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by Mira Grant

  “If you both lose this time, can you run again in four years, and do that?” I asked. “I volunteer right now to be on your news crew.”

  “Let’s finish this campaign before we bury it, all right, sugar?” said Wagman. “Anyway, people started rolling in for setup around noon, and we opened the doors at eight. Everyone checked out clean before we let them into the building. That part was important, given how close together we were all going to be. We even had cater-waiters circulating with handheld blood testing units, doing random checks. It made people feel safer, you know? Like we were really looking out for their well-being.”

  “Psychology matters,” said Ben.

  Mat was frowning. “How did the outbreak start?”

  “What?”

  “Um, sorry.” Mat shook their head. “Continue. I’ll catch up in a second.”

  Congresswoman Wagman looked at them thoughtfully before she said, “We had a group of clowns coming to perform at the end of the evening. They cleared the first blood test, at the back door. They cleared the second blood test, at the kitchen, ninety seconds later.”

  “Nice gauntlet,” I said approvingly. “Normally I’d call that overkill, but when you have that many people packed into a small space, I appreciate the diligence. All you’re missing is a good eye in the sky camera array and a casino-trained operator.”

  “We had three,” said Wagman.

  I made a soft squeaking noise.

  “No, you may not propose to the United States congresswoman, no matter how sexy you find her taste in security measures,” said Audrey, putting her hand on my knee and squeezing. She sounded amused. That was good. “You’re taken on so many levels that it’s getting ridiculous.”

  “Can you blame me for finding good visual security sexy as all hell?” I asked.

  “If I blamed you, I wouldn’t be dating you,” she replied. Across the room, John looked away.

  Right: He had expressed an interest, and she had turned him down. I couldn’t blame him—Audrey was awesome—but hopefully this wasn’t going to interfere with their professional relationship. I turned my attention back to Wagman. “You said they passed the first two blood tests. Was there a third?”

  “Yes, thanks to the eyes in the sky. Two checks were mandatory, but if both came back clean, the third was optional; it had a release button, controlled by the guard at the door. We wanted people to feel a little naughty, and a little special, when we let them inside. Like they were getting away with something.” Wagman shook her head, an expression of genuine regret on her face. “The clowns passed the second check, but as they were walking down the employee hall toward the door to the main room, one of them stumbled. Maybe that didn’t seem like such a big thing—it was a dark hall, the floor wasn’t perfectly level, people trip all the time—but for some reason, it caught the eye in the sky operator’s attention. She called the door guards and asked for a third blood test on the clowns. Said they were displaying early kinesthetic signs of amplification. Which, as it turns out, they were.”

  “All of them?” asked Ben.

  “Three of the five tested positive on the scene. The guards removed them, since none were fully amplified yet; it was better to take them to a sterile location than to risk contaminating a main thoroughfare. I was sitting on a swing inside a giant birdcage when all this was going down, explaining to potential donors how my pretty blue tail feathers represented environmental conservation.” Wagman grimaced. “I had my team in my ear, talking about removing the clowns, scrambling to fill that spot in the evening’s calendar, and we all still thought the show was going to go on. The entertainment had been exposed. That was tragic, but no one else had been hurt.”

  Her pragmatism wasn’t as cold as it seemed. Kellis-Amberlee could strike anyone, at any time. Because of that, we’d all long since learned how to keep going. It was that, or become like York, locked in his house and stubbornly insisting that he could do anything he wanted without ever breaking the seal on his sterile fastness. Removing the infected clowns had kept everyone else in the building safe. Once that was done, the job should have been over.

  The job hadn’t been over. I could see that in her eyes. Slowly, haltingly, she continued, “The other two clowns were being held by my security until they received confirmation that the infected individuals had been removed from the premises. It’s standard operating procedure with something like that. While they were waiting, one of the two remaining clowns looked up at the ceiling. He seemed dazed. Disoriented. According to the eye in the sky operator, his pupils were expanding past normal limits, eating into the iris. She hit the alarm. The guards responded, but not fast enough. Both clowns amplified in that hall. Three of my security staffers died.”

