Feedback

by Mira Grant

  “It’s a good color for you,” I said. “Do you get to pick, or did she assign one to each of you? Because if you get to pick, you might want to try a bright blue next time. It would really make your eyes pop.” Flirting was an automatic thing for me, a nervous tic that kicked in when I was going into a new situation. Amber’s comments about Audrey and John were echoing at the back of my mind, putting my nerves on edge. Being a good reporter is hard. Sometimes I feel like being a good girlfriend is even harder.

  The light on the testing unit flashed green. The security agent pulled the little plastic box away. “You’re clear to enter,” she said.

  “Oh happy day,” I said, stepping to the side to join Ben. Amber was still being tested: The downside of traveling in groups of more than two. I nudged him with my elbow. “You ready for this?”

  “I’m just glad you woke me.” His eyes were constantly in motion, documenting every inch of the building, just in case there was some seemingly unimportant detail that he could pull out and turn into a believable narrative hook. For someone so quiet and seemingly harmless, Ben could be a devastating weapon when he wanted to be. A lot of that was his refusal to ever stop looking at things. Even on death’s door, he would still be looking, and more importantly—more dangerously—he would still be seeing.

  “Anytime,” I said.

  Ben flashed me a smile as Amber walked over to join us. “Now that we’re all confirmed as among the living, I want to give you two a couple of ground rules,” she said. “The governor and the congresswoman have been friends for some time—that whole ‘female solidarity’ thing. They will be calling each other by their first names. The congresswoman can be extremely informal when she’s at home, and may encourage you to do the same. You will not do the same. While you are grown adults and free to consume whatever you like, we recommend against drinking anything the congresswoman or her staff mixes for you, as they have the alcohol tolerance of professional boozehounds. No uncensored nudity is to be posted in any of your reports. No nudity at all without clearance forms. Am I clear?”

  “We’re not amateurs, ma’am,” said Ben. “I appreciate the reminder, but there was nothing there I didn’t already know.”

  “Ah, but now I’ve reminded you, and no one can conveniently ‘forget,’” said Amber, and winked at me.

  “Spoil all my fun,” I grumbled.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “There’s more fun to be had.” Then, with all the solemnity of a magical candy maker in a children’s movie, she pushed the door open and revealed the club on the other side.

  At first glance, the place was exactly as seedy and without redeeming qualities as the outside had promised. The floor was plain, polished wood, with drifts of sawdust piled here and there in the corners. There were at least five stages I could see, and thanks to some clever construction work that prevented any door from having a clear line of sight on the entire club, there were probably another five stages I couldn’t see, obscured by this retaining wall or that spiral staircase. There were four bars, each with their own tap system and back-bar covered in bottles of booze.

  Second glance started picking out details. Like how everything was spotless, and the air smelled of pine and rosemary, not anything less savory. Our footsteps echoed in the dull way that meant we were walking on treated plastic, not actual dead trees, which would make the whole place easier to sterilize and less likely to lead to infection. The poles—of course there were poles, a place like this screamed for poles—were polished to a mirror-sheen, and the stages were raised enough that no one was going to succeed in grabbing a dancer who didn’t want to be grabbed. It was a mousetrap, decorated to look like the bottom of the barrel when in reality, everything was top-of-the-line.

  “Cameras on every inch of the building,” I said, eyes tracing the complicated network of wires, cables, and recording devices mostly hidden beneath the decorative molding around the edges of the room. “That’s a panic button cable. See, the gray one? That’s going to connect to a private internal lockdown system. I want one for my bedroom.”

  Amber turned to look at me quizzically. “You can tell that from the wiring?”

  “Security systems are a hobby of Audrey’s which makes them a hobby of mine. Find the panic button, isolate this whole room in military-spec Plexiglas paneling. I wish I could trigger the system just to see it work.”

  “Please don’t,” said a female voice, from behind me. “It’s a devil to reset, and my insurance gets cranky every time it goes off.”

