Ben snorted, but he didn’t contradict me.
Rick nodded, looking thoughtful. “I heard they were working with Georgette Meissonier.”
I gave Ben an exaggeratedly blank look. He smirked and supplied, “Buffy,” before he turned to Rick. “She’s their team Fictional. Our friend Audrey fills the same role for us. Do you have a Fictional working with the congresswoman?”
“No. Wagman doesn’t need someone to make up stories for her. She can provide the old razzle-dazzle without anyone telling professional lies.”
The role of a good Fictional was a lot more than “telling professional lies,” but I decided not to get into it. Yes, defending Audrey’s profession always made me feel like a good girlfriend—and I was bad enough at being a good girlfriend to want any opportunity I could get to be a better one. At the same time, she didn’t need me to. She made more money than I did, she had better ratings than anyone else with our group except occasionally Mat, and most importantly of all, she had nothing to prove to people like Rick. Him thinking she wasn’t an important part of the news media didn’t change her job, or impact how good she was at doing it.
“How many people does Wagman have working for her?” asked Ben.
“Six,” said Rick. “We’re all from Factual News, which makes things unbalanced sometimes—it gets weird when you have six people trying to come up with new angles on the same story. Between you and me, I think a few of my colleagues have already started hunting for new gigs.”
“But you’re going to stick it out until she doesn’t get the nomination,” I said.
Rick shrugged. “Someone needs to. Hell, maybe I can get a book out of it. It’s definitely one of the more interesting campaigns I’ve seen since the Rising.”
“And someone tried to kill her, yeah?” I tried to keep my tone light.
Not light enough. Rick stiffened, eyeing me warily before he said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Our candidate wants to talk to your candidate about the outbreak at her fund-raiser, find out if maybe that accident wasn’t as accidental as everyone wants to make it out to be.” I straightened, pressing my hands against the bar. “I mean, it’s that, or we coincidentally had attacks on three of the five mobile campaigns within the same week.”
“Now, Ash,” said Ben. “We don’t know that there wasn’t an attack on the York campaign. It’s not fair to leave him out of things just because he’s a recluse.”
“If there was an attack, no one noticed, including him, so I don’t think it counts,” I said. “For it to matter, someone would need to set his house on fire, drive him outside, and put zombies on the lawn. Not exactly subtle.”
“But York isn’t doing well in the polls,” said Rick. Ben and I both turned to look at him. He shrugged. “The three highest-performing candidates right now are Ryman, on the Republican side, Wagman, also on the Republican side, and Kilburn, on the Democratic side. If you write Wagman’s numbers off as people trolling the government—which sadly, I think is the case, hence my not expecting her to get the nomination—your girl and the Masons’ boy are our top candidates. And they were both attacked.”
“I appreciate that you’re infantilizing everyone equally,” I muttered.
“What?” asked Rick.
“Nothing,” I said. There was a time and a place for telling people off about their word choices: This was neither. As long as he was willing to talk, I needed to be willing to listen. From the sidelong look Ben shot in my direction, he was feeling the same way. We needed to tread carefully.
“So are you saying Tate and Blackburn are nonentities?” asked Ben. “Tate is polling well. He has strong support among white males age thirty-five to sixty. The pre-Rising generation thinks of him as a visionary.”
“Everyone else thinks of him as a throwback,” said Rick. “He’s too reactionary, he’s too insular, he wants to build a wall across the Canadian and Mexican borders. A wall. As if the damn fences in Texas and Arizona didn’t get people killed during the Rising. He’s not going to take the nomination, no matter how well he polls. The Republicans want the White House, and they know better than to put him in front of the nation. I’m betting he’ll get the VP nod from Ryman. That gets him to a place where he can push some of his legislative choices, without giving him the power to do any real damage.”
“And Blackburn?” I asked. It was fascinating watching this relative stranger tear down the candidates. It made me want to point him at random people and ask him to talk about them.
“People see her as soft on the dead, thanks to her support of the scientific research community.” Rick made a face. “It would be funny, if it wasn’t so damn sad. She’s culturally Jewish—twenty years ago she wouldn’t have been able to make it this far in the race because of her background. She doesn’t practice, but that doesn’t matter. She knows how important it is to her family and the people in her community that their bodies remain intact after death, so she supports the zombie corrals, and the research stations. Places where the infected can be kept and fed and studied and learned from. That’s the thing. She’s not proposing the zombie Club Med, she’s talking about keeping more of our loved ones in one piece so we can learn about the disease that took them away from us, and in the process, can prevent little kids needing to gun down Grandma.”
“Isn’t she worried about hesitation?” I asked. “When a zombie’s coming at you, you don’t say ‘hmm, what were his religious beliefs,’ you pull the damn trigger and you keep yourself alive.”
“Oh, she doesn’t want to ban our current responses to the dead. She just wants to modify them a little. Enough to allow people who know that they’re at risk of amplification to sign certain waivers.”
“We already allow for donating your body to science,” said Ben.
