Blackout: Book 3 of The Newsflesh Trilogy Read online

  A door slammed open ahead of us, and Dr. Kimberley appeared, signaling frantically with one hand. The other hand was out of sight. “This way!” she hissed. Her normally perfect hair was in disarray, and there were spots of blood on the sleeve of her lab coat. Whether it was hers or someone else’s, I couldn’t tell.

  Gregory changed angles, still hauling me along. She stepped to the side, letting us run past her into the narrow hall on the other side of the door. As soon as we were through, she stepped back and pulled her hand away from the sensor to the left of the doorframe. The door promptly slammed, the light above it switching from green to red.

  “Report,” she said briskly, turning toward the wall. She pried open what looked like a section of paneling to reveal a control panel. Not looking at us, she started typing.

  “At least two shooters, at least three technicians down.”

  “Kathleen and George,” I panted. I slumped against the wall, bracing my hands on my knees. There was blood on my slippers; Kathleen’s blood. I kicked them off, shuddering. “They’re both down.”

  “Dammit.” Dr. Kimberley kept typing. “They’ve been with me for years—how many people do we still have in there?”

  “Seven,” said Gregory. I didn’t like the resignation in his voice. “At this point, they’re locked in with two armed hostiles and at least one risen infected. Sorry, Danika, but I think we have to call this mission compromised.”

  “And it was going so well,” she said, with a note of mock peevishness. She stopped typing and pressed her palm against the control panel’s testing pad. “Do we know how they made us?”

  “James didn’t report for his shift. Given the timing, we have to assume he was a mole, and had been waiting for the opportunity to report back. We’ve been too busy for the last several days for anyone to sneak away unnoticed.”

  “Remind me to punch myself in the mouth for agreeing to take anyone who didn’t come with me from the Maryland lab,” said Dr. Kimberley. She pulled her hand away from the test pad. “They haven’t changed the biometrics yet. I’d move back if I were you.”

  Not being a fool, I straightened and took a step backward. Gregory and Dr. Kimberley did the same. A metal shield dropped from the ceiling between us and the door, slamming down with enough force that it was easy to picture anything caught between it and the floor getting smashed flat. “Decontamination procedures initiated,” announced a calm, robotic voice. “Decontamination commencing in ten… nine…”

  “Run!” shouted Gregory. He grabbed my hand and we were off again, racing down the hall. Dr. Kimberley pulled up next to us, her high-heeled shoes swinging from her left hand. That was smart of her. She would never have been able to keep up with them on.

  An alarm blared, drowning out the calmly counting voice of the security system. I barely heard Gregory swearing. My heart skipped a beat as I saw the red lights clicking on all along the hall in front of us.

  “Dammit, Danika! You triggered a full lab decon!”

  “I did no such thing! Someone’s playing silly buggers with the security protocols!” She sounded frantic. I didn’t blame her. I wasn’t sure what a full lab decon entailed, but I knew enough about CDC procedures to know it wouldn’t be anything good.

  Gregory snarled something I couldn’t quite make out. It sounded profane, whatever it was. He let go of my hand, apparently trusting me to run on my own, and began removing his lab coat. He didn’t slow down. I stumbled a little, but kept running, aided by Dr. Kimberley’s hand on my back.

  “Here!” Gregory turned, now running backward as he thrust the coat into my hands. “Danika! Give her your shoes!”

  “Right!” Dr. Kimberley shoved her shoes at me. I took them without thinking about what I was doing. “If you make it out of here, get in touch with Dr. Joseph Shoji. He’ll help.”

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded. “We’re all getting out of here!”

  Gregory smiled sadly. “No,” he said. “We’re not.” Then he stopped running, grabbing my arm and jerking me to a halt as he pulled the ID card from his pocket. He swiped it over the sensor pad of the nearest door, which slid immediately open.

  “Override,” said Dr. Kimberley approvingly. “Nice one.”

  “I thought so,” he said, and shoved me through the open door. Another of those metal shields slammed down a split second later, shutting them both from view. It was thick enough that it also cut off the sound of the alarms, leaving me in a sudden, almost shocking silence. I stared at the blank wall of steel in front of me for several precious seconds as I tried to process what had just happened.

  There was a full decontamination cycle starting on the other side of that wall. And the only two people I knew were on my side were on the other side of it.

  Okay, see the problem here? It’s one of scale. That’s all. It’s like math. Evil math. Take five bloggers, split them into three groups, and scatter them along the West Coast of the United States. Impose a radio silence. Start the apocalypse. Now, if Blogger A starts trying to contact Blogger B, using a secure DSL connection from Lab X, how long before Blogger A has a full-blown nervous breakdown?

  Just wondering.

  —From The Kwong Way of Things, the blog of Alaric Kwong, August 1, 2041. Unpublished.

  RISE UP WHILE YOU CAN.

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

  Twenty-two

  This isn’t right.” Becks watched the door, pistol drawn. “There should be more security.”

  “Maybe there’s something going on.” I kept most of my attention on my phone. I had a scanner running, checking for security frequencies that might give away our location. “Mahir? How’s it looking?”

