Blackout: Book 3 of The Newsflesh Trilogy Read online

  He suddenly lunged forward, grabbing my shoulders and turning me to fully face him. Becks started to moved toward us. Mahir grabbed her upper arm, stopping her. I barely noticed. I was too busy staring into the eyes of the man in front of me, the eyes I’d been waiting to see since the moment I woke up. They were looking at me with such anger. I’d seen that look on his face before, but never directed at me.

  “Who are you?” he demanded, voice pitched low. The pain in it hurt almost as much as the anger in his eyes. My poor, poor Shaun…

  “I’m Georgia,” I whispered. “I’m not anyone else, and that means that I’m her.”

  He looked older, like he’d lived through more than just a year without me. His eyes searched my face, finally settling on my hairline. “Why haven’t you dyed your hair?” he asked.

  “The doctors responsible for my care didn’t give me the opportunity. I would have, if they’d let me.” I would have given myself retinal Kellis-Amberlee, just so I’d feel less like a stranger in my own skin. I would have done a lot of things.

  “Can you prove to me that you are who you say you are?” He didn’t let go of my shoulders. “Is there anything, anything you can do that will make me believe in you?”

  He wanted to believe; I could see it in his eyes, a deep ache buried under the pain. That was why he couldn’t let himself do it. There’s no such thing as miracles, and when the dead rise, they don’t look in your eyes and say their names. Maybe in some other world, but not this one.

  I took a slow breath, casting another glance toward Becks and Mahir. Then I looked back to him and said, “There’s only one thing we never wrote down. You know what it was.”

  “Do you?”

  “I do, but, Shaun, I don’t know if—”

  “Prove it, right now, or I swear to you, I will shoot you myself.”

  “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” I said, and leaned in and kissed him. His hands tightened on my shoulders, his whole body stiffening against mine as he realized what I was doing.

  And then he started kissing me back.

  That was the one thing we never wrote down—the one thing we couldn’t write down, because no file or server is ever totally secure, and it would have gotten out. No one would have cared that we weren’t biologically related, or that we’d gone in for genetic testing when we turned sixteen, just to be absolutely sure. No one would have cared that we didn’t trust anyone else enough to let them be there while we slept. No. The media loves a scandal, and we’d been raised as siblings in the public eye. It would have destroyed our ratings, and then the Masons would have destroyed us, for blackening the family name.

  There were a few people who’d guessed over the years. I’m pretty sure that Buffy knew. But we never, never wrote it down.

  He squeezed my shoulders so hard it hurt. I didn’t pull away, and after a few seconds, his hands relaxed and he pulled me to him, returning the kiss with a frightening hunger. I grabbed his elbows and pulled him closer still, until it felt like we were pressed so closely together that there was no room for anything to come between us. Not even death. We were home.

  I didn’t pull away until my lungs started burning. His hands dropped from my shoulders and he opened his eyes, staring at me. I stared back. Slowly, he reached out with one shaking hand and brushed my bangs away from my forehead.

  “Georgia?” he whispered.

  I nodded.

  “How—?”

  Mahir cleared his throat. “Unbelievable as I find all this—and believe me, I do find it unbelievable—this is, perhaps, not the best place to go into it. CDC security will find the hole we created sooner or later, and we’ve been standing here long enough that I feel it will be sooner. If everyone agrees, we should remove this reunion to a safer location.”

  “I still say we shoot her,” said Becks.

  I glanced at her, frowning. “Has she always been this bloodthirsty?”

  Shaun kept staring at me. It was like there was nothing else in the world. Somehow, I understood the feeling. “I may have taught her a few things.”

  “If we’re going to move, we should move,” said Mahir. There was a core of cold efficiency in his voice that hadn’t been there a moment before. “Shaun, you’re unfit to lead the remainder of this mission. Becks, I outrank you. Georgia…” He faltered, realizing what he’d just said. “Miss, whoever you are, you are not currently a part of our structure. As that makes me the senior staff member here, I hereby command the rest of you to move.”

  I smiled at him. I couldn’t help it. “Thanks, Mahir. I missed you, too.”

  Shaun grabbed my hand, starting to walk. I went with him, only wincing a little as my battered feet hit the ground. Mahir and Becks followed us, Becks never putting her pistol away. I didn’t care. She wasn’t going to shoot me now; not without getting the story of who I was and what I was doing with them. She was a Newsie for too long to throw away a lead like that once the heat of the moment had passed.

  We didn’t talk as we made our way across a decrepit parking lot to an even more neglected-looking garage. There was nothing we could say that wouldn’t confuse matters further. Shaun and Becks produced flashlights from their pockets, clicking them on and using them to light the way into the darkness of the parking garage. I stopped when I saw what their beams had illuminated, a grin spreading, unbidden, across my face.

  “You still have the van,” I breathed. “I was afraid that after… well, after what happened, that the decontamination would have been too expensive.” And that he wouldn’t have wanted to keep it after he killed me in it.

  “I had to replace all the upholstery, but I wasn’t willing to lose the frame,” said Shaun. “We spent too much time there for me to give it up that easily.”

