Blackout

GEORGIA: Twenty-nine

None of this made any sense, and none of Shaun’s explanations had done anything to help the situation. Not that it mattered. As soon as people started shooting, I stopped needing to understand and started needing to react. I ducked, grabbing Maggie’s hand—she was the one with the least field experience, at least as far as I remembered—and dragging her around the corner into the living room. They’d need to shoot through more walls to get to us here.

“Shaun!” I shouted, hoping I’d be heard over the gunfire. “Get the hell out of there!”

“The wall’s holding for now!” Shaun shouted back. Mahir rounded the corner, taking up a position on the other side of Maggie. He flashed me a wan smile.

My hand went to my waist, habit telling me that when I was dressed, I was also armed. There was nothing there but my belt. “Dammit, Shaun! If you don’t have a secret escape plan, you need to make the crazy people give us guns!”

The woman they called the Cat shouted, “We don’t let strangers go armed in this house!”

“Sort of a special circumstance, don’t you think?” I demanded.

There was an answering burst of gunfire from the hall, followed by the sound of the door slamming. Someone who actually had a weapon must have opened the door, taken a shot at our attackers, and closed the door again. “I think everybody should have lots of guns!” said the cheerful, faintly lunatic voice of the little redhead. “Monkey, can we? Can we please give everybody guns?”

“Yes, Monkey, please?” asked Shaun. He backed into view, not joining our cluster against the wall, but getting farther away from the door to the garage. “We promise not to shoot up any more of your shit than is strictly necessary.”

“Fascinating as diplomacy is, perhaps during a firefight is not the time?” Mahir sounded frantic, like he was the only one taking things seriously.

Shaun gave him a startled look. “Dude, chill. We’re fine until they shoot through the door.”

“Then we’re fine for another ninety seconds,” said the Monkey. “Foxy, give them guns.”

“Yay!” The redhead ran to the other side of the living room. She opened what I’d taken for a coat closet, exposing enough weaponry to outfit a good-sized tabloid. Shaun whistled.

“Okay, I’m in love,” he said.

“Fickle, fickle heart.” I started for the open closet, the others following. This whole situation seemed faintly unreal. We were trapped in a decrepit-looking private home while a small army tried to shoot their way in. The fact that they hadn’t already succeeded told me this place had some pretty good armor plating under the peeling paint. The people who lived here were concerned, but not panicked. That made it a little too easy to be casual about things, like there was no way we could get hurt.

We could get hurt. I’d already died once. That sort of thing tends to teach you that no one is invincible.

“Here!” The Fox handed me a revolver, and gave Shaun a semiautomatic handgun. She kept passing out guns, grinning like a kid on Christmas morning. “We’re going to shoot them reeeeeeal good, so it’s important everybody be ready to look their best!”

Shaun and I exchanged a look, his expression making it clear that he understood what was going on about as well as I did—which was to say, not at all. Somehow, that didn’t make me feel any better.

The Monkey and the Cat joined us at the closet, both of them taking weapons of their own. The Cat glared at us the whole time, like this was somehow our fault.

“This is what’s going to happen now.” The Fox was suddenly calm, like having a group of armed men firing on her house was what it took to bring out her saner side. “We’re going to go out the back door. We’re going to circle around the side of the house. And then we’re going to shoot those fuckers until they stop squirming. Any questions? No? Good. Follow me.”

“I’m not sure which is worse,” muttered Shaun. “The fact that we’re following the crazy girl, or the fact that she sounds so damn happy about it.”

“I’m going to go with ‘the fact that we don’t have a choice,’ ” said Becks. “Maggie, you’re in the middle.”

“Yes, I am,” said Maggie, putting herself behind Becks and Shaun, and in front of me and Mahir. We followed the Fox, with the Cat and the Monkey bringing up the rear. I had the distinct feeling we were being used as human shields. Not that it mattered. There were men with guns outside, and as long as the Cat and the Monkey weren’t shooting us in the back, I didn’t care where they walked. I already knew we couldn’t count on them.

We reached the Fox as she was prying the last sheets of plywood off the back door. Shaun stepped in and helped her finish, revealing a pre-Rising sliding glass door that had been boarded over for good reason.

“This place was a death trap,” I muttered.

Mahir shot me a half-amused glance. “Was?” he asked.

