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  His partner died there. We knew there was a conspiracy. How likely was it that we’d still be alive if our security detail was a part of it? There might be listening devices. There was nothing I could do about that, and we were in the end game. It was time to go all-in. “This has everything to do with Eakly, and with the ranch, and with why Chuck and Buffy died. Please. I need you to get me to that dinner.”

  Steve remained still for a moment more, mulling over what I’d said. He was a big man, and people often assume big men must be slow. I never assumed that about Steve, and I didn’t assume it now. He was getting his first real look at a situation my team and I had been living with for months, and it took some getting used to. When he did start to move, he moved quickly and with no hesitation. “Mike, Heidi, you cover this gate. Anybody radios for me, you say I’m in the can and I’ll radio back when I’m done. Tell them I had franks and beans for dinner, if you think it’ll keep them from asking more.”

  Heidi tittered, a high, nervous sound entirely out of keeping with her professional exterior. Mike frowned, expression betraying a slow confusion. “Yeah, we can do that,” he said. “But why…?”

  “We hired you after the ranch, so I’m not going to smack you for asking that question. There’s reasons.” Steve glanced at me. “I’m guessing that if it was safe to give those reasons in a place as open as this one, they’d have already been given.”

  I nodded. I wouldn’t have said as much as I had if he hadn’t invoked the specter of Eakly first, but I wasn’t going to lie to the man when I was asking for his help. Even if I thought I could pull it off, which I didn’t, it would have been wrong.

  “Just do it, Mike,” said Heidi, aiming an elbow at the unfortunate Mike’s side. He bore the blow stoically, only allowing a slight grunt to escape. Heidi withdrew her elbow. “We got it, Steve. Watch the gate, monitor the radio, don’t tell anybody you’re gone.”

  “Good. Miss Mason? This way.” Steve turned, his legs eating ground with frightening efficiency as he led me to one of the motor pool’s smaller vehicles. It was a modified Jeep with a hard black exterior that made it look like nothing so much as a strange new type of beetle. He produced the keys from one pocket and hit a button; the doors unlocked with a beep. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t open the door for you.”

  “Of course,” I said. In a two-person vehicle this new, there would be blood test units built into the door handles to prevent some unfortunate driver from ending up sealed in an enclosed space with one of the infected. Chivalry wasn’t dead. Chivalry just wanted to be certain I wasn’t a zombie before I got into the car.

  Even when concerned enough to abandon his post—and that’s what he was doing, given that he hadn’t radioed our whereabouts to base—Steve remained a careful, cautious driver. He sped down the roads back toward town at precisely the speed limit, without turning the flashers on. They would have attracted too much attention, especially from any members of our own camp who might start to wonder what he was doing out there. Our departure from the compound had been recorded, but those records were legally secured, save in the instance of an outbreak causing privacy laws to be suspended.

  The hall where Senator Ryman’s keynote speech and the associated dinner party were being hosted was downtown, in one of the areas that was rebuilt after the Rising. Shaun and I did a series of articles on the “bad” parts of Sacramento a few years ago, taking cameras past the cordons and into the areas that were never reapproved for human habitation. Burnt-out husks of buildings stare out on cracking asphalt, the biohazard tape still gleaming across their doors and windows. In the white marble and clean chrome paradise of the government assembly hall, you’d never know that side of Sacramento existed. Not unless you’d been there.

  It took three blood tests to reach the foyer. The first was at the entrance to the underground parking garage, where valets in plastic gloves brought the test panels, clearly expecting us to allow the polite fiction that there weren’t guards with automatic weapons flanking the booth. Those men stood there like statues, sending goose bumps marching across my arms. It wasn’t the security; it was how blatantly it was displayed. No one would argue if they gunned us down. I had my recorders running, but without a security schematic, I couldn’t afford to transmit across what might be compromised airspace, and without Buffy, I didn’t have a security schematic I could trust. We needed her so badly. We always had.

