Blackout

SHAUN: Twenty-six

The Agora guards were all smiles as they came out to meet us. “Welcome back to the Agora,” said the one next to Becks’s window, holding out a blood testing unit. “If you would be so kind—”

“We’re going to need a fourth kit,” I said, craning my neck to see the window from between the seats. George was still asleep, curled up against me with her fingers locked in the fabric of my shirt.

“Or we could just let them shoot her,” said Becks sweetly.

Mahir put his hands up before I could say anything. “There will be no shooting of anyone who tests cleanly. Can we please get a fourth testing unit?”

“Of course, sir,” said the guard, looking unflustered. Apparently, people drove up with battered, dirty women in CDC scrubs all the time.

“George.” I shook her shoulder. She didn’t respond. I shook her again, harder this time. “Georgia. Wake up.”

“Problems, Mason?” asked Becks.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” I said. Leaning down until my mouth was only a few inches from George’s ear, I said, “If you don’t wake up right now, I’m going to get a bottle of water from the travel fridge. I will then pour it down your back. You won’t enjoy it, and I won’t care. Just in case you were wondering.”

Her eyes opened. I had the time to think, almost academically, that my crazy was useful after all—all those hallucinations got me used to the idea of a Georgia without retinal KA, and now I actually had one. Then she smiled, and all thoughts went out the window except for holding on to her and never, ever letting go.

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you threatening me awake.” She untangled her fingers from my shirt and sat up, looking around the van. She stiffened when she saw the armed guards looking through the windows, patiently waiting for us to get our shit together. “Shaun? Where are we?”

“At our hotel. It’s a long story. Can you sit up and let them run a blood test?” Seeing the look of alarm in her eyes, I added quickly, “This place has security that would have given Buffy, like, spontaneous orgasms for days. They’re not going to share their results. They just want to know that we’re all clean before they let us through the gates.”

“If you say so,” she said warily.

“Promise.” I kissed her forehead before opening the van’s side door. Another guard was waiting there, this one holding a testing unit in each hand. I gave him a smile. He didn’t give it back. “My man! Is it time to prove that we’re not planning to eat the other guests?”

“We have a strict policy of non-cannibalism here at the Agora,” he replied, holding the tests toward us. His eyes flicked toward George’s bloody feet, noticing and acknowledging them, but he didn’t say a word. If we wanted to engage in dangerous behaviors, we could, as long as it didn’t result in our bringing infection past their gates. It was an attitude I could definitely respect.

“We’re good with that,” I said, and leaned over to take one of the tests. George did the same with the other. “On three?”

A flicker of a smile crossed George’s face. “On three,” she agreed. “One.”

“Two.”

Neither of us said “three.” Instead, we each reached out and placed our right index fingers on the test unit in the other’s hand. The guard didn’t say anything; again, if we wanted to be crazy, it wasn’t his problem, as long as we were clean.

We didn’t look at the lights. We just looked at each other. There were tears at the corners of George’s eyes, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that she wasn’t the only one. If she failed this, I wasn’t going to shoot her again. I wasn’t—

“Thank you, Mr. Mason, ma’am.” The guard leaned forward, pulling the test units from our hands before either of us could react. I turned, and saw the green lights gleaming at the top of each small white box. He smiled genially. “We’re pleased to have you back. Miss Garcia has been alerted to your arrival, and to the presence of your guest. One of our attendants will meet you at the door with slippers for the young lady. Please have a pleasant stay at the Agora.”

“See? Cake.” I turned to look toward the front. The windows were back up; Becks and Mahir had apparently passed their own tests while I was distracted.

“It’s not going to last,” said Becks. Her eyes met mine in the rearview mirror as she started the engine. “We just showed up with a woman who looks like she’s been kidnapped from a lab, and is basically a walking hot zone right now, with those feet. This isn’t cool.”

“Maybe not, but what else was I supposed to do?”

“This discussion is not going to end well,” said Mahir sharply. “We’re going to go inside, meet with Maggie, and decide what happens next. No one gets the deciding vote. Am I understood?”

