Almost timidly, Mat asked, “No, I mean it. Are we really going to do this? Are we going to, you know, go on the campaign trail and be all exposed and visible to the world? Like, is this it?”
“Yeah,” said Ben, with a smile that transformed, bit by bit, into an open grin. He was a beautiful man when he smiled that way. No one could deny that. “This is it. We’re going to be journalists for the maybe future President of the United States of America.”
“I need to pack,” said Mat. They stood and fled for the hall, moving fast enough that I suspected “packing” was a cover for a mild panic attack. I couldn’t blame them. I was considering freaking out a little bit myself.
“I need to go buy a truck,” said Ben. “Maybe an RV. Something big enough to house us all for however long we’re on the road.”
“I can make a couple of calls,” I said. “Remember Mallory? The Irwin who died last month? Her family’s been looking to offload her field wagon. It runs on biodiesel, and it has a shower.” I was willing to do a lot of things in the name of the news. Traveling in a van that didn’t have a shower was not one of them. Give me clean hair or give me death.
“Do that,” said Ben. “You can have up to two-thirds of the emergency bank account without consulting with me.”
I nodded. “I think I can get it for half.” Maybe less. Mallory’s family had never cared much for her career, but they knew how important it had been to her. Knowing that her rolling fortress was going to be going back into the field instead of being stripped for parts would help them get over losing it.
“This is going to be good for us,” said Audrey. She didn’t sound fully convinced.
I reached up and squeezed her ankle. “We’re going to make names for ourselves, and then we’re going to make so much money that we’ll be able to buy the houses on either side. We can start bringing this neighborhood back to life. In the good way, not in the ‘shambling zombie wants to eat your brains’ way. We can upgrade the security systems.” And we’d have an RV. I was already starting to think of ways I could make that work for me, once the campaign was done and we were looking to get back to normal.
“People say money doesn’t fix everything, but I’m looking forward to proving them wrong,” said Ben. His smile faded. “I just wish this could’ve happened a month ago. Mama would have loved to know that I’d be taken care of. That my sister will be taken care of. Between her inheritance and me being better off, she’s never going to have to worry again.”
“Your mother knows,” I said automatically. Then I grimaced. I’ve been agnostic at best since leaving Ireland: The Church failed me pretty badly, and I wasn’t in the market for a replacement. But old habits die hard, and I’d grown up believing my dead relatives watched everything I did. Somehow this didn’t make them all perverts, not even when I’d started experimenting with my sexuality behind the old Tesco warehouse with Siobhan from down the street. There were many aspects of Catholicism that just got stranger when viewed from the outside.
“I hope so,” said Ben, apparently missing the wince. He stood. “I need to start sending emails. We’re going to need to steal a play from the Masons and put together a wider team, or there’s no way we’ll be able to stay on top of this thing once it gets rolling.”
“And since Governor Kilburn is such good friends with ‘Peter,’ she’ll be watching to make sure that we perform as well as, if not better than, his pet bloggers,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “Oh, goody. That’s just what I always wanted: a competition against the golden children. Is it too late for me to change my vote?”
“It was too late the second you came downstairs,” said Ben. “Good night, Ash.”
“Sleep well, if you ever do,” I said, and stayed on the floor with Audrey’s foot resting on my shoulder as I watched him walk out of the room.
Once we were alone I looked up at her and asked, “Is this going to be a good thing, really, or is this the worst thing we’ve ever agreed to do?”
Audrey leaned down to rest her forehead against mine. It left her twisted like a pretzel, her leg caught between our bodies. She seemed perfectly comfortable that way, and so I didn’t say anything. Some of the angles she viewed as normal were impossible for me, and I was in the best shape of my life. Damn the naturally flexible. Damn them all to a lifetime with me.
“Probably both,” she said. “We’re not just going to make the news anymore; we’re going to be the news, and that isn’t always as much fun as people think it’s going to be. We’re going to get jealous assholes writing articles about Mat’s ‘real’ gender, and why you left Ireland, and whether we’re all perverts for sleeping together, even though we’re actually not.”
I pulled back a little, untangling myself from her until I could get the distance I needed to look into her eyes. “That’s not all we’re going to get, Aud, and you know it.”
She looked away.
“We need to talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Someone’s going to find out.”
“So let them find out. I didn’t break any laws. I didn’t do anything morally wrong.”
“You walked away from your entire life and changed your name so you could join a blogging collective in Alameda. I’m eternally grateful that you did that, honestly I am, but there are going to be people who think it’s odd. And Kilburn knows, you know she does. She paused when she said ‘Yale.’ She knows.”
“Fuck those people, and fuck Kilburn if she has a problem with this.” Audrey shook her head, looking back to me. “Fuck them forever. They can eat a bucket of assholes for all I care. I’m not going to do full disclosure, and no one can make me. I’m a Fictional, remember? We have different journalistic ethics.”
“No one can make you, but somebody might do it for you, and I’d rather it be your choice. What is it Ben always says? ‘Try to stay ahead of the story.’ I don’t want you to get behind this one.”