  Steve stayed behind in the garage, standing silent guard over the car; without my press pass and invitation, he’d never make it into the party without making a scene, and we didn’t want to do that. Not yet. I was pretty sure there were a lot of scenes in my future. Assuming the senator listened long enough that we could keep on having a future.

  It took a second blood test to get out of the garage and into the elevator. The third blood test came as a bit of a surprise; it was required to get out of the elevator. How they expected me to have been exposed to the virus during the ten seconds I’d spent between floors was a mystery to me, but they wouldn’t have spent the money on a testing unit if it hadn’t happened at least once. The elevator doors didn’t open until the light over the door went green, and I spared a moment to wonder what happened when more than one person took the elevator at a time. Then I stepped out into the foyer and into a world that had never known the Rising.

  The mystery of the extensive security was solved in an instant, because this huge, lavishly appointed room looked like it was lifted straight from the pre-infection world. No one carried visible weapons or wore protective gear. A few folks had the clear plastic strips over their eyes that signaled the presence of retinal Kellis-Amberlee, but that was it. The place even had picture windows, for God’s sake. It took careful scrutiny to see that they were holograms, looking out over an image of a city too perfect to be real. Maybe that’s how it was once, but I doubt it; corruption’s been with us a lot longer than the living dead.

  Even without visible weapons, there was security. A man with a portable bar-code scanner in one hand stopped me not two steps out of the elevator. “Name?”

  “Georgia Mason, After the End Times. I’m with the Ryman campaign.” I unclipped my badge, handing it over. He swiped it through his scanner and passed it back, frowning at the display. “You should have me on your list.”

  “According to this, Shaun Mason has already checked in with those credentials.”

  “If you’ll check your list of associated journalists, you’ll see that we’re both registered as being attached to the Ryman campaign.” I didn’t bother trying to win him over with my scintillating wit. He had the look of a natural bureaucrat, and that sort of person almost never yields from the stated outline of their job.

  “Please wait while I access the list.” He made a seemingly careless gesture with one hand. Only seemingly careless; I could see four people in the crowd who were now looking in our direction, and none of them was holding a drink or laughing. If four of the guards on duty were being that blatant, the math of professional security meant there were four more who weren’t.

  The scanning unit beeped as it connected to the wireless network and queried the files available on the press corps cleared for entrance. Eventually, it stopped beeping, and the officious little man’s frown deepened.

  “Your credentials are in order,” he said, sounding as if the very fact that I hadn’t lied was inconveniencing him. “You may proceed.”

  “Thank you.” The watchers had melted into the crowd now that they were sure I wasn’t gate-crashing. I clipped the badge back to my chest, putting several feet between myself and the man with the scanner before reaching up to tap my ear cuff. “Shaun,” I muttered, quietly.

  There was a pause, the transmitter beeping to signal that it was making a connection. Then Shaun’s voice, close by and startled: “Hey, George. I figured you’d be neck-deep in site reviews by now. What gives?”

  “Remember the punch line I forgot yesterday?” I a
sked, scanning the crowd as I moved toward what I presumed was the entrance to the main dining hall. “The really funny one?”

  Shaun’s surprise faded, replaced by wariness. “Yeah, I remember that one. Did you figure out the rest of the joke?”

  “Uh-huh, I did. Some friends of mine found it online. Where are you?”

  “We’re at the podium. Senator Ryman’s shaking hands. What’s the punch line?”

  “It’ll be funnier if I tell you in person. How do I get to the podium?”

  “Straight through the big doors and head for the back of the hall.”

  “Got it. Georgia out.” I tapped the ear cuff, killing the connection, and walked on.

  Shaun and Rick were a few feet to the left of the crowd of people the senator was glad-handing his way through. They’d paid for the privilege of meeting the man being predicted as our next president, and they were by God going to meet him, even if it was only for the few seconds it took to shake a hand and share a smile. On those few seconds are presidencies made. Here, behind the believable “safety” of a double-checked guest list and that guest list’s triple-checked infection status, old-school politicians felt free to revert to their old habits, pressing the flesh like it had never gone out of style. You could tell the ones who were genuinely young from the ones who’d had all the plastic surgery and regenerative treatments money could buy, because the young ones were the ones looking nauseated by all the human contact around them. They hadn’t grown up in this political culture. They just had to live with it until they became the old men at the top of the hill.

