Blackout

Managing things without Georgia has never been what I would term “easy,” but it’s never been harder than in the past few months. The devastation wreaked by Tropical Storm Fiona would have been terrible even without the additional horror of a newly discovered insect vector for Kellis-Amberlee infection. The loss of life would have been appalling even if so many of the lost had not gone on to attack and infect their fellow men. I find myself watching the news feeds and wishing, more than ever before, that Georgia Mason were with us today.

Georgia had a gift for reporting the news without letting sentiment color her impressions: She saw the world in black and white, no shades of gray allowed. It could have been a crippling disability in any other profession, but she made it her greatest strength. If she were here, she would be the one reducing bodies to statistics, rendering disasters into history. But she’s not here. She, too, has been reduced to a statistic, has been rendered into history. All of which means that I, unprepared as I am, have been forced to do her job.

May posterity show mercy when it looks back upon the work we do today. We did what we could with what we had.

—From Fish and Clips, the blog of Mahir Gowda, July 16, 2041.

Subject 7c is awake, responsive, and self-aware. Subject has asked several conditionally relevant questions, and does not appear to suffer any visual or cognitive disorders. Subject self-identifies as “Georgia Mason,” and is able to recount events up to the point of physical death (see GEORGIA C. MASON, AUTOPSY FILE for details of injury).

We are prepared to continue with this subject for the time being. Full medical files are being transmitted under a secure encryption key.

—Taken from an e-mail sent by Dr. Matthew Thomas, July 16, 2041.

GEORGIA MASON

LIVES.

—Graffiti from inside the Florida disaster zone, picture published under Creative Commons license.