Feedback (19 page)

“How bad this was meant to be,” I said. “Do you have the details on the attack at the Ryman facility?”

Mat nodded slowly. “Yes. Your reports, Ben's reports… I was thinking of doing some commemorative makeup designs, but I couldn't figure out whether that would be seen as advertising for the opposition.”

Somehow, I had the feeling that where the makeup bloggers of the world put their eyeliner was the least of the Ryman camp's concerns, but I didn't say anything about it. We all have our own ways of coping. “Do you think you could draw a sim from that?”

“No,” said Mat flatly. “I don't have any first-person footage, like I had with you, and the camp had issues with their security cameras. I don't have any way of knowing where the zombies came from.”

Damn. “Can you pull up blueprints of the venue, anything like that? I have a theory. I'd like to confirm it before I share it with anyone else.”

“Give me a second—I can do the footage that's been released, and I think there are blueprints of the venue online.” A wiggle of the mouse chased the kittens away, and Mat began typing rapidly. “Since when am
I
your partner in crime, anyway? I'm not the one you're sleeping with. Or the one you're married to. I'm supposed to get a pass from helping you do stupid shit.”

“See, the reason you've been tapped for this mission is simple: You're not the one I'm married to, and you're not the one I'm sleeping with, which means you'll jump straight to ‘Ash is being weird,' instead of going for the more locally popular ‘Ash is about to risk her neck because she thinks it's funny.'” I drummed my heels against the foot of the bed. Thump thump. “Also, you're the one with the skill set I need right now. I need to know how the outbreak at the Ryman encampment went, and you're the best spatial thinker we have.”

“I'm flattered,” said Mat dryly.

“You should be. If I want a beautiful lie with a noir moral at its center, I go to Audrey. She's my girl. If I want a coherent, logical narrative that fits the facts as we understand them, I go to Ben. He's the best. But if I want to know what the space looked like, if I want to
understand
how that narrative played out, I come to you. Because you're the best, too.” I stopped, waiting to see what Mat would say.

They smirked. That was when I knew I'd won. “Laying it on a little thick, don't you think?”

“Depends,” I said. “Are you buying it?”

“No, but I'm willing to consider a lease.”

“Then I'm laying it on just thick enough.” I leaned back on my hands. “Even if you can't do me a full simulation, I need to know two things. How bad was the outbreak,
really
? Obviously, people died, and that's both sad and tragic, but would it have gone on to be truly terrible if no one had done anything from within the camp? Or would the authorities have shown up and taken care of things?”

“All right. What's your second question?”

“Was Ryman ever in any real danger?” Because Kilburn had been. The governor had been outside, with no one directly behind her: She had been fully exposed. Whoever set this trap had been intending to kill her.

“You don't believe in asking for simple things, do you?” Mat kept typing.

“Simple things are for simple minds,” I said. “I much prefer simple pleasures, which are for everyone, and only sometimes stain the carpet.”

“Weirdo,” muttered Mat. Then: “There's not enough footage for a simulation, but I have probabilities. Do you want them?”

“I asked for them, didn't I? Yes. Give me sweet, sweet probabilities, and allow me to make some sense out of all this rubbish.”

“All right. Assuming the Ryman camp didn't underreport the zombies to keep their insurance rates low, or overreport them to make their story seem more dramatic, the outbreak was bad, but not catastrophic.” Mat tapped the keys, more slowly now, adjusting functions of the program without completely resetting it. “The surrounding area would have suffered extensive losses without the immediate response of Ryman's security crew, but nothing I have here indicates that a firestrike would have been necessary—and it was in a
nice
enough area that anyone who suggested it would probably have been shouted down.”

“Only fry the poor people if you want to stay in office, tra-la,” I said, in a half-bitter, half-mocking tone.

“Money makes the world go round,” agreed Mat. “As to whether Ryman was in any real danger, he's not Irwin trained, and he wants to live to be President, which means he wouldn't have tried to play hero unless the situation was
very
cut-and-dried. I'm putting a ninety-five percent probability on him staying indoors, away from the action, until the cleanup crews had come and gone.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning he was never in any real danger. He would have survived even if his people hadn't engaged with the dead. The outbreak started on the other side of a fence, and while there
was
a break in the fence—the footage the Masons got is chilling—it wasn't big enough to allow the zombies to overwhelm the camp. Everyone could have just stayed inside with their doors locked and been fine until the professionals arrived.”

“I see.” I stood. “Thanks, Mat. You've been a lifesaver.”

Mat turned to look at me, seeming guardedly pleased with the praise. “What did you want to know all this for, anyway?”

