Blackout

Eleven

Dr. Thomas smiled indulgently across the table separating us. “Now, Georgia, I know things have been very stressful for you these past few weeks—”

“Boredom and stress aren’t the same thing,” I said. “You can check the dictionary if you want. I’ll wait.”

He made a note on his tablet. “Inappropriate humor is a defense mechanism, isn’t it?”

“No, Shaun was a defense mechanism. Since he’s not here, I have to fill in.” I took a breath, trying to look miserable. It wasn’t easy. I’ve never had to worry about what my eyes were doing. People say the eyes are windows to the soul, and I was accustomed to having blackout curtains over mine. Without my retinal KA, they might be giving me away without my even knowing it. “Are you ever going to tell me what happened?”

“When your system is ready to stand the stress,” said Dr. Thomas, making another note on his tablet. “Dr. Shaw says you were very cooperative with her tests, and confirms your story about the haircut. I’m sorry to have doubted you.”

“Yeah, well.” I shrugged, trying to look frustrated and innocent at the same time. The frustration was easy. The innocence wasn’t. “I’ve never been much of a liar.”

That little dig hit home; Dr. Thomas winced. I made my reputation as a Newsie based on my refusal to lie—a refusal that got me fined several times early in my career, when I was found in places I wasn’t supposed to be and couldn’t come up with an even half-decent excuse for what I was doing there. I never got better at making excuses. I just got better at refusing to let Shaun talk me into climbing over fences marked NO TRESPASSING.

My memories of those early escapades were fuzzy, like I’d reviewed them so many times that the edges had begun to blur. A lot of my earlier memories were like that, and had been since I’d woken up. I’d been trying to figure out what that meant. Given what Gregory had shown me the night before, I was pretty sure I finally knew.

The memories weren’t fuzzy because the things I remembered happened a long time ago, or because there was a glitch in the process that transferred my consciousness into a freshly cloned body. The memories were fuzzy because the things I remembered never happened at all—not to me, anyway. I was “remembering” an implanted incident extracted from the mind of a dead woman. A certain loss of fidelity was only to be expected.

Somehow, knowing that I wasn’t really who I thought I was—knowing that Georgia Mason was dead and gone and never coming back—made dealing with Dr. Thomas easier. I don’t like lying. I’ve never liked lying. And when I was myself, I wasn’t any good at it. Now that I was someone else who just thought she was me, it seemed like a skill worth developing. I wasn’t compromising my values. I was creating my values, and compromising the values of a dead woman.

And maybe if I told myself that enough times, I’d convince myself to believe it.

Finally, Dr. Thomas cleared his throat, and said, “Your test results have been good so far. I believe you may be stabilizing.”

“Bully for me.”

“The people who have been monitoring your case remotely are very encouraged. You’re getting high marks.”

After Gregory’s revelation that I was being used as a display model, that announcement made me want to start smashing things. I forced the urge back down, asking coldly, “Will any of these people be coming to see me in person?”

Dr. Thomas smiled, chuckling in practiced amusement. It was so at odds with his generally nervous demeanor that it made me want to slap him and send him to acting classes at the same time. “Vice President Cousins is too busy to come to the CDC for social calls, even when he’s calling on an old friend.”

I sat up a little straighter, old journalistic instincts locking my shoulders tight as his words sunk in. “Vice President? Rick? My Rick? From After the End Times?”

“Ah…” Dr. Thomas looked suddenly uncomfortable, realizing he’d said more than he should have. “Yes. Governor Tate was another unfortunate casualty of the incident which claimed your… I mean to say, the incident that resulted in your untimely…” He stopped, looking even more uncomfortable.

“Death?” I suggested. “Murder? Martyrdom? I always wanted to be a martyr.” That was my second lie for the day. I never wanted to be a martyr. I wanted to live long enough to bury Shaun, however long that happened to be, and I wanted to die in my time, and on my own terms.

“Yes.” Dr. Thomas nodded, looking relieved. “After the governor’s death, President Ryman selected your colleague to stand with him. He said it was the least he could do to honor your memory, and to show the blogging community that it would still have a voice.”

My shoulders tightened. He said “blogging community” the way most people would say “dead rat.” Choosing my words carefully, I asked, “So Ryman won the election?”

“By a good margin. The events in Sacramento, unfortunate as they were, only provided his campaign with additional exposure.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they did.” What happened in Sacramento would have given Ryman’s campaign virtual domination over the news cycles, regardless of what his opposition did to try to force themselves back into the picture. As long as Ryman himself made it out alive, he’d been all but guaranteed the White House. “Can you let Rick know I’d like to see him?”

