Blackout

We’ve reached Seattle in one piece. It was a little touch-and-go for a while there, but now here we are, and Maggie has somehow managed to hide us by going the opposite of underground. Money. Is there anything it

can’t

do?

We’re about to leave to see the Monkey, the man who can supposedly make identities that fool anyone and everyone in the world. That makes this Maggie’s last hurrah; when we’re done here, she’s heading back to Weed, back to her bulldogs and her grindhouse movies. I’m going to miss the shit out of her, but I’m also glad, in a way.

At least one of us is going to make it out of this shitstorm alive.

—From Adaptive Immunities, the blog of Shaun Mason, August 1, 2041. Unpublished.

There are days when I wake up and realize I no longer know the man in my mirror. Who are you, with your graying temples and your two-hundred-dollar haircut? Who are you, in your fancy suit, with your vast political power that does you no good when it really matters? Who are you, with all those ghosts in your eyes?

Seriously, you asshole. Who the fuck are you, and why are you looking back at me whenever I look into my own eyes? What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his own soul? It’s on days like this that I really want to know.

I wish I could explain to them why I let this happen. I wish I could tell them what it was for. And I wish I thought, even for a second, that they were going to forgive me…

—From the private journal of Vice President Richard Cousins, August 1, 2041. Unpublished.