It felt odd to be laughing during a firefight. Then again, if you can’t laugh when you’re about to die, when can you? The sound of gunfire covered any noises we might make, at least until we left the house.

The back porch had been reinforced at some point, more structural improvement concealed by a veil of cosmetic decay. The seemingly rotten wooden steps had no give to them at all. The Fox slunk through the knee-high grass as quietly as her namesake. I tried to emulate her, failing utterly as the gravel beneath the grass bit into my already injured feet. The best I could manage was not making any more noise than was absolutely necessary as I followed the rest of the group to the corner.

Once we were there, the Fox turned, smiled at the rest of us, sketched a curtsey clumsy enough to seem entirely sincere, and bolted back the way we’d come.

The Monkey realized what she was doing before the rest of us did—he knew her better than anyone, except for maybe the Cat, who had already locked her free hand around his elbow. He tried to run after the Fox as she pelted up the porch steps and back into the house. The Cat held him back.

“No,” she hissed. “Do that, and this was for nothing.”

He turned to look at her, a cold anger burning in her eyes. “Don’t think I’ll forgive you.”

The Cat didn’t say anything.

The sound of gunshots from the front of the house suddenly took on a new, more frantic timbre, accompanied by the distant but recognizable sound of the Fox’s laughter. At least someone was having a good day. Shaun looked back to me.

“There’s no plan B,” he said.

I nodded. “I know.”

There was no one left for us to run to, and nowhere to run except the van. That meant we had to take the opportunity the Fox had created for us, no matter how insane that opportunity seemed. Shaun looked to Becks, making a complex gesture with one hand. She nodded, picking up on his unspoken command. I felt a flush of jealousy. Just how close had they gotten while I was dead, anyway?

I forced the feeling away. It was none of my business, and even if it was, this wasn’t the time. The Fox was still laughing, but it had a pained edge to it, like she was running out of steam. It was now or never. Being occasionally suicidal, but not stupid, we chose now.

It wasn’t until we were running around to the front of the house that I realized the Cat was no longer with us. The Monkey was running alongside Mahir, but his… whatever she was… was gone. The Fox was still shooting from the kitchen window, keeping the majority of the team in the driveway occupied through sheer dint of being impossible to ignore. Either her aim was incredibly good or she was using armor-piercing bullets; five of them were already down, leaving another nine standing. Part of me was pleased to see that they’d considered a bunch of journalists enough of a threat to send fourteen armed CDC guards to take us down. The rest of me wished they’d been willing to settle for a sternly worded cease- and desist-letter.

Journalism must have been very different before people resolved so many of their conflicts with bullets.

The men from the CDC were so busy shooting at the house that we made it halfway to the van before they noticed us. Three more of them went down in the interim. I was starting to think we might make it when the Fox screamed, a gasping, quickly cut-off sound, and the gunfire from the house stopped. The Monkey froze, face going white. Then he screamed and rushed toward the driveway, opening fire as he ran.

The guards who were still standing turned toward the sound of gunfire. “Oh, sh—” began Shaun, and then they were firing on us, and there was no time left for conversation.

Maggie and Mahir hit the ground, leaving Becks, Shaun, and I to return fire. Fortunately for us, the guards were distracted by the Monkey’s suicide charge; he took down two of the six remaining men before going down in a hail of blood and bullets. That left four standing, all with more firepower and better armor than we had. Our next step didn’t need to be discussed. We stopped firing, raising hands and weapons toward the sky. If we were lucky, they’d want prisoners they could question even more than they’d want bodies they could bury.

Luck was with us. The man at the front of their ragged little formation signaled for the others to stop firing. He held out one hand, palm facing us, and then gestured toward the ground, indicating that we should put our guns down. We knelt to do as we were told. It might have ended there, except for one crucial detail:

The Fox hadn’t been trying for headshots.

My hand was still on my borrowed revolver when the first of the downed guards lurched to his feet and grabbed for the still-living man beside him. His chosen victim screamed and started firing wildly. His commander shouted for him to stand down, but it was too late; panic had already set in. Four men suddenly finding themselves surrounded by nine potential zombies weren’t going to listen to orders anymore.

Grabbing my gun from the ground, I ran full-tilt for the van, trusting the others to follow me and praying the zombies would be so busy going for the accessible prey that they’d let us by.