“It is so good to see you,” said George. She got up onto her knees, half kneeling as she looked through the windshield at the hotel. Her eyes widened. “Where are we? Hill House?”

“Whatever walks here walks in the presence of a large, well-trained staff ready to attend to your every need,” said Mahir. “As the gentleman said, welcome to the Agora. It’s a resort of a kind, for people whose monthly allowance puts my annual income to shame.”

“You let Maggie choose the hotel, didn’t you?”

“Don’t answer that,” said Becks. “Until we know what’s going on, we’re not telling you anything more than we have to. I’m pretty sure this place is expensive enough that they’ll dispose of a body for us if we ask them.”

“The privileges of wealth.” George sank back to the floor. She gave me an anxious look, and I took her hand, squeezing it. The solidity of her was still the most amazing thing I’d ever felt.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said.

“Maybe,” she replied.

None of us said anything after that. Becks drove up the long driveway to the parking garage, where the valet waved us through the open gate, apparently remembering our preference for self-parking. Becks got out first. By the time I opened the van door, she was already there, pistol out, covering us.

“I think it says something deeply disturbing about me that I find this comforting,” said George, wincing as her cut-up feet hit the cool cement of the garage floor.

“That’s Becks. Always ready to offer a helping headshot.” I restrained the urge to pick George up and get her feet away from the ground. I needed to let her walk on her own. She’d never forgive me if I didn’t.

“I thought I learned from the best,” said Becks. She stayed where she was, letting us step away from the vehicle. It was clear she intended to follow us to the door, rather than risking George getting the drop on her. Oddly, it wasn’t only George who found her paranoia comforting. Knowing there was someone behind me, ready to shoot if something started to go wrong, made me a lot more comfortable letting George take my hand, even though it would keep me from getting to a gun as fast as I might need to.

Mahir walked on my other side. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The worried, faintly disapproving look on his face said volumes.

True to the concierge’s word, a man in the hotel uniform was waiting by the airlock with a pair of fluffy blue and gold slippers in one hand and a matching robe in the other. He held them out to us as we approached, saying, “The management is thrilled that you’re here, but would prefer that you not distress the other guests.”

“What?” I asked blankly.

Mahir cleared his throat and nodded toward George. I turned, looking at her.

There were stains on the sleeves of her once-white lab coat. Some were clearly chemical; others could have been blood. Some of the stains on the cuffs of her pants were definitely blood, as were the streaky smears on the tops of her feet. The fact that she was dressed like a medical professional would just make those little spots more terrifying for most people. We trust doctors because we have to. We never forget that they’re the profession with the highest day-to-day risk of infection.

George looked down at herself, clearly coming to the same conclusion. “Thank you,” she said, reaching out to take the robe and slippers. Putting them on made her look less disheveled, and oddly younger; the robe was at least three sizes too large, and hung on her like a shroud. She tied the robe around her waist, sleeves all but swallowing her hands, and flashed a quick, professional smile at the attendant. “It’s great.”

“Welcome to the Agora, miss. We hope you’ll enjoy your stay.” He bowed before turning and stepping into the airlock. I was pretty sure any charges associated with the robe and slippers would be appearing on our master bill, and would be hefty enough to make me choke. Good thing none of us were ever going to see the price tag for this place.

Once the attendant was clear of the airlock, George and I stepped inside. A little more of the tension went out of her shoulders as soon as we were past the first layer of glass, like even that thin barrier took us farther from her captivity. I couldn’t reach her hands, swaddled as they were in layers of plush terry cloth, so I squeezed her shoulder instead.

The smile she flashed my way was a lot less professional. “You can keep doing that forever,” she said quietly.

“Planning on it,” I said. Then the door was sliding open in front of us, and we left the airlock together, letting it begin a new cycle as Becks and Mahir were processed through.

George looked around the Agora lobby with a cool, calculating curiosity, like she was assessing the whole place for acoustics, security, and exit routes—the three most important functions of any space as far as a journalist was concerned. Every move she made just convinced me a little more that she was who she said she was. I knew I wanted to believe her, which put me at a disadvantage, but… if she’d been off in anything but the superficialities of her appearance, I would have been the first to notice. So far, she was doing everything right. That meant she was either the real thing, or an unbelievably good fake.