  I turned. The speaker was tall, curvy, and perfect in the way that only lots of money, excellent plastic surgeons, and an image consultant with a degree in graphic design could ever hope to achieve. Her hair was a deep burgundy, like lava, offsetting the deep blue of her eyes, which were expertly lined and shadowed until they seemed twice as big as they could possibly have been. She was wearing blue jeans and a jersey shirt with three-quarter sleeves. On her, that seemed like the most fashionable thing that had ever existed, the style that every woman should have been aspiring to.

  Moments like this were why I’d never wanted to become a Newsie. I could never have mustered the self-control. “Holy shit, you’re gorgeous,” I said.

  Congresswoman Wagman burst out laughing. “Oh my God, Amber, baby, what did you bring me? The last honest journalist in the West?”

  “Actually, ma’am, I’m the honest one; Ash is the one who doesn’t have any filters,” said Ben. He extended his hand. “It’s an honor to meet you, Congresswoman.”

  “All right, you can stay,” said Congresswoman Wagman. She took his hand and shook it, studying his face before she returned her attention to me. “What are your names, little honest journalists?”

  “Aislinn North,” I said.

  “Ben Ross,” said Ben.

  “I resent the implication that there are no honest journalists left,” said a man, stepping up to our group. He looked to be in his mid to late thirties, with sandy brown hair, blue eyes, and the sort of casual posture some people would see as disinterested and others would see as harmless. I saw it a third way: dangerous. Men who’d reached his age without developing a razor’s edge behind their eyes weren’t innocent: They were just very, very good at concealing their natural defenses. And they were frequently capable of doing damn near anything to get their way.

  “Oh, Ricky, you know I didn’t mean you,” purred the congresswoman. She waved a casual hand at the man, and said, “Richard Cousins, head of my little press pool. He makes sure I look good in the news, or at least not terrible.”

  “It would be easier if you’d answer criticisms of your public image with something other than videos of your ass,” said Richard. Now he just sounded tired. Maybe he wasn’t as dangerous as I’d first suspected; maybe he’d reached the point where he needed to turn to bourbon as a means of handling his life choices. That was a valid developmental stage for many Newsies.

  Not so many Irwins. Bourbon was swell and all, but it was also a quick route to getting eaten. I did not endorse any coping mechanism that was likely to end with dismemberment and wearing your inside bits on your outsides.

  Congresswoman Wagman made a scoffing sound. I could actually hear the scorn. My love for her grew stronger. “Sweetie, my ass is why the people who don’t normally vote for anyone will come out and vote for me. I say ‘this is what you’ll get,’ and they know I’m telling the truth, so they go ahead and throw in their endorsement. So yeah, you’re going to keep getting it. Now.” She waved a hand at us. “These nice folks are visiting with Suzy. You should show them around, let them get some footage of things they think are interesting, and keep them out from underfoot.”

  “Are you trying to get rid of them, or get rid of me?” asked Richard. I couldn’t think of him as a “Ricky.” Maybe “Rick,” if he lightened up a bit, but that was as far as I was willing to go.

  “Aw, Ricky.” Congresswoman Wagman dimpled. I considered sending a thank-you note to her plastic surgeon, who must have spen
t months figuring out that precise muscle movement. “I’m getting rid of all three of you. Now shoo. Amber, you’re with me.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Amber.

  “Um, we have two more team members,” said Ben. “Audrey Wen and Mat Newson. Have you already sent them both packing?”

  Congresswoman Wagman looked blankly at him before turning to Amber.

  “Cute Chinese girl and skinny genderfluid makeup artist,” said Amber.

  “Ah! Yes, I saw them, and they’re here.” Congresswoman Wagman waved a hand vaguely, indicating what felt like the entire club. “You’re all going to join back up for lunch, I promise, but first I need a little one-on-one time with Suzy. It’s nice to meet you both. Ricky?”

  “I’m on it,” said Richard. He motioned for us to follow him. “Come on. I think I know where we can find your friends.”