“I’ll pass the word, but the vice president is a very busy man.”

I’m sure you will, I thought. Aloud, I said, “Thank you. It would be nice to have someone to talk to. I’m going a little stir-crazy in here.”

“I understand, but, Georgia, things have changed since your death. Your face is very well known in the outside world, and even some of our personnel are… uncomfortable… about the implications of your presence. I’m sure you can see where it would be bad for everyone if someone assumed you had amplified because they were aware of your current legal status.”

“Right.” I forced a smile. From the look on Dr. Thomas’s face, I could tell that it didn’t look any more genuine than it felt. Given the circumstances, that was probably okay. There was no way the comment about “current legal status” was intended as anything but a warning: He was telling me I was still listed as deceased in all the government databases that mattered, and that if someone shot me, they wouldn’t be guilty of murder. They’d be acting within the law.

Life was easier when I was dead.

Dr. Thomas stood. “Now, if you’d come with me, we’ve prepared a little treat for you.”

“A treat?” The gun in my sock pressed reassuringly against my calf as I stood, reminding me that whatever else I might be, I was no longer defenseless. Sure, I’d be lucky if I could take out more than one of them before they were on top of me, and that assumed that my memory of knowing how to fire a gun could overcome the fact that my new body had no muscle memory, but there was a chance. That was more than I’d had before. I was going to hang on to it with everything I had.

“Come with me.” Dr. Thomas turned and walked toward the door, confident that it would open at his approach. It did, of course, sliding smoothly aside to reveal the hallway. Envy burned my throat as I walked after him. The doors wouldn’t respond to me. I walked toward them and they stayed stubbornly closed, like I was infected.

Like I was still dead.

The ever-present guards were waiting outside the lab. They fell into position ahead and behind us. We walked the length of the familiar hall, passing the doors I was accustomed to stepping through. I was starting to get worried—maybe this whole thing had been a test; maybe Gregory was working for the CDC after all, and I’d failed by going along with his grand conspiracy theory—when Dr. Thomas finally stopped. The lead guard did the same.

“Here we are,” said Dr. Thomas. He touched the apparently featureless wall. A piece of paneling slid aside to reveal a blood test unit. “Georgia. You understand that this is a privilege, and that any inappropriate behavior on your part will result in your being sternly reprimanded.”

I didn’t want to think about what a reprimand might constitute, given that I already lived in a small, isolated box with no privacy. “I understand,” I said.

“Good. I told them we could trust you to be cooperative.” Dr. Thomas slapped his hand down on the blood testing unit. The light above the door clicked on, going from red to green, and the door swung open. Swung—not slid.

Light lanced into the hall, so bright it seemed almost like a physical attack. I automatically moved to shield my eyes, the part of my brain that handled reflexes kicking in before my conscious mind realized my retinas weren’t burning. I slowly forced my arm down, raising my head and squinting into the brightness.

Sunlight. It was sunlight. I could smell green things, the sharp bitterness of tomato plants, the sweet bland scent of grass. I started hesitantly forward, my feet carrying me almost without consulting the rest of my body. The guards followed me, but at a distance, giving me a few meters of space as I moved out of the antiseptic CDC hall, and into the green.

I’ve never been an outdoorsy person. Shaun used to say the only reason I ever left my room was to yell at him for doing dangerous shit. He wasn’t entirely right, but he wasn’t entirely wrong, either. And stepping through that door was still just shy of stepping into Heaven.

It wasn’t the actual outdoors; a quick glance upward was enough to confirm that I was actually in a moderately sized biodome, with a ceiling of steel and clear, bulletproof glass protecting me from any chance of feeling an actual breeze. I was standing in a lie. A big green lie, filled with flower beds and vegetable gardens and an expanse of grass even bigger than our yard in Berkeley. I didn’t care. In that moment, the lie was as good as the truth would have been, because I was standing in the green, and there were butterflies—butterflies—fluttering past like it was no big deal. Like there were green things and butterflies everywhere in the world.

“What is this?” I asked, turning back to Dr. Thomas. My eyes were burning; that weird tingling burn that I was learning to recognize as a sign of tears. I fought the urge to swipe my hand across them. I’d been capable of crying for a little under a month, and I already hated it.

“Those of us involved with your care thought you might benefit from a little fresh air.” Dr. Thomas was smiling that paternal smile again. I stopped fighting the urge to wipe my eyes, and started fighting the urge to punch him in the nose. “Welcome to Biodome six-eighteen.”