  “But the infected individuals didn’t get through the door,” I said thoughtfully. “Did anyone know that you had an eye in the sky array?”

  “Just my staff,” said Wagman.

  “Was it standard? I mean, was this something you’d been doing for a while, or was it something new you were trying? Eye in the sky should be standard for any event in a building that can support it, but I know it’s not.” People still had funny ideas about privacy—like the funny idea that they had any. Given the satellites, GPS locators in our equipment, and constant data uploads from every blood test taken by anyone in the world, it was a miracle everyone hadn’t just embraced the culture of the unending overshare.

  “I’ve always used eye in the sky arrays when I was in a casino that had trained operators on hand, but I’ve only had my own system since the start of the campaign,” said Wagman. “We have two technicians who come in with the setup team, and install the system alongside the sound crew and lighting directors. If we can, we get a separate room for the operators. If we can’t, they get to share my dressing room.”

  Of course she had a dressing room. You couldn’t put on costumes like hers in a public bathroom stall. “The attack on the governor was planned. Somebody planted zombies in the rose garden, figuring they’d dig their way out and eat us all once the sound of the humans got to be too much for them to resist,” I said. “Was this one planned, or did the clowns just run into a streak of bad luck?”

  “It was in their makeup,” said Mat.

  We all turned to look at them. Congresswoman Wagman blinked.

  “Yes,” she said. “How did you know?”

  “Because they were clowns,” said Mat.

  “Going to need a little more than that,” I said. “I hear the words as they leave your mouth, and they don’t make any sense, no matter what order I put them into.”

  “Clowns wear a lot of makeup, in distinct layers,” said Mat. “If you’re a professional clown, you only use the good stuff, because anything else would clog your pores and mean risking a serious skin condition. The only person more concerned with what goes on their face than a clown is a professional camgirl, and honestly, clowns are probably more careful. The thing is, all that makeup starts super crisp and distinct, and then it bleeds together with wear and sweat and time. So if you wanted to poison a clown you could, say, put something in their pancake, and trust the concealer to keep it from fully touching the skin for at least an hour.”

  “This is like listening to a foreign language,” said John.

  “Yes, but so far the makeup artist is right,” said Wagman. “Go on, sugar.”

  “Kellis-Amberlee can’t be absorbed through the skin, thank God, so if someone was going to spike a clown’s makeup with the disease, it would need to be near a mucous membrane. Most clowns go base level, pancake white, mouth, if they’re the sort of clowns that have big red mouths. Put the virus in the mouth paint. It won’t be swallowed right away—not until the layers start to blend and bleed, and the paint on the lips has softened. Is that what happened?”

  Wagman had gone motionless. Her voice was still pleasant as she said, “If I hadn’t known you were with Suzy this whole time, I’d be having you arrested on suspicion of terrorism right now. That’s exactly what ha
ppened. When we swept their van after the incident, we found that their mouth paints had been tampered with—packed full of the damn virus. Those poor bastards were dead before they stepped into the building. It just took a while for their bodies to realize it.”

  “So they passed the first two blood tests because they hadn’t swallowed any paint yet,” Audrey said. “Most people will sweat when they have to take two blood tests in quick succession. Test anxiety combines with the belief that if they’d really passed, they’d be clear for at least an hour. Everyone claims they feel safer when exposed to repeated testing, but that’s not true. So the tests they passed would have resulted in their makeup being warmed, and in some lip-biting behaviors.”

  “Infecting three of the five, and starting amplification,” I said, picking up the thread.

  Ben had been quiet and thoughtful through this recitation. Now he sat up straighter, and asked, “Who knew you were hiring these clowns?”

  “Everyone,” said Wagman. “They were well-known here in town, and they were going to be a public part of the evening’s entertainment. It was on my team’s blogs, and they put it all over their social media. Having them was supposed to show that I supported local artists and local industry.” She grimaced. “It backfired. Even if we’d wanted to cover up their deaths, we couldn’t have, and now there are some local pundits saying I can’t keep them safe.”

