Fed

Five: Georgia

If the guard at the reception hall thought there was something odd about us arriving in a dusty, dented SUV over an hour after the Center went into lockdown, he didn’t say anything. Our blood tests came back clean; that was what his job required him to give a damn about, and so he just waved us inside. He didn’t ask any questions. I was relieved and angry at the same time. Maybe if people asked more questions, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

We parked next to an empty press bus, the three of us pausing only long enough to check the readiness of our weapons before we walked to the elevator. We all got in together, even Steve.

I glanced at him and frowned. “You don’t have a press pass.”

“Don’t need one,” he said. “The Center’s under quarantine. By contract, I’m actually obligated to circumnavigate any security barricade between myself and the Senator.”

“Good,” I said. I looked to Rick. “When we get inside, you let me talk to Tate. I want you staying out of the way.” I wanted him to survive this little adventure. I wanted one of us—just one—to make it out alive.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

I nodded. And then it was too late for conversation, as the elevator doors opened on what looked for all the world like a perfectly normal party. Servers circulated with trays of drinks and canapés. Politicians, their spouses, reporters, and members of the California elite milled around, talking like there was nothing wrong. The only signs of tension were in their eyes. They knew about the quarantine—half of these people were staying at the Center, or worked there, or had a stake in its continued success—and they were terrified. But appearances have to be maintained, especially when you’re looking at millions of dollars in lost city revenue because of an outbreak. So the party continued.

“I hate this,” I muttered. The man with the blood tests was waiting for us to check in. I slid my increasingly sore hand into the unit he held, watching lights run their cycle from red to yellow and finally to green. Next to me, Steve and Rick did the same.

As soon as the lights stabilized I yanked my hand free and ducked into the crowd, not waiting for my companions as I made a beeline for the room where I’d last seen Senator Ryman. They wouldn’t allow him to leave after the Center went into lockdown, and if he couldn’t leave, he would have stayed in the room with his surviving staff. He was that kind of a guy.

“Georgia? What are you doing here?”

Senator Ryman sounded astonished. I turned toward his voice and found him half-standing. Emily was beside him, eyes wide, hands clapped over her mouth. Tate was on his other side. Unlike the Rymans, the Governor looked anything but relieved to see me. I could read the hatred in his eyes.

“Senator Ryman,” I said, and finished my turn, walking to the table. “Mrs. Ryman.” I smiled narrowly. “Governor.”

“Oh, God, Georgia.” Emily Ryman stood so fast she sent her chair toppling over as she threw her arms around me. “We heard the news. I’m so sorry.”

“I left him outside,” I said, looking past Emily’s shoulder to Senator Ryman and Governor Tate. “He was infected, and he wouldn’t let me die with him, so I left him outside the van. I locked the doors. He held off the zombies until Steve could get to us.” Belatedly, I realized that I hadn’t explained who “us” was. “Rick’s here, too. We both lived. Shaun didn’t.”

“Georgia?” Emily pulled away, looking uncertain. She glanced over her shoulder at Governor Tate before looking back to me. “What’s going on here?”

“How did you get out of the quarantine zone?” asked Tate. His voice was flat, verging on emotionless. He knew the score. He’d known it since I walked through the door. Lies only last as long as no one’s questioning them.

“I’m good at my job.” Emily Ryman let me go entirely, taking a step backward, toward her husband. I kept my eyes on Tate. “Shaun was a good friend of most of the security staff. They were happy to help me. I guess sometimes you really do reap what you sow.”

“Georgia, what are you talking about?”

The confusion in Senator Ryman’s voice was enough to distract me from Tate. I turned to the man responsible for us being here in the first place, asking, “Haven’t you seen my last report?”

“No, I haven’t.” His expression was drawn tight with concern. “Things have been a bit hectic. I haven’t had a site feed since the outbreak bell rang.”

“Then how did you—”

“When the CDC puts out a statement, it tends to go around in a hurry.” Senator Ryman closed his eyes, looking pained. “He was so damn young.”

“Shaun was assassinated, Senator. Someone shot a plastic dart of live-state Kellis-Amberlee straight into his arm. He never had a prayer.” I swung my attention back to Tate, and asked, more quietly, “Why Eakly, Governor? Why the ranch? And why Buffy? I can actually understand trying to kill us, after everything else, but why?”

“Dave?” said Senator Ryman.

“This country needed someone to take real action for a change. Someone who was willing to do what needed to be done. Not just another politician preaching changes and keeping up the status quo.” Tate met my eyes without flinching. He’d been waiting for this moment. Maybe he was even, on some level, relieved that it was finally here. Everyone wants the chance to tell the truth. “We took some good steps toward God and safety after the Rising, but they’ve slowed in recent years. People are afraid to do the right thing. That’s the key. Real fear’s what motivates them to get past the fears that aren’t important enough to matter. They needed to be reminded. They needed to remember what America stands for.”

“How could you even… how could anyone ever believe that was the right way?” I drew my .40, aiming it at Tate. The crowd went still, honed political instincts reacting to what had to look like an assassination attempt in the making. “Secure channel voice activation, Georgia Carolyn Mason, ABF-175893, password ‘Krypton.’ Mahir, are you there?”