Something croaked in one of the apple trees to my left. I glanced over just in time to catch a flash of black wings as what could only have been a crow took off, presumably to find a tree that wasn’t next to unwanted humans. The distraction gave me the time I needed to get my breathing—and threatened tears—under control. My expression was one of wide-eyed amazement as I turned back to Dr. Thomas.

“You mean this has been here all along?” I asked.

His smile widened. Asshole. “This is one of the larger CDC establishments. This habitat allows us to grow some of our own food, and studies have shown that access to outdoor environments can assist in psychological recovery.”

“Wow. I had no idea.” I might have been laying it on a little thick with that last one, but I was too distracted to care. I was busy reviewing everything my damaged memory contained about the North American CDC facilities.

“I thought it would make a nice treat for you.”

Nice how he was willing to take credit for it, now that I’d stepped “outside” without losing my shit. “It’s amazing,” I said, trying to infuse my words with an air of wonder.

It must have worked, because Dr. Thomas didn’t say anything. He just kept smiling, watching as I apparently soaked in the wonders the CDC had prepared to impress me. I was impressed, all right; impressed by how much of Mahir’s series on the various CDC installations had managed to survive the transfer of my memories. He’d broken them down by region, listing their major features, like helipads, private airstrips… and biodomes.

There were eight CDC facilities equipped with biodome simulators. Only four used them for agricultural purposes. Assuming this was one of the facilities that had existed when Mahir wrote his report, I was in one of those four.

None of the staff I’d spoken to had Southern accents. Dr. Thomas sounded like he was from the Midwest, but his accent was blurry, like he hadn’t been home in a long time. Dr. Shaw sounded sort of like Becks, which meant she was probably from somewhere in New England. Everyone else had the Hollywood non-accent that meant West Coast, and I doubted the CDC was bussing in guards and orderlies just to confuse my sense of place.

So we weren’t in the South—that took Huntsville off the list—and while we might be in the St. Paul facility, I didn’t think so. The accents were wrong. That left either Seattle or Phoenix.

My smile was genuine as I turned back to Dr. Thomas. “Thank you so much for letting me see this,” I said. “I think you’re right. I feel better just being here.”

Being in either of those two cities meant we were near a dozen bloggers who knew me. More importantly, we were near a dozen bloggers whose hunger to be the first at the scene would mean they listened first and shot second if I managed to show up on their doorsteps. All I had to do was find a way out of the building, and while I wouldn’t be exactly in the clear, I would be in a much better situation than I could have been. I would have a chance.

“Well, as long as your recovery continues without any setbacks, and as long as you continue to cooperate, I believe I can see clear to letting you out for a constitutional every other day. How does that sound?”

My smile froze again. It sounds like you think I’m some sort of house pet, you patronizing bastard, I thought, but said only, “That sounds great.”

“We have half an hour before your next tests. Would you like to explore the dome?”

“Can I?” I didn’t have to feign my interest. The biodome was a new environment. After weeks in the sterile CDC halls, I needed that more than I could have guessed.

“I wouldn’t have brought you here if I wasn’t going to let you have a little time to roam,” said Dr. Thomas. That damn paternal smile was back on his face. “Go ahead. Look around. You’re completely secure here. No one will come in and trouble you.” His smile slipped a bit, turning stern as he added, “But, Georgia, if you were to attempt to open any of the doors—”

“You wouldn’t blame a girl for trying?” I asked.

Dr. Thomas’s eyes narrowed, all pretense of a smile fading. “I most certainly would.”

“Understood.” I offered a cool nod to the two guards who were still standing next to Dr. Thomas, and turned to walk deeper into the biodome.

I found the first wall less than twenty yards from where I’d started, mostly hidden behind a tall patch of something I assumed was probably immature corn. It looked like corn, anyway. I never spent that much time studying agriculture. The wall was white, and should have stuck out like a sore thumb in the primarily green biodome, but it didn’t. Like the door we’d entered through, it was somehow part of its surroundings.

The dome wasn’t a perfect circle, although it wasn’t a square, either; after following the wall long enough to map the angles of two corners with my hands, I decided that it was most likely an octagon. This campus was even bigger than I’d initially assumed. I kept walking, enjoying the springy feel of the grass beneath my feet, and tried to figure out what else I might learn from the structure of the dome.

