Blackout

  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.

  When Maggie went down… fuck.

  Maggie was one of the first people Buffy hired after we said “sure, we want a viable Fiction section.” She’s never been anything but awesome. She took us in when we had nowhere else to go; she took care of us when we would have been frankly fucked without her. She’s been our rock. If Mahir is the soul of this news team—and I’m not an idiot, I know that when George died, the mantle went to him, and that’s cool, because I never wanted it in the first place—then Maggie is the heart. And when she went down today, the only thing I could think was “Thank God it was her. Thank God it wasn’t George. I don’t think I could survive that happening again.”

  George being back is a miracle, and it’s also what’s going to mean this all ends bad, because I’m not thinking straight anymore. I lived without her once. I can’t do it again.

  Fuck.

  —From Adaptive Immunities, the blog of Shaun Mason, August 4, 2041. Unpublished.

  Madre de Dios… Mother Mary, hold me closely; Mother Mary, love me best. Mother Mary, treat me sweetly. Mother Mary, let me rest.

  I have never hurt this much in my life. Morphine is supposed to make the hurting stop, but instead, it shunts the pain to the side, like a houseguest you never intended to keep. It isn’t in your face, but it’s there, using the last of the milk, leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor…

  This hurts. I am alive. The two balance each other, I suppose.

  This was supposed to be Buffy’s revolution. It was never supposed to be mine.

  —From Dandelion Mine, the blog of Magdalene Grace Garcia, August 4, 2041. Unpublished.

  SHAUN: Thirty

  I don’t know how long they left us in that room. Long enough that George was pale and freaking out a little by the time they came back, even though she was trying pretty damn hard to hide it. I watched her anxiously, not sure what I was supposed to do. She’d never had a problem with hospitals before. Then again, I guess being brought back from the dead and used as a CDC lab rat would fuck up just about anybody.

  The delay may have put George’s nerves on edge, but it helped settle mine. When those bullets started flying… there was a time when that would have elated me. With George in the field, all it did was make me sick to my stomach. She could have been hit. I could have lost her again. Again. And I couldn’t even grab her and hold on until I stopped feeling sick, because there was blood on my shirt. If it was hot, even touching her could kill her. I should never have grabbed her hand. I should have stayed away from her and observed proper quarantine procedures. And I couldn’t.

  It was sort of ironic. I couldn’t catch the live form of Kellis-Amberlee because I’d managed to catch the immunity from her, and now that she was back where she belonged, she didn’t have that same protection. Even when I was safe, she wasn’t.

  “I hate the world sometimes,” I muttered.

  “What?” George stopped staring at the wall, turning to look at me instead. She removed her sunglasses, rubbing her left eye with the heel of her hand. “Do you think we’ll find out what’s happening soon?”

  “I hope so.” I sighed. “All that for nothing. We didn’t get the damn IDs.”

  “Didn’t those people send you to the CDC?”

  “Yeah, they did.”

  “So it wasn’t for nothing.” George shrugged, trying—and failing—to look nonchalant as she said, “It got you me.”

  I was still trying to find a response for that when the door opened and the EMT who had escorted us inside stepped through. He was wearing clean scrubs, and the plastic face mask was gone. We both turned to face him, waiting for his verdict.

  “We apologize for any inconvenience the delay may have caused. Miss Garcia required immediate attention,” he said. “If you’d come with me, I’d be happy to take you to your party.”

  “Does that mean we’re cool?” I asked.

  The EMT nodded. “Yes, Mr. Mason. You’re both in fine health. Your internal viral loads are well within normal safety perimeters. Now if you would please come with me?”

  “Right.” George looked faintly ill. “Back to the white rooms.”

  “Hey.” She looked my way. I smiled at her. “I’m here. It’s all different now.”

  “Yeah.” George returned my smile before turning to the EMT. “Lead the way.”

