Blackout

Seventeen

Georgia.”

The word was distorted enough to seem unimportant. I didn’t bother trying to respond. I was lying on something soft, it was pleasantly dark, and if people wanted to talk to me, they could knock themselves out. Nothing said I had to answer.

“She’s unresponsive.”

“I expected she might be. Let’s assume she’s awake, and put her back under for now.”

“Are you sure? The strain to her system—”

“We need to finish this.”

A needle slid into my arm. The sensation was sharp enough to break the haze, replacing soft darkness with sudden concern. I opened my eyes, peering into a blur of light. There were figures there, wearing medical scrubs, with clear plastic masks over their faces. That just made me more concerned. What were they doing that might splash them with my bodily fluids?

“Doctor—” The speaker sounded alarmed. Whatever I was supposed to do, opening my eyes apparently wasn’t on the list.

“I see her. Increase the midazolam drip—I want her out until we’re done.” The taller of the two figures bent toward me. “Georgia? Can you hear me?”

I made a sound. It was faint, somewhere between a gasp and a groan.

It was apparently enough. “Increase that dose now, Kathleen,” snapped Dr. Kimberley, her features becoming visible through the plastic as she leaned closer. She raised one blue-gloved hand, brushing my hair away from my face. “Don’t try to move, Georgia. This will all be over soon.”

That’s what I was afraid of. The room was getting dark around the edges, hard lines turning into soft blurs as whatever they were pumping into me started taking effect. I tried to yell at her, to demand to know what she thought she was doing, but all that emerged was a faint squeak, like a hinge that needed to be oiled.

Dr. Kimberley smiled. “There you are, my dear. Just rest. It will all be over soon.” Then she pulled her hand back, and once again, the world went away.

There was no sense of time in the darkness. But Shaun was there, somehow, and he held my hand, and we sat together in the black, and everything was fine, forever and ever and ever.

Or until his hand slipped out of mine, and the blackness began to fade, and I realized my temporary peace had been just another drug-induced lie. Fury flooded through me. How dare they keep playing with me this way? It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t—

“Georgia.”

Again, the word was blurred and warped by what felt like an immense distance. This time, I forced myself to strain toward it, struggling to open my eyes. Nothing happened. Frustrated, I tried to respond, and again, managed to make only the faintest squeak.

That seemed to be enough. “She’s awake, Doctor. Not fully responsive, but recovering.”

“Good.” I heard the squeak of wheels rolling across a tile floor, followed by the soft compression of a body settling into a chair. “Georgia, this is Dr. Kimberley. I know you’re confused, and you may not have an easy time moving, but if you can, please squeeze my hand.”

Squeeze her hand? I wasn’t even touching her hand. Furious, I managed to squeak again.

“Kathleen is getting something to make you feel better, but I need you to work with us. Please squeeze my hand.” Her voice was measured, patient; the voice of a doctor who knew you wanted to trust her, because she was the hand that held the scalpel. “You’ve been under for about seven hours.”

Under? Under where? I was becoming more aware of my body, which was lying flat on a padded surface. My head was somewhat higher than the rest of me, probably to help my breathing. I strained to focus, clenching my fingers in the process. They hit something yielding.

“Very good!” Dr. Kimberley sounded pleased. The something was pulled from my hand. “Kathleen, inject the solution into her IV line and pass me the stimulants. It’s time for our Miss Mason to fully rejoin the living.”

I squeaked in fury. If Shaun were here, these people would have been knocked on their asses so fast—

And then a familiar voice spoke, startling me out of my anger: “Is she all right?”

I froze, inasmuch as my current condition distinguished that from my efforts to move. Dr. Kimberley didn’t appear to notice. “Yes, Mr. Vice President. The procedure was a success. Barring complications, I’m expecting her to make a full recovery.”

“Good.” A hand touched my forehead. I strained to open my eyes. “I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through all of this, George. Now do what you do best. Break this fucking thing wide open, and let the pieces fall.”

I moaned. It was the best I could do.

Rick pulled his hand away. “They’ll miss me if I stay gone any longer. Pass a message through my office if there are any complications. I want to know immediately. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” said Dr. Kimberley.

