“Crystal … like on the chandeliers that hang in the lobbies of my many fine properties,” the Tycoon said with a grin. “Okay. I think we are finished here. I need to prepare. McNelis will arrange to have you transported back to the arena.”
“What is preparation like for you?” Jessica asked, even as she gathered her things. “Do you need to rest? To sleep?”
“All these things in good time,” the Tycoon said. “For the moment, I can’t see much past this evening.”
“A lot rides on your speech, if they even still let you give it,” Jessica said, preparing to depart.
“Oh, they will,” the Tycoon said.
“How can you be so sure?” Jessica asked.
“Because those words—‘they’ or ‘me’ or ‘I’—have less and less meaning as time goes by. Every day, I become they, and they become me. I am the party right now. There is no other option, and they know it. If I go down, it goes down too. And you can print that I said that.”
“Don’t worry,” Jessica responded. “I will.”
The Tycoon had not been lying about the time crunch. He really did have an inhuman amount of work ahead if he planned to be ready to deliver his speech that same evening. Yet, as the young reporter exited, the Tycoon allowed himself a long and satisfied smile. It was very different from the fake smile he had carefully honed in front of mirrors to use at building dedications and in press photos. It was a deep and ugly smile. The smile of satisfaction one only gives when unobserved.
The Tycoon was a dealmaker. He had just made another deal. It was who he was. It was what he did.
This deal had possibly just saved him. It would make possible all the deals he would ever make in the future.
The Tycoon leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head.
Would he ever stop winning? Now it seemed unimaginable that he had ever doubted it. He vowed that he would only win from this point on. That there would be no further setbacks. He would only win. And win and win and win.
He began softly repeating the word to himself, like an adherent to meditation repeating a mantra. The sound echoed softly through the office, out the door, and into the cavernous warehouse beyond.
With McNelis stepping away to find Jessica Smith a car, it was only the Tycoon’s security guards who heard it clearly. The pair had heard and seen unbelievable things in their years of service, but never quite something like this.
“Win! … Win! … Win!”
One of the guards lowered his sunglasses enough to exchange a glance. The other guard smiled and gave the smallest shrug. Then the two men resumed their stoic expressions, listening to the softly echoing incantation that seemed as though it would go on forever.
THE REPORTER
When the car dropped Jennifer back at the arena, the first of the international news agencies were just beginning to arrive. The convention had already been news, but now it was something epic. Something for the ages. Once-in-a-lifetime stuff was happening. Every newspaper, TV network, blog, and web channel wanted to bring it to their audiences firsthand.
Beyond this extra press, the crowd outside had swelled to almost unbelievable proportions because of curious onlookers. This was the kind of crowd you called out the National Guard to handle. Blocks around the arena were swelled with foot traffic, and it was difficult for vehicles of any kind to get through. At first glance, the general demographics of the crowds seemed not much changed from the days prior, but now a strange and intense madness possessed them. Conventioneers, gun rights enthusiasts, and fervent foes of political correctness all walked the streets and sidewalks as if on patrol. But for what? Jessica wondered: Were they looking to hunt zombies, or protect them?
As she neared the arena entrance, she began to see freelance groups decked out in body armor. They carried rifles and wore bandannas across their faces, and they did not seem affiliated with any particular law enforcement agency. One of them carried a riot shield hastily painted with a zombie inside a red circle and slash. One of them smoked a cigar. All seemed wild-eyed.
Police were also present, but none of them seemed particularly excited about enforcing laws. They were there because they had to be. They obviously did not understand what was going on or why. (Jessica imagined that when your leaders were revealed to be literal bloodthirsty monsters, the urge to serve and protect them was probably diminished.) Most people simply looked right through the law enforcement professionals still present.
It made Jessica think of her childhood summers in the northeast. Sometimes both parents would come, but at the very least Jessica, her sister, and her mother would annually retire to a coastal enclave in Maine for the hottest parts of July and August. It was a small community with a dodgy power grid that seemed to fail at least once a summer. Whenever that happened, the whole town suddenly stopped. The residents would emerge from their homes and from the business along Main Street, no matter the hour. People chatted. They carried drinks with them out of the bars, and food out of restaurants. It was the strange space apart from reality. It appeared magically, and only lasted for the hour or so it took to get the grid back online. That hour might have been Jessica’s favorite part of the summer. In that odd ethereal timeout, all bets were off. The rules and customs that had ruled moments before did not apply. It was as if everyone was “not playing” in the same way Jessica might advise her friends that she was “not playing” when they declaimed that the floor was lava or a giant conifer was a crash-landed spaceship.
As Jessica opened the door to one of the arena entrances and stepped inside, she saw that same “not playing” on the faces of the men and women who had—less than a day before—known quite precisely their purpose and responsibilities. The convention delegates were dead-eyed and running on automatic pilot. (Jessica stopped just short of thinking of them as “zombified.”) The representatives from organizations and causes looked like they had given up. A few had already started tearing down their displays. The souvenir vendors were unsteady and cautious. Perhaps their t-shirts emblazoned with the candidate’s face had just become collectables that would go for ten times their face value on eBay. Or perhaps they were worthless. (One enterprising vendor had taken a marker and given the portraits of the Tycoon and the Governor he sold a zombified aspect. Jessica wondered if these revised versions were selling better than the originals. A news item for another time, perhaps.)
