Free Blackout by Mira Grant

afraid.
    The last big break with reality is coming. I can practically hear it knocking at the door. And I’m terrified I won’t have time to finish everything I need to do before it gets here.
    I’m sorry, George. But I’m afraid I might want you back so much that I’m willing to let myself let you down.
    —From
Adaptive Immunities
, the blog of Shaun Mason, July 17, 2041. Unpublished.

Five
    I barely glanced up from my book when the door slid open. It was an outdated sociology text written when people still lived in the middle of Canada, but it was a
book
, and in the absence of access to the Internet, I was so starved for data that I’d take what I could get. They still wouldn’t let me have anything but hard copy, for fear that I’d somehow figure out a way to hopscotch off the local wireless network. As if. Techie tricks were Buffy’s forte, and Buffy had left the building.
    The door slid closed. I kept reading. Dr. Thomas cleared his throat. The sound was a dead giveaway. After a week with nothing to distract me, I’d learned to recognize my regular visitors by the things they couldn’t help, like the way they breathed—or, in Dr. Thomas’s case, the annoying way he cleared his throat. I turned a page. Dr. Thomas cleared his throat again.
    “I can keep this up all day,” I said pleasantly, even though the fact that I was the first one to speak proved I couldn’t actually stand spending any more time sitting silently and pretending I wasn’t bothered by Dr.Thomas standing there, watching me. “You know what you need to do.”
    “I think you’re being unreasonable.”
    “I think that I legally became a human being as soon as you detached me from your crazy mad science clone incubator, which means I’m entitled to basic human courtesy.” I turned another page. “It’s up to you.” Gregory wanted me to play along. Well, I was playing, but that also included a certain amount of understandable resistance. A totally complacent Georgia Mason would never have been believable, to anyone.
    Dr. Thomas sighed. Finally, he said, “Hello, Georgia. May I come in?”
    “Why, hello, Dr. Thomas.” I looked up, dog-earing the top of the page to keep my place. “Would it make any difference if I said you couldn’t?”
    “No,” he said curtly. I was starting to learn the limits of his patience. It was difficult, more so than learning to tell his footsteps from the footsteps of the guards who usually accompanied him. If I pushed him too far, they’d gas the room, and I’d wake up to find that whatever tests I’d been balking at had been run while I was unconscious.
    When I finished with my exposé of this place, the CDC was going to wish they’d been willing to leave me dead. I kept that thought firmly in mind as I plastered a smile across my face and said, “Well, then, come on in. What can I do for you?” I paused, something else about the situation registering. I’d only heard one set of footsteps. “Where are your guards?”
    “That’s part of why I’m visiting. We’ve been reviewing your test results, and we’ve decided I don’t need them in your quarters.” Dr. Thomas’s smile looked as real as mine. Whoever made the decision to send himinto my room without protection had done it without asking how he felt about it. And clearly, how he felt wasn’t good.
    “Does that mean they’ve also decided I’m not a danger to society?”
    “Don’t be too hasty, Georgia. It simply means they’ve decided that spontaneous amplification is not an immediate danger. We still have a lot to do before we can be confident your body is prepared to function outside a laboratory setting.” Dr. Thomas adjusted his glasses with one hand, something I’d learned to read as a nervous tic. “You may not feel particularly protected, but I assure you, this is the cleanest, most secure environment you have ever been in.”
    “It’s definitely the most boring,” I agreed, twisting around to face him. I’d been