  We followed him back to the hall where we had first entered. The sound and motion that had been my only real impression of the place was all gone now, replaced by cool, sterile peacefulness. If it hadn’t been for the airlock looking out on the garage, I would never have realized it was the same hall. George kept her eyes locked straight ahead, looking like she was going to be sick at any moment. I just hoped no one would see her and take that for a sign of spontaneous amplification. Another fire drill was the last thing that we needed at the moment.

  She relaxed a little when we passed through a sliding door and into a hall where the walls were painted a pale cream yellow. Interesting. It was just the white that bothered her. I made a mental note to punch the next CDC employee I saw in the face.

  “Mr. Mason, Miss Mason, at this point, I do need to ask that you proceed through these doors,” the EMT indicated two doors in the wall to our right, one marked “Men,” the other marked “Women.” “There will be clean clothes available for you to wear while yours are being sterilized.”

  I glanced at George. “You going to be okay with this?”

  She laughed unsteadily. “If I can’t handle a basic sterilization cycle, I may as well give up and go back to the… go back to the place where you found me right now. I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay.” I risked reaching out and squeezing her hand before stepping through the appropriate door.

  The room on the other side was small and square, and—to my relief—tiled in industrial gray. I could have kissed whoever was responsible for that particular decorating choice. As long as the women’s side was decorated the same way, George might not flip out. As expected, there were no windows, and a large drain was set in the middle of the floor. The door I’d arrived through was behind me. Another was on the wall directly in front of me.

  “Hello, Shaun,” said the pleasant voice of the Agora. “Welcome back.”

  “Thanks,” I said, hauling my shirt off over my head. “Where do you want me to put my clothes?”

  A hatch slid open in one wall. I hadn’t even been able to see the outline of it in the tile. “Please place your clothes in the opening to your left. I promise they will not be damaged in any way by the cleaning process. We are only interested in your comfort and well-being.”

  “Great.” I finished stripping before shoving my clothes, shoes and all, through the hatch. I held up my pistol. “What do you want done with the weapons?”

  “Please place them in the same location. They will be separated out before the cleansing process begins.”

  “Right.” I wasn’t happy with that answer. I didn’t see another way. Automated sterilization systems can get mean when they feel like protocol is being violated, and no matter how nice the Agora was programmed to be, refusing to give up my weapons would qualify as violating protocol. I placed them in the opening with everything else, barely pulling my hand back before the hatch slammed closed again.

  “Thank you for your cooperation, Shaun,” said the Agora. “Please move to the center of the room and close your eyes. Sterili
zation will commence once you are in the correct position.”

  “On it,” I said. I moved to position myself directly over the drain, closed my eyes, and tilted my face toward the ceiling. The water turned on a second later, raining down on me from what felt like half a dozen differently angled jets. I didn’t open my eyes to find out.

  Sterilization follows the same basic protocols no matter where you are or how high class a place pretends to be. First they boil you, then they bleach you, then they boil you again. If the powers that be could get away with dipping us all in lye, they’d probably do it, just to be able to say that one more layer of “safety” had been slapped on. The Agora was nicer about it than it technically had to be; the hot water lasted almost thirty seconds, followed by eight seconds of bleach, and then a citrus-scented foam that oozed down from more jets in the ceiling. Sterilization and a shower.

  Twice, the Agora instructed me to change positions or turn, letting the bleach, hot water, and cleansing foam cover every part of me. The hot water jets were repeated three times; the bleach was only repeated once. Guess I was dirtier than I was potentially diseased.

  Finally, the water turned off, and the Agora said, “Thank you for your cooperation.”

  “Didn’t you say that, like, five minutes ago?” I opened my eyes. The door in front of me was open, revealing an antechamber that looked like the locker room of a really upscale gym.

  “My range of programmed responses is wide, but sometimes, repetition is inevitable,” said the Agora patiently. “If you would like to register a complaint—”

  “That’s okay,” I said, cutting the hotel off midsentence. “Thanks for the scrub. Do I get pants in the next room?”

  “Yes, Shaun,” said the Agora.