Archive of Our Own ^beta

My name is Mahir Gowda and these are my biases

1. I'm an Indian citizen living in London
2. I carry a pistol taser, not a gun
3. I report the truth, as we see it here in London. Opinion pieces will be clearly marked.

Those of you who've followed me from the old site will know all that already. For those of you who are new I offer news and sports from the UK and Europe and some irreverent opinions on whatever tickles my fancy. Whilst the main team are out following the Ryman campaign I'll also be offering a British, and Indian, perspective on the campaign and filling in a bit for George on other topical US news.

It's said that every journalist knows people on the Wall, but for the first time there's someone on there that I actually knew and cared for. You will have read George's announcement already. I never met Buffy in person, but had spent many happy hours with her online. She will be missed.

Normal Fish and Clips service will be resumed tomorrow; I'm going to go and think about mortality with the aid of a bottle of Gin and the London Fictionals.

I spent all day reading the documents George had copied for me; I'd told myself that I wanted to know what was in them all before I did anything but by the end I was sure I didn't.

Then I spent all night making plans.

First I set up this blog, and attached a copy of the documents It's a 512-bit key, fantastically paranoid even by Buffy's standards, and importantly one she didn't know. I've put a copy of the key in a standard secure will box that I'll take to the Indian Embassy tomorrow, with instructions to publish it if I die within a year and otherwise not for a hundred years.

Hopefully it's the 22nd century when you're reading this.

Then I got in touch with some contacts I'd made during that smuggling investigation last year and acquired an untracked handgun. The handgun, another copy of the documents, and everything I'd need to get to Ireland went in a lost-luggage locker ready for an emergency getaway.

Now all I have to do is wait and see. I'm inclined to think George has the easy job.

Well, that's the other shoe.

Time to get my game face on and make sure that Georgia Mason didn't die in vain.

This is probably the last entry for this blog, whatever happens.

Here we go again. I can't imagine what kind of hornet's nest Shaun has kicked now to have a dead CDC agent in the office and a mass zombie outbreak, but I can't see any good coming out of it.

I hope Shaun has a rabbit available to pull out of his hat this time and they'll all get out.

Or not. Damn.

I'm no virologist, but I've had a look at the data Dr Abbey gave us and it worries me. I'd like to hope I'm misreading it, but….

A copy of all the data is here, and the other dead drops from last time around, and now it's time to take the other copy and see if I can get a professional opinion.

I feel like a complete shit doing this but, as Shaun says, it has to be done. Georgia would say it was time to get reporting the news.

Nan is going to kill me.

Dr Christoper has been deported; and if he was really working without a permit and not declaring his tax then he's the richest illegal immigrant that England has had this century.

That's two out of two so far; do the maths. I'm working on my exit plan: slipped my dad's passport out of his desk while were were over for dinner today and I've started updating the list of travel agencies and touts that I compiled last year.

One last card to play, and I wouldn't do it if it wasn't vitally important, Prof. Brannon is an old friend of the family.

This article has been posted under time delay. If it goes up then I am dead. Post it to the Wall. Creative Commons Licencing.

If you're reading this before publication note that tampering with this file will trip a dead-man switch which will cause the other copy to automatically post.

I'm leaving the country with the hottest piece of viral research in the world in my bag. Someone, possibly the CDC, doesn't want you to have this information. I've left other copies in my usual dead-drops and you'll hear about them soon if I die: on this site if my friends survive or from other reputable sources if not.

I hope and pray that this post will never go live. See you on the other side.

This article has been posted under time delay. If it goes up then I am dead. Post it to the Wall. Creative Commons Licencing.

I've flown three times now, and every time I've told myself this is the last time.

I'm lying to myself this time. There's going to be at least one if not two more flights on this journey alone — they don't fly transatlantic into Weed and I have to fool the tracking systems as well.

But, if we survive this, then I swear I'm going back to London on an automated oil tanker.

I really, really, didn't want to admit to myself that the CDC were in on this. After the events of last year I was convinced that Dr Wynne at least was on our side.

Don't become a news reporter, friend, you won't come out with any illusions intact.

Footage from Oakland CDC attached.

RIP Kelly Connolly, and the Joseph Wynne I thought I knew.

Shaun has this absolutely crazy theory that the Cuba/Florida disaster was caused by an insect vector for KA. Worse his pet virologist source agrees with him. Assuming all the jigsaw pieces join up the way they look like than that makes the CDC a terrorist organisation dealing in weaponised KA.

This isn't the world I wanted to live in. Sadly I don't need to ask Shaun to know that Georgia would tell me I don't get to choose that.

In the interests of ensuring the news gets reported, even in the event of world-affecting terrorism, I've reduced the dead-man period on this blog to 7 days.

If you're reading this in July 2041 take Georgia's words to heart:—

I wish, having met Shaun's Dr Abbey, that I could dismiss her as a mad scientist. She may be mad but she's certainly a scientist and probably quite right. I understand more of her work than the rest of us; so I get the benefit of being her favourite lecture target. Right now I'm only sleeping when I actually fall over and become comatose; if I sleep after leaving here it will only because we've succeeded and I'm looking forward to cold sweats and sleepless nights for the rest of my life.

Worse: Shaun has seemingly developed some kind of immunity to KA. Or maybe that should be fortunately since he's the only thing keeping this team together.

What little I know is getting streamed into two files on this blog: one for Dr Abbey's primary work and one for Shaun's immunity. I'm trying to get a copy of Dr Abbey's research to add, but she's being very coy about it.

Shaun's insane.

Maggie's cracking up; slowly but surely.

Dr Abbey has clearly not been batting on a level field for years.

Alaric is (rationally?) irrational about his sister.

I threw away my life and marriage and flew to the US with illicit scientific data.

When Becks seems to be the most sane and stable one of us, what does that tell us…?

No, I don't like the answer, either.

Shaun and Becks have dropped off the network entirely. I choose to interpret the news of the elder Masons to indicate they're still alive and fighting.

I'm not sure how much I believe it; but after the last two months I don't think there are any sacred cows left unchallenged. I've started another rolling file for the CDC Reincarnation project.

Looks like Shaun, Georgia, and Rick have saved the world again. Hopefully that will be enough to assuage the ghosts of Dave, Kelly, and Becks. Becks, at least, I guess died the way she always wanted to:— blowing zombies up and making the news.

I'm quite weary of it; I don't have so many friends I can afford to lose three a year. If there are any more conspiracies hiding in the wings please go bother some other journalists.

Nandini Gowda would like me to reassure you all that even though I am the scum of the earth she hasn't divorced me.

After having checked in to this blog every six days since the summer I'm going to hand it over to the guardians of the Wall tomorrow, and I expect them to reveal it to the world in January 2142.

There's data in here that I've never seen published and reports of things that have unto now remained secret; including a full report of the last few days I spent with Shaun and Georgia II.

From where I sit the EIS look to be fulfilling their side of the bargain; and I'd like history to remember that they at least started out with good intentions. From the view of 2142 you may have a different opinion on their history of course but I've done my best throughout to tell the truth; both about the facts and about my opinions. I was directly involved, and that always shades things, but even now I can't stand to be uninvolved with the news I report; something I had to do twice during these events.

That is my bias; learn to live with it — I have.