“Currently, science is doing what science has always done: focusing on otherwise healthy males between the ages of eighteen and forty,” said Rick. “No one wants to think about zombie kids or zombie grandparents. The research stations have the right to turn down any donation and cremate the infected individuals immediately. Anyone who’s judged too young or too old or too disabled prior to infection is never going to be a part of their testing pool. There are some blood anomalies that have been shown to lengthen the delay between exposure and amplification, but as they’re almost always comorbid with other conditions, the people who have those anomalies don’t wind up in the long-term studies.”
I blinked. “That was… really science-y. Can you say it again, without being quite so clinical, so that there’s a prayer I’ll understand it?”
“Sorry, Irish, but I’ve been working for Kirsten Wagman for months,” said Rick mildly. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned to spot, it’s someone who’s playing dumb to buy themselves more time to think about what they’ve just heard. The long and the short of it is that Frances Blackburn came into this race with the religion thing against her, since a lot of people are still clinging to the pre-Rising ‘we’re a Christian nation’ ideology, and her positions on several modern science topics haven’t done her any favors. She’s going to get knocked out of the race before the convention, and then your girl’s going to have to decide between an all-female ticket and adding a recluse to her platform. Honestly, I don’t know which would hurt her more right now.”
“I’d punch you in the mouth for implying that two women can’t run this country, except for the part where that’s not what you said,” I said. “You’re saying no one would let them.”
“Exactly,” said Rick. “I think we’ve reached the point where a female President would work just fine for most of the voters. They want to know what she’ll do to keep them safe and among the living, and if she has a good answer, they’ll follow her. But a female President and a female VP? That may be pushing things.”
“York wouldn’t be much better,” said Ben. “He’s already indicated that, were he to win, he would make his presidency ‘modern’ by t
elecommuting to the White House.”
“Which offends some voters, and makes others feel like he’s the first sensible candidate we’ve had in twenty years,” said Rick. “He’ll pull some focus, and he’ll probably go independent after he loses the nomination, which will take his voting bloc with him.”
“Sure, but since his voting bloc isn’t that big, we’re not particularly worried,” said a voice from behind him. We turned. Governor Kilburn and Congresswoman Wagman were standing in the doorway, with Amber and Mat behind them. Audrey and John weren’t there. I felt a small pang of concern. I didn’t like Audrey being out of sight and out of communication for this long. It wasn’t clinginess—or at least, it wasn’t entirely clinginess. It was the need to know that my team was safe.
And if I kept telling myself that, it might become true.
“Also there’s the part where he’s not going to get the nomination, because no one’s met him,” continued Governor Kilburn. “People think it’s about safety and status, but there’s nothing that can replace meeting a person, or even seeing them against a backdrop you recognize. It’s why so many celebrities still go to Disneyland, even with all the security and restrictions on showing up at someplace so potentially open.”
“Disney’s snipers are amazing,” I said. “There’s never been an outbreak on any of their properties, because the happiest gunslingers on Earth are right there, waiting for an excuse to pull the trigger.”
“And even though it’s a robot in the giant mouse costume these days, that photo is still worth a million votes,” said the governor. “People want their politicians to be sensible, smart, and just a little bit brave. They want us to seem better than they are.”
“Sweetie, they want us to seem better than we are,” said Congresswoman Wagman. She grinned lopsidedly. It was a smile I’d never seen from her before. In most of the public footage, she looked like a pageant contestant getting ready to make a run for Miss America. This smile was smaller, subtler, more human in ways I couldn’t quite explain, but was pleased to see. “They want us to be perfect. Superheroes who can cure the zombie apocalypse with a single bill banning reanimation and a perfect photo shoot with the cutest doctor at the CDC. How do you think I made it this far? People want to be sold a fantasy, and even if they balk when they get the final bill, they know what they’re paying for.”
“How long have you been standing there?” asked Ben.
“Long enough to hear my Ricky explain everybody’s strengths and weaknesses, which I utterly agree with.” Wagman blew him a kiss. Rick flushed red. “He’s a smart boy, our Ricky. When he goes looking for a new job, you should take him on.”
“I think we’re pretty full up, ma’am,” said Mat politely, stepping around the two candidates and walking over to stand next to Ben. “It’s not like we’re trying to build a news empire here, just a reputation for knowing how to do our jobs better than the next guys.”
“Oh, there’s going to be an opening on your team soon, sweetie,” said Wagman. “Between me and Suzy, we’re going to woo you away from the wild frontier of the news and into the sweet embrace of public image manipulation. I’ve seen your tutorials. I’ve even tried a few of your looks.”
“Really?” Mat tried not to look too excited. They didn’t succeed. “I could show you some designs I worked up for you but haven’t put on my channel yet. I could even show you how to do them.”
“See, and this is why we’re going to hire you away from your current masters, who don’t understand your genius.” Wagman turned to Ben. “You’re all right with a little head-hunting, aren’t you, sugar?”
Ben looked amused. “We’re not Mat’s masters. We’re a news collective, and everyone gets a voice. If Mat decides to leave us to do your eyeliner, that’s their decision, and we’ll respect it.”