Sudden pain lanced through me, radiating out from a point somewhere near my heart. I couldn’t speak, but I could scream, and scream I did, arching my back away from the mattress beneath me until it felt like I was making a perfect half circle.

“She’s convulsing!” shouted Dr. Kimberley. “Trauma cart, now!”

Her voice began to slip away at the end, blurring into the general chaos as the dark reached out its tendrils and twined them around me once more. An alarm blared. I screamed again, so hard it felt like something tore inside my throat, and then the world fell away, leaving me to plunge into the black. There was no peace there this time, only pain, pain, pain.

Panicked voices in the dark, overlapping with each other: “—losing her, I don’t know why, she’s—” “—must have missed one—” “—check behind her collarbone—”

And then there was only the dark, so all-consuming it devoured even the pain, and the voices didn’t matter anymore. And then there was, for a time, blessed nothing. Nothing at all.

“Georgia.”

The third time my name called me out of the dark, it didn’t have any blurred edges or comforting distance. It was near, immediate, and spoken with perfect clarity. I groaned, suddenly aware of my body as a part of my consciousness, and of my consciousness as something distinct from the dark.

“… what?” I whispered. Even that much motion triggered a hundred more realizations. I had a mouth; I could speak. My lips were dry, my throat was aching. That was the only pain, at least for the moment.

I was alive.

“How do you feel?” Dr. Kimberley sounded honestly concerned. I’ve spent enough of my life dealing with doctors to know when they’re pretending to care, and she wasn’t pretending. The edges of her words—still Welsh-accented; the masks, it seemed, were off for good—were soft and weary, like she hadn’t slept for days.

“Water,” I whispered.

“You’re not dehydrated, but your throat will be dry. We’ve been feeding you via a tube for the past three days. It was removed about an hour ago. If you can open your eyes, I can give you some water. That’s the bargain, I’m afraid. Responsiveness for water.”

I opened my eyes. Light lanced into them like knives, and I quickly closed them again. There was a tap against the bridge of my nose as Dr. Kimberley settled something there.

“That will block the worst of it,” she said. “I’m afraid we didn’t have the equipment to keep reminding your retinas of light. They’ll adjust if you give them a little time.”

“What… where am I?” I opened my eyes again. This time, the disposable UV-blocker Dr. Kimberley had given me kept the worst of the light from reaching me. The doctor herself was standing in front of my bed, a glass of water in her hand.

“You’re still in the Seattle CDC; we’ve been able to loop footage and falsify results to make it look like you’re in my primary lab, but we haven’t had any way to remove you from the premises. Not that we could have done so anyway, given the givens.” She leaned forward, holding the glass to my lips and tilting it until I could take a few tiny, carefully measured sips. “Slowly, Georgia, slowly. You don’t want to aspirate this.”

I pulled my head back, coughing a little, and asked, “Why can’t you just say ‘don’t breathe the water’ like a normal person?”

“Because I’m a doctor, and they teach us never to use little words where big ones will do.” Dr. Kimberley pulled the glass out of my reach. That made me focus on more of the room around us. It was packed with medical monitoring equipment, including an IV that was still anchored to my arm. I looked at it with disgust.

“What is all this?”

“It’s what’s been keeping you alive while we waited for the toxins to finish working their way out of your system.” Dr. Kimberley put the glass down atop one of the machines before taking a seat in the chair next to my bed. “Gregory showed you your replacement, did he not?”

“Yes,” I rasped.

“Then you’ll have seen that they were tailoring her to their requirements. They did the same with you, my dear, although they left your mind basically alone—small mercies, and all of that. They needed you for display. The rest of you was free game.”

“And that’s why you drugged me?” I was too tired to sound as indignant as I felt. I still gave it my best shot.

“Yes.” Dr. Kimberley nodded. “Have you ever heard of the sea wasp jellyfish? It’s one of the many nasty surprises lurking in our world’s oceans. This one comes from Australia, and has a sting capable of killing an adult human in minutes if untreated.”

“So?” I whispered.

“The nice people responsible for making you wanted to be sure nothing akin to what is happening right now would succeed, and they implanted biological explosives at strategic points within your body. They were to burst, given the correct set of stimuli, releasing sea wasp venom into your bloodstream. The only circumstance under which death would not be instantaneous would be one in which the toxins were released while a full medical team was standing by, ready to counteract the poison.”

