Blackout

SHAUN: Thirty

I don’t know how long they left us in that room. Long enough that George was pale and freaking out a little by the time they came back, even though she was trying pretty damn hard to hide it. I watched her anxiously, not sure what I was supposed to do. She’d never had a problem with hospitals before. Then again, I guess being brought back from the dead and used as a CDC lab rat would fuck up just about anybody.

The delay may have put George’s nerves on edge, but it helped settle mine. When those bullets started flying… there was a time when that would have elated me. With George in the field, all it did was make me sick to my stomach. She could have been hit. I could have lost her again. Again. And I couldn’t even grab her and hold on until I stopped feeling sick, because there was blood on my shirt. If it was hot, even touching her could kill her. I should never have grabbed her hand. I should have stayed away from her and observed proper quarantine procedures. And I couldn’t.

It was sort of ironic. I couldn’t catch the live form of Kellis-Amberlee because I’d managed to catch the immunity from her, and now that she was back where she belonged, she didn’t have that same protection. Even when I was safe, she wasn’t.

“I hate the world sometimes,” I muttered.

“What?” George stopped staring at the wall, turning to look at me instead. She removed her sunglasses, rubbing her left eye with the heel of her hand. “Do you think we’ll find out what’s happening soon?”

“I hope so.” I sighed. “All that for nothing. We didn’t get the damn IDs.”

“Didn’t those people send you to the CDC?”

“Yeah, they did.”

“So it wasn’t for nothing.” George shrugged, trying—and failing—to look nonchalant as she said, “It got you me.”

I was still trying to find a response for that when the door opened and the EMT who had escorted us inside stepped through. He was wearing clean scrubs, and the plastic face mask was gone. We both turned to face him, waiting for his verdict.

“We apologize for any inconvenience the delay may have caused. Miss Garcia required immediate attention,” he said. “If you’d come with me, I’d be happy to take you to your party.”

“Does that mean we’re cool?” I asked.

The EMT nodded. “Yes, Mr. Mason. You’re both in fine health. Your internal viral loads are well within normal safety perimeters. Now if you would please come with me?”

“Right.” George looked faintly ill. “Back to the white rooms.”

“Hey.” She looked my way. I smiled at her. “I’m here. It’s all different now.”

“Yeah.” George returned my smile before turning to the EMT. “Lead the way.”

We followed him back to the hall where we had first entered. The sound and motion that had been my only real impression of the place was all gone now, replaced by cool, sterile peacefulness. If it hadn’t been for the airlock looking out on the garage, I would never have realized it was the same hall. George kept her eyes locked straight ahead, looking like she was going to be sick at any moment. I just hoped no one would see her and take that for a sign of spontaneous amplification. Another fire drill was the last thing that we needed at the moment.

She relaxed a little when we passed through a sliding door and into a hall where the walls were painted a pale cream yellow. Interesting. It was just the white that bothered her. I made a mental note to punch the next CDC employee I saw in the face.

“Mr. Mason, Miss Mason, at this point, I do need to ask that you proceed through these doors,” the EMT indicated two doors in the wall to our right, one marked “Men,” the other marked “Women.” “There will be clean clothes available for you to wear while yours are being sterilized.”

I glanced at George. “You going to be okay with this?”

She laughed unsteadily. “If I can’t handle a basic sterilization cycle, I may as well give up and go back to the… go back to the place where you found me right now. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” I risked reaching out and squeezing her hand before stepping through the appropriate door.

The room on the other side was small and square, and—to my relief—tiled in industrial gray. I could have kissed whoever was responsible for that particular decorating choice. As long as the women’s side was decorated the same way, George might not flip out. As expected, there were no windows, and a large drain was set in the middle of the floor. The door I’d arrived through was behind me. Another was on the wall directly in front of me.

“Hello, Shaun,” said the pleasant voice of the Agora. “Welcome back.”

“Thanks,” I said, hauling my shirt off over my head. “Where do you want me to put my clothes?”

A hatch slid open in one wall. I hadn’t even been able to see the outline of it in the tile. “Please place your clothes in the opening to your left. I promise they will not be damaged in any way by the cleaning process. We are only interested in your comfort and well-being.”