There were no bullet holes in the van. That was something. Becks and I reached it first, ducking behind the bulk of it while she fired at the guards and I fumbled with the door. The blood test cycle to open it had never seemed so long. Mahir reached us as I was waiting for the door to finish processing, leaving only Shaun and Maggie in the open—and Maggie was still on the ground, not moving.

“Oh, fuck,” I breathed. The lock disengaged. I jerked the door open, motioning for the others to climb in. Mahir promptly clambered over the driver’s seat and into the back, bypassing the blood test.

Becks shook her head, digging a set of keys out of her pocket and tossing them to me. “I’ll cover you! Now hurry!”

“On it.” I slammed the door, shoved the keys into the ignition, and started the engine, hitting the gas hard enough to send Mahir sprawling. Becks waited until she was clear and then opened fire on the guards, living and dead alike.

Driving was another thing I didn’t have the muscle memory for anymore, even if I intellectually understood the process. I barely managed to skid to a stop in front of Shaun and Maggie, the tires digging deep divots in the lawn. Mahir opened the side door and hopped out, helping Shaun lift Maggie inside. The entire front of her blouse was bloody.

“Is she breathing?” Mahir demanded.

“Yes,” said Shaun. “First-aid kit, now.” He slammed the door. “George, get Becks.”

Becks had taken cover behind a half-fallen pine tree that listed at a severe angle across one side of the tiny courtyard. She was firing at the two guards who remained standing, but their attention was more focused on their formerly dead compatriots, who were still attempting to take them down. I pulled up next to her and she grabbed the passenger-side door, waiting impatiently for the lock to release.

“Oh, God, there’s so much blood,” moaned Mahir. I didn’t let myself look. I needed to focus on getting us out of here alive.

The door opened. Becks climbed inside. I looked back toward the house and saw the Fox waving weakly from the window, blood running down the side of her face. She had what looked like a remote control in one hand. Becks looked that way, and her eyes widened.

“Oh, fuck,” she breathed. “Georgia, drive.”

I hit the gas.

We were all the way to the end of the driveway when the house exploded.

The edge of the explosion caught us, hot wind buffeting the van. The frame was weighted to make it harder to tip us over, but even so, it was a struggle to maintain control of the steering wheel. In the back, Maggie screamed. That was almost encouraging. If she was screaming like that, they hadn’t managed to puncture a lung, and with two Irwins playing field medic, she might be able to hold on long enough to get us—

I had no living clue where we were going, and no one else was available to take the wheel. “Where am I going?” I demanded.

“Take us back to the Agora!” shouted Shaun. “Just tell the GPS to retrace the last route we took. It can guide you from—aw, fuck, Becks, keep the pressure on, will you?”

Wincing, I turned on the GPS, tapping the screen twice to make it show me the way back to the Agora. A red light came on above the rearview mirror as the GPS began scrolling the names of streets. “Shaun, I’m getting a contamination warning up here.”

“That’s because Maggie’s bleeding all over the fucking van!”

“Still showing clean here,” said Mahir. His voice was tight, verging on panicked. “Becks, how’s her breathing?”

I took a deep breath and tightened my hands on the wheel, trying to focus on the road. Maggie was shot, not bitten. Her blood would be a problem, especially if she ran out of it completely, but as long as no one else had open wounds on their hands… or on their legs… or anywhere else…

We were fucked. We were thoroughly and completely fucked, and all we had to show for it was a bunch of corpses and a house that wasn’t even there anymore.

As if he had read my mind, Shaun called, with manic cheerfulness, “Don’t stress out about it, George. Things could be worse!”

“How?” demanded Becks.

“We could still be wearing shoes full of homing devices!”

For the first time since she’d been shot, Maggie spoke: “I am going to… kill you… myself, Shaun Mason.” Her voice was weak, but it was there. If she was talking, she couldn’t be too far gone.

Shaun laughed unsteadily. “You do that, Maggie. You get up and kick my ass just as soon as you feel like you can manage it.”

She mumbled something in disjointed Spanish, voice losing strength with every word.

“This would be a good time to drive a little faster, Georgia,” said Mahir. His tone was utterly calm. I recognized that for the danger sign it really was. Mahir only sounded that serene when he was on the verge of panic, or getting ready to pounce on some fact that every other reporter to look at a story had somehow managed to miss. That detachment was the way he handled the things that otherwise couldn’t be handled at all.