The darkness was starting to make sense. I swallowed, trying to make my voice a little less unsteady as I said, “You could have warned me.”

“No, I’m afraid we couldn’t have. Some of the devices were set to trigger at specific key words that would inevitably have come up, if only because you’d have seen us dancing around them and demanded to know why.” Dr. Kimberley patted my hand. She wasn’t wearing gloves this time. Her skin was cool. “We removed eight venom packs from your intramuscular tissue, along with two trackers and a microchip identifying you as CDC property.”

That managed to annoy me all over again. “You mean they tagged me? Like a dog?”

“It’s not a bad comparison, sadly. If you ever made it out of this facility, they wanted to be able to track your movements, and to prove you were who—and what—they said you were. All that’s been removed, and your incisions have mostly closed over. You should be fine after another day or two.” A small frown crossed her face. “That doesn’t leave us much time. I have custody of you for a week. We’ve already used up three days with your decontamination and recovery. We can move forward now that you’re awake, but I’d hoped to have longer.”

“What she isn’t saying is that you nearly died three times,” said Gregory. I looked toward his voice. He was standing in the doorway, a tray in his hands. “The first operation taxed your system enough that the remaining venom packs began to rupture. We got those out, only to find that we’d managed to miss one.”

“And the third time?” I asked. It was hard not to smile, even with the things he was saying. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to see a familiar, believably friendly face.

“Your heart just stopped. We still don’t know why.”

“But we did manage to get it started again; there’s no reason to frighten the girl,” said Dr. Kimberley sternly. “Now, Georgia, I’m sure that you must have questions—”

“Who are you, what are you doing, and how the fuck are you planning to get me out of here?” I pushed myself into as close to a sitting position as I could manage, using the pillows that had been supporting my head to support the rest of me instead.

Dr. Kimberley sighed. “And apparently, we’ll be having question time now, rather than after you’ve put something solid in your stomach. I really am Dr. Kimberley; ‘Shaw’ was my mother’s maiden name. My first name is Danika. I trained at Oxford, and then later with the Kauai Institute of Virology, under Dr. Joseph Shoji. I was recruited to the EIS six years ago. I’ve been undercover with the CDC for the past five years. I’ve been on the Shelley Project since it started. You’re the first Georgia Mason to make it this far.”

“The Shelley—oh, come on. They named the ‘let’s clone a reporter, it’ll be fun’ project after Mary Shelley? Couldn’t they at least have gone with Herbert West or something?”

“I didn’t get a vote,” said Dr. Kimberley, looking faintly amused. “Gregory here is one of our best men.”

“Dr. Gregory Lake, at your service,” said Gregory. “I’m primarily a field epidemiologist, but I came here when Dr. Kimberley called for backup. I’m glad I did. The situation was more advanced than her reports led us to believe.”

“It’s not my fault they don’t allow me access to the subjects until they reach the stage where the tests I’m supposedly here to run become necessary,” said Dr. Kimberley, an edge of irritation in her voice. “Half the subjects went from lab to slab without darkening my door.”

“Yeah, this is the sort of conversation that makes me feel really, really good about my prospects.” I slumped against the pillows. “So what, you’re the clone rescue squad?”

“Not quite.” Dr. Kimberley leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. She looked at me gravely. “Georgia, we’re here because we need your help.”

I blinked at her, glancing at Gregory. He had the same solemn look on his face. The urge to laugh bubbled up inside my chest. “You need my help? I’ve been dead for the last… I’m not even sure. Not to mention the part where I’m not actually who I think I am, just close enough to her that I probably qualify as clinically insane. What can I possibly do to help you?”

Dr. Kimberley and Gregory exchanged a look. He cleared his throat and said, “Things have gotten worse since you died. Shaun Mason is currently unreachable, following a rather unpleasant incident at the Memphis CDC, in which he remains a person of interest. He—”

“Wait—Memphis? Is Dr. Wynne okay?” Dr. Joseph Wynne worked out of the Memphis office. He was one of the first CDC employees I’d ever met who seemed to genuinely care about people. Without him, we might have died in the desert between Oklahoma and Texas.

