“We have to get Emily—the real Emily—away from the CDC, and get the kids out of here,” I said slowly. “They’re going to be civilians in a position to confirm my story. If I start posting while they’re still hostages, they won’t make it out of here alive.”
Steve cracked his knuckles. “Don’t worry about them. The First Lady still has friends in the Secret Service. We can extract the kids at any time.”
“Dr. Shaw is organizing a team to extract the First Lady from the CDC installation where she’s being held, and move her to a secure EIS facility near here,” said Dr. Shoji.
“The EIS has been a busy little secret government organization.” I looked levelly at Dr. Shoji. “If I do this, I need to know that we’re not replacing one bad deal with another. What are your plans?”
“I don’t speak for the EIS as a whole, and I can’t see the future,” he said. “But for the past ten years at least, we’ve been bleeding off the best recruits the CDC gets. We’ve been getting the members of your generation, the ones who want a solution that doesn’t always involve a bullet. I think that corruption is a risk for every organization. Even ours. But we’re going to be very busy for quite some time, just cleaning up the mess that’s been made for us. If the EIS is going to go the way of the CDC, it probably won’t be within my lifetime.”
“Whereas the CDC is a bad deal right now,” I said. “That’s fair. But you realize that if I do this, if I get involved, and you ever, ever start to cross the line—”
“I can’t promise what the future will be. All I can do is promise that the EIS will try to make sure we have one.”
I nodded. “Fine. Steve, get the kids out of here. Dr. Shoji, do whatever you need to do to get them to safety, and make sure Dr. Shaw takes care of Emily. Does anybody here have a gun I can borrow? The Secret Service confiscated all of ours.”
Rick blinked. “I was expecting you to ask for an Internet connection.”
“Oh, I’m going to need one of those, too, once we get everybody back together, but first, we have a job that requires weapons.” Steve unsnapped his sidearm and passed it to me. I accepted it before smiling coolly at Rick. “We need to go and kidnap the president.”
“And here my mother said a job in medicine would be dangerous,” said Gregory.
Rick didn’t say anything. But slowly, with an expression of almost painful relief, he nodded.
I regret to inform you that we have lied to you. Last year, when most of the site went “camping,” we were in actuality running for our lives, being pursued by no less an adversary than the Centers for Disease Control. Our flight began when Dr. Kelly Connolly, believed dead following a break-in at the Memphis CDC, arrived at our Oakland offices and asked for our help. The destruction of Oakland followed soon after. In the interests of concealing our location and activities, we were forced to present a cover story to the world. For this, on the behalf of the Factual News Division, I apologize.
We are not lying now. Please download and read the attached documents, which encompass everything leading up to our departure from Oakland. If they do not load, please visit one of our mirror sites. Continue trying. This is important. These are things you need to know.
We are telling you the truth.
—From Fish and Clips, the blog of Mahir Gowda, August 7, 2041.
The mosquitoes that swept from Cuba to the American Gulf Coast, resulting in the death of millions, did not arise naturally. They were genetically engineered by scientists in the employ of the CDC. Please download and review the attached documents for further details, including a full description of the life cycle of the modified yellow fever mosquito.
We are telling you the truth.
That will not bring my parents back to life.
—From The Kwong Way of Things, the blog of Alaric Kwong, August 7, 2041.
SHAUN: Thirty-eight
The man from the CDC kept on talking; to be honest, I had pretty much stopped listening. Alaric and Becks were paying attention and periodically asking questions that seemed at least vaguely connected to the things coming out of his mouth, so I figured no one would notice—or care—if I checked out for a little bit. As long as I didn’t start to drool, they’d probably figure I was just being a big, dumb Irwin and letting the smart people talk. That’s the useful thing about being a figurehead. Nobody cares if you’re an idiot, as long as you’re a useful one.
They’re never going to give her back to you, murmured Georgia. There was a faint echoing quality to her words, and I knew that if I turned my head she’d be there, watching me, waiting for me to admit that she was right. That scared me almost more than the things she was saying. I used to welcome the hallucinations, viewing them as the only way I could see her anymore. Now… I knew I wasn’t going to go un-crazy as fast as I went crazy. But the idea of being left alone with a voice in my head and the occasional delusional vision was suddenly terrifying. I got her back. Why the hell wasn’t the world going to let me keep her?
You don’t need to worry about their little replacement. The world will let you keep me, she said. Just you and me, forever. That’s what you said you wanted, isn’t it? You volunteered to be a haunted house.
“Shut up,” I muttered, trying to keep my voice low enough that no one else would notice.
It didn’t work. “What was that?” asked the doctor, attention swinging back around to me.
Uh-oh. “Uh…” I began.
“He talks to himself,” said Becks, matter-of-factly. “I’m actually impressed that this is the first time he’s done it. Just ignore him and keep telling us why immune response in babies is enough to cause reservoir conditions, but not enough to avoid spontaneous amplification when they cross the sixty-pound threshold.”
“He talks to himself?” The doctor frowned at me like I had suddenly become an exciting new medical mystery. I wondered how he’d feel if he knew I was immune to the Kellis-Amberlee virus. He’d probably start asking whether he could dissect me—assuming he cared about asking. George had already proven that people were now a matter of crunch all you want, we’ll make more. Maybe he already had Shaun II baking in one of their cloning tanks, ready for his triumphant decanting.
Fuck. That.
“Turns out being forced to shoot the one person in the world you thought would outlive you in the head sort of fucks with your sense of reality,” I said coldly. “I mean, my choices were a nice, mellow psychotic break with talking to myself and the occasional voice in my head, or climbing the nearest cell tower and playing sniper until somebody came and gunned me down. I figured option A would be better for my long-term health, if not my sanity.”
“And you still listen to him? You still do what he says?” asked the doctor, his attention swinging back to Becks and Alaric.
Alaric shrugged. “Sure. He’s the boss.”
“Fascinating.” The man from the CDC shook his head as he turned toward President Ryman. “You see the power of trust? Once you believe a person won’t mislead you, you keep believing it, even after you realize they’ve gone insane. This plan may actually work.”
“Or maybe not,” said George. “It’s a little bit of a coin toss right now, if you ask me.”
The doctor whipped around, eyes widening. “What are you doing?”