  “Yay,” I said blithely, falling into step behind him. I couldn’t resist stealing one more glance over my shoulder at the congresswoman. She and Amber were already deep in conversation as they walked in the opposite direction, heading for a table surrounded by security agents from both campaigns. Governor Kilburn was in there somewhere, shielded from view by the ranks of the people who were paid to protect her. She didn’t need us right now. I still felt funny walking away like this.

  “You’re a Newsie, right?” asked Ben, looking at Richard. “I’ve heard of you. You have a reputation for doing good work. Boring, but good.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” he said. “It’s ‘Rick,’ by the way.”

  “I didn’t think you were a Ricky,” I said.

  Rick made a face. “No. Never have been, never going to be. The congresswoman likes to keep things as informal as she can get away with, even when we’re alone, so she won’t accidentally slip up and reveal her secret plan in the presence of a camera.”

  “She has a secret plan?” I asked.

  “In the sense that no one ever seems to believe it, yes,” said Rick. “She’s talked about it in every interview I’ve ever read, and a few that her campaign manager had to dig up and transcribe for me. She wants to improve funding for schools, women’s health, vocational planning for children—a few dozen good, solid, philanthropic goals that would benefit the people of this country. She’s managed a surprising number of her goals on the state level. I say ‘surprising’ because if you asked most of the people in local politics, they wouldn’t be able to name a single one of her successes.”

  “But I bet they could tell you what she was wearing every time something came up to a vote,” I said.

  Rick nodded. “Exactly.” We had reached a door labeled employees only. He pushed it open, not missing a beat as he led us through. “Wagman is the ultimate Vegas showgirl, only she’s not after drunk men’s wallets. She’s after the whole country. And hell, maybe she’s got a chance. Ryman’s performing solidly in the polls, but she’s been ahead of Tate for most of the campaign, and I think the American people might choose novelty over what they perceive as dignity.”

  “Tate’s a bit of a tosser, I’ve always thought,” I said.

  “If ‘tosser’ means ‘flaming asshole,’ then yeah, you’re right about that.” The door fed into a break room almost as large as the bar outside. The only thing that really marked it as a private space was absence: the absence of stages, the absence of dancer’s poles, the absence of plastic upholstery on the furniture. Instead, there were overstuffed couches and easy chairs scattered around the floor, creating a comfortable, almost homey atmosphere. There was a bar, flanked by two large refrigerators. A young woman in a U.C. Irvine sweatshirt was asleep on one of the couches, seemingly dead to the world. Good for her.

  “You learn to roll with Ash’s slang,” said Ben. “I think she makes half of it up.”

  “I’d believe it,” said Rick. “What’s your accent? Australian? Scottish?”

  “Irish,” I said. “If that was a serious question, and not you pulling my leg, you need to get out more. It’s not an accent you can mistake for much of anything else.”

  “Sorry,” said Rick. He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded amused. “This is my first major Internet news gig. I was a newspaperman for years, and when I went virtual, I had a hard time finding a place that suited me. So actually hearing people isn’t such a normal thing where I come from.”

  “If you’re that new to online journalism, how did you land a position with one of the campaigns?” asked Ben. “We had to apply as a team to have a chance, and the Ryman campaign still passed us up.”

  “Not that we can blame them,” I said, drifting toward the bar. I wasn’t planning to drink—not this early in the day, and not while we were working—but you could tell a lot about a person by what sort of booze they set aside for their employees. A few labels might unlock the mystery of Kirsten Wagman, or at least give me a place to start. “They had access to the Masons. Who’d take us over them? Someone who’d hit their head recently, maybe, if the concussion was bad enough.”

  “That’s Shaun and Georgia Mason, out of Berkeley, right?” asked Rick. His tone was too casual, like he already knew the answer, but wanted it verified by an outside source for some reason.

  I shot him a sharp look over my shoulder before meeting Ben’s eyes and giving a small, tight shake of my head. Ben nodded his understanding. We might not be married in the biblical sense, but we’d been a unit for long enough to have developed some useful shorthand, especially where prying rival journalists were concerned.