I crested a low hill and found myself facing a pine forest. It was small, no more than fifteen trees forming the edge, but it was enough of a surprise to stop me in my tracks for a moment. The shock was probably a good thing; it kept me from punching the air in sheer delight. We were in Seattle. The Seattle CDC was the only campus with an evergreen forest inside their biodome. I’d seen pictures.

As I stood contemplating the pines, I realized that my feet were cold. I looked down. My thick white socks—so perfect for roving the halls of the CDC—were less perfect for wandering around a grassy meadow. They were soaked to the ankles, with grass stains around the toes. There was no way Dr. Thomas would let me wear them back into the main building.

“Georgia?”

I stiffened, glancing back toward the sound of his voice. He wasn’t in view; if he was coming after me, or sending his guards, he was still a little ways away. With only a few seconds to move, I didn’t stop to think about what I was doing. I just bolted for the trees.

Shaun was always the one who put himself in mortal danger for kicks, but I still tried to stay in decent physical condition. It was the smart thing to do if I was going to keep following him into hazard zones, looking for the “perfect story” to slap up on his side of the site. I’d never been an athlete, but I’d been running ten-minute miles since I was fourteen, and that was enough to outrun any zombie that ever shambled into my path. I felt weirdly betrayed when I found myself gasping for breath, my heart hammering hard against my ribs as I slumped against a tree. All those hours of work, undone by one little death.

I yanked my socks off. The little gun fell to the grass. I scooped it up, lifting my top long enough to tuck the gun into my waistband, the muzzle digging painfully into my stomach. I pulled the drawstring on my pants a little tighter. The pajama top was loose enough that when I let it go, it fell to cover the weapon without a trace.

“Georgia?” Dr. Thomas’s voice was closer this time; he was coming for me himself, rather than sending his flunkies to fish me out of the biodome. That was good. He’d be less attuned to the little details than a professional guard would have been—they would have noticed the high color in my cheeks and the slight unsteadiness of my legs as I stepped out of the cover of the tree line.

“Here,” I said, proud of the way that I was barely gasping at all. My bare toes dug into the grass, tangling deep. I was going to need a serious shower when all this was over. “I’m sorry. Were you calling me?”

Dr. Thomas fixed me with a stern eye. “What did I say about no funny business?” he asked.

Cold arced down my spine. Someone must have seen me pull the gun out of my sock. He knows, I thought, desperately wondering if I could draw before he had a chance to call for his guards, and whether it would do me any good if I did. Even if I didn’t shoot myself, they’d just decommission me, or whatever it is you call getting rid of a clone that you don’t need anymore. They’d throw me out like yesterday’s garbage—and all because of a pair of goddamn socks—

“That means you come when I call,” said Dr. Thomas. “I’m willing to forgive it this time—we can call it youthful exuberance, and it doesn’t need to go into my report of the day’s activities. But that assumes you’ll behave from now on. Can I trust you to behave, Georgia?”

“What?” Relief flooded over me, washing away the cold. I nodded so hard it felt like I was going to sprain something. “Yes, absolutely. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ignore you, I was just… the grass, and then the trees, and…” I paused, making my voice very small before I said, “It reminded me of home, that’s all.”

If the CDC did their research on Berkeley, they knew we had more green space per capita than any other densely populated city in the state of California. Chalk it up to general perversity and being built around a university that resisted all attempts to render it fully secure. The idea of trees being something I would miss was believable if you didn’t know me well enough to know that I’d been avoiding unnecessary exposure to the outside world for my entire life.

Dr. Thomas’s expression softened. “I can understand that.” His frown returned as he glanced down at my feet. “Georgia, what in the world happened to your socks?”

“They got wet, so I took them off.” I held up my grass-stained socks. “At least we have plenty of bleach, right?”

To my surprise, Dr. Thomas actually chuckled. He seemed more human in that moment than he had since the first uneasy hours after I woke up in an unfamiliar bed. Too bad that wasn’t going to make me change my mind about getting the hell out of here before they had me “decommissioned” and replaced me with something more tractable.

“We can get you new socks. Come on, now. We’ll have just enough time to get you cleaned up before they expect you at the lab.”

“All right, Dr. Thomas.” I walked toward him, the grass damp beneath my feet. I was getting better at deceit. I didn’t like it—I didn’t think I would ever like it, and that was good, because the day I loved a lie was the day I stopped being even remotely Georgia Mason—but I was getting better. I was going to need those skills if I wanted to get out of the CDC still breathing, rather than going out in a biohazard container bound for the incinerator.

I took the deepest breaths I could as we left the biodome, trying to capture the smell of the green in my lungs. That was what freedom would smell like. And I was going to be free.