Paolo Bacigalupi - The Doubt Factory

“It’s clean?”

“Just a couple of crazy activists with guns,” Lisa said.

George got on his cell and started working through his contacts. Soon, phones would be ringing all over the city. Congressional offices, DC police headquarters, and the FBI would all be hearing from patrons and friends. The investigation would die. Someone in George’s contact list would take control of the investigation.

And really, what was there to investigate? Tragedies happened all the time. This was just one more example of the radicalization of America. Some lunatic fringe who had drunk the Kool-Aid of Occupy Wall Street rhetoric and gone astray.

An ambulance worker emerged from the building pushing a body bag on a stretcher. Another body followed. The cops started freaking about bodies being moved, which started a larger argument between Williams & Crowe, the cops, and the FBI. Simon Banks saw the body bags and gave a howl of anguish. He fought through the crowd. “Is that my daughter? Is that my daughter?”

He lunged for a body bag, fumbling at the zipper.

“Sir! Sir! Don’t!”

Lisa reached the crowd just as Banks got the bag open. He collapsed, sobbing. Alix Banks lay disheveled and blood-soaked inside the black body bag. Pale and gone. An empty husk. Lisa felt a moment of regret.

Sorry, kid. It didn’t have to be this way .

Banks was clawing at his daughter’s body.

“Alix!”

His hands scrabbled in his daughter’s blood. He clutched at her corpse, trying to hold her to him. Lisa was afraid he was going to knock over the stretcher with his crazed grief. She tried to restrain him, but he shook her off with a wild strength. It took her and George Saamsi to finally pull him away.

“Simon! Simon! Let them do their work,” George soothed.

News cameras were snapping pictures. We don’t need to be the story . Lisa waved frantically for the EMS people to keep going.

“I’m sorry. Mr. Banks?” She tugged at his shoulder. “There are news cameras. This is starting to turn into an even bigger problem.”

Banks wheeled on her. “What did you do to my daughter?” He took a wild swing, and Lisa leaped back. She could practically feel the flashes of the photojournalists as they caught the scene.

George managed to drag him back. “Alix had a gun, Simon!” His voice was urgent. “It’s a terrible, terrible tragedy, I know. I’m so sorry about your daughter, but there’s nothing Lisa—or anyone—could do.” His voice turned soothing again. “What were they supposed to do? She was with a wanted terrorist, and they were armed….” And then, following up, using the words a fellow PR man would understand. “There are cameras running, Simon. We can’t become the story here. We need to be going. You need to grieve in private.”

Lisa had to hand it to him—George Saamsi was good. She left him to deal with the shattered father and went to see what else she could do to cover up the damage.

The FBI agent in charge snagged her. “What the hell happened here?” the man asked. “Why can’t anyone get access to a crime scene?”

Lisa shook her head. “Call your boss. I heard it’s a national-security thing. We’re supposed to keep things clear until we get an okay from higher up.”

“Goddamn private armies,” the man muttered, but he got on the phone.

Not a bad operation, overall, Lisa decided. The bodies were disappearing into ambulances, and the crime scene was becoming more and more muddied. In just a little while, all the events that had happened here would be gone. Swept away and forgotten. A small, personal family tragedy among the many larger tragedies that pummeled the nation every day. Not news at all. Maybe a few lines in the Metro section, and then gone for good.

She watched as Saamsi finally managed to get Simon Banks stuffed into a black town car and sent away.

That’s right. Nothing to see here. Move along, folks .

Saamsi was coming back across the lawn to her. He was frowning.

“Lisa?”

“Yeah.”

“Why is that man standing in the lobby in his underwear?”

“What?” Lisa whirled.

Timmons was stumbling out of the building, stripped down to his tighty-whities.

“What the…?”

“Gas.” He choked.

“What gas?” Lisa asked.

He knelt down and retched. “Didn’t… get up to the tenth.”

“What do you mean you didn’t make it up to the tenth? You were there. I talked to you!” She grabbed him and pulled him close. “You said you took care of it!”

“Not me.” He put his hands on his knees and gagged.

“What’s going on here?” George asked.

A cold finger of fear skittered up Lisa’s spine as pieces started clicking into place. “Where’s the ambulance?” she shouted, casting about wildly.

“What ambulance?”

“The one with the goddamn bodies in it! The one with the goddamn bodies!” She started pushing through the crowd. There!

The ambulance was driving slowly toward the curb. Lisa shouted, but in the confusion, no one was listening.

Lisa put her head down and ran.

For a second she thought she’d catch up. The ambulance slowed as it bumped down off the curb and into the street, and Lisa put on a burst of speed. The ambulance made a clumsy turn into its lane and Lisa caught a glimpse of the driver.

A kid?

It was a goddamn kid, barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel. An unruly mop of black curly hair puffed out from beneath the blue uniform cap of an EMT.

He was grinning at her.

“Stop that ambulance!” Lisa shouted, but it was no use. The kid flicked on the lights and sirens, and her words were drowned in a flood of emergency noise.

“HEADS UP, PEOPLE! DEATH BARBIE’Sonto us,” Tank shouted into the back of the ambulance.

Cynthia cursed. “Already?” She was unzipping her EMS jacket, revealing a flak jacket that read SWAT. “Get them out of their bags,” Cynthia said to Kook.

“Kinda of busy saving our asses here,” Kook murmured. She was still in her own EMS gear with her laptop propped on her bloody knees. Her fingers left slick dark stains on the keys as she typed.

Cynthia cursed again. Everything was happening too fast. She went to unzip the pair of body bags, revealing the bloody visages of Alix and Moses.

“Romeo and fucking Juliet.” She scowled.

Kook shot her a dirty look. “Let’s have a little optimism here, all right? I’m trying to work.”

“Yeah. Optimism. Got it.” She started digging in her raid kit for syringes.

Optimism optimism optimism .

The ambulance was slowing. The front door opened, and Adam piled into the cab, still wearing his Williams & Crowe SWAT gear, and hauling a duffel bag. The ambulance accelerated again. Adam grabbed for support, nearly falling over as Tank gunned the engine.

“We’ve got Shortstuff driving?” he complained.

“I’ve got my license,” Tank shot back. “Quit whining.”

“Only because Kook hacked the DMV,” Adam muttered as he stumbled into the back of the ambulance. They bounced over another curb, and everyone grabbed for handholds.

“Watch it!” Cynthia shouted. “I’m trying to work back here!’

“Sorry!” Tank called back.

“What’s the rush?” Adam asked. “I thought you or Kook was going to be driving.”

“Death Barbie’s sending her troops after us any second,” Cynthia said.

“Already?”

“Can’t expect everything to go perfectly,” Kook muttered.

Optimism optimism optimism .

Moses’s zipper was jammed. Cynthia swore. “I don’t have time for this! Adam, get this open.” She turned and went back to rummaging in her raid kit while Adam fumbled and fought with the zipper. “Jeez, he looks terrible.”