THIS IS NOT A HOAX. THIS IS NOT A PRANK. This is Professor Michael Mason. We are in a state of emergency. If you are reading this, do not leave your room.
Stacy, darling, I’ll be home as soon as I can.
—From Breathing Biology, the blog of Michael Mason, July 18, 2014. Taken from the archives of The Wall.
Fourteen
Dad’s map was just that: a large piece of paper with roads and landmarks drawn on it. He spread it out on the dining room table, smirking a bit when he saw the disbelieving expressions Becks and I were wearing. “What?” he asked. “You’ve never seen a map before?”
“Not outside of a history book,” I said. “Haven’t you ever heard of GPS?”
“What isn’t on a computer can’t be hacked, oh foolish son of mine,” said Dad. He was comfortably in professor mode now, that old “I am imparting wisdom to the young” twinkle in his eye. George used to love it when he’d get like this, like it was some secret language the two of them could share—the language of knowledge and the truth. Naturally, that meant I’d always hated it when he’d get like this, because he was lying to her. He was letting her believe he cared.
“Mom, make Dad stop acting like he knows everything,” I said, without any real rancor.
“Michael, tell the kids what they need to know,” said Mom. “And in exchange, Shaun will tell us what we need to know. Isn’t that right, Shaun?”
“Yeah, Mom. That’s right.” I’ll tell you how to steal the last things in the world that belong to your adopted daughter, and you won’t even think of yourselves as grave robbers. The acid in the thought was almost shocking, even to me. I realized I was digging my nails into my palms again. I rested my hands on the edge of the table, forcing my fingers to uncurl. “So what are we looking at here?”
“The trouble is the distance. There’s no single safe route from here into the Florida quarantine zone—maybe if you were aiming for something in the contaminated parts of Texas?” Dad glanced up, a canny glint appearing behind the amiable twinkle in his eyes. “You didn’t mention exactly what you were trying to accomplish on this little road trip, come to think of it.”
“True, and we’re not going to mention it, so don’t bother fishing,” I said. The map covered the Southwestern United States, stopping shortly after it crossed into Texas. “Are you saying this is as far as you can get us?”
“I’m saying this is as far as we can get you before things become complicated,” Dad replied. “You don’t mind complicated, do you, Shaun?”
“I like to think it’s a specialty of mine.”
“Good.” He beckoned me closer. I motioned for Becks to do the same. He began tapping highways and side roads, rattling off names, security levels, and known geographical quirks with a speed that was almost daunting. I was so busy trying not to lose track of what he was saying that I barely even noticed when Mom slipped out of the room. Dad pulled out another map, this one covering the space from Texas to Mississippi, and kept talking.
Shaun.
“What?” I asked, without thinking about it.
Dad glanced up, eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”
“I think I’m confused, too,” said Becks smoothly. “What do you mean about fuel shortages in Louisiana?”
Dad smiled at her and began talking again, saying something about fuel pipelines being compromised in the wake of Tropical Storm Fiona. I couldn’t quite make out the details; George was talking too loudly for that. You need to get Becks and get out of here. Abort the mission. Abort it now. There isn’t time to argue.
Maybe there wasn’t time to argue, but there was time to scowl at the map, trying to wordlessly express my confusion to the voice inside my head.
It must have worked at least a little, because George groaned and said, They’re hiding something from you. You told them you had the files. They should have tried to make you hand them over before they told you anything, and they didn’t. That means they think they can have their cake and eat it, too. You need to get out of here.
I stiffened, hoping Dad was too focused on Becks to notice. George was right. We’d made this plan, which was, admittedly, a stupid, suicidal plan, expecting the Masons to be willing to make a trade. Normally, that would mean they wouldn’t expect me to give them the files without proof of cooperation on their part. So where were those negotiations? Where was Dad insisting I give them a single file, just to show that I was serious? Hell, where was Mom? She should have been in the room, keeping an eye on us, making sure Dad didn’t get too excited by the process of showing us how clever he was and show us a little bit too much. That was the most damning piece of the admittedly sketchy evidence: Mom should never have left the room.
