Blackout

We lost over a dozen techs, Joey—people who’ve been working with me for years, people who trusted me to keep them safe. And for what? So I could learn some more things we already knew? This was my fault. Half the people who were bitten knew better than to engage the infected the way they did, but they believed the treatment I’ve been working on could protect them, and they weren’t careful enough. Looking into Laurie’s post-conversion eyes… it was enough to break my heart. Shaun Mason may hold the answer to this pandemic, but if he does, I haven’t found it yet.

I know you don’t think I should send them to Florida. I have to. We need to know what they used when they built those mosquitoes—and I need to know who built them. If I can pick apart their genetic structure, we may stand a chance in hell.

—Taken from an e-mail sent by Dr. Shannon Abbey to Dr. Joseph Shoji at the Kauai Institute of Virology, July 24, 2041.

I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I don’t know how much longer I can keep convincing my team that I can do this. I don’t know how much longer I can trust myself to keep them alive.

And I don’t know if I could live with myself if I didn’t keep trying.

We’ve been frozen here, just like we were frozen in Weed, back when the world seemed a lot less fucked up. It’s time to start moving again, and I’m terrified, and I’m so damn relieved. I don’t think I’ll be coming out of this alive. I’m going to go out there, find out what really happened to George, make sure the whole damn world knows what she died for, and then I’m going to come home, and I’m going to go to where she is. I don’t know how much longer I can do this, but that’s okay, because I’m not going to be doing it for much longer.

—From Adaptive Immunities, the blog of Shaun Mason, July 24, 2041. Unpublished.