“Great.” I finished stripping before shoving my clothes, shoes and all, through the hatch. I held up my pistol. “What do you want done with the weapons?”

“Please place them in the same location. They will be separated out before the cleansing process begins.”

“Right.” I wasn’t happy with that answer. I didn’t see another way. Automated sterilization systems can get mean when they feel like protocol is being violated, and no matter how nice the Agora was programmed to be, refusing to give up my weapons would qualify as violating protocol. I placed them in the opening with everything else, barely pulling my hand back before the hatch slammed closed again.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Shaun,” said the Agora. “Please move to the center of the room and close your eyes. Sterilization will commence once you are in the correct position.”

“On it,” I said. I moved to position myself directly over the drain, closed my eyes, and tilted my face toward the ceiling. The water turned on a second later, raining down on me from what felt like half a dozen differently angled jets. I didn’t open my eyes to find out.

Sterilization follows the same basic protocols no matter where you are or how high class a place pretends to be. First they boil you, then they bleach you, then they boil you again. If the powers that be could get away with dipping us all in lye, they’d probably do it, just to be able to say that one more layer of “safety” had been slapped on. The Agora was nicer about it than it technically had to be; the hot water lasted almost thirty seconds, followed by eight seconds of bleach, and then a citrus-scented foam that oozed down from more jets in the ceiling. Sterilization and a shower.

Twice, the Agora instructed me to change positions or turn, letting the bleach, hot water, and cleansing foam cover every part of me. The hot water jets were repeated three times; the bleach was only repeated once. Guess I was dirtier than I was potentially diseased.

Finally, the water turned off, and the Agora said, “Thank you for your cooperation.”

“Didn’t you say that, like, five minutes ago?” I opened my eyes. The door in front of me was open, revealing an antechamber that looked like the locker room of a really upscale gym.

“My range of programmed responses is wide, but sometimes, repetition is inevitable,” said the Agora patiently. “If you would like to register a complaint—”

“That’s okay,” I said, cutting the hotel off midsentence. “Thanks for the scrub. Do I get pants in the next room?”

“Yes, Shaun,” said the Agora.

“Awesome,” I said, and proceeded on. The “pants” were drawstring cotton, purple with the Agora logo over the hip, like they were advertising a high school pep team. The bathrobe that went with them was a few shades darker, with the same logo. I pulled everything on, checked to be sure the ties were tight, and stepped out the door in the far wall.

George was waiting in the hall, tugging anxiously at the sleeves of her own bathrobe. Her feet were bare, the legs of her sweatpants pooling over their tops, and her sunglasses were gone. Without a medical condition to make them mandatory, she could have them confiscated at every sterilization checkpoint we encountered. Another EMT was standing nearby, using that weird gift that some people in service industries seem to possess, and basically blending into the furniture.

I ignored her, focusing on George. “Hey,” I said. “All clean?”

“All clean.” She sighed, giving up on tugging her sleeves into place. “Do you think that after we see how Maggie’s doing, we can get me a can of Coke?”

“We can get you a gallon of Coke,” I said.

“Good.” She looked to the EMT. “Where to now?”

“This way,” said the EMT. She started down the hallway and we followed, only lagging by a few steps. The hall ended at a pair of sliding glass doors, which opened to reveal a small but well-appointed hospital waiting room. There was even an admissions desk, with a woman sitting behind it, tapping away at her computer.

“The Masons are here for Miss Garcia,” called the EMT, as she led us past the desk. The other woman nodded, looking up with a smile. Her fingers kept moving the whole time, and her eyes snapped quickly back to the screen.

“Do you get many medical emergencies here?” asked George.

“The Agora is proud to provide hospital services to our guests, both past and present,” said the EMT. “We have patients most days, seeing our private doctors. It offers a guarantee of privacy and discretion that is unfortunately not present in many more public hospitals.”

“Better care for rich people, right?” I said. “Figures.”

George didn’t say anything. She just looked thoughtfully around as we followed the EMT past a row of unlabeled doors, finally pausing at one that looked like all the others.