“Who’s paying you?” I asked conversationally, taking my hands away from the table. Becks cast a startled glance in my direction. I smiled reassuringly. “It’s cool, Becks. They’re just selling us up the river, and I was wondering who they were selling us to. That’s all.”
Dad paled. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve been on the run too long, son. It’s starting to affect your thinking.”
“Well, yeah. I know that part. I mean, it’s driven me crazy and everything, which I know you know, since you’ve been looking for an excuse to have me declared mentally unfit and take my stuff since George died—great job mourning for her, by the way, really top-notch—but I don’t think this is me being crazy. I think this is an unfortunate moment of me being sane, and when I’m sane, I have to admit that everyone in the world really is out to get us.” I pulled George’s .40 from my belt, bringing it up and aiming it at his head. “I’m only going to ask you one more time. Who’s paying you?”
“No one’s paying us, darling.” Mom’s voice came from behind me, calm and even cheerful, with the faintly manic edge that accompanied every mother-son outing we’d ever taken. The click of a safety being disengaged was basically just overkill. “It’s simply that we don’t think you should be running around besmirching our family name. Not after everything we’ve done to build the brand.”
“Hi, Mom,” I said, still aiming the .40 unwaveringly at Dad. He wasn’t moving. I always knew he was a smart one. “Is this the part where you tell me to put my gun down?”
“No, this is the part where I save your ass,” said Becks. The statement was accompanied by the sound of her revolvers being cocked. “Please believe me when I say that I respect your work greatly, Mrs. Mason, and I will blow your fucking head off if you don’t stop aiming that gun at my boss right now.”
Mom laughed. It was a joyful, tittering, purely artificial sound. “Oh, how cute. She’s willing to step in and save you, darling. Such loyalty—and such a pretty girl, too. Is she sweet on you? So many of the pretty girls have been. Not that you ever paid them any attention. Not that your sainted sister, may she rest in peace, ever let you. Do you think things would have gone differently if she hadn’t been so selfish?”
“Don’t talk about George,” I said, gritting my teeth to keep my calm from slipping away. “She moves, shoot her, Becks.”
“With pleasure, Boss.”
“It seems we have a standoff, son,” said Dad, raising his hands. It felt almost unfair, letting him be the only one in the room without a gun. Good thing I’ve never been too hung up on playing fair. “So what now?”
“Now you stay where you are.” I took a deep breath before asking, “What did you do, Mom? Who did you call?”
“No one a concerned citizen doesn’t have the right to call,” she replied, in the same happy, artificial tone. “You shouldn’t have come here, Shaun. I’m glad you did—it was nice to see you—but you shouldn’t have come.” For a moment, I thought I heard genuine regret in her tone. As hard as I’d tried, I’d never quite been able to stop myself from loving the Masons. Maybe, difficult as it was to credit, they had the same problem.
Maybe they hadn’t quite been able to keep themselves from loving us.
“The house logged our arrival, di
dn’t it? And you let the information upload. You didn’t have to. We’re not residents, and no one saw us come. You could have scrubbed it, and no one would have ever known.” That’s what I’d been counting on when I suggested coming here. I knew what that security system could do. “Why didn’t you?”
“Be reasonable, Shaun,” said Dad. He shook his head, looking almost contrite. “People are saying you may have had something to do with what’s happening right now in the Gulf. We can’t even get passes to go into the restricted zones. Other journalists with similar credentials have managed to at least get around the edges, but we’re being shut out. Bringing you to justice would counter that. It would show we weren’t working with you.”
“I’m sure the ratings wouldn’t hurt, either,” said Becks sourly. I risked a sympathetic glance her way. I’d been disillusioned by the Masons years ago. She was getting her disillusionment in one lump sum… and like anything that shows your heroes in an unpleasant light, it had to be bitter. So very bitter.