“Ah, see, that's to be a mystery for this age, or at least for this afternoon; I need to talk to Ben.” I blew them a kiss and started for the door.

“Hold up,” said Mat. They grabbed their laptop, yanking out cords without concern for the mess they were making, and hurried after me. I raised an eyebrow. Mat shrugged. “I'm as bored as you are. Maybe you don't like being cooped up, but I don't like being cut off, and I know you. If you're sniffing around like this, you have an idea. I want to know what it is.”

There was no point in arguing, and there was some virtue to bringing Mat along. The simulation they'd whipped up was nice. Having the whole team on the same page would be even nicer. Which meant…

I tapped my ear cuff as I walked. It beeped three times before Audrey picked up, with a mild, “Are you abseiling down the side of the building right now? Do I need to start gathering bail money for your inevitable arrest?”

“You have so little faith in me,” I said. “You really think I'd get caught? And no, I'm in the hotel, about to pass the room. Mat and I are heading for Ben's room. Have some things to go over where the attack on the governor's appearance is concerned, and thought you might like to come to the party.”

“Really?” Now there was actual interest in her tone. Whatever she'd been expecting, it wasn't this. “I'll be right over. Don't start without me.”

“Wouldn't dream of it.” I tapped my ear cuff again before stopping in front of Ben's door and knocking briskly.

“Coming,” he called. The door swung open. Ben looked nonplussed at the sight of me and Mat standing there, Mat still clutching the laptop, me smiling like I was getting ready to win a beauty-and-brutality pageant.

“Hi,” I said. “Based on the timing of the attacks and the skill shown in placement of the initial infected, I'm pretty sure the people who attacked the Ryman camp are also the people who attacked the Kilburn camp, only they wanted Ryman to survive his attack, and they wanted our candidate to go down in glorious flames. Can we come in?”

Ben stepped wordlessly aside. Mat and I walked into the hotel room. Audrey would be there in a few seconds, and then we could begin our work. Now that we were to be released, she could finally go collect Mallory's RV as well, which would give us a rolling command center of our own. Privacy, and the ability to be alone together: exactly what we needed.

We had so beautifully much to do.

S
uper Tuesday and the choosing of the candidates was a week away, and it was anybody's guess which way things were going to go. The governor was still working to regain the ground she'd lost during her impromptu layover in Portland. Her approval numbers were high, if that meant anything: Her opponent's approval numbers were also high, and she and Governor Blackburn had roughly equivalent experience in politics, putting them on a playing field that was temporary, illusory even. Sadly, “our candidate is better because she performs Journey songs during Friday night karaoke, and she's
awful
; elect her so we can share this with the whole country” wasn't a slogan the rest of the campaign could get behind. More's the pity. Congressional karaoke would have transformed American politics into something I could actually enjoy.

Ben had taken the simulation Mat had designed and my extrapolations from its result and run with them, picking apart the ways in which Portland had clearly been an assassination attempt. It had been enough to buy us some play during a few news cycles, although we weren't entrenched enough to knock the Masons and their crew out of the top slot. They had a better organizational structure, with baby bloggers pumping out content even when their primary team was off-line for whatever reason. It made me want a team of minions to run and do
my
bidding. Too bad that wasn't going to happen for a while. Oh, we had our baby bloggers, but they were still fulfilling contracts to other blogging sites and working for us in their spare time. You needed either money or reputation to start your own site and get that sort of overnight success, and we didn't have either. We just had the Kilburn campaign. This was what would make or break us, and bearing that in mind, it was difficult not to become overly invested in our candidate.

I was sitting in the main section of our new RV, cleaning my sniper rifle, when the vast behemoth of a vehicle came rolling to a halt. I looked up. Ben was napping in the sleeping compartment, the curtains drawn to block the light. Mat was riding with Chuck and a few of the governor's other advisors, presumably to plan the governor's makeup for the week. Mat had been spending more and more time sunk in the belly of the campaign, and while they hadn't missed a report yet, I was pretty sure we'd lost them. This would end with either the White House or a cabinet position for our candidate, and Mat would follow her to Washington D.C., ready to set fashion standards for the political elite.

I couldn't feel bad about that. Mat had always wanted this. I couldn't be happy about it either. The idea had been to strengthen our team, not split it up; we were supposed to come through this more united than ever. And that wasn't going to happen.

Carefully, I put the components I was holding down on the chamois cloth I was using as a backdrop and stood, making my way toward the driver's compartment. There was supposed to be a blood test between the driver and the passengers, but Mallory had disabled it years ago—she'd mostly traveled alone, and hadn't felt the need to prick her finger every time she wanted access to her own things. We had decided not to put it back in place. It would have slowed us down, and we were all living in one another's back pockets anyway. Adding a layer of sham security wouldn't have
meant
anything, but it might have kept us from reaching each other in time if there was an emergency.

