Blackout

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 my 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.