“A moment, please,” said the EMT, and pushed the door open, vanishing inside. Only a few seconds passed before she pushed the door open again, this time holding it to let us through. “Miss Garcia will see you now.”

“Awesome,” I said, and stepped past her into the room. I stopped dead just past the threshold, too stunned to speak.

George ducked in behind me. After a few startled seconds, she said, “Remind me to come here the next time I decide to get hurt.”

“You and me both,” I said.

The halls of the Agora’s medical center might look like the ones you’d find at any other upscale hospital, but the patient rooms were something completely different, at least if Maggie’s was anything to go by. The walls were painted a warm amber, and there was actual carpet on the floor—easy-clean industrial carpet, sure, but a world of luxury away from normal hospital tile. The only medical equipment in sight was a flat-screen display that flickered periodically between images, apparently doing the work of multiple monitors.

Maggie was lying in the middle of a comfortable-looking bed with a wine red comforter and more pillows than anyone needs, sick or not. She was too pale, especially for her. An IV was connected to her left arm, and there were sensor patches on her collarbones, but apart from that, she could have been taking a nap. Mahir was sitting to one side of the bed; Becks was standing near the wall. They both turned to look at us.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Mahir said, “If Maggie were awake and mobile, this is doubtless the point where she would leap to her feet, announce how worried she’d been, and run to embrace you. Please forgive me if I choose to take all that as written, and move straight to asking what the bloody hell we’re meant to do now.”

I nodded. “Forgiven. How is she?”

“The bullet went clean through. That’s about the only good thing I can say about it.” Becks didn’t look at Maggie as she spoke. She didn’t really look at us, either; her gaze was fixed on the wall, preventing anything uncomfortable, like eye contact. “Several of her internal organs were damaged, and her liver was nicked. She lost a lot of blood.”

“But she didn’t amplify,” I said.

“No. She’s going to be fine. They’re transfusing her with scrubbed plasma and filtering as much of the viral load out of her bloodstream as they can, but she never started to amplify.”

“What Rebecca isn’t saying is that Maggie came very, very close to crossing that line, and she can’t be moved.” Mahir dropped his head into his hands, voice muffled as he said, “She can’t be moved, and you can’t stay here. This is a disaster.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. For a moment—just a moment—I wished the George who only existed in my head would speak up and tell me what to say. Then I glanced to the George who was standing beside me, alive and breathing and as lost as the rest of us, and the moment passed. “Maggie can’t be moved, but she’ll be safe here. The Agora would never let anything happen to her, and she wasn’t involved with the actual break-in at the CDC, so it’s not like she can be accused of anything more criminal than letting herself get shot.”

“Harboring fugitives,” said Becks.

“Criminal negligence—she should never have left the van,” said Mahir.

“Being a journalist,” said George. The rest of us turned to her, startled. She shook her head, expression grim. “I read as much of the last year’s site archive as I could before we left to get shot at. Whoever’s running this game, they don’t like journalists, and they’re not discriminating between the branches. To them, a blogger’s a blogger.”

“She’s right,” whispered Maggie.

Mahir raised his head. Becks whipped around to face the bed. Maggie’s eyes were still closed, but there was a tension in her that hadn’t been there when we entered the room, a tension that spoke of consciousness.

“You know… they’re targeting the bloggers,” whispered Maggie. Every word seemed heavy, like it was being dragged out of her. “Martial law in Florida. Arrests all over the country. They’re… hiding something.”

“Hey. Hey. Don’t try to talk, honey. You need to save your strength.” Becks moved to crouch down next to Mahir. Looking at the three of them, I felt suddenly left out, like they had formed a unit I wasn’t meant to be part of. Then George touched my elbow with one hand, the sort of quick, subtle contact that had always been the limit we allowed ourselves in public, and I realized they’d formed their unit because they understood—probably before I did—that they were never really going to be a part of mine.

I was always going to be a haunted house. The only difference was that now my ghost wore flesh and held me when I needed her. Somehow, that made it better… but it didn’t stop the realization from hurting.

