Fed

Three: Georgia

The sound of gunfire began outside the van almost as soon as I finished my post. I folded my arms over the keyboard and put my head down, refusing to allow myself to look up. The security monitors would have let me see what was happening, and that was the one thing I knew I couldn’t survive doing. If I saw Shaun… if I saw him fall, I’d follow him, and that wouldn’t help anyone. We both had our jobs to do. Mine, unfortunately, required me to survive for at least a little while longer.

Rick put his hand on my shoulder. I didn’t shrug him off. The gunfire continued.

Eventually, Rick took his hand away. I heard his footsteps on the van floor, followed by the sound of him sitting down at one of the other terminals and beginning to type. He gasped, a single short, sharp intake of breath.

“Georgia?”

I didn’t want to respond to him. I didn’t want to respond to anything, ever again. “What?” I asked, without lifting my head.

“Your post…”

“What about it?”

“It’s live. We’re getting so many hits that it’s swamped two of the servers.”

“What?” This time I did lift my head, turning in my chair to face him. The gunfire from outside continued, but it seemed less important now.

“I’m serious. Everyone is downloading this, everyone is propagating it. Alaric’s reporting that when some folks started the usual ‘it’s a hoax’ rumors, the CDC put out a press statement. The CDC.” He sounded awed. I understood how he felt.

The CDC never puts out a statement with less than a week to prepare. “They confirmed the outbreak, and provided satellite footage to corroborate your report.

This story doesn’t just have legs—it has wings, and it’s flying around the world.”

“Was the name on the press release Dr. Joseph Wynne?”

“It was.”

“Good man.”

“Georgia… he didn’t die for nothing. The story still got out.”

The urge to slap him was hot and sudden.

A wave of exhaustion followed it, keeping me in the chair. “That’s where you’re wrong, Rick. No one should have died for this. Not Buffy, not Steve’s partner, and certainly not Shaun. This wasn’t supposed to be that kind of story.”

He turned to blink at me, looking faintly abashed. Then he ducked his head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Just don’t start thinking their deaths are somehow justified because we got the word out. They were worth so much more than this story.” So damn much more.

Rick’s shoulders sagged. “I’m going to get back to work.”

“You do that.” I turned back to my own terminal, and put my head back down on my arms.

Minutes ticked by as Rick worked and I sat in silence, trying to change the world with the power of my denial. One of the monitors started to beep in the frequency that meant we had an incoming call.

“Answer,” I said, not lifting my head.

“Georgia?”

Mahir sounded like he was on the verge of a total meltdown. I looked up to see his face on the monitor mounted above my terminal. His eyes were wide and terrified, whites showing all the way around, and his hair was disheveled, like he’d just gotten out of bed.

“Oh,” I said. “Hello, Mahir. How are you keeping up with the forums?” My voice came out calm and reasonable, like I was just a normal person having a normal conversation about normal things. It was remarkable how lifelike I sounded.

“Hey,” said Rick, from behind me.

Mahir glanced toward him before returning his attention to me. “I’m so sorry, Georgia. I—”

“Please don’t.” My voice was very small. I cleared my throat and said, more forcefully, “If you do that, I won’t be able to keep going. And I have to keep going. I don’t see any other way.”

“What can I do?”

If apologies were the exact wrong thing, this was the exact right thing. I sat up a bit straighter, squaring my shoulders, and said, “I need a favor.”

“Anything.” He said it like he meant it; like it was the most important thing in the world. Good. He wasn’t far wrong.

“I am not currently fit to run this news site.” The words hurt less than I expected them to. I guess I’d already used up most of my capacity for pain. “I need you to take my place, until such time as I am capable of doing my job without personal concerns clouding my understanding of the truth.”

“Georgia—”

“We need a new head for the Irwins. I can’t. I can’t. Do you understand me? I will die before I hire Shaun’s replacement. I am too scrambled, and too close to this story. Please, Mahir. Take over.”

“I… I don’t know what to say.”

“Say yes. Say you’ll do it. I can have a contract to you in seconds. We can always put things back to normal when this is over.” But it was never going to be over. I was lying—I was lying—when I implied that “over” was even a possibility anymore. Normal had left the building, and it wasn’t coming back.

Mahir looked at me gravely. He knew me well enough to hear the quaver in my voice, and to know what I was really asking. I was asking him to take care of the site forever, because however this turned out, I wasn’t going to be coming back.

Finally, he said, “All right, Georgia. But only because it’s you.”