Please be the real thing, I prayed, to no one in particular.

Only one of us can be real, replied the quiet voice of my inner Georgia.

I stiffened. She’d been quiet for so long that I’d almost started thinking of it as a transition. George dies, she moves into my head. George comes back to life, she moves out again. It was simple. Straightforward.

Impossible. You don’t recover from going crazy just because the thing that made you that way is magically undone. If the human mind worked like that, we’d be a much saner species.

“Shaun?” George looked up at me, frowning. “You okay?”

For a horrible moment, I didn’t know which of them I was supposed to respond to. Then Maggie stepped out of the elevator lobby, eyes wide. She was back in her normal clothes, a heavy cable-knit sweater over a long patchwork skirt, and her hair was braided into a semblance of control. She started toward us, her gaze never moving away from George’s face.

“Shaun?” she said, when she was close enough to be heard without raising her voice. “What is this?”

“That’s a complicated question,” I said honestly. The airlock door slid open behind me, and footsteps marked Mahir and Becks falling into a flanking position, Mahir to my left, Becks to George’s right.

“Hi, Maggie,” said George.

Maggie stiffened. “She sounds like—”

“That’s because she is,” I said.

“Maybe,” said Mahir.

“Probably not,” said Becks.

“We should go upstairs,” said Maggie, eyes still locked on George’s face. “This sounds like the sort of thing that shouldn’t be talked about in the lobby.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” I agreed.

Maggie led us back to the elevator lobby, not looking to see whether we would follow. She knew we would. George freed her hand from the layers of terry cloth and reclaimed mine, sticking close to my side as we walked. I clung back just as fiercely. Becks and Mahir brought up the rear, and none of us said a damn thing, because there was nothing we could say. This was too big, and too impossible, and too important to crack open before we were secure.

“My room,” said Maggie, once we’d reached the floor where the four of us—five of us, now—were staying. “It has the most space.”

“Wait—more space than my room?” I asked. “How is that possible? You could call the room I’m staying in an apartment and not get busted for false advertising. I think there’s someone living in the closet.”

Maggie cracked a very small smile. “My father owns a share in the Agora. When I stay here, I get a specific room.”

“Wealth hath its privileges,” said Becks, with none of the faint disdain that so often colored her voice when she talked about money. Then again, she was normally talking about money in the context of her own family, and she didn’t like them. Maggie’s money must have been somehow less offensive by dint of not belonging to the Athertons.

“Yes,” agreed Maggie, without irony. She led us all the way to the end of the hall, where a single door was set in a stretch of wall that could easily have played home to three doors leading into rooms the size of mine. Even that didn’t prepare us for the size of the room on the other side.

Becks put it best: “Holy shit. That’s not a bedroom, it’s a ballroom.”

“Also a living room, dining room, kitchen, and a bathroom with a private hot tub,” agreed Maggie, holding the door open for the rest of us. “The hot tub seats eight, in case you wondered. According to my mother, I was conceived in a suite very much like this one, but thankfully, on a different floor. I’m pretty sure she told me that so I’d never have sex here, ever.”

“Did it work?” I asked, curious despite myself.

She closed the door behind Mahir. “No. I brought Buffy here to celebrate when she first got the job working with the two of you. She wasn’t the first, and she won’t be the last.”

“And we are now officially getting too much information,” said Becks. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Can I get anyone anything before we start going over exactly how we’ve managed to shatter the laws of nature today?”

George cleared her throat, looking a little embarrassed as she said, “I don’t suppose you have any Coke on hand, do you?”

That was the best thing she could have said. Maggie blinked, looking briefly surprised. Then she smiled. “I do. Shaun? Same for you?”

“Coffee for me, actually,” I said.

“Coffee? Really?” Maggie’s surprise only lasted a few seconds. “Coffee and Coke, got it. Becks? Mahir?”

“Nothing for me,” said Becks.

