“They’ve had six kids disappear in the last two weeks,” said Mat finally. “Three of them, people assumed had gone back to their families. They’d been talking about it, anyway. The other three, there was more concern, but not that much that could be done about it. Resources were limited.”
“Resources are always limited,” I said. “Check their faces against the pictures from the garden.”
“Someone mined the disabled and queer communities for their victims,” said Ben, looking at the governor. His voice was calm and steady. I envied him for that. “This is a Democratic campaign. Those are two of the groups that have almost always consistently voted Democrat, even following the changes to the party since the Rising. Someone used your potential voter base as a weapon against you, which means that someone really thought about who they were going to use. There are other targets they could have gone after, some that would have been a lot easier to get. They chose those ones because they were both available and personal.”
“Symbolism again,” said Audrey. “Those kids probably wouldn’t have voted. It’s all about the idea of turning Democrats against you, and taking them away from you at the same time.”
“So you think someone doesn’t want me to be President,” said Governor Kilburn.
“Quite a few people probably don’t want you to be President, ma’am,” said Ben. “That’s why we’re having an election, instead of giving you the job by fiat. But someone was very dedicated to the idea that you could be killed before you got any further than Oregon. The only real question is why.”
Governor Kilburn was silent, just looking at him. Everyone else followed suit. Even me. Sometimes I may talk to hear the sound of my own voice—silence makes me nervous—but I understand the importance of the dramatic pause, and the role it plays in keeping the wheels of the world turning as they should. If she needed a few seconds to come to terms with whatever she was about to say, we were going to let her have them.
Finally, she said, “There are always threats. It’s been part of doing business as a politician, and a female politician at that, for as long as anyone can remember. I turn them over to the authorities, and to my security, and I try to put them out of my mind. It makes it easier to keep smiling for the cameras if I don’t remember how many people want to kill me.”
“We have copies, if you want to see them,” said Amber.
Chuck didn’t like that. “They’re reporters, not the FBI,” he said. “What good is sharing your darkest secrets with them going to do? Unless you wanted everything splashed across the front page of tomorrow’s paper.”
“There you go again, forgetting that we’re as deep in this shit as you are,” said Mat. They shook their head. “I like you, Chuck, but you’re being way more narrow-minded than I expected you to be. We’re not going to report on anything that might get us hurt too. I mean, that’s just common sense.”
“And if, as Governor Kilburn says, everyone who runs for office gets threats like the ones she’s received, how would our reporting the facts be some sort of shock to the public?” asked Ben. “We’re here to accurately document the campaign, not serve as political advisors, but if you ask me, admitting that there are credible threats only strengthens her position, especially after this attack.”
“Come again?” said Amber. Everyone turned to look at her. She shrugged. “Okay, look, security’s supposed to stay quiet and hug the walls, I get that, but come on. How does this strengthen her position? There’s been an attack in a public place. People could have been hurt. People were hurt, since the dead guys had to come from somewhere.”
“We know where they came from,” said Mat, in a small voice.
“Which is why coming forward about the threats doesn’t hurt anything in this situation,” said Ben. “The governor passed the threats along to the authorities, according to the protocol, and people got hurt anyway. So now she’s speaking out about the danger, and about the cowards who would violate Raskin-Watts by using zombies as a weapon.”
“Ooo, nasty, make it a terrorism charge,” I said approvingly. “Hit whoever decided to go for the political symbolism where it really hurts.”
The governor sat up straighter. “You really think this won’t backfire? I don’t want anyone else getting hurt, but—”
“You still want to be President one day, and that means not sounding like you’ve accepted too much culpability in the matter,” said Ben. “We understand. We’re not going to lie for you. We’re not even going to spin things too hard in your favor. We will find the names and identities of everyone who died because your campaign was starting here, and we’ll run obituaries on each one of them. We’ll talk about the need to respond quickly and conclusively to threats during the political process, to prevent situations like this one from occurring again. This should never have happened in the first place. I’m not blaming you, governor, and I’m not going to blame you in my articles. I’m blaming the whole political process. We should have better safeties in place.”
“Aren’t you the one who’s always saying the world isn’t as dangerous as we make it out to be?” demanded Chuck. “You can’t have it both ways. Either it’s too dangerous for us to have a simple election, or it’s so safe that we should take away the blood testing units in schools. Try to do both at once and you’re going to give yourself a headache.”
“There’s a big difference between specific danger and environmental danger, which you would know if you weren’t all tied up in knots and worried about losing your job,” said Ben. “This was a tragedy. It’s our job to report on it, and it’s your job to help the governor move past it. We need her to keep going as much as you do, remember? Without her, we don’t have a job.”
“Now that everyone has snapped at everyone else, I’m hoping we’ve all managed to get that out of our systems, and can move on to doing something productive,” said Governor Kilburn, leaning forward as she put herself back into the conversation. It was smoothly handled. She had clearly been hanging back, giving everyone else a chance to talk. I had to admire that, even if I was one of the people she was handling. “Nothing we do is going to bring those poor souls back to life, but the journalists are right, Chuck: Whoever did this went for the most vulnerable members of my voting bloc. They wanted to hurt me, and they wanted to send a message in the process. They’re trying to intimidate me.”