  “The booster should be online in a few more seconds.” He was on his back on the floor, using magnetic clasps to affix the Cat’s equipment to the bottom of a server rack. “I still feel odd about this whole thing. I think this is the first actual crime I’ve committed for you people.”

  “We’ll put it on your résumé,” Becks said dryly.

  “And we’re good.” Mahir pushed himself away from the server rack and stood, dusting off his still-immaculate pants. “That should work until they find it. Which will be never if that woman is half as good as she believes herself to be.”

  “Let’s say she’s half as good as Buffy was, and assume that means she gets about a year.” I lowered my phone. “There’s still no security activity in this part of the building. We’re either clean to evac, or they’re setting up an ambush.”

  Becks snorted. “Let me guess what you’re going to say next. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’ ”

  “Sounds about right,” I agreed. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The light above the door turned yellow just as we started to move. “There has been a security breach,” announced a calm female voice. “Please proceed to the nearest open lab and await instructions. There are currently no confirmed contaminants. Please proceed to the nearest open lab and await instructions. Remain calm. Please proceed to the nearest open lab…”

  The three of us turned to look at each other.

  “Okay,” I asked. “Who touched the bad button?”

  The door slid open. We stopped looking at each other in favor of looking at it.

  “Is that good, bad, or horrible?” asked Mahir.

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” said Becks. “Let’s move.”

  Finding the correct server room had put us deep enough in the building that we couldn’t just bolt for the exit. I gestured for Becks to exit ahead of me. She nodded understanding, suddenly all business, and left the room with her pistol held at waist level. I motioned for Mahir to go after her, and I brought up the rear. It wasn’t as cold a move as it might have seemed from the outside. Becks was well equipped to handle herself, Mahir needed the cover, and I…

  I was the most expendable one here.

  We made our way through the halls, duckin
g out of sight whenever we heard footsteps, and avoiding any room with a red light above it. Becks went around each corner first, signaling us to follow once she was sure the next hall was clear. I would remain behind just long enough to be sure we weren’t being tailed. It was slow. It was nerve-racking. I would actually have preferred a zombie mob. At least you can shoot those.

  We all wound up standing together at a T-junction, identical halls stretching out to the left and right. “I… I can’t remember which way we turn here.” Becks sounded horrified. “I don’t know which way to go.”

  “You go that way.” I pointed left. “I’ll go the other way. If you find the exit, wait there; I’ll catch up. If you don’t, turn around.”

  “Shaun—”

  “Still in charge,” I said amiably, before turning and jogging down the right-side hall. They didn’t follow me. They were smarter than that.

  The hall was deserted. I kept going, looking for the outer wall. My attention was so tightly focused that I didn’t hear the woman who was running barefoot down the next hall until she came whipping around the corner and ran straight into me.

  I staggered backward, barely managing to keep my balance. She did much the same, ducking her head for a moment in the process—long enough for me to register that she was wearing doctor’s scrubs and a lab coat, but no shoes or socks. Her hair was short-cropped and dark brown, where it wasn’t bleached in streaky patches.

  Then she looked up, and my heart stopped.

  “George?” I whispered.

  “Shaun?” Her voice was unsteady, like she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to be using it. We stared at each other, neither of us seeming to be quite sure of what we were supposed to do next.

  Then she grabbed my hand and shouted, “Run!”

  “Impossible” is something that stopped having any staying power when the dead started to rise. Trust me on this one. I’m a scientist.

  —From the journal of Dr. Shannon Abbey, date unknown.

  Every day I wake up thinking “We’re all going to die today.” Maybe it’s weird, but I find that comforting. Every day, I wake up thinking “This is the day it ends, and we all get to rest.”

  That’ll be nice.

  —From Adaptive Immunities, the blog of Shaun Mason, August 1, 2041. Unpublished.

  GEORGIA: Twenty-three

  I slipped the lab coat over my scrubs, dropping the shoes on the floor, where they landed with a clatter. I stepped into them, still moving on autopilot. There was no blood on me—it had all been on my slippers, and those were on the other side of the barrier. I was clean, and I was alone. If I was getting out of here, I was doing it under my own power. I took a deep breath, turned, and walked down the hall. It took all my self-control not to break into a run. Running would attract attention. I was one more person in scrubs and a lab coat, practically part of the landscape, and the last thing I wanted was to attract attention to myself.

  Voices drifted down the hall ahead of me. Suddenly remembering my little gun, I dropped it into the lab coat pocket and kept walking. A group of unfamiliar technicians rounded the corner and walked right past me, barely seeming to register my presence. I really was invisible… until someone recognized me, anyway. That was going to happen sooner or later. I needed a plan, and “keep walking until you find the exit” wasn’t going to cut it.