  Tears welled up in my eyes. Becks took one look at my face before she snorted, snapped, “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” and went storming over to the van.

  “She’s not always like this,” said Shaun.

  “I’ve got a feeling she will be for the next few days,” I said, and let him lead me to the van.

  All four of us had to submit to a blood test before the locks would disengage. I held my breath until mine came back clean and the doors unlocked. Becks opened the back and pulled out what looked like a modified metal detector wand. “Spread,” she ordered me.

  I knew better than to argue with an Irwin who had that look on her face. I pulled away from Shaun, who let go of my hand with obvious reluctance, and assumed the position used by air travelers since the birth of the TSA. She ran the wand along my arms, legs, torso, and back, scowling a little more each time it failed to beep. Then she passed it to Mahir, who repeated the process. I had to admire their thoroughness, even though I knew that a false positive—or worse, an accurate one—would probably result in my getting shot in the head.

  Finally, Mahir lowered the wand. “She’s clean,” he said. Becks scowled.

  Shaun, on the other hand, grinned like he’d just been told that he was now uncontested king of the entire universe. He tossed Becks the keys. She caught them automatically. “You’re driving,” he informed her. “I’m riding in back with George.”

  She muttered something before getting into the driver’s seat. I didn’t need to hear it to know that it wasn’t complimentary. I also didn’t have the energy to worry about it just then. Shaun helped me into the back of the van, where he sat down on the floor, opening his arms to me. I climbed into them willingly, nestling myself as closely against him as anatomy and the space around us would allow, and closed my eyes.

  I fell asleep listening to the sound of his heart beating. I have never slept that well in my life, and I may never sleep that well again.

  BOOK IV

  Reservoirs

  Okay, that’s it. No more Mister Nice, Heavily Armed, Really Pissed-Off Journalist.

  —SHAUN MASON

  The dangerous thing about truth is the way it changes depending on how you’re looking at it. One man’s gospel tru
th is another man’s blasphemous lie. The dangerous thing about people is the way we’ll try to kill anyone whose truth doesn’t agree with ours. And the dangerous thing about me is that I’ve already died once, so what the fuck do I care?

  —GEORGIA MASON

  Miss me?

  —From Images May Disturb You, the blog of Georgia Mason, August 2, 2041. Shared internally only.

  Yes.

  —From Adaptive Immunities, the blog of Shaun Mason, August 2, 2041. Shared internally only.

  SHAUN: Twenty-six

  The Agora guards were all smiles as they came out to meet us. “Welcome back to the Agora,” said the one next to Becks’s window, holding out a blood testing unit. “If you would be so kind—”

  “We’re going to need a fourth kit,” I said, craning my neck to see the window from between the seats. George was still asleep, curled up against me with her fingers locked in the fabric of my shirt.

  “Or we could just let them shoot her,” said Becks sweetly.

  Mahir put his hands up before I could say anything. “There will be no shooting of anyone who tests cleanly. Can we please get a fourth testing unit?”

  “Of course, sir,” said the guard, looking unflustered. Apparently, people drove up with battered, dirty women in CDC scrubs all the time.

  “George.” I shook her shoulder. She didn’t respond. I shook her again, harder this time. “Georgia. Wake up.”

  “Problems, Mason?” asked Becks.

  “Nothing I can’t handle,” I said. Leaning down until my mouth was only a few inches from George’s ear, I said, “If you don’t wake up right now, I’m going to get a bottle of water from the travel fridge. I will then pour it down your back. You won’t enjoy it, and I won’t care. Just in case you were wondering.”

  Her eyes opened. I had the time to think, almost academically, that my crazy was useful after all—all those hallucinations got me used to the idea of a Georgia without retinal KA, and now I actually had one. Then she smiled, and all thoughts went out the window except for holding on to her and never, ever letting go.

  “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you threatening me awake.” She untangled her fingers from my shirt and sat up, looking around the van. She stiffened when she saw the armed guards looking through the windows, patiently waiting for us to get our shit together. “Shaun? Where are we?”

  “At our hotel. It’s a long story. Can you sit up and let them run a blood test?” Seeing the look of alarm in her eyes, I added quickly, “This place has security that would have given Buffy, like, spontaneous orgasms for days. They’re not going to share their results. They just want to know that we’re all clean before they let us through the gates.”

  “If you say so,” she said warily.

  “Promise.” I kissed her forehead before opening the van’s side door. Another guard was waiting there, this one holding a testing unit in each hand. I gave him a smile. He didn’t give it back. “My man! Is it time to prove that we’re not planning to eat the other guests?”

  “We have a strict policy of non-cannibalism here at the Agora,” he replied, holding the tests toward us. His eyes flicked toward George’s bloody feet, noticing and acknowledging them, but he didn’t say a word. If we wanted to engage in dangerous behaviors, we could, as long as it didn’t result in our bringing infection past their gates. It was an attitude I could definitely respect.

  “We’re good with that,” I said, and leaned over to take one of the tests. George did the same with the other. “On three?”

  A flicker of a smile crossed George’s face. “On three,” she agreed. “One.”

  “Two.”