“I can’t leave my team,” said Mat. “I love them too much. Also, I really, really like taking things apart, and I haven’t had many opportunities to do it since the campaign started. I’d dismantle your blender like, six times a week. But I’m happy to discuss some freelance makeup design before we get back on the road.”
“See, this is what I get for introducing Kiki to new people,” said the governor. She didn’t sound annoyed: If anything, she was swallowing laughter. “I saw Mat first.”
“But I saw Mat last, and it’s the one who makes the grab who catches the ball,” said Wagman. They were both smiling. They were on separate sides of the political divide, and their campaigns couldn’t have been more different, but they were both smiling. There was something beautiful about that, and something sad at the same time. I had watched the news—not us, for the most part, but our peers—trying to set them against each other, calling Wagman horrible names while implying that Kilburn was frigid and loveless because she was an unmarried woman running for the highest office in the nation. And they were smiling, because they were friends.
It’s weird, as a maker of the news, to consider how often the news is used to shape reality. Maybe that’s why I’m happier as an Irwin. It’s not just a lack of interest in the big words and complex concepts that Ben wallows in. It’s a desire not to twist the world every time I speak a word. The situations I get myself into might be staged on occasion, but they’re still real. Those things really happen, even when the cameras aren’t running. That matters, maybe more than I can say.
“Ladies, ladies, there’s enough of me to go around,” said Mat grandiosely.
Both candidates laughed, and were still laughing when the door opened and John walked into the room, followed by Audrey. I stood up straighter. She flashed me a grin and made a beeline for the bar, where she boosted herself up and sat down beside me before leaning over to kiss my cheek.
“Hello, Ash,” she said.
Public displays of affection usually weren’t her thing; mostly, they were mine, and I’d learned to tone it way, way down. I wondered briefly whether Amber’s speech this morning had come out of the knowledge that John was getting ready to express interest in my girl. Only briefly, though. I couldn’t blame him for being interested: She was amazing, after all, and I was married to a man, which might cast the seriousness of our relationship into doubt. Audrey was fairly public about her bisexuality, and she was officially dating both me and Ben, at least for the moment. It was only natural that John would have been interested. As long as he’d back down when she said no, I didn’t see any reason to get worked up about it.
Besides, she’d chosen me. She always did.
“That is adorable,” said Wagman. “Are they always that adorable? Can I have them, too? I want to dress them in sequins and make them snuggle behind me during my next political speech.”
“No, Kiki, you cannot steal my entire news team,” said the governor. “We’re all here now. We can get back on track.”
“Spoilsport,” said Wagman, and straightened. Somehow, in the middle of the motion, she became a different person. She was still casually dressed and made up like she was heading to a nightclub, but her demeanor was serious and her shoulders were set. She looked like she was about to give a speech before a critical audience, and she was planning to make it a good one. “Suzy and I have been talking about what happened at her speech in Portland, and at my benefit in Reno. I have to ask that none of what I’m about to tell you be broadcast. Even my own people haven’t been allowed to report on this situation.”
“It would be bad for the security of the campaign as a whole, and we don’t need to be reducing people’s faith in the congresswoman right now,” said Amber.
I paused, looking between the two of them. Then I raised my hand.
Governor Kilburn quirked an eyebrow upward. “Yes, Ash?”
“Um, sorry to get off topic and all, but I know Congresswoman Wagman is a friend of yours, and I know you have info I don’t, and my friend who told me about the attack on the burlesque show said there’d been some restructuring in their security lineup recently, and I was just wondering, Amber, are you related to the co
ngresswoman?”
Amber turned to John. “You owe me five dollars.” She looked back to me while he was grumbling and digging into his pocket, and said, “Niece.”
“She’s mine, I’m not hers,” said Wagman. “You could not pay me to be twenty-five again. Now, the body of a twenty-five-year-old, that I’d take. Imagine the campaign reform I could do if I didn’t need this much foundation to look this good.”
“Huh,” I said. “All right.”
“I want to state just this once and for the record that I’ve known Amber since she was a child, and that I knew about her relation to Congresswoman Wagman when she applied for the troubleshooting position on my security detail,” said the governor. “She is not spying for the enemy. She is not doing an inferior job because she wants me to be eaten by zombies, thus making it easier for her aunt to get the presidency.”
“I would’ve gone to work for Tate if I was planning to kill a candidate,” said Amber amiably. “Nobody would believe it was an accident, but at least I’d die a national hero.”
“Now, Amber,” said Kirsten. “What’s our rule about threatening my opponents?”
“Don’t do it in front of the press,” said Amber.
“We’re getting a little far from the original topic,” said Ben. “What happened at your event?”
“I was getting there,” said Wagman. She snagged a chair from one of the break tables and sank elegantly into it, crossing her ankles and looking at each of us in turn. “All right: It was a circus-themed burlesque night fund-raiser. Everyone was supposed to come in costume, even the staff. It allowed for anonymous donations, and for having a little fun with the people around you. No touching, but lots of teasing.”
“Your political events are very, very different from mine,” said the governor.
Wagman shrugged. “To each their own. In a perfect world, we’d be on the same side of the fence, and we could buddy cop our way to the White House.”