“Tea, please,” said Mahir. “I have the feeling this is about to become one of those days wherein there is no such thing as too much tea.”

“You’re not alone there,” said Maggie. “Go ahead and sit down. I’ll be right back.” She vanished through a door near the entrance, presumably heading into the kitchen to get the drinks.

George walked over and sat down on one of the room’s two couches, burying her hands in the pockets of her robe. She slumped there, looking tired and frail. George was always smaller than me, but she’d never been skinny like this before. It was a little disturbing.

You’re willing to accept that I might come back from the dead, but you’re upset because I haven’t been eating enough? What should I be eating, the flesh of the living?

“Be quiet,” I said automatically.

George looked up. “Nobody said anything.”

Shit. “Uh…”

“It’s been difficult for all of us since Georgia passed,” said Mahir, in a voice stiff enough to sound starched. He took the seat next to George, presumably so I couldn’t. I could respect that, even as it annoyed me. She was, after all, claiming to be my dead sister, resurrected, and I had just demonstrated, openly, that I was crazy.

“Come on, asshole. Let’s sit.” Becks took my elbow and led me to the other couch, where she pushed me into a sitting position. She sat next to me, resting her pistol on her knee.

“You don’t normally call me asshole without provocation,” I noted.

“You don’t normally act like one,” she responded.

George looked between the two of us before turning to focus on Mahir. “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “I mean, no one means to die, but… I’m so sorry.” She hesitated before asking, “How much of this was our fault, Mahir? How many people died because we wouldn’t stop telling the truth?”

Mahir’s eyes widened. I think that was the moment when he started to let himself think that maybe believing her was an option. “I don’t know,” he said. “Quite a few, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah.” She sighed, glancing at Becks and me before returning her attention to Mahir. “Rick was at the CDC a few days ago.”

“What?” Becks half stood. “You little bi—”

“Rebecca, sit down,” snapped Mahir. It wasn’t a request.

Becks sat.

George blinked, looking bemused. “Okay, does someone want to explain that?”

“We haven’t been able to get through to Rick for a while,” I said. “We’re pretty worried, especially given everything that’s been going on. If he was at the CDC, you’re saying he knows what’s going on and he just doesn’t care. That’s sort of a big deal.”

“No.” George shook her head, expression hardening into that old, familiar look of burning journalistic fervor. She wasn’t a scared, bruised-up girl who might or might not be who she claimed to be. She was a reporter, and she had a story she needed to tell. “He’s been helping the EIS. I think he was there because he does care, and something’s been stopping him from getting to you.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Becks.

“She was about to politely offer to wait for me to come back before she explained,” said Maggie, walking back into the room. She had a tray of drinks in her hands. It was embossed with the Agora logo, and looked like it was made of solid silver. Considering everything else around us, I would have been almost more surprised if it wasn’t.

“Sorry, Maggie,” said Becks, looking faintly abashed.

“It’s okay.” Maggie made her way around the room, starting with Mahir, who got a white ceramic mug and saucer. George got two cans of Coke, both cold enough to have drops of condensation on their sides. By the time Maggie reached me with my coffee, George already had the first of those cans open, and was taking a long, desperate drink.

Maggie leaned close as she handed me my coffee, cutting off my view of George. “If she isn’t who she says she is, she can never leave this room,” she murmured. “You understand that, don’t you, Shaun?”

I nodded minutely. “I do.”

“Good.” She straightened again, walking over to an open chair and sitting with the tray, and her own cup of tea, in her lap. “So can I get the recaplet of what happened after you left here? I doubt we have time for the whole episode.”

“We broke into the CDC through the back fence,” I said. “We got inside just fine, managed to plant the bug and everything, but then we got turned around.”

“You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike,” said Mahir, and laughed for no apparent reason.

“Uh, yeah. Anyway, we split up. Becks and Mahir went one way, I went the other way. And then this lady comes running around a corner and slams into me, and it’s, well…” I indicated George with my free hand. “Honestly, I didn’t think she was really there until everyone else started saying they could see her, too.”

“That’s understandable,” said Maggie, not unkindly.

