“My sister?” asked Alaric.
“Will be returned to your custody as soon as possible. She was fortunate to escape Florida.”
Becks didn’t say anything. Her family was more likely to be supporting the CDC than at risk from their actions.
“Well?” asked the doctor.
I opened my mouth, not quite sure what was going to come out of it.
“We’ll do it,” I said.
“Good,” said the doctor. “I hoped you’d see sense. Welcome to the CDC.”
You know what? Fuck it. Just fuck it. The Rising didn’t manage to wipe out the human race, it just made us turn into even bigger assholes than we were before. Hear that, mad science? You failed. You were supposed to kill us all, and instead you turned us into monsters.
Fuck it.
—From Adaptive Immunities, the blog of Shaun Mason, August 7, 2041. Unpublished.
Testing. This is a test post to check formatting and be sure the files are uploading correctly. Test test test.
Is this thing on?
—From Living Dead Girl, the blog of Georgia Mason II, August 7, 2041. Unpublished.
GEORGIA: Thirty-seven
Steve was a constant, silent presence behind us as Rick steered me down the hall. It was weirdly like being back on the campaign trail, only I wasn’t carrying a gun, Rick wasn’t carrying a cat, and I was no longer sure who the good guys were.
On second thought, it was nothing at all like being back on the campaign trail.
The hall ended at a door that looked like real oak. Rick let go of me to press his palm flat against the testing panel next to the door. A small red light clicked on above it, oscillating rapidly between red and green before settling on green. It remained lit for less than five seconds. Then it clicked off, and the door clicked open.
“I’m going to be waiting for you on the other side,” said Rick. “Do you trust Steve?”
It was an interesting question. If Ryman was no longer one of the good guys, I wasn’t sure I trusted anyone. But of the people I didn’t trust, Steve was one of the ones I distrusted the least. “We’ll be fine,” I said.
“I’ll see you in a moment,” said Rick, and opened the door. Part of me wondered what kind of awesome security procedures they’d have in place to prevent people from following each other through—always a risk, no matter how much the people who design the airlock systems try to keep it from happening. Some airlocks will gas you if you try to go through without getting a blood test. Somehow I doubted they’d use something that crude on a door that might be opened by the President of the United States. The rest of me understood that playing with the security system was something too stupid for Shaun to do, and that meant it was absolutely too dumb for me.
The door closed behind Rick, the little red light making another brief appearance before shutting itself politely off. “Cute,” I said, stepping forward to press my hand against the testing plate. Needles bit into the skin at the point where each of my fingers joined my palm. That was an unusual spot for a test array. I took a small, startled breath, finally pulling away as the light turned green and clicked off. “That’s my cue.”
“I’ll be right through,” said Steve. He smiled encouragingly when I looked back at him, and I held that image firmly in my mind as I stepped through the door to whatever was waiting on the other side. Steve wouldn’t have smiled while he sent me to my death. I might be a clone, and Ryman might be corrupt, but some things about a person’s essential nature never change.
The door opened on a narrow hallway that looked like it was constructed hundreds of years before the Rising and never substantially redecorated. Rick was waiting. A relieved smile spread across his face when he saw me. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
“What, you thought I’d go back to the nice man in the lab coat who was about to have me recycled?” I dropped the pretense of having a migraine, straightening and looking at him flatly. “You could have warned me what we were walking into.”
“No. I couldn’t have.” The door swung open as Steve joined us in the hall. Rick switched his attention from me to Steve, asking, “Anyone following us?”
“Not that I saw,” rumbled Steve. I raised an eyebrow. He explained, “This is one of the tunnels built during the Cold War, in case we needed to evacuate the capital. They probably wouldn’t have been any use in a nuclear strike—a nuke’s a pretty damn big deal—but there’s one thing they do manage, quite nicely.”
I nodded slowly, catching his meaning. “We’re underground. No wireless transmission.”
“We sweep this hall hourly for bugs. For the moment, we’re in the clear.” Steve looked past me to Rick. “You can proceed, Mr. Vice President.”