible even at that range, “The locks will be reset tonight at midnight. You can answer many of your questions then, if you’re quick about it.”

Pulling back before I could react, she pressed the edges of the sensor down and said, “Begin the next phase, James, if you would be so kind.” One of her assistants nodded. Dr. Shaw turned away, attention seemingly fixed on the machine in front of her.

Right. Information exchange time was over, at least for the moment. Her words had definitely had one effect, at least—there was no way I was going to start nodding off again.

All the tests I’d been through since I’d woken up had been different. That was unusual, all by itself. Blood tests, muscle memory response tests, even psychological exams performed by people who didn’t seem to understand the questions, much less the answers I was giving. The medical teams changed constantly, and each was directed by a different administrator. So what did that mean, exactly? What were they looking for that didn’t require a single supervising doctor to find?

Dr. Shaw was the first to outright admit to measuring my brain waves. I was reasonably sure she wasn’t the first one to do it. The chance to study a cloned brain that was actually functional and responsive had to be irresistible to them—and despite my fervent wish to believe otherwise, I knew my brain was as cloned as the rest of me. Nothing else made sense. When the virus went live in my original bloodstream, it attacked the brain with a ferocity unequaled by any naturally occurring pathogen. I’d been able to feel my memories eroding as I typed up the final entry on my blog. If they’d placed my infected old brain in my clean new clone body, I would have gone straight into amplification, and all their hard work would have been for nothing.

I watched the colored lines representing my brain’s activity spike and tangle on the monitor across from me. None of them made a damn bit of sense. I never studied medicine, beyond the first aid required for field certification. Mahir might have been able to decode the peaks and valleys, turning them into comprehensible data. Mahir wasn’t with me.

One of Dr. Shaw’s assistants was trying to peel the sensor from my left biceps. I lifted my arm, tightening the muscle to give him more traction. He shot me a relieved look. “Thanks,” he said. “This bio-adhesive can be tricky.”

“What is it?” I asked, half from sincere curiosity, and half to keep him talking to me. It’s easier to get information from people who think you’re interested in the same things they are.

“Slime mold,” said the assistant. He sounded happy about it, too.

“Oh,” I said, unable to quite mask my dismay. Then again, I was the one who had living goo smeared on something like fifteen percent of her skin. I think I was allowed a little dismay. “That’s… special. What happens to it when you’re done with me?”

“We’ll dust it with a powder that makes it go dormant, and then just roll it off your skin,” he said. “Can you relax your arm for me?”

“Sure.” I let my arm drop back to its original position. He attached the sensor to the inside of my elbow. “I guess that makes sense. No residue, no medical waste…”

“It’s self-cleaning, so even if it gets bloody, it’s safe to use again after eight hours. It also reacts to the presence of live virus.”

“Really?” I asked, blinking. “How?”

“It tries to ooze away.”

This time, I couldn’t suppress my shudder. Several alarms went off on the machines connected to the various sensors, earning me dirty looks from a few of the assistants. “Sorry!” I said.

“George, please refrain from making the subject wiggle,” said Dr. Shaw, not looking away from the monitor she was studying.

The assistant—George—reddened. “Sorry, Dr. Shaw.”

I waited for him to get the sensor on my elbow firmly seated, then asked, “So you’re another George, huh? The original form?”

“George R. Stewart,” he replied. “And yes, the ‘R’ stands for ‘Romero.’ My parents were grateful, not creative.”

“Georgia, here,” I said. “One of my best friends was a Georgette.”

“Georgette Meissonier, right?” George caught my startled expression and reddened again. “I, um. I’m a big fan of your work. Your last post was… it was amazing. I’ve never read anything like it.”

I wasn’t sure whether I should feel flattered or embarrassed. I wound up mixing both reactions as I said awkwardly, “Oh. So you know the part where I’m dead.”