“Your concern wasn’t enough to make you tell the governor no,” said Audrey.
“Because I knew what that look on your face meant. You’d already told her yes. I worry about you. I love you a lot. I’m not going to start protecting you from yourself. That isn’t my job.”
“Not yet,” said Audrey. “When this is over, when we have all the money and all the fame and can write our own tickets, I want you to do something for me.”
“Anything.”
She smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. “I want you to get a divorce.”
I blinked. “From Ben?”
“Unless you have another husband sitting around, yes,” said Audrey. “You have your citizenship now, we’ve been prepping the ‘Ben wants kids’ excuse, and I want to stop being the other woman. I’m not saying I want to get married right away—we still need to figure some things out, and maybe you need to be attainable for a while before I go proposing—but I want it to be an option. You’re a citizen. You have nothing to lose by divorcing him, and maybe it would be good for him. He might actually get out and date again. He’s lonely, you know. He’s not waiting for you to change who you are, but he made you a promise, and he’s hurting himself keeping it.”
I was silent for a moment, working my way through her request. It had been coming for a while. I’d seen it in her eyes, and heard it in her laughter. But this had already been an evening full of surprises, and I hadn’t been expecting another one.
Audrey stood. “Thought so,” she said, and walked out of the kitchen.
I almost jumped to my feet and ran after her. In the end, I couldn’t make myself move. I just sat there on the kitchen floor, staring at the cupboard, and waiting for the future to begin.
BOOK II
If You Want It, Come and Get It
The thing about the past is in the name: It’s the past. It may shape us. It may inform us. It may be the foundation on which we are built. But it’s dead. Leave it in the grave, and live for the living.
—AUDREY LIQIU WEN
; One day we’re going to look back on this and laugh. Assuming we, you know, manage to live that long.
—AISLINN “ASH” NORTH
When my team got passed over for the Ryman gig, I’ll admit, I was disappointed. I thought we were some of the best in the business, and would have been a real asset to his campaign. I still think that, although the folks at the newly minted After the End Times are doing a really excellent job of documenting their candidate. I look forward to following their progress.
But my mama always told me that when God closes a door, He opens a window. Our window is Governor Susan Kilburn, originally from Spokane, Washington. She moved to Oregon in her late teens, when she started attending Willamette University with a dual major in economics and environmental science. She fell in love with the area; after graduation, she stayed, went into local politics, and eventually became the governor of her beloved jewel of the Pacific Northwest. She’s smart, canny, and good at working all the angles. The perfect environmentalist. She’s also in the running to become the Democratic nominee for the next President of the United States of America… and she chose us. That may prejudice our reporting a bit. When someone who may one day answer to “POTUS” asks you to serve, it’s hard to say no.
Governor Susan Kilburn cares about her state. She cares about her country. She’s willing to cross party and ideological lines to do what needs to be done for both state and country, and she understands the thin web that connects us all. She’s not perfect—everyone has skeletons in their closet, and I’m sure she does as well—but in the end, I think she may be the best option we’re going to find.
Let’s hope we can document her path all the way to the White House, and beyond.
—From That Isn’t Johnny Anymore, the blog of Ben Ross,
February 5, 2040
Five
Governor Kilburn’s people ran in every direction, frantically prepping the site for her arrival. If it had been possible for humans to spontaneously develop the power of flight, they would have done it, just so they could be sure their lighting and security rigs were properly set up. It was sort of impressive, in that “someone has just kicked a nest of wasps, and now we’re all going to pay for their carelessness” kind of way.
Mat was in heaven. They’d been talking with the local techs all morning, babbling rapid-fire about things like the bearing capacity of the temporary wireless and the number of electric charges in the fence. It was sort of adorable. It was also sort of intensely frustrating, since we were surrounded on all sides by forest, and I wasn’t being allowed to go running off into it with my hands in the air and a big “COME AND GET IT” sign taped to my chest. We’d been attached to the campaign for three weeks. We’d been on the road for two. I hadn’t seen a single dead person during that time, and I was starting to get twitchy about it.
Audrey patted my arm with one hand, eyes never leaving the preparations around us. “There, there, Ash, there, there,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll find something horribly dangerous to play with soon.”
“I didn’t say anything,” I said, giving her a narrow-eyed look.
“You didn’t need to. I know what it means when you start looking at forested areas the way you usually look at my boobs. We have a three-day break after this, while Governor Kilburn does private donor dinners. I bet we can find you a hole in the fence and a good poking stick.”
I abandoned my glowering to give her a warm smile. “You really get me.”
“I really do,” Audrey agreed. “Have you noticed the blind spots in their motion detectors? If everything wasn’t electrified, I’d be worried.”
“I know, honey,” I said, and leaned my head against her shoulder. Audrey liked security systems. Audrey especially liked security systems that had been constructed with triplicate redundancy, making it unlikely that a single failure could endanger anyone who was supposed to be protected. It was one of the few day-to-day reminders of the life she’d walked away from, the one she didn’t like to discuss and didn’t want me thinking about any harder than I had to.