“Well, they’ve definitely intimidated me,” said Chuck.
“So quit.” The suggestion was made calmly, clearly, and with no indication that the governor was kidding. He flinched. She smiled, trying to reassure. I wasn’t sure it was going to work. Most people don’t take kindly to being told that they’re not needed. “I enjoy working with you, Chuck. You’re damn good at your job, and I feel like I have a better shot at the big white house up on the hill if I have you here to guide me. But if you’re going to balk every time you don’t like the way things work around here, this isn’t going to go well for either one of us. I’m going to get mulish and dig my heels in. You’re going to pull all your hair out—and let’s face it, honey, you don’t have that much to spare.”
Nervous silence from the people at the table who’d been part of the governor’s camp since the beginning. My team remained stone-faced. This wasn’t our place. We were onlookers, nothing more, in a scene that didn’t really need us. And it chafed. I know everyone thinks of themselves as the heroes of their own stories—Irwins maybe more than most, since we’re usually the ones risking our necks for the scoop, which makes it hard not to consider yourself the center of the world—but there were better things we could have been doing with our time.
Much better. Almost before I realized I was intending to move, I’d placed my hands on the table and pushed myself into a standing position. Ben and Audrey followed my lead, leaving Mat to scramble to their feet so that we would present a united front.
“Well, this has been fun, but while we’ve been sitting in here chatting with you lot, everyone else who was at today’s ruckus h
as been getting their footage online, giving exclusive interviews, and basically making a mockery of our so-called ‘access.’ So we’re going to go now, and get started on doing our actual jobs, while you all figure out what you want to do next. Drop us an email when you know where we’re needed.”
“You could be replaced,” said Chuck.
“So could you, and wouldn’t that be a funny how-d’ye-do for all of us,” I shot back. “We need to work. We saved your bacon today. I saved your bacon today. Rewarding us by keeping us from doing our jobs doesn’t do you any favors, but it does piss us off rather royally. And as for firing us, do you really want a bunch of journalists with a vendetta against your candidate out there?”
“You reviewed our credentials alongside the governor when she was trying to decide whether or not to hire us,” said Ben, and his tone was as calm as mine was not, balancing me out. This was his territory as much as it was mine. I would get angry, and then he’d step in, not to defuse the situation, but to cover it with napalm. “You know what we’re capable of. Maybe we’re not as fancy as Senator Ryman’s pet blog team, but what we lack in prestige, we more than make up for with viciousness.”
Audrey didn’t say anything. Audrey just smiled. She had a way of making a simple, nonaggressive expression look like a threat, and she was using it now. As usual, it made me want to kiss the violence off of her face. That would have to wait.
“Go,” said Governor Kilburn. “Document events. Report the news. Make the world understand that what happened here today was my responsibility, but not my fault, and that we are absolutely going to do better.”
It was a good line, delivered with enough conviction that I almost believed her. All four of us nodded, with varying degrees of sincerity. Then we turned, still presenting a united front, and walked out of the room.
No blood test was required to exit.
“Well,” I said, as we walked across the wide stretch of blacktop toward the fence. Our cars were on the other side, waiting for us to reclaim them. “That was bracing.”
“That’s a word,” said Mat. “It has letters and everything.”
“I don’t like any of this,” said Audrey. “We should bail now, while we still have half a prayer of getting out.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” said Mat. “You’re a Fictional. Nobody cares if you’re associated with real news. I need to get some actual stories under my belt, or I’m going to get kicked out of Factual News.”
Audrey and I exchanged a look. There was a lot Mat didn’t know. She shook her head minutely. There was a lot Mat was going to continue not to know.
“No one’s bailing,” said Ben. He paused before amending, “Or rather, I’m not bailing. If you want to bail by yourself, that’s your call. But I made a commitment to this campaign, and I’m going to see it through.”
“My bank account made a commitment to all those lovely payments that should be coming my way.” The gate to the parking area did have a blood testing unit attached. That was normal, and I was about to slap my hand down on it when the part of my mind responsible for noticing things kicked in and stopped me cold. I froze.
“If you’re not going to get pricked, let me,” said Mat, and started to step in front of me.
I didn’t think. I just reacted, grabbing them by the shoulders and yanking them away from the testing panel so fast that they lost their footing and went sprawling. Mat’s small, deeply offended “Hey!” was of no real consequence. I was too busy spreading my arms as far as I could, blocking Audrey and Ben from coming any closer to the fence.
“Audrey, I need you to go get John,” I said. My voice came out stiff and almost lifeless: Every word was a zombie, shambling toward its target. I hoped that she could read my tone as the terrified thing that it was, and not as anything else. “Hurry.”
