Blackout

The concierge just came to tell me my parents have landed at the Seattle/Tacoma International Airport, and will be at the Agora in less than an hour. I look like hell. My hair doesn’t even bear thinking about. But oh I am so glad they’re coming.

Mahir and I have discussed what to tell them, and we’ve settled on the only thing they’re likely to accept: the truth. He’s pointed out (a few too many times) that they’re in medtech, they have contracts with the CDC, and they could be on the wrong side. I can’t find a way to explain that I don’t care. If they’re on the wrong side now, they’ll change when they find out what happened—what that bad, bad side was willing to do to me.

I have hidden the truth from them for too long. It’s time I started living up to the mission statement that Georgia Mason chose when she founded After the End Times. It’s time for me to start telling the truth.

But ah, it hurts.

—From Dandelion Mine, the blog of Magdalene Grace Garcia, August 6, 2041. Unpublished.

The lab is very quiet.

I’m not sure that I like it anymore.

I miss you, Joe.

—From the private files of Dr. Shannon Abbey, August 6, 2041. Unpublished.