“No. Need to talk.” Maggie struggled to open her eyes, managing a single blink before they closed again. “Shaun, you have to… you have to take Georgia and go. Go back to Dr. Abbey. She’ll know another way to hide you.”

“What about you?” I asked.

The ghost of a smile flitted across her face. “I am going to lie here until I can feel my toes. And then I’ll ask the concierge to call my parents so I can tell them that the CDC is being naughty.”

Mahir actually laughed. “Well, that’ll certainly complicate things in our favor.”

“You have to stay with her,” said Becks.

“What?” Mahir twisted to face her, eyes narrowing. “I don’t believe I heard you correctly.”

“I’m staying out of this,” I murmured to George. She nodded, not saying anything.

“One of us has to stay here and make sure Maggie keeps breathing until her parents get here—and that if she stops, there’s someone ready to tell them the real story.” Becks grimaced. “Sorry, Maggie.”

“It’s okay,” Maggie said, another ghostly smile crossing her face. “Medical family, remember? I don’t kid myself about things like this.” The smile faded, replaced by a grimace. “Could’ve done without getting shot, though.”

“And I’m volunteered to remain behind precisely why?” Mahir demanded.

“Shaun’s crazy, Georgia’s a clone, and I’m prepared to shoot them both if they so much as look at me funny. Whereas you have virtually no field experience, and have never shot someone you care about.”

“I’ve had field experience,” said Mahir.

“Was any of it voluntary?” asked George.

He grimaced. “No,” he admitted. “But I don’t care one bit for being the one who gets sidelined. It seems that’s always what you lot do right before you kick off the endgame. Remember Sacramento?”

“Bet I remember it better than you do,” said George quietly.

Mahir grimaced again. “I’m sorry. But you take my point.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You lived. You’re staying here, Mahir, and Becks is coming with us. You’ll like Dr. Abbey, George. She’s probably clinically insane, but she’s good people, and that’s harder to come by than sanity these days.”

Maggie made a thin choking sound that made us all freeze, until we realized she was trying to laugh. “You people,” she whispered finally. “You still think any of this is a choice. Get out of here. Get in your van, and get out of here, and finish it. Do you hear me? Finish it.” This time, she managed to force her eyes open for almost five whole seconds, glaring at us. “Finish it, or I swear, I will die, and come back, and haunt you.”

“I’ve had enough of being haunted,” I said. “We’ll finish it. But only because you asked so nicely, Maggie.”

“I can live with that,” she said, eyes drifting closed again. “Now go ’way. I want to sleep. Can’t do that with all you reporters here staring at me.”

Mahir stood, pausing long enough to glare at me before he stalked out of the room. Becks walked back to Maggie, bending to kiss her on the forehead. Then she followed Mahir, leaving me and George alone with Maggie.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“Wait,” whispered Maggie.

We froze.

“Tell her to come here.”

I glanced at George, who stared back at me, eyes wide and somehow helpless. I nodded. She sighed, nodding back, and walked over to Maggie.

“I’m here.”

“Closer.”

George leaned down until her ear was next to Maggie’s mouth. Maggie whispered something, expression as urgent as her voice was weak. George hesitated before replying, “I understand. And yes. I promise.”

“Good,” said Maggie, loud enough for me to hear. “Now go.”

George walked away from the bed, looking unsettled. She didn’t pause before leaving the room. I followed her, grabbing her arm before she could head for the admissions desk, where Mahir and Becks were speaking with the EMT.

“Hey,” I said. “What did she say to you?”

George turned to face me, her eyes meeting mine with a directness that her sunglasses had always prevented before. “She said that if I’m even a little bit Georgia Mason, I’ll kill myself before I’ll let the CDC use me to hurt you more than they already have. And I agreed.

“I think I’m mostly me, Shaun. I really do. But I know that mostly isn’t entirely. If there’s any chance I’m less myself than I think I am—if I feel even the slightest bit like I might be slipping—I will take myself out of the picture.” Her smile was humorless. “I won’t be the one who stops you from avenging me.”

There was nothing I could say to that.