“Yeah. So she says we have to get out fast, because the building is about to blow up. We get out fast. The building blows up. And then Becks starts threatening to shoot her in the head, we sort of negotiate a temporary peace, and we wind up back here, with you, having coffee.” I took the first sip of my coffee and moaned. “Really fucking good coffee. What did you do, Maggie, sacrifice a bellboy to the coffee gods?”

“Not this time,” she said, and sipped her tea before turning surprisingly sharp eyes on George. “What’s your side of the story?”

George took a breath. “Do you want the long version or the short version?”

“Let’s take the version somewhere in between. Mahir’s never going to be satisfied with the short version, and Becks will probably start shooting people if you go for the long version.”

“True,” said Becks. “To be honest, I’m tempted to start shooting people right now.”

“I missed you, too, Becks,” said George. She took another drink of Coke for courage, and said, “I woke up about a month ago—maybe a little bit more; I don’t really know, since they never let me have a calendar—in a CDC holding room. A man named Dr. Thomas said I’d been in recovery for a while, and that things were going to be better now. But my eyes were wrong, and my muscle tone was wrong, and the tattoo on the inside of my wrist was gone. I asked if I was a clone. He confirmed it.”

Becks scoffed.

To her credit, George ignored her, and continued. “One of the orderlies, Gregory Lake, was actually an EIS doctor assigned to infiltrate the facility. He’s one of the people who got me out. He told me I’d been created from a combination of electrical synapse recordings and implanted information. I’m supposed to be a ninety-seven percent match to the original Georgia Mason.” She looked toward me. “I’m not her, and I am, all at the same time.”

“So you’re not really her, and we can shoot you now, right?” asked Becks.

Mahir shook his head, frowning. “No.”

“What?” Becks gave him a wounded look. “Why not?”

“I’ve read some of the memory recovery studies. It arose from research aimed at assisting brain damage victims.” His frown deepened. “We’re nothing but electrical impulses stored in meat. If you can measure and codify those impulses, you can transcribe what a person remembers.”

But I was dead, said George. How could they measure my thoughts if I was dead?

Whether I liked it or not, it was a good question. “George was dead,” I said. “So how does that work?”

“Kellis-Amberlee keeps turning the electricity in the body and brain back on after the point of death,” said Maggie. We all turned to look at her, even George. She shrugged. “Raised by pharmaceutical magnates, remember? Kellis-Amberlee really improved our understanding of the human brain, because it won’t let the brain die. It turns back on again and again, trying to keep thinking. Only the virus starts getting in the way of those electrical impulses. It scrambles them. The body can’t translate what the brain wants anymore, and so the virus just takes over.”

“If the CDC’s built a system for recovering the electrical impulses from an infected brain, cleaning out the static and then implanting them in a new mind, it’s entirely feasible that they’d be able to accomplish what you’re claiming.” Mahir looked thoughtfully at George.

“I’m the closest match they ever made,” said George. “That’s why they decanted me. I was their show pony. I think they were planning to sell the tech that made me. Immortality for the highest bidder.”

Every eye in the room went to Maggie. She blinked, and then slowly shook her head. “No way. My parents wouldn’t do something like that, even if they could afford it.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes. I am.” Her tone was firm, cutting off further discussion.

George bit her lip. “Anyway. I wasn’t supposed to be here.”

“You keep saying that, but how do we know you’re not lying?” asked Becks. “Maybe you’re telling the truth, only the ninety-seven percent Georgia died at the CDC, and you’re the Judas.”

“It’s a possibility,” George agreed. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see whether I’m consumed by the urge to betray you. Thus far, no urges.”

“No one is betraying, or shooting, anyone right now,” said Mahir firmly. “Please continue your story.”

“Gregory said he wanted to get me out, but we’d need to find a way to do it. If we weren’t careful, things could get ugly. He had another associate in the facility, working undercover with the CDC. She said her name was Dr. Shaw, but then after they managed to get me away from my handlers, she started calling herself Dr. Kimberley. She—”

“Dr. Danika Kimberley?” Mahir sat up a little straighter.