  “But no one seems to be aware that there was an outbreak at your event,” I said, frowning. “We’re talking about eight deaths, all told, and you’ve just said that there wasn’t a cover-up. How the hell did you manage that?”

  “You mean my leak didn’t tell you?” asked Wagman. She gave me a challenging look. I didn’t flinch away. Tina wasn’t here, so I didn’t need to worry about revealing my source by being too friendly: I just had to keep myself from doing anything that might get her in trouble. Not ideal, but better than it could have been.

  Wagman sighed, yielding. “We had to cancel the rest of the event, of course; pled a kitchen fire and closed down the building. The time stamps of the amplifications were already on file with the CDC. We sent a confirmation notice, and contacted the families of the deceased. But since the CDC doesn’t release times of amplification unless there’s an inquest, and since no one was asking…”

  “You just let it ride,” said Ben. He looked at the governor as he asked his next question. “Congresswoman Wagman, were you not concerned that any of your opponents who learned about this incident might attempt to use it against you? It’s not technically lying to the American public, but there are people who would see it that way.”

  “Including you, huh, sweetie? Tell me, did you publish every little detail of the attack on your candidate?” Congresswoman Wagman shook her head once, fiercely. “I didn’t hide their deaths. I didn’t lie about where they happened. I attended their funerals. I’ve done everything I’m required by law to do, and a few things no one ever legislated, because they would have looked too much like caring. Telling people ‘this was a concerted attempt to assassinate a candidate for the presidency’ earns me nothing.”

  “Surely that’s not true,” protested Ben. “Great leaders have always faced assassination attempts. You could improve your public image by stepping up and making yourself look like a great leader. Why else would they be afraid of you?”

  “Bless your heart. You’re still not answering my question, and you’re insulting me at the same time, even if you can’t see it.” Wagman leaned forward, her attention fixed on my husband. There was nothing soft or silly about her now: The time for persona and presentation was over. We were looking at the real Kirsten Wagman now, a brilliant political mind who had chosen to trade her dignity for more airtime and hence more attention for the causes she gave a damn about. Dignity was temporary. Improved health care and public housing was… well, also temporary, but it mattered more. “I don’t want to improve my public image. I’m perfectly happy being the candidate they all laugh at, because it means they’re talking about me. If I said ‘someone tried to shoot me,’ people would be sorry. They’d talk about what a terrible world this is, and how brave I am. If I said ‘someone tried to cut my head off,’ people would be shocked. They’d talk about how hard it is to be a woman in politics, and how noble I am. But if I say ‘someone tried to use Kellis-Amberlee to kill me and make it look like an accident,’ people will say I’m lying. The phrase ‘drama queen’ will come out. So will the phrase ‘attention whore.’ It’s amazing how it’s always about gender when people are trying to cut you down without calling you a liar, isn’t it?”

  “Preaching to the choir,” said Mat.

  Congresswoman Wagman wasn’t done. “And if they would stop there, maybe I would think it was worth it—I’d be warning the world, right? Only Suzy already knows. I’d be willing to bet Pete already knows, even if no one in his camp wants to talk to me. Tate and York, fuck them. They can do whatever they want, and it won’t be any concern of mine. The only people I’d be ‘warning’ would be the American public, and not only would they turn on me, they would disappear.”

  “Kirsten is right,” said Kilburn. “Most people are already afraid to come to political rallies and events. Things like the rose-garden incident don’t help with that. They reinforce the idea that the world is dangerous and there’s no way to stay safe without staying locked up. Say that someone’s using zombies to intentionally attack political events, and we’re done. York gets the world he wants.”

  “Any chance he could be behind this?” asked Amber. “He’s a wacky old coot who’d fit in pretty well in a Scooby-Doo cartoon. Maybe he’s trying to remake the world in his own image by scaring the shit out of the rest of us.”

  “I am never going to sleep again,” announced Mat.

  “Whoever did this needs more resources than York has, and needs to be free to move around,” said Wagman. “Much as I’d like to point the finger at that guy—I hate that guy—I don’t think he’s the one.”

