Blackout

You really can’t go home again.

Sometimes, that’s a good thing.

Sometimes, when you try, you find out that home isn’t there anymore… but that it wasn’t only in your head before. Home actually existed. Home wasn’t just a dream.

Sometimes, that’s the best thing of all.

—From Adaptive Immunities, the blog of Shaun Mason, July 28, 2041. Unpublished.

Seattle is gray, damp, and far too proud of being surrounded on all sides by trees which never lose their leaves and hence, never stop providing cover for whatever might be lurking behind them. The natives are as friendly as any Americans, and tend to become extremely helpful when I produce my passport. “I’m an Indian citizen” carries a lot of weight here.

I’m worried about Maggie. We have yet to bribe our way in to see the Monkey, and she’s not doing well with all this secrecy and illicit trafficking. I would have said Alaric was the weak link in our particular chain, with his sister as a possible hostage to his good behavior, but I am beginning to fear our dear Magdalene might be just as easily swayed with the promise of a return to her “real life”…

—From Fish and Clips, the blog of Mahir Gowda, July 28, 2041. Unpublished.