The only people who seemed energized and purposeful were the reporters. Fully half of the media onsite were now new arrivals. They were well-slept and full of vim. (For these qualities alone they could be immediately distinguished from the veteran hacks.) Because so many of those in attendance were now alert newsmen and newswomen, Jessica was recognized almost immediately. With the exception of the Tycoon, the Governor, and the senior officials of their party, no person was now the subject of more interest than Jessica Smith herself. Once recognized, she was forced to nearly sprint down the hallway to the conference room where she hoped George and other friendly faces still waited. A peloton of other reporters trailed after her as she loped down the changed, strange hallways.
Finally, blessedly, the correct door came into view. A couple of folks from her organization were still milling around in front of it. Jessica acknowledged them with a nod and said: “Keep these turkeys outside.”
She ducked in and shut the door behind herself.
Back at their table, Jessica found that George was indeed there waiting for her. But he was not the only one. Tim’s two associates from TruthTeller were there. Yet Tim himself was nowhere to be found.
“Hey, are you okay?” George asked, hopping up from his chair. “What happened?”
“I met with him,” Jessica said. “There’s a whole lot, but the short upshots are that he confessed to being a zombie, said he’s still going to deliver his speech tonight, and … and he wants to give me unprecedented inside access to his campaign.”
“What?” said George. “I … I don’t know what part of that to ask about fi
rst.”
“There’s actually more,” Jessica said.
She told George and the others about the photos she’d seen of the former first lady levitating and draining necks.
“So … wait?” George said. “Did he give you these photos?”
“No,” Jessica said. “He said he’s not going to leak them. Instead, his idea is to get her to … I suppose the word would be ‘confess.’ To being a vampire, right? I think he’s going to challenge her to talk about it when they have their debates.”
“Can you back any of this up, Jessica?” George asked. “Obviously, I don’t doubt you personally, but with all that’s happened we need multiple solid sources and people who can confirm things. Every word you write from here on out is going to be fact-checked to death, both coming and going. You have to know that.”
“I recorded our conversation, but I didn’t have time to take pictures of the vampire photos. If you want, I could—”
Suddenly, one of the reporters stationed outside burst through the door.
“It’s still on!” the young woman shrieked as though she could not believe the words as she spoke them. “They’ve just announced it! They’re going to hold the rest of the convention tonight.”
“And the final speaker will be … ?” George said, breathless.
“They haven’t announced that,” the young woman told him. “The press release doesn’t say. But I’ll try to find out.”
She rushed back out of the room.
“It’s got to be him,” Jessica said. “He said he was still going to accept the nomination tonight, and I think he wasn’t bullshitting. Also, he said I would have full access to him tonight. Backstage, everything. He said he’d be giving me that access for the rest of the campaign.”
George nodded carefully.
“Have you thought about why he is doing that?” George asked. “What he gets from it? Isn’t it a little suspicious that the man who has been running on a platform of hating and discrediting the press now wants you on his hip. What if Nixon had said to Woodward and Bernstein, ‘Hey, I’m not so bad. I’ll let you shadow me so you’ll agree.’ It’d be outrageous.”
“I may be young, but I’m not stupid, George,” Jessica replied. “I’m not saying that this changes anything. I’m just telling you what he offered. Sure, he wants me to provide a certain kind of coverage—to ‘humanize’ a zombie, is my guess—but that doesn’t mean I have to do it. Tactically, I think he’s trying to set a precedent for access now that his cat is out of the bag. We know he’s a zombie. He wants to dare the other campaign to let us get close enough to show that their candidate is a vampire.”
“Hmm, that actually makes a bit of sense,” George said. “It’s a smarter idea than I’d usually give him credit for.”
“I’m with you there,” Jessica said. “So many times in this campaign, he does things that are so crazy and flailing. I’d started to wonder if that was because he had something to hide. Now that that’s been taken away, we might see an entirely new candidate.”
George fell silent for a moment, considering this possibility. Ryan and Dan used the opportunity to insinuate themselves into the conversation.
“Jessica, have you heard from Tim today?” Dan asked.
“I haven’t been in touch with him since sometime last night,” Jessica said. “Have you guys lost track of him?”
“Uh, we saw him this morning,” Ryan contributed. “We brought him some gifts and pizza. It was breakfast pizza. Anyhow, he was going to take a shower and meet us downstairs. But that was like hours ago. He’s not answering his phone or emails.”
“I’m sure his phone and email got overrun with messages, like mine did,” Jessica said. “He’s probably still sifting through them.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “But when we went back upstairs to check on him, he wasn’t in his room either.”
“Gaining access to a room in a big hotel like this is not as much of a challenge as they’d like you to believe,” Dan added ominously.