  “Depends,” I said, slowing my voice until it was virtually a drawl. “Why do you want to know? There’s plenty of places you can go for information without extracting it out of someone else’s press corps.”

  “I just thought that since you were from California—the Bay Area, even—that you might know something about them,” said Rick.

  “You think the congresswoman is going to get knocked out before the convention, don’t you?” Ben’s question was mild, but it had teeth lurking behind the seemingly innocuous façade.

  Rick paused before he answered. Then he sighed, and said, “I think she’s yoked herself to a gimmick that makes sense on the local level, but is too polarizing at the national level. Some of the things people have said about her—even people who brag about how unbiased and reasonable they are—there’s no coming back from that. Wagman knows it, too. She’s not willing to concede yet, but I think that’s more pride and the hope for a VP nomination than anything else. If Ryman picks her as his running mate, she could wind up in the White House anyway. It’s all in which fringe he wants to court. The hard left or the hard right.”

  “The Republicans don’t really have a hard left,” said Ben.

  “Wagman is as close as they get to a hard left, and she’d bring those votes to the table with her,” said Rick. “So there’s still a chance. No point in throwing in the towel before she has to. What about your candidate? You think Kilburn has a shot at the big chair?”

  “I think it’s going to be either her or Blackburn,” said Ben. I climbed behind the bar, letting him talk while I checked the labels. “York has been essentially a nonentity throughout this campaign. I can’t remember the last time I heard him mentioned in anything other than a full candidate roll call.”

  “Even I know that running a virtual campaign doesn’t work unless everyone else is doing the same thing,” said Rick. He paused, and while I could no longer see his face, I could hear the confusion in his silence. “What’s your friend doing?”

  “Ash is Irish. She has a strong personal relationship with alcohol. Ash? What’s your verdict?”

  I popped up from behind the bar. “Not top-shelf, but not rotgut, either. Good selection, good investment bottles, obviously a strong sense of ‘you shouldn’t be drinking anything I wouldn’t be willing to put in my mouth.’ I give it a seven out of ten as hospitality bars go. I’d host a party here.”

  Rick blinked at me. “Seriously? You were assessing the booze?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Does Congress
woman Wagman own this club?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this the employee break room and hence the employee alcohol supply?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then yes, I was assessing the booze, because the booze is relevant. The booze tells me things.” I hoisted a bottle of bourbon. “This is a thirty-dollar bottle. Not the best thing you can buy for a place like this, but a long way from the worst. This is Christmas-party bourbon. You pour it for your friends and family, for people you give a crap about. This tells me more about what sort of woman Wagman is than any amount of ‘oh she gives money to animal shelters.’ This tells me she’s kind.”

  Rick looked dubious. “What if it had been the really fancy stuff? The three-hundred-dollar stuff?”

  “That would tell me she didn’t stock her own bar, and was either too disconnected from the common man to know that you don’t need to pay that much for basic social drinking, or was trying to impress people with how generous she was. Neither of those buys you many points in my book.” I put the bourbon back under the bar before leaning forward, resting my weight on my elbows and smiling at him. “Sometimes the middle of the road is the only decent place to be.”

  “You people are very strange,” said Rick.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” said Ben. “As for the Masons, yes we know them, but we’re not friends. We’re not even associates. They’re…”

  “Snobs,” I supplied.

  Ben shot me a look, sighed, and said, “They’re insular. Neither of them has ever been interested in forming strong outside friendships with other locals. I know they have friends, but with a few exceptions, it’s always been people who are far enough away that the Masons don’t have to worry about being asked to get together and socialize. They’ve been hiring for their own site since they hooked up with Ryman. I know a lot of Bay Area folks who applied, and only one who was hired. Dave Novakowski, whose big passion is wandering away and nearly getting himself killed in remote locations.”

  “Which means he’s not so much living in the Bay Area as he is storing his stuff there until the inevitable estate sale,” I said.