“No,” Mom admitted. “It’s been harder to keep the numbers up since we lost that family dynamic. We got a few spikes when things went bad in Oakland, and a few more when your names started coming up in conjunction with the tragedy, but nothing lasting. Nothing that would bring in the numbers remotely like an act of selfless heroism.”
“So you’re going to sacrifice us for ratings,” I said.
“Now, son, it’s not like that—” Dad began.
“Isn’t it?” I lowered my gun, slowly turning to look at Mom. Feigning curiosity, I asked, “So if you’re willing to trade one son for a better market share… what really happened to Phillip, Mom? Did he just happen to get in that dog’s way, like the official story says? Or were you afraid your fifteen minutes of fame were already over, and just searching for anything that could make them last a little longer?”
Her eyes widened. There was a moment when I wasn’t sure whether she was going to shoot me. Then she was striding across the space between us, Becks forgotten, gun dropping to her side. I could have ducked away from her hand. I didn’t, and the sound of her palm hitting my cheek rang through the room like it was the loudest thing in the world. Becks stood frozen, staring. From the silence behind me, Dad was doing much the same.
Mom’s eyes were filling with furious tears. “Don’t you ever, ever say something like that to me,” she snarled. The anger in her voice may have been the most honest emotion I’d ever seen from her. “You don’t get to talk about him.”
“Well, then, you don’t get to talk about Georgia,” I countered. “How is this different, Mom? I’m your son. You didn’t give birth to me, but you raised me. You’re the only mother I’ve ever had. And now you’re selling my life—my life—because you want better ratings. How is this different from what happened to Phillip? Give me one good answer. Please. Just one.”
She stared at me, seemingly unable to decide whether she should get furiously angry or break down and start to cry. Becks was still holding her pistols aimed at Mom’s head, standing in an easy hip-shot stance that I knew she could hold for hours, if she needed to. I also knew she wasn’t going to need to. Someone was going to break this standoff before much longer. I just hoped it would be someone in the room, rather than someone driving an official vehicle and commanding an urban cleanup squad.
“It was an accident,” said Dad. I didn’t turn. I didn’t want to take my eyes off Mom. “Marigold wasn’t supposed to be in our yard. Phillip was unlucky. This is different.”
“Why? Because it’s premeditated? Because you pulled me and George out of some state orphanage somewhere, and that gives you the right to decide how I’m going to die? Don’t kid yourselves. If you keep us here, we’re going to die. Someone’s going to be careless, someone else is going to say we moved for a weapon, and we’re going to be so much sterilized ash by lunchtime.”
“You don’t know that,” said Mom. She seemed to be getting herself back under control. That probably wasn’t good. “They may just take you in for questioning.”
“The mosquitoes got loose while we were in the Memphis CDC, Ms. Mason.” Becks’s voice was as calm as it was unexpected. Mom’s head whipped around to stare at her. “If it hadn’t been for the storm—if it hadn’t been for bad timing—they would have been confined to Cuba. They would never have reached the coast without the wind to help them.”
“So?” demanded Mom.
“Stacy.” Dad’s voice was soft, thoughtful; the same sort of tone that George used to get when something occurred to her in the middle of the night. She’d wake me up and whisper in my ear in that soft, contemplative voice, telling me stories I only half heard, but that would be posted on our site within the week.
“What?” Mom turned back toward him, and consequentially, toward me.
“The weather maps do show that the mosquitoes originated in Cuba. They’re on record as a mutation. Some sort of horrible trick of natural selection.”
“You don’t believe that, do you, Mr. Mason?” asked Becks. “Doesn’t it seem a little pat? Twenty years of no insect vectors, and then one comes along at the right time to bury a news cycle no one wants to deal with? If it hadn’t been for the storm, we’d be hearing a lot of different stories right now. The Cuban tragedy would be dominating the news for the next year, and no one would ever hear about a break-in at a CDC facility, or about the corruption leading to the death of Dr. Kelly Connolly, granddaughter of the man who broke the news about the Rising.”