“The dead have been walking for a quarter century.” He moved to my other side, adjusting another sensor. Dr. Shaw’s other assistants all seemed to have machines to tend, leaving George with the dubious honor of working with the living equipment. Me, and the slime mold. “I’m glad you’re back. If anyone deserves to be back…”

“Let’s hope the rest of the world feels the same way when I start doing the celebrity blog circuit,” I said, putting a lilt in my tone to show that I was joking. I wasn’t joking.

“They’re waiting for you,” he said, cheeks getting redder still. He stopped talking after that, focusing all the more intently on the sensors he was shifting. I blinked a little, watching him. I’d expected a lot of reactions. That wasn’t one of them. My last post… it made me another name on The Wall, but that was all, wasn’t it?

Wasn’t it?

The idea that I’d become some sort of symbol worried me. I’m a realist. I’ve been a realist since the day I looked at the Masons—who’d been Mommy and Daddy until that moment—and realized that Shaun was right, and they didn’t love us.

I’d already known the CDC was never going to let me go. Whatever they brought me back for—blackmail or science project or just because I was the most convenient corpse when they decided to prove they could do it for real—it wasn’t going to include opening the doors and telling me to go on my merry way. I was a prisoner. I was a test subject. I was, in a very real way, as much a piece of lab equipment as the machines that I was connected to. The only difference was that the machines couldn’t resent the fact that they had no choice in their own existence.

And if I was a symbol, I was also a weapon, whether I wanted to be one or not.

“Are any of them pinching you?” asked George.

“No,” I said, resisting the urge to shake my head. I didn’t want to trigger any more alarms if I didn’t have to. “I think we’re good to continue.”

“We’re almost done,” he said, and offered one more awkward, almost worshipful smile before moving away.

The remainder of the tests passed without incident. More living slime was applied to my limbs and torso, sometimes by George, sometimes by one of the other assistants; more sensors were attached or moved, allowing Dr. Shaw’s equipment to record a detailed image of everything going on inside me. I resisted the urge to spend the whole time staring at the monitors. I didn’t understand them. All I could do was upset myself more by watching them.

I’d almost managed to drift off again when the assistants began pulling the sensor pads off, letting George sprinkle what looked—and smelled—like baby powder on the sticky green residue the sensors left behind. True to his word, the green stuff rolled into tight little balls, which he scraped off me with the edge of his hand, gathering it all into one gooey-looking mass.

“Please don’t forget to feed the slime mold,” said Dr. Shaw, moving to disconnect the sensors at my temples. “I have no desire to listen to a week of complaints because we have to culture ourselves a new colony.”

“Yes, Dr. Shaw,” said George, and hurried off with his handful of inert green goop. Most of the other assistants followed him, leaving me alone with Dr. Shaw and Kathleen, the assistant who had initially brought me my currently discarded robe. She was holding it again, face a mask of patience as she waited for Dr. Shaw to finish freeing me from their equipment.

“Kathleen, what is our time situation?” asked Dr. Shaw, working a thumbnail under one of the sensors on my forehead. Either these had been pressed down harder, or they’d used a particularly robust batch of slime mold to glue them to my head and neck; it felt like she was trying to chip her way through concrete.

“We have fifteen minutes remaining in your original research appointment,” said Kathleen serenely. “We have ninety-three seconds of previously untransmitted sensor data, which James is now feeding through the main uplink. It will remain unquestioned for approximately fifty-four more seconds.”

I was still blinking at her in confusion when Dr. Shaw nodded, said, “Good,” and ripped the recalcitrant sensor from my forehead. I yelped, clapping a hand over the stinging patch it left behind. Dr. Shaw watched me, calm appraisal in her eyes. “Are you paying attention?”

“Yes!” I gasped, half glaring at her. “I was paying attention before you tried to scalp me!”

“There will be an accident with the building’s EMP shield tonight, at six minutes past midnight. The shift change will have occurred an hour previous, and you will have a thirty-minute window before anyone realizes they’ve lost the visual feed to your quarters.” The certainty in her voice told me this wasn’t the first time she’d had to give this little spiel. “Your contact will come to collect you. There’s something we feel you need to see.”

“Eleven seconds,” said Kathleen.

“Do you understand?” asked Dr. Shaw.