I pressed my foot down on the gas, envying that cool veil of calm. It was all I could do not to start hyperventilating as we blew through downtown Seattle, slowing down only when the lights forced me or I had to take a turn. I doubt I could have done it under pre-Rising speed limits, back when they worried more about pedestrian safety than they did about getting people from point A to point B as quickly as humanly possible. I was still running the very edge of “safe driving” when the GPS signaled for me to slow down; we were approaching our destination.

We were approaching our destination in a vehicle that was essentially a traveling biohazard zone. “Guys?” I asked. “Now what am I supposed to do?”

Maggie mumbled something. It must have made more sense to the people around her, because Mahir spoke a moment later, saying, “When we reach the gate, roll down your window but do not attempt to put any part of your body outside the car. Tell them Maggie is injured—use her full name—and that we need immediate medical assistance. The Agora has protocols that will take it from there.”

“Do those protocols include a full tank of formalin with our names on it?” asked Shaun. Nobody answered him. He sighed. “Yeah, I figured as much.”

The Agora gatehouse was in front of us. I slowed, finally stopping the van as the guards approached. The urge to slam my foot down on the gas and go racing off to anywhere else was overwhelming… and pointless. Driving away wouldn’t make things any better.

I rolled down my window when the first guard reached the van, careful to stay well away from the opening. “We have an injured hotel guest,” I said. “She was shot.”

The guard’s expression of polite helpfulness didn’t falter. “Would you like the address of the nearest hospital with field decontamination capacity?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, I said that wrong. Magdalene Grace Garcia is in the back of this van, and she has been shot. We need immediate medical assistance.” I hesitated before adding, “Please.”

The effect Maggie’s name had on the man was nothing short of electric. His expression flickered from politely helpful to shocked to narrow-eyed efficiency in a matter of seconds. “Drive through the front gate and follow the lighted indicators next to the road,” he said. “Do not attempt to leave your vehicle. A medical team will meet you at your destination.” Almost as an afterthought, he said, “Please roll up your window.”

“Thank you,” I said. He stepped away, and I rolled the window up before putting my foot back on the gas. The gate opened as we rolled forward, and bright blue lights began flicking on next to the driveway, indicating our route.

The lights followed the obvious path to the Agora for about a hundred yards before branching off, leading us down a groundkeeper’s road that had been cunningly surrounded by bushes and flowering shrubs, making it almost unnoticeable if you didn’t know it was there—or weren’t following a bunch of bright blue lights. I kept driving, inching our speed up as high as I dared. The road led us around the back of the Agora to a separate parking garage with plastic sheeting hanging over the entrance.

I took a breath and drove on through.

The garage was brightly lit, and already swarming with people in white EMT moon suits, their hands covered by plastic gloves and their faces by clear masks. I managed to kill the engine before they started knocking on the van’s side door, but only barely. The door slid open, and suddenly the van was rocking as EMTs poured through the opening.

Someone knocked on my window, making me jump. I turned to see another of the EMTs looking through the glass at me. I lowered the window. “Ma’am, please leave your vehicle and prepare for decontamination,” he said, voice muffled by his mask.

A chill wormed down my spine. The idea of going through decontamination—of going through any medical procedure, no matter how standard—was suddenly terrifying.

The others were climbing out of the van. Mahir and Becks were already in front of the van, being led along by more EMTs. I knew Shaun would wait for me as long as he could, unwilling to let me out of his sight if he didn’t have to. That was what it took to spur me into motion. I didn’t want Shaun getting sedated because I wasn’t willing to get out of my seat.

One of the EMTs grasped my upper arm firmly as soon as my feet hit the asphalt, not waiting for me to shut the door before he began pulling me toward the building. I didn’t resist, but I didn’t help him, either, letting my feet drag as I looked frantically around for Shaun. He was being led toward the building by another of the EMTs. He broke loose as soon as he saw me, ignoring the way his EMT was shouting as he ran in my direction.

“Shaun!”

He stopped in front of me. There was blood on the front of his shirt, but his hands were clean. Either he’d been wearing gloves, or he’d somehow managed to avoid touching Maggie. Given what I’d heard from the back, that seemed unlikely. He’d played it smart. For once. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Things were so hectic back there, I didn’t have time to—”

“I’m fine, but I think you’re scaring the locals.”