Audrey was behind the wheel when I opened the door and poked my head into the cabin. Her seat belt was off, and she was loading bullets into her pistol. She turned toward the sound of the door opening, offering me a quick, almost professional smile.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Pit stop,” she said, and gestured toward the windshield.

We were parked in front of a neon-encrusted dive bar in the middle of nowhere. The sign out front said this was the “Painted Rose,” and was capped by an animated hologram of white roses slowly turning red as something—paint or blood, it was hard to say—was drizzled on them from above. As an image, it managed to be erotic and disturbing at the same time. The parking lot was almost empty, which could have meant potential clients felt the same way.

“I see that we've stopped, and I see this is a place that can be accurately described as a ‘pit,' but I think I'm going to ask that question again,” I said. “Where are we?”

“About sixty miles outside of Vegas,” said Audrey. “I thought we were going straight through, but the head of the convoy signaled for everyone else to pull over, so I got off the road.”

“Cool,” I said. “This place looks sleazy, dangerous, and like they probably have great happy hour specials. Let's check it out.” I closed the door connecting the cabin to the rest of the RV. There was a click as the rest of the doors unsealed themselves. They were still locked, but we could exit the vehicle now. We hadn't disabled
all
the safety systems: Some of them were legally required if we wanted to keep driving this thing.

“Maybe we should wait for someone to—and you're already gone,” said Audrey, scowling through the open passenger-side door as I slid down to the pavement. “If you get bitten to death by zombie rattlesnakes, I'm going to pee on your grave. You know that, don't you?”

“Looking forward to it,” I chirped, and shut the door behind me. She would be along in a moment. I had absolute faith in that. Audrey might get fussy about danger sometimes, but she loved it as much as I did. She just had different ways of showing it.

Even in February, the Nevada sun blazed down, bouncing its heat off the blacktop and making the parking lot feel more like the world's largest open-air pizza oven. I stretched languidly, letting the warmth bake into my bones. People sometimes asked why I'd gone for sundresses, instead of more practical expressions of femininity, like the classic Lara Croft look—cutoff shirts and khaki shorts also said “pretty, girly, pretty girly” to the viewing audience, but they did it without loose skirts and snappable straps. What I could never quite explain was how much I loved dressing for the sun. It was always gray and chilly in Ireland. Any sun was a pleasure. Here, in America, I could have all the sun I wanted. Sometimes I felt like a solar battery, soaking it all in, waiting for the day when I was finally thawed.

The door slammed on the other side of the RV as Audrey got out. I beamed, turning to face her as she walked around the nose of the vehicle. “Well, this is charming,” she said. “Were you thinking of a place like this for our honeymoon?”

“Not enough zombies,” I said.

Audrey wrinkled her nose.

Motion to the right caught my attention. I turned. John and Amber were walking toward us, both wearing sunglasses in addition to their customary black suits. Amber's jacket was unbuttoned, revealing the butt of the gun at her belt. She had her hand resting on it, ready to draw at the first sign of danger. I approved of that. Having multiple people on watch meant that I could relax a little bit.

“Where's Mr. North?” asked John, once they were close enough to speak without shouting.

“Ben's asleep,” said Audrey. “I'd rather not wake him if it's not important, since it's his turn to drive next, and we have sixty miles to go before we get to Vegas.” She raised an eyebrow in silent question:
Was
it important? Did someone need to go wake Ben?

“We're here because a good friend of the governor's, who's going to be catching a plane first thing in the morning, asked if we'd stop for a cup of coffee and to allow the two of them to catch up,” said John. “The governor asked me to come and let you know, and to tell you you were all invited to join, if you so wished.”

My eyes widened. It wasn't frequent that I was the first to put two and two together and come up with the impossible four. Sometimes, however, the odds were weighted in my favor. We were parked in front of a dive bar in the middle of nowhere, Nevada. There was only one person I knew of from Nevada who had enough of a stake in this election to both be in her home state this week
and
be catching a plane to somewhere else—somewhere like, say, the middle of the country, where she needed to do a lot more stumping if she wanted to stay in the race. Super Tuesday was almost upon us. Congresswoman Wagman was smart enough to be concerned about it.

“We wish,” I said fervently. “We wish, and Ben will
murder
me if I don't get him out of bed. Murder me to
death
. Wait here, I'll be right back.” I didn't wait to see if they agreed. I just spun and ran down the length of the RV. Slapping my hand against the testing panel next to the main door, I waited impatiently for the lights to cycle green before tearing the door open and jumping inside. I could hear John and Amber laughing as it slammed behind me. I didn't care. We were going to meet Congresswoman Wagman. How could I not be excited?