I understood that they’d obviously timed this little window of stolen security so as to leave me no room for asking questions. “Yes,” I said. “I understand.”

“Good.”

“Four seconds.”

Dr. Shaw bent to remove the last sensor from the underside of my jaw. This time, her fingers were gentle, and the slime mold let go without resistance. The professional chill was back in her eyes as she stepped back, saying, “You may get dressed now. We appreciate your cooperation.”

“Yeah, well, you’re welcome,” I said, standing. My legs were surprisingly shaky; I’d either been sitting still for longer than I thought, or there was some form of muscle relaxant engineered into their adhesive slime. Possibly both. Kathleen passed me the robe, and I leaned against the side of the chair to shrug it back on. Being clothed didn’t make me feel any better. As the tests Dr. Shaw and her team had been running proved, I was always naked here. What difference did fabric make when these people could look inside my body, and understand it in ways that I didn’t?

Kathleen and Dr. Shaw waited as I got my balance back. “Better?” asked Dr. Shaw.

“I think so.”

“Good. Make yourself decent; I’ll go unseal the door before Dr. Thomas decides to knock it down.” She almost smiled as she turned and walked away from us, her heels clacking against the floor.

“This way,” said Kathleen, motioning for me to follow her—in case, I supposed, I had somehow managed to forget where I left the screen that was protecting my flimsy CDC-issue pajamas… and the gun Gregory had somehow managed to smuggle to me. That was the last thing I was going to forget.

Becoming a licensed journalist requires passing basic gun safety and marksmanship exams; even if you’re planning to do nothing but sit at home typing to an anonymous audience, having the phrase “accredited journalist” after your name means having a carry permit. Becoming a licensed field journalist, like I am—like I was—means taking a lot more exams, and learning how to handle a lot more varieties of weapon. I never shared Shaun’s interest in the more esoteric firearms. The basics suited me just fine, and I’d been carrying at least one gun at pretty much all times since I got my first permit. I was twelve that summer. Knowing that I had a gun again, that I had a means of protecting myself if I needed it… that made a lot of difference. The robe didn’t make me feel any less naked. The gun would.

Kathleen waited outside the screen while I went behind it and put my pajamas back on. The small plastic gun tucked easily into the top of my right sock, not even creating a noticeable bulge once my pants were on. As long as I could act natural, Dr. Thomas would never know that it was there. That was probably what Gregory was counting on.

Gregory, and the EIS. There was no way Dr. Shaw wasn’t working for them, and if she was one of theirs, her assistants probably were, too. Definitely Kathleen; no one who was loyal to the CDC would have stood there calmly counting down our privacy window. Not unless she was a double agent hidden in the EIS, and that idea was too James Bond for me to worry about, since there was nothing I could do if it was true. The CDC had been infiltrated. The EIS might not be the good guys by any objective measure, but given the choices I had in front of me, I was going to go with the team that gave me firearms and told me Shaun wasn’t dead.

Dr. Thomas and the guards were standing just inside the lab when I emerged. His eyes widened at the sight of me, and then narrowed. “What have you done to her hair?” he demanded, attention swinging back toward Dr. Shaw.

She watched him with cool, if evident, amusement, and said, “It was interfering with the placement of my sensors. As none of the tests scheduled for the remainder of the month required uncut hair, I thought it best to eliminate the issue in the most efficient manner possible. Is there a problem?”

“No, but…” Dr. Thomas stopped, obviously torn as to how to complete that sentence. Finally, looking almost sullen, he said, “You should have consulted with me before cutting her hair. Sudden changes to her environment can be stressful at this stage in her recovery.”

Dr. Shaw’s laugh was surprisingly light and delicate, like it belonged to someone much younger and less put together. “Oh, come now, Matthew. You can’t really expect me to believe that you consider a haircut a sudden change in her environment. I understand the necessity of controlling all variable factors while she gets her strength back, but no sensible young woman would take something this simple and medically necessary as a new source of stress.”

“I like it,” I contributed, before Dr. Thomas could say anything else. He turned to frown at me as I made my way across the lab to where he was waiting for me. “It’s going to be a lot easier to brush. I’ve never tried to deal with long hair before.”