“Dr. Wynne was killed during the incident. It’s still unclear what his role was—the CDC insists he was a martyr, but the EIS has reason to believe otherwise.” Catching the stricken look on my face, Gregory continued reluctantly. “Dr. Kelly Connolly was also found dead in the Memphis CDC.”

“Which was surprising when you considered that she’d been killed several weeks previously, in a robbery gone awry,” interjected Dr. Kimberley. “Once we started analyzing video footage of your brother’s team over the weeks leading up to the incident, we found a surprising number of shots including a blonde woman whose facial features mapped quite well with Dr. Connolly’s. Perhaps she didn’t die before that day in Memphis after all.”

“What are you saying?” I asked.

Dr. Kimberley motioned for Gregory to bring the water over again. “I’m saying things are much worse than you knew at the time of your passing.”

“That wasn’t me,” I said, almost sullenly. I’d just been drugged and cut open without my consent. I was feeling entitled to a little balkiness. Gregory held the glass of water up for me to sip, and I did, gratefully. The feel of the liquid coating the back of my throat may have been the sweetest thing I had ever experienced.

“No, you’re right; it wasn’t you,” said Dr. Kimberley. “But it was you at the same time. You’re a bit of a paradox, my dear girl, and possibly the only ace our side has left to play. We need you to be Georgia Mason, just as much as the other side needs for you not to be. We need you to think like her, we need you to act like her, and we need you to be her. We would never have made you. I like to think the EIS still has marginally more of a soul than that. Now that you exist, forgive us, but we will use you to our best advantage.”

I coughed. Gregory pulled the glass away. “What do you think you’re going to use me for? I won’t betray Shaun for you.”

“We never expected you would. Your loyalty is one of the things that makes you useless to Dr. Thomas and his ilk.” Dr. Kimberley’s lip drew back in a sneer. “That man’s never understood the virtue of loyalty.”

“Right.” Moving my left arm felt like one of the hardest things I had ever done. Somehow, I managed, raising it to rest my hand against my forehead. “So you’re the good guys. You’re just going to find a way to set me free so I can run off and join Shaun, and we can blow this conspiracy open and go live happily ever after. Is that it?”

“I wouldn’t have put it quite like that—” began Dr. Kimberley.

I looked to Gregory. “Is she stupid, or does she think I am? Because I know a line of bullshit when it’s being fed to me.”

“Florida has been declared a Level 1 hazard zone,” he replied.

“W-what?” I managed, after that seeming non sequitur had been given a moment to sink in. “That’s impossible.”

“An insect vector for Kellis-Amberlee was swept over from Cuba by a tropical storm, and deposited along the length of the United States Gulf Coast. We’ve lost more than just Florida, but that’s the only entire state to be designated Level 1. So far.”

“Wait. Are you saying—”

“This isn’t a natural mutation. These mosquitoes are three times the size of anything we’ve seen before—the perfect size for transmitting Kellis-Amberlee. Isn’t it a little odd that they didn’t appear until right after a major break-in at the CDC?” Gregory looked at me calmly. “The purpose of the EIS is tracking, containment, and eradication of infectious diseases. At this point, we consider the CDC a form of infectious disease. So yes, Georgia, we really are going to find a way to free you to find your team—what’s left of them—and tell them what you know.”

“It may not tilt the balance fully in our favor, but it will help,” added Dr. Kimberley. “Your death was too well publicized, and you’re too well made. There’s no way you can be written off as a hoax once you get to the proper people. And if you can’t find the proper people, we’d be happy to provide them.”

I sighed. “Is this all just one big political ploy to seize control of the CDC?”

“Do you really care if it is?” asked Gregory.

Trying to think about this was starting to make my head hurt. I decided to try another approach. “Did I hear Rick? I remember waking up and hearing him here.”

“You did,” said Gregory. That was a surprise. I’d been half expecting them to lie. “He was able to sneak away to meet with us. I’m sorry you weren’t awake during his visit.”

“Vice President Cousins has been very concerned about you,” added Dr. Kimberley. “He’s the one who approached the EIS about infiltrating this project. He was able to get my security clearance improved—that’s how we could pull off this little ruse in the first place.”