“We can’t find him anywhere,” Dan complained. “It’s not like him to disappear. We were kind of hoping he was with you.”
“No,” Jessica said. “Sorry.”
“Okay,” Ryan said. “Well if he comes back, send him over to the TruthTeller desk. Tell him if he can force his way to the center of the mob, he’ll eventually find us. He’s as famous as you are now. We’re getting staked-out by everybody. They want the details on how we pulled it off.”
“It’s crazy, right?” Dan added. “It’s like the people haven’t used hidden cameras and recorders before. What do they even teach in journalism school these days?”
“Um, other things, I guess,” Jessica said with a shrug.
“Whatever,” Dan said. “Just tell him to find us if you see him.”
With that, the representatives from TruthTeller departed.
Jessica looked up at George with eyes that had seen into vast, unimaginable distances in the past 24 hours … and were also very tired.
“I think I need to sleep before tonight,” she told him. “I can feel my body starting to shut down. I think I’ll pass out if I don’t.”
“I thought that might be the case,” George said. “I’ve had some cots brought in and set up in the adjacent conference room. You can reach it through the side door. I thought going back out there to get to your hotel room might be too crazy.”
“Bless you,” Jessica said, already beginning to move toward the side door. “Can you wake me up in just a couple of hours?”
“I’ll do my damnedest to,” George said with a grin. “But if I remember from the plane, you’re a sound sleeper. Bit of a snorer, too.”
“Okay, thanks,” Jessica said.
Now that the idea of rest had been made actionable and real, she felt a new wave of exhaustion sweeping over her that seemed supernatural in scope. Enormous. Irresistible.
Jessica opened the door in the conference room’s collapsible wall. There was indeed a side room where several movable hotel cots had been placed side-by-side. The mattresses were thin and the sheets were rough, but at that moment they looked like fourposters with extra memory foam. Jessica was aware that the slight amount of makeup she had applied that morning to make herself look less tired was probably smearing onto the cot. She did not care. She closed her eyes the moment her head touched the miniature pillow. She concentrated on the sound of her own breathing, trusting sleep to come soon. She shifted slightly. Then, for whatever reason, she chanced to open her eyes again. And that was when she saw that she was not alone.
Sitting in the far corner of the room was a woman Jessica recognized. It was the woman with long black hair from the Knights of Romero. She was looking at Jessica intently. As Jessica watched, she rose from her chair and crept over to shut the door between the conference rooms. Then she edged to the row of collapsible beds. Jessica forced herself to sit up.
“You?” Jessica said. “How did you get in here?”
“Never mind that,” the Knight replied. “I’m the one asking the questions. Have you been to see him? What happened?”
“So what if I have?” Jessica said. “I meet with people. I write down what they say. It’s my job.”
“You mean that even after what you know? After all that we in the Knights have been able to prove … ?”
“Journalists interview everybody,” Jessica said. “We talk to serial killers and rapists. We talk to people we personally find abhorrent.”
“Your story you wrote last night—the one that everyone’s talking about—it’s not enough,” the Knight said.
“Not enough!?” Jessica said incredulously. “It’s just ruined an entire political party. It’s taken down some of the most powerful men in the country.”
“It’s not enough,” the Knight repeated.
“Do you want to talk to me?” Jessica shot back. “Do you want to go on record?”
“You know I can’t do that,” the woman said. “That’s not how our organizati
on works.”
“You guys don’t even know the whole story,” Jessica said.
“What?” the Knight said. “What don’t we know?”
“I know you aren’t much for zombies, but where does your organization stand on vampires?” Jessica asked.
“What?” the woman said. “Vampires? They’re a myth. Zombies are real.”
“What if I’ve seen evidence that both are real?” Jessica told her
She gave the Knight a quick version of what she had seen in her meeting with the Tycoon.
The Knight looked confused, but said: “Of course, he would tell you that. He’d show you fake photos he’d had doctored. He’ll do anything do stay in the race. That’s what makes him so dangerous. He’s not only a zombie, he’s power-mad and insane. You have to see that. This is just him muddying the water again.”
“I don’t …” Jessica began, then restarted. “What do you want me to do? Why are you here? I’m still not clear on how you got past George.”
“Based on what I’m hearing, I think I’m here to warn you,” the Knight said. “Zombies are the enemy. Everybody has to pick a side when it comes to them. If you think we’re going to stand by and let that happen, you’re crazy.”
“OK, you’re really afraid this man is going to become president?” Jessica said sarcastically. “They were saying he had no chance before all this happened. It doesn’t make sense that he could win now … unless you do think those vampire accusations are real.”
“Just watch yourself,” the woman replied.
And with that she left the room, walked out purposefully through the adjacent conference room (where George dozed with his head in his hands), and let herself out into the hall.
Jessica shook her head. Normally she would have done something, said something more, but all she could think about was sleep. Jessica laid her head down on her pillow. Surely some rest would help everything make more sense.
She closed her eyes.
Before she could wonder if she was asleep, she was.
THE FAKE NEWSMAN
Tim Fife was not feeling like himself. Not at all …
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