I sighed. “Yeah, I know.”
George put a hand on the back of my neck. Maybe I should have been disturbed by the fact that I could feel it, but I just couldn’t work up the energy. I was too busy being grateful that she was there at all.
“Hey, George?”
“What?”
“That stuff I said before… before.” Before Kelly died, before Dr. Wynne turned on us, before we fled the CDC hours ahead of a disaster of Biblical proportions—before everything. Before the world changed.
“Yeah?”
“I didn’t mean it. I really, really didn’t mean it.” I lifted my head and she was there, looking at me with open anxiety, alien eyes grave. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. I can’t do this without you, and if you try to make me, I don’t think I’m going to be okay.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Her smile was sad, and her hand continued to rest against the back of my neck, feeling solid and warm and alive. If this was crazy, God, I wasn’t sure I was capable of wanting anything else. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good,” I whispered. I sat on the couch with my dead sister, listening to the voices from the kitchen, and wondered just how the fuck I was going to get us through this one in one piece.
… fuck it. I don’t have the energy to be profound right now. Turn off your goddamn computer and go spend some time with your family before the world decides to finish ending. That’s about the only profound thing that I have left.
We ran out of time, and we didn’t even know that it was being metered.
—From Adaptive Immunities, the blog of Shaun Mason, June 24, 2041
What he said.
—From Charming Not Sincere, the blog of Rebecca Atherton, June 24, 2041
Twenty-four
The feeling of George’s hand against the back of my neck eventually faded. I looked up to find myself alone. Even the usual soft sense of her at the back of my m
ind was gone. That didn’t worry me the way it would have, once; I’d had plenty of time to adjust to the idea that her presence came and went depending on how stressed I was, how much pressure I was under, and I guess how sane I was feeling at any given moment. If she wasn’t there, that must mean I was feeling better.
In the kitchen, Mahir and Alaric were typing furiously, while Becks was finishing the reassemy of what looked like her last gun for the day. Maggie was wearing a wireless headset and sitting in front of her laptop, chattering in a rapid mixture of English and Spanish. She sounded calmer. That was good, since the speed of her responses implied that whomever she was talking to wasn’t calm in the least.
I hooked my thumb in her direction as I walked toward the coffee machine. George being out of the picture for the moment meant I could down a cup of real caffeine before I had to go back to caffeinated sugar water. “Who’s on the line?”
“Her folks,” said Becks, glancing up. “They’ve been talking for half an hour.” The subtext—that I’d been sitting by myself in the living room for half an hour—wasn’t subtle. Somehow, I didn’t really care.
“Good job with the wireless booster.” Mahir kept typing as he spoke, his head bowed in what could have been either concentration or prayer. “I believe Mr. Garcia was on the edge of commanding an armed extraction when she was finally able to get through and notify them as to her continuing safety.”
“I could do with a little armed extraction.” I took a large gulp of coffee, letting it sear the back of my throat before adding, “As long as they were willing to stay and be our private army. You think they’d stay and be a private army?”
“No,” said Alaric tonelessly.
Mahir did look up at that, shooting a worried glance toward Alaric before turning to me and saying, “Internet journalists have been largely expelled from the impacted areas, and those attempting to take pictures or live blog from inside have been cited with practicing journalism without a license.”
“What?” I straightened. “That’s not legal.”
“Becoming a blogger requires only that one establish a blog, and not necessarily even that, if one is willing to exist solely through commentary on the blogs of others. Becoming a journalist requires that one take the licensing exams, take the marksmanship exams, pass accreditation, and possess a license sufficient to allow entry to any given hazard zone, lest fines and possible charges be applied.”
“Well, yeah, Mahir. Everybody knows that. What does that have to do with—”
“The individuals involved were in established hazard zones, taking actions of the sort that journalists must be properly licensed to perform.” Mahir shook his head, light glinting off his glasses. “They’re being held while charges are brought against them.”
I gaped at him. “Wait—so—what, they’re saying that when you combine ‘has a blog’ with ‘is inside a hazard zone,’ you automatically become a journalist?”
“Poof,” muttered Becks.