“I suppose the convenience will make up for the aesthetic failings,” he said stiffly.

I frowned. I couldn’t stop myself, and quite frankly, I didn’t want to. “This is the length I prefer my hair to be,” I said. “The only ‘aesthetic failing’ is that I keep taking bleach showers without access to hair dye. I’m going to wind up blonde if this keeps up much longer, and that’s not a good look for me.”

“We all have our trials in this life,” said Dr. Shaw. “Georgia, thank you for your cooperation today. You were very easy for us to work with, and I appreciate it.”

“No problem, Dr. Shaw,” I said. “It was my pleasure.”

“It’s time for us to go, Georgia,” said Dr. Thomas. There was an edge to his voice that I normally heard only when I was pushing for privileges he didn’t want to give. My curious look just seemed to fluster him. He scowled, cheeks reddening. “It’s time to go,” he repeated.

“Okay,” I said, trying to look unconcerned as I followed him out the door. He hadn’t put the handcuffs back on me, and with every step, it became a little harder not to panic. I’d been so sure I could get the gun back to my room without getting caught, but now… now…

I made it to the hall without either of the guards so much as batting an eye. I’d done it. Maybe not forever—maybe not even until the next day—but I’d done it. I had a weapon, and I was loose in the halls of the CDC. For one brief, drunken moment, I fantasized about opening fire and running like hell, heading for the nearest exit and never looking back. It would never have worked. It would have been a poor way to repay Dr. Shaw and Gregory for arming me. But God, I wanted to do it.

The only thing that stopped me was knowing that Shaun really was alive, somewhere. If I ran, they’d shoot me. I was smart enough to know that. And then Shaun would be alone again, in a world where people would do this sort of thing to a girl who’d been innocently going about the business of being dead. He needed to be warned. I needed to survive long enough to be the one who warned him. They could make another Georgia Mason if I didn’t survive… but I wanted it to be me. Not some other girl who shared my memories. Me.

Dr. Thomas scowled all the way back to my room. He didn’t say a word, and neither did the guards. Once we were there, he slapped his palm against the exterior sensor to open my door, and spoke his first words since we left the lab: “Do you need to use the lavatory?”

“Not right now,” I said. “I am hungry, though.”

“Your diet is still restricted, but I’ll see about having some soup sent.” His eyes flicked to my hair, expression hardening. “You may have to wait. I recognize that you have little experience with waiting.”

“I didn’t ask her to cut my hair,” I said, too annoyed by the way he was looking at me to watch what I was saying. “She did it so she could get the sensors to stay on. Sensors she glued down with slime mold, mind you. I think I’ve paid for this haircut.”

“I’m sure you didn’t argue with her either, Georgia. If you don’t need to use the facilities, you can enter your room now.”

“Thank you,” I said sourly, and kept my head up as I walked inside. The door slid shut behind me, leaving me with the appearance of solitude. It was a lie—it was always a lie. I was being watched, possibly even by Dr. Thomas, who could be standing on the other side of that stupid mirror for all that I knew. I never thought I’d miss my fucked-up eyes. Then I died, and I learned that there are things a lot worse than needing to wear sunglasses all the time. Things like being spied on, knowing you’re being spied on, and not being able to do a damn thing about it.

Lacking anything else to do to distract myself, I climbed into bed. Eventually, the lights were dimmed. I closed my eyes, feigning sleep, and waited.

False sleep turned into the real thing at some point. I awoke to the sound of the door sliding open. Sitting bolt upright, I squinted into the glare from the hall, trying to make out the figure standing there. Even shading my eyes with my hand couldn’t turn him into anything more than an outline.

“It’s all right, Georgia,” said a familiar voice—Gregory. He motioned for me to get up, the gesture clear even without fine details. “Come on. If you want to understand what’s really going on here, you need to come with me.”

“I’m coming,” I said. Taking a breath to steady my nerves, I slid out of the bed and walked to the door, where the chance to get my answers was waiting.