“Yeah.” George blinked at him. “You know her?”

“She’s an epidemic neurologist, specializing in infections that alter the behavior of the brain—including Kellis-Amberlee.” He frowned, focusing on George. “Describe her.”

“Tall, white-blonde hair, really blue eyes, looks sort of cold. She wore incredibly stupid shoes.” Her face fell. “She gave them to me when she told me to run.”

“And she had a Scottish accent?” asked Mahir.

George frowned. “Welsh, I think. She never told me where she was from.”

Mahir nodded like she’d just passed some sort of test. “They got you away from your ‘handlers.’ Then what?”

“Then they drugged me and operated on me without my consent.” Her lips thinned. “Guess the people who made me wanted to protect their investment. They had some lovely surprises implanted in my muscle tissue, designed to release neurotoxins when they decided they were done with me. I guess that seemed more humane than taking me behind the building and shooting me. Have I mentioned recently that I hate science?”

“You didn’t need to,” I snarled. The urge to go back to the CDC, find some survivors, and start punching them in the face was almost too strong to be denied.

Down, boy, said George.

“Oh, good. I hate science. That operation is probably why you couldn’t find any trackers when you scanned me. The EIS doctors took those out, too.”

“Or maybe the CDC always thought there was a chance the EIS would smuggle you out, and they wanted to be sure they couldn’t get any useful information out of you,” said Maggie quietly. Again, every eye in the room went to her. She reddened. “It makes more sense than ‘and then we implanted really expensive biological bombs in somebody instead of using a bullet.’ She was a booby trap. Just not for us.”

“I wish that didn’t make sense,” muttered George.

My scowl deepened, while Mahir looked quietly relieved. Every word she said made her story a little bit more believable. That didn’t make me happy about it.

Becks ignored my obvious unhappiness as she leaned forward and addressed George. “So where does Rick come into all this?”

“I was in recovery—still pretty drugged—when he came into the room. I couldn’t open my eyes, but I heard his voice. He said…” She faltered, and took a long drink from her Coke before she continued. “He said he was sorry I’d had to go through all this. And he told me to do what I did best.”

“What’s that?” asked Mahir.

George looked at him. “He said to break this fucking thing wide open and let the pieces fall.”

“Ah. And after that?”

“I told the EIS I’d only cooperate if they let me get online. So they got me a connection, and I managed to use one of the back doors into the secure server to talk to Alaric.”

“Which one?” asked Becks.

“The Elm Street entrance.”

Maggie laughed, once, sharply, and was silent.

George continued. “We were supposed to talk about evacuating me after that, but… something went wrong.” She looked down at her soda. “Someone started shooting. I saw two of the orderlies go down. Gregory and Dr. Kimberley and I ran. They shoved me through a quarantine door as it was closing. I managed to get into an empty lab and set some charges. I mostly just wanted to create a distraction so I could try to sneak out in the chaos. Instead… well. That’s where Shaun came in.”

“I see.” Mahir turned, looking toward me. “Well?” he asked.

“You know my vote,” I said.

Becks scowled. “I don’t like this.”

“I didn’t ask if you liked it. It’s a horrible perversion of the laws of nature, we’re doubtless to be struck down by the divine, should the divine ever bestir itself to remember that we’re here. As we’re still periodically having a zombie apocalypse, I doubt that’s going to happen any time soon. Now what’s your answer?”

Becks looked at George. Then she turned and looked at me. “I believe her,” she said finally. “If she’s not Georgia, she thinks she is. It’s better that we keep her close.”

I could have cheered. Instead, I looked toward Maggie, who smiled.

“This is the sort of thing that happens in comic books,” she said. “I’m in.”

“Thank you.” Mahir turned back to George. “It’s good to have you back. Disorienting and terrifying, and you’ll forgive me if I don’t rush to embrace you, but… good. Now, how would you feel about breaking this fucking thing wide open, to see where the pieces fall?”

George finished her first can of Coke and put it aside before opening the second. The carbonation hissed into the silence. Then she spoke: “What else am I supposed to do?”