My ear cuff beeped once. “Here, Georgia,” said Mahir’s voice, distorted by the encryption algorithms protecting the transmission. Secure channels are only good once, but oh, how good they are. “What’s the situation?”

“I’m with Tate now. Please start uploading everything you’ve received, and download my last post directly to Senator Ryman.” Governor Tate was glaring at me. I glared back. “I’ve been recording this whole time. But you knew that, didn’t you? You’re a smart guy. You know how this game works. Even if you didn’t know at first, I’m sure that working with Buffy taught you.”

“Miss Meissonier was a realist and a patriot who understood the trials facing this country,” said Tate, tone as stiff as his shoulders. “She was proud to have the opportunity to serve.”

“Miss Meissonier was a twenty-four year old journalist who wrote poetry for a living,” I snapped. “Miss Meissonier was our partner, and you had her killed because she wasn’t useful anymore.”

“David, is this true?” asked Emily, horror leeching the inflection from her voice. Senator Ryman had taken out his PDA and seemed to be growing older by the second as he stared at its screen.

“Did you… Eakly? The ranch?” Fury twisted her features, and before either I or her husband could react, she was out of her chair, launching herself at Governor Tate. “My daughter! That was my daughter, you bastard! Those were my parents! Burn in hell, you—”

Tate grabbed her wrists, twisting her to the side and locking his arm around her neck. His left hand, which had been under the table since I arrived, came into view, holding another of those plastic syringes. Unaware, Emily Ryman continued to struggle.

The Senator went pale. “Now, David, let’s not do anything rash here—”

“I tried to send them home, Peter,” said Tate. “I tried to get them off the campaign, out of harm’s way, out of my way. Now look where they’ve brought us. Me, holding your pretty little wife, with just one outbreak left between us and a happy ending. I would have given you the election. I would have made you the greatest American President of

the past hundred years, because together, we would have remade this nation.”

“No election is worth this,” Ryman said. “Emily, be still now, baby.” Looking confused and betrayed, Emily stopped struggling. Ryman lifted his hands into view, palms upward. “What’ll it take for you to release her? My wife’s not a part of this.”

“I’m afraid you’re all a part of this now,” Tate said, with a small shake of his head. “No one’s walking away. It’s gone too far for that. Maybe if you’d disposed of the journalists,” the word was almost spat, “it could have gone differently. But there’s no use crying over spilled milk, now, is there?”

“Put down the syringe, Governor,” I said, keeping the gun level. “Let her go.”

“Georgia, the CDC is piggybacking our feed,” said Mahir. “They’re not stopping the transmission, but they’re definitely listening in. Dave and Alaric are maintaining the integrity, but I don’t know that we can stop it if they want to cut us off.”

“Oh, they won’t cut us off, will you, Dr. Wynne?” I asked. If I was right and he was listening in, the CDC was with us. If it was anybody else…

There was a crackle as the CDC broke into our channel. “Here, Georgia,” said the familiar Southern drawn of Dr. Joseph Wynne. Mahir was swearing in the background. “Are you in any danger?”

“I’m not, but Emily Ryman is,” I said. “Governor Tate has her, and he’s holding a syringe full of what I assume is Kellis-Amberlee.”

“We’re on our way. Can you stall him?”

“I’m trying.” I forced my attention back to Governor Tate, who was watching me impassively. “The CDC is on their way. You know this is over.”

Governor Tate hesitated, looking from me to the Senator and finally to the horrified, receding crowd. Suddenly weary, he shook his head, and said, “You’re fools, all of you. You could have saved this country. You could have brought moral fiber back to America.” His grip on Emily slackened. She pulled herself free, diving into her husband’s embrace. Senator Ryman closed his arms around her, backing away. Governor Tate ignored them. “You and your brother will be forgotten in a week, when your fickle little audience of bottom-feeders moves on to something more recent. But they’re going to remember me, Mason. They always remember the martyrs.”

“We’ll see,” I said.

“No,” he said. “We won’t.” In one fluid motion, he drove the syringe into his thigh and pressed the plunger home.

Emily Ryman screamed. Senator Ryman was shouting at the top of his lungs, ordering people to get back, to get to the elevators, behind secure doors, anything that would get them away from the man who’d just turned himself into a living outbreak. Still looking at me, Governor Tate started to laugh.

The sound of my gun going off was almost drowned out by the screams of the crowd. Governor Tate stopped laughing, and looked, for an instant, almost comically surprised before he slumped onto the table. I kept the gun trained on him, waiting for signs of further movement. After several moments had passed without any, I shot him three more times anyway, just to be sure. It never hurts to be sure.

Steve and Rick stepped up beside me as people pushed past us, rushing for the doors. Mahir and Dr. Wynne were trying to shout over each other on our open channel, both demanding status reports, demanding to know whether I was all right, whether the outbreak had been contained. They were giving me a headache. I reached up and removed my ear cuff, putting it on the table. Let them shout. I was done listening. I didn’t need to listen anymore.

“I’m sorry, Georgia,” said Rick softly.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. I wiped my eyes with the back of the hand that held my gun, wishing that there was some mercy in the world. That getting the bad guys meant you got your loved ones back; that there had been another way.

That I could cry.

“What now?” asked Steve.

I shook my head. I honestly didn’t know. I didn’t know anything anymore.