  The senator didn’t look uncomfortable at all. The man was in his element, all toothy smiles and bits of practical wisdom sliced down to sound-bite size in case one of the nearby reporters was broadcasting on an open band. He’d known to do that sort of thing long before we joined his campaign, but having a constant press entourage had forced him to master the art. He was good. Given enough time, he’d be great.

  Shaun was watching for my arrival, his shoulders set at the angle that meant he was tenser than hell and trying to hide it. They relaxed slightly as he saw me cutting through the crowd, and he nodded for me to approach. I shook my head, mouthing ‘Where’s Tate?’

  Holding up a finger to signal me to quiet, Shaun pulled out his PDA and scrawled a message with the attached stylus. My watch beeped a second later, the message other side o/room w/investors what’s going on????? scrolling across the screen. The message I need to talk to Sen. Ryman w/o Tate hearing would have taken too long to type on the tiny foldout keypad. I deleted the message and kept walking.

  “Georgia,” Rick greeted as I drew close. He was holding a flute of what appeared to be champagne, if you didn’t pay too much attention to the bubbles. Sparkling cider: another trick of working the crowd. If people think you’re getting as drunk as they are, they forget to be careful around you.

  “Rick,” I said, with a nod. Shaun was shooting me a concerned look, and failing in his efforts to hide it. I put a hand on his arm. “Nice tux.”

  “They call me Bond,” he said, gravely.

  “Figured they might.” I looked toward the senator. “Gonna need to wade in there. I wish I had a cattle prod.”

  “Are we going to find out what the situation is any time soon, or are we supposed to follow you blindly?” asked Shaun. “I ask because it determines whether I’m hitting you in the head sometime in the next eight seconds. Very vital information.”

  “It’s a little hard to explain here,” I said. “Unless you know who’s broadcasting locally?”

  Shaun groaned, attracting startled glances from several bystanders. A plastic smile snapping instantly into place, he said, “Jeez, George, that was a terrible joke.”

  “I didn’t say it was a good punch line, just that I’d remembered it,” I said, stepping a little closer. Pitching my voice so low it verged on inaudible, I said, “Dave and Alaric had their big breakthrough. They followed the money.”

  “Where’d it go?” Shaun was even better at this than I was. His lips didn’t even seem to move.

  ” ‘Where’d it come from?’ would be a better question. It went to Tate. It came from the tobacco companies, and from some people they haven’t traced yet.”

  “We knew it was Tate.”

  “The IPs they’re pulling are from D.C… and Atlanta.”

  There’s only one organization in Atlanta important enough to bring me running the way I had, especially when we’d already known at least a part of the conspiracy. Shaun’s eyes widened, need for secrecy eclipsed by sudden shock. If the CDC had been infiltrated…

  “They don’t know for sure?”

  “They’re trying, but the security is good, and they’ve nearly been caught twice.”

  Shaun sighed. That was audible, and I elbowed him in the side for it. He shook his head. “Sorry. I just wish Buffy were here.”

  “So do I.” Palming a data stick, I slipped it into his pocket. To an observer, it would have looked like I was going for his wallet. Let them call security. It’s not like there’d be anything for them to find. “That’s a copy of everything. There are six more. Steve doesn’t know he has one.”

  “Got it,” said Shaun. Always back up your data, and scatter it as far as you can. I can’t count the number of journalists who have forgotten that basic rule, and some have never recovered from the stories they lost. If we lost this one, getting discredited was going to be the least of our worries. “Off-site?”

  “Multiple places. I don’t know them all; the guys did their own backups.”

  “Good.”

