Blackout

pulled the glass out of my reach. That made me focus on more of the room around us. It was packed with medical monitoring equipment, including an IV that was still anchored to my arm. I looked at it with disgust.

“What is all this?”

“It’s what’s been keeping you alive while we waited for the toxins to finish working their way out of your system.” Dr. Kimberley put the glass down atop one of the machines before taking a seat in the chair next to my bed. “Gregory showed you your replacement, did he not?”

“Yes,” I rasped.

“Then you’ll have seen that they were tailoring her to their requirements. They did the same with you, my dear, although they left your mind basically alone—small mercies, and all of that. They needed you for display. The rest of you was free game.”

“And that’s why you drugged me?” I was too tired to sound as indignant as I felt. I still gave it my best shot.

“Yes.” Dr. Kimberley nodded. “Have you ever heard of the sea wasp jellyfish? It’s one of the many nasty surprises lurking in our world’s oceans. This one comes from Australia, and has a sting capable of killing an adult human in minutes if untreated.”

“So?” I whispered.

“The nice people responsible for making you wanted to be sure nothing akin to what is happening right now would succeed, and they implanted biological explosives at strategic points within your body. They were to burst, given the correct set of stimuli, releasing sea wasp venom into your bloodstream. The only circumstance under which death would not be instantaneous would be one in which the toxins were released while a full medical team was standing by, ready to counteract the poison.”

The darkness was starting to make sense. I swallowed, trying to make my voice a little less unsteady as I said, “You could have warned me.”

“No, I’m afraid we couldn’t have. Some of the devices were set to trigger at specific key words that would inevitably have come up, if only because you’d have seen us dancing around them and demanded to know why.” Dr. Kimberley patted my hand. She wasn’t wearing gloves this time. Her skin was cool. “We removed eight venom packs from your intramuscular tissue, along with two trackers and a microchip identifying you as CDC property.”

That managed to annoy me all over again. “You mean they tagged me? Like a dog?”

“It’s not a bad comparison, sadly. If you ever made it out of this facility, they wanted to be able to track your movements, and to prove you were who—and what—they said you were. All that’s been removed, and your incisions have mostly closed over. You should be fine after another day or two.” A small frown crossed her face. “That doesn’t leave us much time. I have custody of you for a week. We’ve already used up three days with your decontamination and recovery. We can move forward now that you’re awake, but I’d hoped to have longer.”

“What she isn’t saying is that you nearly died three times,” said Gregory. I looked toward his voice. He was standing in the doorway, a tray in his hands. “The first operation taxed your system enough that the remaining venom packs began to rupture. We got those out, only to find that we’d managed to miss one.”

“And the third time?” I asked. It was hard not to smile, even with the things he was saying. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to see a familiar, believably friendly face.

“Your heart just stopped. We still don’t know why.”

“But we did manage to get it started again; there’s no reason to frighten the girl,” said Dr. Kimberley sternly. “Now, Georgia, I’m sure that you must have questions—”

“Who are you, what are you doing, and how the fuck are you planning to get me out of here?” I pushed myself into as close to a sitting position as I could manage, using the pillows that had been supporting my head to support the rest of me instead.

Dr. Kimberley sighed. “And apparently, we’ll be having question time now, rather than after you’ve put something solid in your stomach. I really am Dr. Kimberley; ‘Shaw’ was my mother’s maiden name. My first name is Danika. I trained at Oxford, and then later with the Kauai Institute of Virology, under Dr. Joseph Shoji. I was recruited to the EIS six years ago. I’ve been undercover with the CDC for the past five years. I’ve been on the Shelley Project since it started. You’re the first Georgia Mason to make it this far.”

“The Shelley—oh, come on. They named the ‘let’s clone a reporter, it’ll be fun’ project after Mary Shelley? Couldn’t they at least have gone with Herbert West or something?”

“I didn’t get a vote,” said Dr. Kimberley, looking faintly amused. “Gregory here is one of our best men.”

“Dr. Gregory Lake, at your service,” said Gregory. “I’m primarily a field epidemiologist, but I came here when Dr. Kimberley called for backup. I’m glad I did. The situation was more advanced than her reports led us to believe.”

“It’s not my fault they don’t allow me access to the subjects until they reach the stage where the tests I’m supposedly here to run become necessary,” said Dr. Kimberley, an edge of irritation in her voice. “Half the subjects went from lab to slab without darkening my door.”

“Yeah, this is the sort of conversation that makes me feel really, really good about my prospects.” I slumped against the pillows. “So what, you’re the clone rescue squad?”

“Not quite.” Dr. Kimberley leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. She looked at me gravely. “Georgia, we’re here because we need your help.”

I blinked at her, glancing at Gregory. He had the same solemn look on his face. The urge to laugh bubbled up inside my chest. “You need my help? I’ve been dead for the last… I’m not even sure. Not to mention the part where I’m not actually who I think I am, just close enough to her that I probably qualify as clinically insane. What can I possibly do to help you?”

Dr. Kimberley and Gregory exchanged a look. He cleared his throat and said, “Things have gotten worse since you died. Shaun Mason is currently unreachable, following a rather unpleasant incident at the Memphis CDC, in which he remains a person of interest. He—”

“Wait—Memphis? Is Dr. Wynne okay?” Dr. Joseph Wynne worked out of the Memphis office. He was one of the first CDC employees I’d ever met who seemed to genuinely care about people. Without him, we might have died in the desert between Oklahoma and Texas.

“Dr. Wynne was killed during the incident. It’s still unclear what his role was—the CDC insists he was a martyr, but the EIS has reason to believe otherwise.” Catching the stricken look on my face, Gregory continued reluctantly. “Dr. Kelly Connolly was also found dead in the Memphis CDC.”

“Which was surprising when you considered that she’d been killed several weeks previously, in a robbery gone awry,” interjected Dr. Kimberley. “Once we started analyzing video footage of your brother’s team over the weeks leading up to the incident, we found a surprising number of shots including a blonde woman whose facial features mapped quite well with Dr. Connolly’s. Perhaps she didn’t die before that day in Memphis after all.”

“What are you saying?” I asked.

Dr. Kimberley motioned for Gregory to bring the water over again. “I’m saying things are much worse than you knew at the time of your passing.”

“That wasn’t me,” I said, almost sullenly. I’d just been drugged and cut open without my consent. I was feeling entitled to a little balkiness. Gregory held the glass of water up for me to sip, and I did, gratefully. The feel of the liquid coating the back of my throat may have been the sweetest thing I had ever experienced.

“No, you’re right; it wasn’t you,” said Dr. Kimberley. “But it was you at the same time. You’re a bit of a paradox, my dear girl, and possibly the only ace our side has left to play. We need you to be Georgia Mason, just as much as the other side needs for you not to be. We need you to think like her, we need you to act like her, and we need you to be her. We would never have made you. I like to think the EIS still has marginally more of a soul than that. Now that you exist, forgive us, but we will use you to our best advantage.”

I coughed. Gregory pulled the glass away. “What do you think you’re going to use me for? I won’t betray Shaun for you.”

“We never expected you would. Your loyalty is one of the things that makes you useless to Dr. Thomas and his ilk.” Dr. Kimberley’s lip drew back in a sneer. “That man’s never understood the virtue of loyalty.”

“Right.” Moving my left arm felt like one of the hardest things I had ever done. Somehow, I managed, raising it to rest my hand against my forehead. “So you’re the good guys. You’re just going to find a way to set me free so I