“But Tropical Storm Fiona had other ideas,” I said, taking up her argument. “Whoever let those mosquitoes loose wasn’t counting on a big ol’ wind sweeping in and carrying their nasty little pets to American soil. So the cycle got buried, and so did a lot of innocent people. It was a mistake. It still did its job. You never heard about any of that, did you?”
“No.” Dad stepped up behind me, and stepped around me, moving to stand beside Mom. Becks shifted her position, widening her stance as she adjusted to include him in her line of fire. “We never heard any of those things.”
“So either I’ve gone entirely out of my mind—which isn’t out of the question, I guess, since I talk to myself and everything; but if I’m crazy, I’ve managed to take my team with me—or someone is really out to get us. And whoever it is, they were willing to gamble with the Kellis-Amberlee virus in order to keep us out of the headlines.” I took a breath. “Lots of kids died in Florida, Mom. Lots of little kids. And not because they ran into dogs that hadn’t been chained up properly. Not because their parents did anything wrong. They got bit by mosquitoes, and it killed them, and it wasn’t fair. Just like what happened to Phillip wasn’t fair.”
“I told you not to talk about him,” she said. This time, the anger in her voice wasn’t there, and the tears were beginning to overflow her lower lids, starting their slow tracks down her cheeks. She looked old, and tired, and like the woman I’d only ever seen in pictures taken before I was even born. She looked like someone who could have loved me.
“Please. We’re trying to get to Florida because the family of one of our team members was there when the storm hit. His parents died. His little sister’s still alive. We promised him we’d get her out.”
Dad shook his head. “That’s not going to happen, son.”
What? demanded George.
“What?” I asked, half a heartbeat later.
“They’ve had our house under surveillance for weeks. Even if we’d wanted to hide your presence, we couldn’t have done it for long. They’ll be here any minute now.” He turned to his wife, my adopted mother, the first of the world’s true Irwins. “Stacy. It’s up to you.”
She hesitated. Then, finally, she nodded. Turning back to me, she said, “It’s not like Phillip at all, Shaun, because we couldn’t save him.” She turned her gun around, offering it to me butt-first. “Make it look realistic, and get the hell out of here.”
“Mom…”
“You have maybe three minutes. Four, if you’re willing to leave
the van and take mine instead—but you won’t do that, will you?” A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Michael, take Rebecca to the garage and get her set up with one of the portable jammers, will you?”
“Yes, dear,” he said. Then he paused, looking back at me, and said, “I’m proud of you, son. We didn’t do right by you or by your—by Georgia—but I’m proud of you, all the same. I think I have the right to that much.”
“Yeah, Dad. You do.”
“Thank you.” He motioned for Becks to follow him. “Come along, young lady.”
Becks glanced at me, eyes wide. I nodded, hoping the gesture would be reassuring, and not sure what I’d do if it wasn’t. “It’s okay, Becks,” I said. “I’ll be right there.”
“Shaun…”
“Just go. I promise, I’ll be right there.”
Still looking uncertain, she followed him out of the room. Their footsteps drifted back down the hall; then the door connecting the kitchen to the garage slammed, and even that was gone. I returned my attention to my mother.
“You sure?” I asked.
“No.” She laughed a little, still holding her gun out to me. “But hell, when have I been sure about anything? I think the last time I was absolutely sure of something was in July of 2014. I was sure that was going to be the summer when I finally learned how to swim.”
“Mom…” I stopped, realizing I had no idea what else I could say to this woman. We were family and we were strangers. She was my mother and my teacher and the one person I had never been able to please, no matter how hard I tried or how much I played the clown. I took the gun from her hand. “What are you going to tell them?”
“That you realized we’d called the authorities, and ran.” Her eyes were clear and calm. “Or maybe I won’t tell them anything. The choice is yours.”