  Rick had been observing our semi-audible conversation without comment. He raised his eyebrows as it stopped, and I shook my head. He took the refusal with good grace, sipping from his glass of “champagne” and continuing to scan the crowd. There were a few people who seemed to be holding the bulk of his interest. Some were politicians, while others were people I recognized from the campaign. I glanced to Rick, who nodded toward Tate. Got it. These were people whose loyalties he thought he knew, and thought belonged to our resident governor. Who just happened to be the man most likely to have caused the deaths of an awful lot of innocent people, as well as being responsible for the corruption and death of one of our own.

  None of those people was standing close enough to hear our conversation unless one of them had listening devices planted on or around the senator. If I was going to risk anything, I needed to do it now. “I’m going in,” I murmured to Shaun, and began working my way through the crowd surrounding Senator Ryman.

  I’ll give the flesh-pressers this: They didn’t give ground easy, not even as I was none too gently elbowing my way into their midst. A lady old enough to have been my grandmother drove the heel of her left shoe down on the top of my foot with a degree of force that would have been impressive in a younger woman. Fortunately, even my dress shoes are made of reinforced polymer. Even so, I bit my tongue to keep myself from swearing out loud. Casual assault might be A-okay with security, but I was reasonably sure shouting “cock-sucking bitch” wouldn’t be.

  After a lot of shoving and several painful kicks to my shins and ankles, I found myself to the right of the senator, who was busy having his hand pumped up and down by a barrel-chested octogenarian whose eyes burned with the revolutionary fervor one only ever seems to see in those who discovered either religion or politics at a very young age. Neither man seemed to have registered the fact that I was there. I was neither the assaulting nor the assaulted, which left me on the outside of their present closed equation.

  The handshaker showed no signs of stopping. If anything, his pumps were increasing in vigor as he started hitting his stride. I weighed the potential danger of octogenarian assault against waiting for him to tire, and settled on action as the better part of valor. Smoothly as I could, I moved to place my hand on Senator Ryman’s free arm and said, in a sugar-sweetened tone, “Senator, if I could have a
moment of your time, I’d be most appreciative.”

  The senator jumped. His assailant looked daggers at me, which moved up the scale to full-sized swords as the senator turned and flashed his best magazine-cover smile my way. “Of course, Miss Mason,” he said. He deftly twitched his fingers free of the handshaker, saying, “If you wouldn’t mind excusing me, Councilman Plant, I need to confer with a member of my press pool. Everyone, I’ll be right back with you.”

  Fighting into the throng had taken almost five minutes. Getting out of it required nothing but the senator’s hand at the small of my back, propelling me along as we made our way to the clear space to the left of the dais. “Not that I mind the save, Georgia, since I was starting to worry about the structural integrity of my wrist, but what are you doing here?” asked Senator Ryman, his voice pitched low. “Last I checked, you’d stayed at the Center, which is why your brother’s been here annoying the staff and eating all the shrimp canapes all evening.”

  “I did stay at the Center,” I said. “Senator, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but—” Someone shouted congratulations to the senator, who answered it with a grin and a broad thumbs-up. It was a perfect photo-op moment, and I snapped the shot with my watch’s built-in camera before I even thought about what I was doing. Instincts. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “Buffy was working for someone who wanted to keep tabs on your campaign.”

  “You’ve told me this before,” he said, more briskly. I recognized the impatience in his eyes from dozens of media briefings. “It’s all some big shadow conspiracy looking to bring me down. What I don’t understand is why this is suddenly so pressing that you need to rush over here and risk making a scene on what might be one of the most important political evenings of my life. There are a great many movers and shakers here tonight, Georgia—a great many. These are the men who could hand me California, as you’d know, if you’d bothered to read the briefing papers and attend my speech.” If you’d bothered to do your job, said his subtext, so clearly that it might as well have been spoken aloud. I’d let him down. My reporting, which he’d come to depend on as one of the tools of his campaign—the objective reporter, won over by his politics and his rhetoric—was supposed to have been there, and it wasn’t.