“I appreciate that. I’ll send you a contract and the master passwords as soon as we end this call. I’ll turn your login back on at the same time. It should take about ten minutes for everything to start working again. Once it does, I need you to be on every inch of the site. Grab every warm body you can find. Control it, maintain it, and ride this story as far as it will take you.”

“What’s the goal here, Georgia?”

I glanced over my shoulder to Rick. He nodded, understanding me. I looked back to Mahir.

“Shaun is dead.” The words hurt more than I could have imagined. “This story isn’t. We’re not letting them kill it the way they killed him.”

For a moment, it looked as if he might protest, but only for a moment. It passed as quickly as it had come, and he nodded. “I’ll get on that. Are you about to do something foolish?”

“I think so,” I said. “Goodnight, Mahir.”

“Goodbye, Georgia Mason,” he said, and the screen went black.

“I’ve got Steve on line two,” said Rick.

“Put him on speaker,” I said. I got up from my chair, moving like I was in a dream as I walked toward the weapons locker. I needed to get armed. Something bigger than a .45 was practically required.

“Georgia?” Steve sounded tentative, even broadcast through the van speakers. “Are you all right?”

“That’s a question for my therapist—if I had a therapist—but I think the answer is ‘no,’” I said, opening the locker door and pulling out two Kevlar vests. I tossed one to Rick before slipping my own on. “What’s the situation outside?”

“Ah… all infected have been cleared from the area outside your van.”

Meaning that Shaun was no longer outside, either protecting me or waiting to eat me. I expected that realization to hurt. It didn’t. It just left a numb patch at the center of my chest, one that spread as I slipped on my Kevlar. “Is it safe for us to come out? I have Rick in here with me. Neither of us was exposed.”

There was a pause before Steve said, “This area is still not secure.”

“If you can clear a path to my motorcycle, we can get around anything that might be in our way.” When he didn’t answer immediately, I sighed, and said, “Please. They killed my brother. They killed Shaun. Please help us get out of here.”

The pause was longer this time—almost long enough to make me think that Steve was going to walk away and leave us locked in the van, with no clear route to the exit. It wouldn’t matter if he did. We’d find a way out of here regardless. It would just go faster if he helped us.

Finally, voice low, Steve said, “I haven’t read your latest entry all the way. I read enough. Stand back from the door, and keep your hands where I can see them until you’ve tested out clean.”

“On it,” I said. I stepped back, motioning for Rick to do the same.

Air rushed in when the van door opened, accompanied by the heavy smells of blood and gunpowder. I stayed where in was, waiting.

“Georgia. Rick.” Steve stepped forward, placing two blood testing kits on the ground just in front of the open door. They were good-quality units, not top of the line, but good enough that their accuracy ratings had never been contested.

I picked up the first unit and passed it to Rick before picking up my own. I looked toward Steve as I broke the seal. “If this comes up positive…he doesn’t get to get away with this, Steve. He doesn’t get to do this.”

“I promise,” said Steve.

That would have to be enough. I slid my hand into the unit and pressed it flat against the needles, not wincing as they broke my skin. The lights began their inevitable cycle of red-yellow-green, flashing through all the available permutations before settling on a steady green. Next to me, Rick did the same, with the same results. We were both clean.

I held up my testing unit. “Clear.”

“Clear,” echoed Rick.

“Thank you.” Steve tossed us each a biohazard bag. “What happened?”

What happened? Shaun died. How could anything else matter? I took a deep breath, forcing myself to set that thought aside, and said, as calmly as I could, “Someone killed Lois—Rick’s cat—which caused him to come back for us before we could enter our trailer. As a consequence, none of us were inside when the explosives went off. We ran for cover, Shaun was infected.”

“Infected how?” asked Steve.

“A hypodermic needle, like the one we found at the Ryman farm.” I shook my head. “We were set up. None of us are supposed to be standing.”

“But we are,” said Rick.

“Yes. We are,” I said, finally dropping my testing unit into a biohazard bag.

Steve watched this before asking, “You got a plan from here?”

“Yes,” I said flatly. “I’m going back to the rally. I’m going to have a chat with Governor Tate. And when that’s over, I’m going to blow the fucking roof off this entire conspiracy.”

“You can’t take your bike. You’d never make it out before the quarantine came down.”

I shrugged, somehow managing to smile a little. It almost hurt. “Well, then. Can we get a ride?”

Steve nodded gravely. “I thought you’d never ask.”