“What?” Shaun looked over his shoulder, seeming to notice the EMTs for the first time. They were all holding pistols now, and those pistols were aimed in our direction. Smiling cockily, Shaun waved. I doubt any of them saw the hollow fear behind his eyes. I doubt anyone but me would even have realized it was there. “Hey, fellas. Sorry to frighten you like that. I just have a thing about being separated from my sister. Makes me sort of impulsive.”

“Makes you sort of insane,” I corrected, without thinking. Then I winced. “Shaun…”

“No, that’s pretty much true.” Four more EMTs walked by us, carrying a stretcher between them. A clear plastic sheet covered it, Maggie visible underneath. A respirator was covering her face. I just hoped that meant that she was still breathing, and that she still stood a chance of recovery.

“Sir, ma’am, you need to come with me now.” I glanced toward the EMT holding my arm. He looked at us sternly through his mask. “I understand your concern, but we need to clear and sterilize this area.”

Shaun’s eyes widened. “Our van—”

“Will be returned to you once it has been decontaminated. Now please, sir, you both need to come with me.”

Shaun and I exchanged a look. Then we nodded, almost in unison. “All right,” I said. “Let’s go and get decontaminated.”

The EMT led us out of the garage and into the building. Metal jets emerged from the ceiling as we stepped into the airlock, beginning to spray a thin mist down over the area. The smell of it managed to sneak through the closing doors, tickling my nose with the characteristic burning scent of formalin. I shuddered. Nothing organic was going to survive that dousing.

“We’re going to need to replace the rug again,” commented Shaun.

I glanced at him, startled, before starting to laugh under my breath. I couldn’t help it. He looked so sincere, and so annoyed, like replacing the rug was the worst thing that had happened to us in a while. Shaun blinked, his own surprised expression mirroring mine. Then he started laughing with me.

We were both still laughing when the EMT led us out of the airlock and into the Agora Medical Center. My laughter died almost instantly, replaced by a feeling of choking suffocation. White walls. White ceiling. White floor. The EMTs looked suddenly hostile behind their plastic masks, like they had been sent by the CDC to take me back.

“George?” Shaun’s voice was distant. “You okay?”

“Not really,” I replied. I turned to the startled EMT who had led us inside. “Do you have a room with some color in it? I have a thing about white.” It made me want to curl up in a corner and cry. A phobia of medical establishments. That was a fun new personality trait.

Working at the Agora had apparently prepared the man for strange requests from people above his pay grade—which we, traveling with Maggie, technically were. “Right this way, miss,” he said, and turned to lead us away from the rest of the action. I felt a brief pang of regret over letting us be separated from the others, but quashed it. The EMT assigned to work with me and Shaun wasn’t one of the ones who was needed to help Maggie, or he wouldn’t have been with us in the first place. Me having a panic attack over the white, white walls wasn’t going to do anything to help anyone.

The EMT led us to a smaller room where the walls were painted a cheery yellow and the chairs were upholstered in an equally cheery blue. We didn’t need to be told that this was the children’s holding area. The testing panels on the walls and the double-reinforced glass on the observation window cut into the room’s rear wall made that perfectly clear.

Oddly, the window made me feel better, rather than setting my nerves even further on edge. It was honest glass, letting the observed see the observers without any subterfuge. If it had been a mirror, I think I would have lost my shit.

“If you’re feeling better now, ma’am, sir, I would very much appreciate it if you’d let me begin the testing process.”

Shaun and I exchanged a look, and I jumped a little as the blood on his shirt fully registered. Maggie wasn’t dead when she was bleeding on him. That didn’t mean her blood couldn’t potentially carry a hot viral load.

“Please,” I said.

“Sure,” said Shaun, sounding oddly unconcerned. I frowned at him. He mouthed the word “later,” and gave me what may have been intended as a reassuring smile.

I was not reassured.

The EMT produced two small blood test units, using them to take samples from our index fingers. No lights came on to document the filtration process. Instead, he sealed the kits in plastic bags marked “biohazard,” nodded as politely as a bellhop who’d been doing nothing more hazardous than delivering our luggage, and left the room. The door closed behind him with a click and a beep that clearly indicated that we had been locked in.

Shaun looked at me. “You okay?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Is Maggie going to be okay?”

“I don’t know.” Shaun folded his arms, looking at the closed door. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

“Yeah. I guess we will.” We stood there in silence, waiting for the door to open; waiting for someone to come and tell us how many of us were going to walk away alive.