“Ash, what are you…” She trailed off. I couldn’t see her, but I knew her well enough to picture what was happening behind me. Her eyes flicking over the testing unit and seeing the same thing I had. Her mind revving into action, and coming up, inevitably, with the same conclusion. It was so simple that it was almost a miracle I’d seen it in time. Finally, she said, “I’ll be right back,” and turned, and ran.
I stayed where I was, staring at the false front that had been installed atop the standard blood testing unit, and wondered how much worse this was going to get before it started getting better.
The political machine of the United States of America has grown, over the centuries, to an almost perfect model of the dilemma between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They both have desires, after all, even if only Dr. Jekyll is in a place to express his desires publicly and expect them to be catered to. They both have dreams. And they both have engines that must be fed if they want to continue with their work.
We say we want to be the land of the free, yet we quail at the idea of extending that freedom to the poor, who are expected to spend proportionately more of their budget every year on safety accommodations that have not been proven to increase personal or public safety. We say we want to be the land of equality and opportunity, yet we do not tax the rich to make up for those citizens who cannot pay to improve roads, schools, the infrastructure on which we operate. We say we want to make America the greatest nation in the world, and perhaps that’s a good thing: We owe the world a debt, after all. Both the Kellis cure and Marburg Amberlee were products of good old American ingenuity, cooked up by American minds on American soil. How many of the dead are ours to claim? There is so much blood on American hands that we may never wash them clean.
We make promises. We make pledges. And we keep our eyes fixed firmly on the bottom line, which is God and king in America, as it always has been, as it always will be. The American political process is not broken. It works exactly as it was intended to, and it will continue to grind good people up and spit them out until such time as someone figures out how to dismantle the great machine.
It is my sincere hope that Governor Susan Kilburn will find a way to prevent herself from being consumed.
—From That Isn’t Johnny Anymore, the blog of Ben Ross,
February 7, 2040
Eight
False fronts for blood testing units are structurally similar to the credit-card skimmers that caused so much commercial havoc in the years immediately prior to the Rising.” Ben made a suitably dramatic figure, standing in front of the team that was meticulously dismantling the false front, backlit by the floodlights they’d brought in to make their impossible job a tiny bit easier. Really, no one would know he was wearing his emergency suit, or that Mat had used a hair straightener to steam the wrinkles out of it in the women’s bathroom.
Audrey was off to one side, as close to the security team as she was allowed, filming every second of the dismantlement and removal. If there was any information to be gleaned from the false front’s design, she would capture it and bring it back for the rest of us to go over.
“By slipping a tailored piece of plastic or metal over the top of an existing blood testing unit, the culprit or culprits can modify the unit’s original purpose. There was an incident in San Antonio several years ago, where ‘activists’ used half a dozen of the city’s blood testing stations as delivery points for psychotropic drugs to make a point about how the media continues to lie to us. Their message was somewhat diluted when one of the women, Heather Lyons, age thirty-seven, suffered an allergic reaction to the drugs she had unwittingly received. She died before paramedics could arrive. She rose, as was to be expected. She then went on a rampage through the neighborhood where she had been shopping, the drugs in her system making her even more aggressive than the average infected.” Ben was only providing background—most of the people who clicked on this report would know the basics, would remember the San Antonio incident as a modern tragedy—but he showed no signs of finding the task either boring or unnecessary. Every word was loaded with the appropriate gravity. If Heather Lyons’s family saw this, they wouldn’t find anything in it to call
disrespectful.
That was always important to him, and it was one of the things that set Ben apart from most of his peers: As far as he was concerned, the worst thing about Kellis-Amberlee was the way it robbed the dead of their dignity. He wanted to give it back, inasmuch as he could, even if it was only one sentence at a time.
That was also one of the things that set Ben apart from me. I understood where he was coming from, but I didn’t have time to waste thinking about the dignity of the dead. Not when they were generally doing their best to chew my face off, and I was doing my best not to let them. He had luxuries I didn’t. That was always and forever the way of the world.
“The pranksters who installed their hallucinogenic false front didn’t mean to hurt anyone: They had even disengaged the original testing needles, preventing the impacted door from opening when the test unit was used,” said Ben. “They were as benign as it is possible for something like this—something that tampers with the essential systems we all depend upon for our safety—to be. Most false fronts have a more sinister purpose.”
I snorted. I couldn’t help myself. Then I moved away. There was too much chance that the sound would be picked up by his microphones, and I didn’t want to ruin his report. There was no denying the powerful imagery of the men behind him, dismantling the death machine that had been installed to trap us.
It was a simple trick. Take a blood testing unit, preferably a wall panel like the one on the parking lot. Build an identical plastic shell to slip over it, sitting as flush as possible with the original mechanism. Insert a needle array, again, identical to the array in the original mechanism. A well-done false front wouldn’t raise any red flags, not even when you started bleeding. But needles can do a lot of things. They’re not just a way of taking blood. They’re a way of delivering drugs, as Heather Lyons learned to her swift and permanent regret.