  Neither of us said “three.” Instead, we each reached out and placed our right index fingers on the test unit in the other’s hand. The guard didn’t say anything; again, if we wanted to be crazy, it wasn’t his problem, as long as we were clean.

  We didn’t look at the lights. We just looked at each other. There were tears at the corners of George’s eyes, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that she wasn’t the only one. If she failed this, I wasn’t going to shoot her again. I wasn’t—

  “Thank you, Mr. Mason, ma’am.” The guard leaned forward, pulling the test units from our hands before either of us could react. I turned, and saw the green lights gleaming at the top of each small white box. He smiled genially. “We’re pleased to have you back. Miss Garcia has been alerted to your arrival, and to the presence of your guest. One of our attendants will meet you at the door with slippers for the young lady. Please have a pleasant stay at the Agora.”

  “See? Cake.” I turned to look toward the front. The windows were back up; Becks and Mahir had apparently passed their own tests while I was distracted.

  “It’s not going to last,” said Becks. Her eyes met mine in the rearview mirror as she started the engine. “We just showed up with a woman who looks like she’s been kidnapped from a lab, and is basically a walking hot zone right now, with those feet. This isn’t cool.”

  “Maybe not, but what else was I supposed to do?”

  “This discussion is not going to end well,” said Mahir sharply. “We’re going to go inside, meet with Maggie, and decide what happens next. No one gets the deciding vote. Am I understood?”

  “It is so good to see you,” said George. She got up onto her knees, half kneeling as she looked through the windshield at the hotel. Her eyes widened. “Where are we? Hill House?”

  “Whatever walks here walks in the presence of a large, well-trained staff ready to attend to your every need,” said Mahir. “As the gentleman said, welcome to the Agora. It’s a resort of a kind, for people whose monthly allowance puts my annual income to shame.”

  “You let Maggie choose the hotel, didn’t you?”

  “Don’t answer that,” said Becks. “Until we know what’s going on, we’re not telling you anything more than we have to. I’m pretty sure this place is expensive enough that they’ll dispose of a body for us if we ask them.”

  “The privileges of wealth.” George sank back to the floor. She gave me an anxious look, and I took her hand, squeezing it. The solidity of her was still the most amazing thing I’d ever felt.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said.

  “Maybe,” she replied.

  None of us said anything after that. Becks drove up the long driveway to the parking garage, where the valet waved us through the open gate, apparently remembering our preference for self-parking. Becks got out first. By the time I opened the van door, she was already there, pistol out, covering us.

  “I think it says something deeply disturbing about me that I find this comforting,” said George, wincing as her cut-up feet hit the cool cement of the garage floor.

  “That’s Becks. Always ready to offer a helping headshot.” I restrained the urge to pick George up and get her feet away from the ground. I needed to let her walk on her own. She’d never forgive me if I didn’t.

  “I thought I learned from the best,” said Becks. She stayed where she was, letting us step away from the vehicle. It was clear she intended to follow us to the door, rather than risking George getting the drop on her. Oddly, it wasn’t only George who found her paranoia comforting. Knowing there was someone behind me, ready to shoot if something started to go wrong, made me a lot more comfortable letting George take my hand, even though it would keep me from getting to a gun as fast as I might need to.

  Mahir walked on my other side. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The worried, faintly disapproving look on his face said volumes.

  True to the concierge’s word, a man in the hotel uniform was waiting by the airlock with a pair of fluffy blue and gold slippers in one hand and a matching robe in the other. He held them out to us as we approached, saying, “The management is thrilled that you’re here, but would prefer that you not distress the other guests.”

  “What?” I asked blankly.

  Mahir cleared his throat and nodded toward George. I turned, looking
at her.

  There were stains on the sleeves of her once-white lab coat. Some were clearly chemical; others could have been blood. Some of the stains on the cuffs of her pants were definitely blood, as were the streaky smears on the tops of her feet. The fact that she was dressed like a medical professional would just make those little spots more terrifying for most people. We trust doctors because we have to. We never forget that they’re the profession with the highest day-to-day risk of infection.

  George looked down at herself, clearly coming to the same conclusion. “Thank you,” she said, reaching out to take the robe and slippers. Putting them on made her look less disheveled, and oddly younger; the robe was at least three sizes too large, and hung on her like a shroud. She tied the robe around her waist, sleeves all but swallowing her hands, and flashed a quick, professional smile at the attendant. “It’s great.”

  “Welcome to the Agora, miss. We hope you’ll enjoy your stay.” He bowed before turning and stepping into the airlock. I was pretty sure any charges associated with the robe and slippers would be appearing on our master bill, and would be hefty enough to make me choke. Good thing none of us were ever going to see the price tag for this place.

  Once the attendant was clear of the airlock, George and I stepped inside. A little more of the tension went out of her shoulders as soon as we were past the first layer of glass, like even that thin barrier took us farther from her captivity. I couldn’t reach her hands, swaddled as they were in layers of plush terry cloth, so I squeezed her shoulder instead.

  The smile she flashed my way was a lot less professional. “You can keep doing that forever,” she said quietly.

  “Planning on it,” I said. Then the door was sliding open in front of us, and we left the airlock together, letting it begin a new cycle as Becks and Mahir were processed through.