  Rescue came from an unexpected source: the building’s security system. “There has been a security breach,” it announced. All down the hall, the lights changed color. Some turned red. Most turned yellow, followed by their associated doors sliding open. “Please proceed to the nearest open lab and await instructions. There are currently no confirmed contaminants. Please proceed to the nearest open lab and await instructions. Remain calm. Please proceed—”

  I stopped listening in favor of turning and walking toward the nearest open door, trying to look like I knew what I was doing. The first lab contained three anxious-looking orderlies. They were murmuring amongst themselves with their backs to the door. I stepped out of view as fast as I could, starting for the next open lab. It looked oddly familiar—oddly, because so many of the labs looked exactly like every other CDC lab I’d ever seen. I stuck my head into the room, scanning for signs of movement. There were none.

  But there was a heavy black curtain covering the back third of the room. A faint blue glow seeped around the edges, casting shadows on the floor and ceiling. “No way,” I whispered, and stepped all the way into the room. The door slid shut behind me. I barely noticed.

  Why would they unlock this lab? Wouldn’t they be too worried about the sanctity of their big bad mad science project to let people get near the tank? Then again, everyone who’d seen me had to know I was a clone. Maybe this was a wing where no one who didn’t have the appropriate security clearances would ever set foot. I walked across the room, pausing barely a foot from that dangling curtain. Did I really want to know?

  Did I really have a choice? I reached out, grabbing hold of the nearest fold of fabric, and pulled the curtain aside.

  Subject 8c floated peacefully in her tank, asleep and unaware. The window to 8b’s room was open. She was lying on her bed, headphones clamped over her ears. They were finishing her conditioning, implanting the subliminal memories they hadn’t been able to extract from the original Georgia’s damaged brain—or maybe just implanting the memories they’d crafted to replace the ones they chose not to salvage. Rage crawled up the back of my throat, chasing away the last of my fear. This was my replacement. This was the reason I’d been slated for termination. Their controllable Georgia Mason.

  “Fuck that,” I muttered, and turned to survey the lab.

  I’m not the technical genius Buffy was. I’m not even on a level with Alaric or Dave. I am, however, the girl who grew up with the world’s first Irwin for a mother, and a suicidal idiot for a best friend and brother. You can’t do that without learning a few things the Irwin’s trade, including the art of improvising explosives. It’s amazing how many of the things needed for a basic biology lab are capable of blowing up, if you’re willing to try very, very hard, and don’t much care about possibly losing a few fingers in the process.

  No one came through the lab door as I mixed up my jars of unstable chemicals. That was a relief. I didn’t want to shoot anyone. Not because I was concerned about their lives—I was getting ready to blow massive holes in the building; concern about a few gunshot wounds would have been silly—but because I didn’t want to attract attention, and unlike our friend the sniper, I didn’t have a silencer. Ripped-up rags provided the fuses I needed, and I found a box of old-fashioned sulfur matches in one of the supply cabinets. Some things will never stop being stocked, no matter how far science progresses.

  When I was done, I had eight charges, none of which was going to be much good without a spark. I set two of them along the base of the tank and two more by the window of the room where 8b slept. I wanted to feel bad about what I was doing. I was taking their lives away from them, and they hadn’t done anything wrong. Only it wasn’t their life. It was mine, because I was the closest thing to Georgia Mason that they were ever going to get. Call me selfish, but if I was going to die, I was going to die knowing my replacement wasn’t waiting in the wings.

  I set the other four charges around the edges of the lab, where they would hopefully knock down a few walls and cause a little more chaos when they went off. Hell, it was worth trying, and it wasn’t like I had that much left to lose.

  “Here goes everything,” I said, and lit the first match.

  There’s no guidebook to making fuses from the things you can scavenge out of a CDC lab. I had no idea how long they’d burn, or whether they’d burn at all; maybe my big boom would be nothing but a fizzle. I wasn’t going to stick around to find out. After the third fuse was lit, I turned and sprinted for the door.

  The locked door.

  “Oh, fuck,” I said. “This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.” I hit the door with the heel of m
y hand. “Let me out, you fucking machine!”

  “Please clarify the nature of your request,” said the security system.

  “Uh…” I froze for several precious seconds before blurting, “The tank has been compromised. I need to get some sealant, now, or the experiment will be terminated.”

  “Please state the nature of the compromise.”

  “There’s a break in one of the feeding tubes.”

  I was taking shots in the dark. There was a pause before the system said, “Please hurry. Movement is currently restricted due to security conditions.” The door slid open.

  I ran.

  The halls were practically deserted. I paused long enough to kick off Dr. Kimberley’s heels and kept running, heading for what I hoped would be one of the building’s outer walls. I hit a corner and turned, hit another corner and turned again. The first of my explosives would be going off at any second. I had to run, or else—

  I was so focused on running that I didn’t look where I was going. I whipped around a corner and slammed straight into the man who was running in the opposite direction. We both staggered backward, my head going down as I tried to recover my equilibrium.

  He spoke first. “George?”

  “Shaun?” I stared at him. He stared back. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do first—scream, cry, or hug him until the world stopped spinning. I had to settle for the fourth option. Darting forward, I grabbed his hand and shouted, “Run!”

  Thank God for habit. Shaun didn’t hesitate. He followed my lead, letting me tow him down the hallway and around the nearest corner, where two more familiar faces were waiting.