“Not that it’s going to do us any good if you don’t recover fast enough for us to break you out of here,” said Gregory. He turned to look at one of the monitors. “Your system is still stressed from all the excitement. You need to get some sleep.”

“Sleep is the last thing I want,” I objected. “I want to know what the hell is going on.”

“And that’s why you need to sleep.” Gregory smiled a little, holding up an empty syringe. “I’m afraid you don’t have all that much choice in the matter. I added a little something to your IV line. We’ll see you in a few hours.”

“What—?” My eyes widened. “You bastard.”

“My parents were married.”

“You could have… could have asked me…” My voice was already slowing down. I didn’t know whether it was psychosomatic or just very well timed, but either way, I was pissed.

“You would have said no,” said Dr. Kimberley, standing.

“Damn… right… I…” I lost my grasp on the sentence as the dark reached up to take me. This time it was softer, and less menacing. That didn’t mean I had to like it, but when it became apparent that fighting wasn’t going to do me any good, I let go and let it pull me under.

The fourth time I woke, no one was calling my name, and no one else was in the room; I was alone in my little half-folded hospital bed, with a yellow blanket pulled up around my shoulders. I was so used to CDC white that the color was almost shocking. I pushed myself into a sitting position with shaking arms, letting the blanket fall away. My white pajamas were gone, replaced by a set of pale blue surgical scrubs. More color. After so long in a world without it, even those little splashes were enough to make me feel disoriented.

After I was sure I was steady, I swung my feet around to the floor—my bare feet. A momentary panic lanced through me as I realized my gun was gone. I grabbed the bedrail, intending to stand, and paused as I saw the gun resting on the bedside table. I picked it up, hand shaking slightly, and relaxed as the weight of the gun confirmed that it was loaded. They hadn’t left me defenseless after all. I tucked it into the waistband of my scrubs, checking twice to be sure the safety was on before I tightened my grasp on the bedrail, took a deep breath, and stood.

I didn’t fall. That was a start. There was no immediate pain, although most of me was sore, and various parts of me ached in an irritated way that made me think of feeding tubes and catheters. Necessary evils, but not things I really wanted to dwell on.

There was a door on the far side of the room. I focused on it as I let go of the bedrail and started to shuffle forward, slowly at first, but with increasing speed as my confidence came back. The soreness actually began to fade a little as I stretched the muscles in my legs and back. Maybe most of it was from lying still too long.

I made it to the door without incident and grasped the knob, honestly expecting it to be locked. Instead, it turned easily, and I stepped out of my small recovery room into what looked like the central lab. Dr. Kimberley was there, reviewing test results with two of her technicians. All three of them turned toward the sound of my door opening.

For a moment, the four of us remained where we were, blinking at one another. Dr. Kimberley was the first to recover. “James?”

“On it, Doctor,” said the technician, and stood, hurrying over to a small specimen refrigerator. He opened the door and produced a familiar red and white can, which he carried over and offered to me. “It’s good to see you awake.”

I took the Coke without a word, popping the tab and taking a long drink. The soda burned the soreness in my throat. All of them watched me. No one spoke.

I lowered the can.

“The first thing I will do—the first thing—is have myself checked for tracking devices,” I said, directing my words at Dr. Kimberley. “If we find anything, I don’t work with you people. I don’t give you anything. You’ll need to shoot me and start with another clone, and hope you can get away with it twice. Clear?”

“As crystal,” she said, nodding. “We’re playing fairly. Not because we’re innately fair, but because at this point, it’s in our best interests to do so… and it’s the only thing left that distinguishes us from the other side.”

“All right, then. How much time do we have?”

“Still three days. You were only out for a few hours this last time—long enough to let us do the last of the post-op cleanup work.”

“Yeah, don’t ever do that again. If you’re going to knock me out, I need to know before it happens.” I took another drink of Coke. “I need an Internet connection, shoes, and another soda.”

Dr. Kimberley smiled. “I think all those things can be arranged.”

“Good.” My can was almost empty. I finished it before returning Dr. Kimberley’s smile. “Let’s have ourselves a revolution.”