I didn’t have all the details of who she’d been before she came to us—before she came to me. No one did, except for Audrey. But it had left her very aware of the bars on the windows and the locks on the doors, and ever eager to add another layer.
Not that Governor Kilburn’s campaign lacked for security. It was just that it was part of the American political machine, and was hence innately divided against itself. Blame the need for any major political candidate’s coffers to be continually reinforced with sweet, sweet cash. Public events, like the speech we were about to cover, were open to everyone who wanted to show up. They were also broadcast live on the governor’s website, and dissected and remixed for posting on our site. It was campaign as theater, and she was very, very good at it. The private side of things was sometimes open to us and sometimes not. A certain amount of “behind closed doors” footage was included in our contract; it humanized the candidate without weakening her, and it would have been silly to hire a team of bloggers and refuse to give us access. But some events were still off-limits, usually because they involved people who’d donated such an obscene amount of money to the campaign that they had essentially bought her time for an evening in the process.
Supposedly, there were limits as to how much money an individual or concern could give to a candidate for office. In practice, those limits were as easily circumvented as the data rights management software on a new video game. There were the super PACs to worry about, of course. On top of that, people wrote checks in the names of pets and children, gave gifts that could be traded for monetary value, and generally made it clear that they were willing to pay for the President they wanted. Governor Kilburn never looked happy about those dinners, but she went. I couldn’t blame her. If someone waved a million dollars in my face and said it could be mine if I’d eat a plate of their private chef’s spaghetti, I’d be reaching for the fork.
On those “private donor nights,” we were free to do whatever struck our fancy. Ben spent them updating his reports with new information and hiring more support staff—coders, baby bloggers, forum moderators—for our site, which was growing by leaps and bounds, thanks to our sudden elevation to “second biggest concern in the blogging world.” The Masons were ahead of us in ratings and respectability, but we were closing the gap fast. They’d had a head start. They had more name recognition. We had a candidate who was willing to get into water balloon fights with kids. We also had Mat’s makeup tutorials, which were starting to take on a distinctly patriotic flair. Mat was making weekly trips to Sephora for red, white, and blue eye shadows, and had been ordering custom lipsticks, stains, and tars from various online vendors at a terrifying rate. By the time we reached the actual election, I fully expected to be surrounded by people who looked like they’d been eating blueberry popsicles for months.
“Candidate on site, repeat, candidate on site,” said a member of the governor’s security team, speaking into his wrist as he rushed past us, like he was afraid he might otherwise make eye contact with a filthy journalist and have to stop for a chat. Some of the security staffers were lovely people, like John, who spent a lot of time drinking whiskey and discussing law enforcement with Audrey when he wasn’t on duty, or Amber, who had the dirtiest sense of humor I’d ever encountered on someone who wasn’t an Irwin. Those people were outnumbered by their stiffer, more professional colleagues, who really didn’t like the fact that they had a bunch of wild cards running around. Mat’s refusal to go to binary pronouns confused them, Ben’s insistence on asking endless questions annoyed them, and Audrey’s tendency to dismiss their security protocols as insufficient pissed them off.
For once, I wasn’t the most irritating member of our team. It was great. I was thinking of making myself a “yay, I’m the good child for a change” ribbon. Something big and flashy, like I’d just won the first prize at a church bake sale.
“Guess that means we have to get to work,” said Audrey, with a sm
all, barely muffled sigh. She was a Fictional, but she was also the best-informed when it came to law enforcement and judicial procedures. Ben used her a lot for the candidate’s public appearances. Having her to translate the parts that were outside his usual wheelhouse made the process more pleasant for everyone involved.
“Whee,” I said agreeably, and followed her to the small press pen where Ben and Mat were already waiting.
Today’s event was being held in a wide, beautifully manicured park that was also, according to Amber, the official Portland rose test garden. People from all over the world brought new rose cultivars here to see whether they’d perform in the real world the way they performed in hothouses and horticultural labs. Roses were the most popular flower on the planet, thanks to their versatility, hardiness, and ability to scratch the ever-loving crap out of anyone who got too close. I would have thought thorns and their tendency to draw blood would make roses less popular, since it could turn a thriving garden into a hazard zone, but it turned out people really appreciated having an organic line of home defense. If blood appeared on the roses, they got rooted out, burned, and replaced with an electric fence essentially overnight. Until then, the yard could be regarded as halfway safe. Roses were also one of the few symbols of conspicuous consumption left to the average home owner. After all, if you could afford to replace your landscaping at the first hint of contamination, you must have been doing pretty well for yourself.
Folding chairs were set up between the cordoned-off flower beds, creating tiers of seating. The best seats were right up front, where no flowers would block the view of the governor. Those were reserved for friends, family, and people who’d already donated a lot of money to her campaign, but could potentially be convinced to open their wallets a little further. Oregon was all about the bottom line. The rest of the country was going to be about the politics.