  “Neither do I,” said Kilburn. “Whatever’s fueling this conspiracy, it’s bigger than one candidate.”

  “So what do we do about it?” asked Rick. No one said a word, and silence reigned as we all looked uncomfortably at each other. There were no easy answers. Somehow, that was the worst part of all.

  Being on the road is interesting. On the one hand, you’re surrounded by constant novelty, which I appreciate; as most people know by now, I bore easily, and a bored Irwin is an Irwin who’s about to stir up a whole lot of shit for nothing more than the experience of standing in a shit-storm. I am a natural disaster when I don’t have something to keep me busy. Travel is definitely good for occupying the mind.

  At the same time, travel leaves a lot of big blank spaces on the map, hours upon hours where the doors are closed and the road is rolling by outside, and the green hills of America are all you have to see. America always looks oddly de-saturated to me, like someone has turned the gain down on the entire world. The hills in Ireland are greener. It’s not an exaggeration: There’s something about the soil that just grows the greenest grass in the world. If there’s anything I really miss about my homeland, it’s that. How could anyone have access to that much green and not miss it once it’s gone?

  We’re rolling into the Democratic National Convention this week. Either Governor Kilburn will take the nomination and be the official Democratic candidate, or she’ll lose, and maybe she’ll be someone’s choice for VP and maybe she won’t, but either way we’re likely to be out of a job. So fingers crossed for a Kilburn 2040 ticket taking us all the way home, because I don’t want to go back to the real world yet!

  —From Erin Go Blog, the blog of Ash North, March 11, 2040

  Eleven

  Cars and tour buses packed the streets of Huntsville, Alabama, turning the place into a virtual parking lot. The Space Center was open twenty-four hours a day during the convention, hoping to lure politicians and policy makers into their brightly lit embrace and convince them to open their ch
eckbooks a little wider. I didn’t have a checkbook to open, exactly. That wasn’t stopping me. I’d already been on two of the tours and was planning to go back for the paid docent experience, which included a ride in the giant centrifuge. It was all tax deductible, since I could call it a business expense—reporting on space was slightly outside my normal purview, not forbidden—but to be honest, I would have done it without the deductions. Space was fun. I hoped they’d be able to operate NASA for a year off these people.

  Ben and Mat had been inside the convention center all morning, sending out occasional blip updates and loading their reports directly onto the server. Mat was doing makeup demos near the governor’s booth, showing attendees how to get the look that would tell their chosen candidates how much support they had—and because Governor Kilburn was awesome, there were no restrictions on which candidate. Mat had done mostly Susan Kilburns, but there had been a few Frances Blackburns, and even a smattering of Eliot Yorks. All of them were free advertising for Mat’s services, and hence for Governor Kilburn’s booth. It was a good exchange. I was glad I wasn’t the one making it. I would’ve shoved a mascara wand into someone’s eye by now.

  Ben’s activities were less colorful and more cerebral. He’d been moving from interview to interview, think tank to think tank, all morning long. I could track his movement by calling up his feed and watching the updates, blog entries, and GPS data stream by. My busy bee. I didn’t give two shits about most of what he was doing, save in the abstract “it makes him happy and makes us more valuable to the campaign, so carry on, mighty hero of the news, carry on” sense. Later, he’d try to explain it all to me, and I would smile and nod and remember only what I wanted to, because I had him and Audrey to remember it completely.

  Irwins aren’t stupid. That’s a common misconception about the breed. People think we went into Action News, rather than Factual or Fictional, because we’re not smart enough to be on the other side of the desk. I guess maybe that’s true for a couple of people, although I can’t imagine anyone saying “I don’t like to use big words, guess I’ll go risk my life for fun” and being any good at it. Being an Irwin is hard as hell, and it requires different kinds of intelligence. Kinesthetic intelligence. The ability to look at a situation, spin it in your mind, and have the solution before the dead guys who are shambling rapidly toward their next meal wind up on top of you. Quick intelligence, instead of slow, because out in the field, slow is the thing that gets you dead.