Deadline

Shaun and I had one of those awkward talks today—the ones that hurt the most because they’re the ones you don’t want to have, ever, but have to have eventually. This one was about our birth parents. Who they were, why they gave us up, whether they survived the Rising, all those things they say adopted kids are supposed to ask. Whether they wanted us. That’s a big one for Shaun. He’s always been more forgiving of the Masons than I am, but for some reason, it’s really important to him that we were wanted before we wound up here.

I know what triggered it. I got the same e-mail he did, from a service promising to “reunite the orphans of the Rising with their families.” According to the e-mail, these people would—for a modest fee, of course—run blood and tissue samples through every public and military database in the country, looking for a genetic match. Satisfaction guaranteed; they were clear on that point. We Find Your Family, Or Your Money Back.

That sort of scam fascinates me, but I don’t want the answers that they’re offering. I’ve had my genes tested for every nasty recessive and surprise health hazard we can test for, and that’s most of them—anything they don’t have a chromosome type for is so damn rare that at least it would be interesting to write about as it killed me. I have no pressing need to find the family that created me. The one thing I have in this world, the one thing I’m not willing to risk losing, is Shaun. And if I went out and found another family, I’d run the risk of losing him.

Whether the Masons rescued us from certain death—like the press releases say—or stole us, or hell, bought us on the black market, I don’t care. The girl I would’ve been if I’d grown up with a mother with my nose and a father with my funny-looking toes never got the opportunity to exist. I did. I was the one who got to grow up, and I grew up with Shaun, and that’s all I give a damn about. We got lucky. If he doesn’t see it, well… I guess there’s no way to make him.

But I still know.

—From Postcards from the Wall, the unpublished files of Georgia Mason, originally posted May 13, 2034

The good thing about Kellis-Amberlee, as a virus, is that it only goes after mammals. I mean, think about it. Can you imagine an infected giant squid? It would be like the Sea World Incident of 2015 all over again, only this time with bonus tentacles. Not my idea of a good scene. If that doesn’t disturb you, consider this: The average crocodile well over the amplification threshold.

Yeah. That was my thought, too.

The bad thing about Kellis-Amberlee, as a virus, is that it goes after all mammals. From the smallest field mouse to the largest blue whale (assuming there are any blue whales left down there), if it’s a mammal, it’s a carrier. That means that any cure we devise will also have to work for all mammals, because otherwise there’s always the chance that Kellis-Amberlee can mutate and come back for another try. Viruses are tricky that way. At least we’re used to dealing with this form of the disease. I’m not sure how quickly we’d adjust if it somehow changed the rules.

—From The Kwong Way of Things, the blog of Alaric Kwong, April 12, 2041