Congresswoman Kirsten Wagman was a Republican candidate. She and I had a lot of political differences. But she thought like an Irwin, all style in the quest to justify substance, and I couldn't help but respect that. She had seen an opportunity to do some good, to push the agendas of her constituents, and all she'd needed to do was trade her dignity for airtime. That was an exchange that every Irwin I knew was intimately acquainted with.

When Kirsten Wagman had been looking at going into politics—after putting herself through law school by working the pole at a gentleman's club—she realized she could either hide her background or celebrate it, and had chosen the latter. Her breasts had already been excellent, at least if the old file photos were anything to go by. She'd still gone under the knife several times to improve them, along with all the other niggling little details of her physique that weren't perfectly camera ready. And then she'd burst onto the Nevada political scene, as in-your-face as any man in her position had ever been. Most people dismissed her as uninformed and uninterested in the real issues. Most people weren't looking deep enough.

Under Kirsten Wagman, sex work in Nevada had been fully decriminalized and stripped of much of its stigma. She'd created scholarships for strippers and camgirls, encouraging them to find backup careers for when they needed to get out of the business. She'd improved sex education and safety nets for the poor, and she had done it all while wearing lacy slips and sky-high heels. It was a beautiful act of diversion and distraction, and while I didn't think it would be enough to carry her all the way to the White House—not with most of the journalists I knew gunning for her as making a “mockery” of the political process—no failures now were going to take away from the successes she was building upon. She was smart as a snake and canny as anything, and she might well be the closest thing to an Irwin that we were ever going to see on the political stage.

The sleeping chamber was dark when I opened the curtain and stepped inside. Ben had sealed all the windows before going to bed. It made sense, from an “actually getting some sleep” perspective, but it made my job harder than it needed to be. Did I wake him gently, or did I rip the scab off of sleep before he realized I was there?

Subtlety has never been my strong suit. I felt along the wall to the nearest window and jerked the curtain open, letting sunlight flood the room. There were two beds, both bunk, and Ben was sleeping on the bottom bed directly across from the window. He yelped, fumbling for his glasses with one hand as he covered his eyes with the opposite forearm. He tried to roll away, but there was no point to it; the light was everywhere. The light would not be denied.

“Good morning!” I chirped blithely. “We're parked outside a brilliantly tatty-looking bar, and Kirsten Wagman is inside, waiting to have a drink with us. I rather thought you'd not want to be left out of this one. Get up, sleepyhead, and come meet a political genius.”

Ben lowered his arm enough to squint at me in bewildered disbelief. “Kirsten Wagman?” he parroted, words thick with sleep. “The
congresswoman
?”

“The one with the…” I made a hefting gesture in front of my breasts, whistling to illustrate it. “Yeah, that's the one. Come on, she's brilliant, I can't wait to meet her, and getting you up and moving is
making
me wait, so get up.”

“You're serious.” Ben sat up, positioning his glasses securely on the bridge of his nose as he stared at me. “We've stopped to have tea with a congresswoman.”

“It's Wagman, so I suspect we're having either beer or schnapps, but yes.” I beamed. “This is the best job ever. Are you awake? Are you coming out? Or do you just want me to take a lot of notes? Spoiler alert: I won't take any notes. Your brand of boring journalism is not appealing to me, and I'm going to do my best to ignore it completely during this amazing opportunity.”

“I'm up, I'm up,” said Ben, finally sliding out of the bunk. He was wearing flannel pajama bottoms patterned with little robots. It was adorable. I knew better than to tell him that: He had a tendency to get annoyed when I commented on his wardrobe, maybe because I kept telling him not enough of it was tear-away. “Give me five minutes to make myself presentable, all right? And thanks for waking me. I would have hated to miss this.”

“You can have three, because you took so long to get up,” I said, and sauntered toward the door. When I got there I paused, grinned at him, and added, “You're welcome.”

Then I was out, leaving Ben to the mysteries of his suitcase and a wet washcloth across his face. All of us were prepared to be up and running at a moment's notice—it was part of the job—but we had our own ways of getting there. Ben depended on cold compresses and shocks to the system. Mat slept like a normal person, which was always disconcerting for the rest of us. Audrey believed in a healthy diet, exercise, and naps whenever possible. And I, naturally, believed in stimulants to get myself up and sleep aids to put myself down, on those rare occasions I felt like it was necessary for me to stop. Everyone copes in the manner that works best for them. That's true of the human race, and it's especially true of the news.