Mira Grant - Feed

“And then?” I asked, despite my own better judgment. I needed to know how seriously he was willing to take this.

“And then, if I believe you, I’ll back you up when we call for the federal authorities, because what you’re saying, Georgia, what you’re accusing is terrorism, and if that accusation gets made without absolute proof behind it, well, there’s more than one man’s career it could destroy.”

He was right. If it got out that the Ryman campaign had been harboring a man who’d use Kellis-Amberlee as a weapon—hell, that a man who’d use Kellis-Amberlee as a weapon was actually on the ticket —it would ruin him. His political enemies would never let the scandal die. Some of them would probably say he’d supported Tate’s actions, even to the point of killing Rebecca, for the votes it bought him.

“If you don’t believe me?” I asked, shaping the words with lips that had gone numb.

“If I don’t believe you, you’re all on the next bus to Berkeley, and we’re parting ways before the sun comes up,” the senator said and turned his back on me, all smiles as he shifted his attention to the crowd. “Congresswoman!” he said, joviality coming back into his voice as if he’d flipped a switch. “You’re looking lovely tonight—is that your wife? Well, Mrs. Lancer, it surely is a pleasure to finally have the opportunity to meet you in the flesh, after seeing you in so many of those Christmas card photos—”

And then he was moving away, leaving me standing alone in the middle of the crowd, the important people of this little modern Babylon pressing all around me as they struggled for a moment of his attention, my colleagues standing not ten feet away, waiting to hear what I’d accomplished.

The truth had never felt like it was further away, or harder to make sense of. And I had never in my life felt like I was more lost, or more alone.

We were eleven when I first understood that we weren’t immortal. I always knew the Masons had a biological son named Phillip. Our folks didn’t talk about him much, but he came up every time someone mentioned Mason’s Law. It’s funny, but I sort of hero-worshipped him when I was a kid, because people remembered him. I never really considered the fact that they remembered him for dying.

George and I were hunting for our Christmas presents when she found the box. It was in the closet in Mom’s office, and we’d probably overlooked it a thousand times before, but it caught George’s eye that day for some reason, and she hauled it out, and we looked inside. That was the day I met my brother.

The box was full of photographs we’d never seen, pictures of a laughing little boy in a world where he’d never been forced to worry about the things we lived with every day. Phillip riding a pony at the state fair. Phillip playing in the sand on a beach with no fences in sight. Phillip with his long-haired, short-sleeved, laughing mother, who didn’t look anything like our mother, who wore her hair short and her sleeves long enough to hide the body armor, whose holster dug into my side when she kissed me good night. He had a smile that said he’d never been afraid of anything, and I hated him a little, because his parents were so much happier than mine.

We never talked about that day. We put the pictures back in the closet, and we never found our Christmas presents, either. But that was the day I realized… if Phillip, this happy, innocent kid, could die, so could we. Someday, we’d be cardboard boxes at the back of somebody’s closet, and there wasn’t a thing we could do about it. George knew it, too; maybe she even knew it before I did. We were all we had, and we could die. It’s hard to live knowing something like that. We’ve done the best we could.

No one gets to ask us for anything more. Not now, not ever. When history looks our way—stupid, blind history, that judges everything and never gives a shit what we paid to get it—it better remember that no one had a right to ask us for this. No one.

Georgia, what just happened?”

“George? You okay?”

Both of them sounded so concerned it left me wanting to scream. I settled for grabbing a flute of champagne from a passing server, draining it in one convulsive gulp, and snapping, “We have to go. Now.”

That just redoubled their concern. Rick’s eyes went wide, while Shaun’s narrowed, accompanied by a sudden frown. “How pissed is he?” he asked.

“He’s pulling our press passes in fifteen minutes.”

Shaun whistled. “Nice. Even for you, that’s impressive. What’d you do, suggest that his wife was having an affair with the librarian?”

“It was the tutor, that was the Mayor of Oakland’s wife, and I was right,” I said, starting to stalk for the exit. True to form, they followed. “I didn’t say anything about Emily.”

“Excuse me, but does one of you mind telling me what’s going on?” interjected Rick, putting on a burst of speed to get in front of me. “Georgia just got us kicked out of a major political event, Senator Ryman’s clearly pissed, and Tate’s glaring. I’m missing something. I don’t like that.”

I went cold. “Tate’s glaring at us?”

“If looks could kill—”

“We’d be joining Rebecca Ryman. I’ll fill you in once we’re in the car.”

Rick hesitated, licking his lower lip as he registered the anxiety in my tone. “Georgia?”

“I’m serious,” I said, and sped up, going as fast as I could manage without starting to a run. Shaun took the cue from me, linking one arm through mine and using his longer legs to give me a little extra speed. Rick hurried along behind us, holding his questions until we got outside. Bless him for that much, anyway.

It took only one blood test to get back to the car. Since everyone on the banquet level was assumed clean after the checks they’d endured to get there, the elevator came at the press of a button, no needles involved until we wanted to exit. Like a roach motel—the infected could check in, but they couldn’t check out. My earlier curiosity about what would happen if more than one person took the elevator at the same time was answered as the interior sensors refused to let the doors open until the system detected three different, noninfected blood samples. Someone who unwittingly boarded the elevator with a person undergoing viral amplification would just die in there. Nice.

Steve was still next to the car, arms folded across his chest. He straightened when he saw the three of us come marching out of the elevator but he restrained his curiosity better than Rick had, waiting until we were reaching for the doors before he asked, “Well?”

“Threatened to yank our press passes,” I said.

“Nice,” said Steve, raising his eyebrows. “He pressing charges?”

“No, that’ll probably come after tonight’s episode of ‘meet the press.’” I climbed into the back seat.

Shaun did the same on the opposite side of the car, commenting, “She means ‘beat the press,’ don’cha, George?”

“Possibly,” I said.

“ Now will you tell me what’s going on?” asked Rick, getting into the front passenger seat and twisting around to face us.

“It’s simple, really,” I said, sagging into the seat. Shaun already had his arm in place to support me, offering as much comfort as he could. “Dave and Alaric followed the money and proved that Governor Tate was behind the attacks on Eakly and the ranch. Also, PS, the CDC is potentially involved, which isn’t going to make me sleep any easier tonight, thanks. The senator wasn’t thrilled with the idea that his running mate might be the goddamn devil, so he’s asked us to go back to the Center to prepare our notes while he decides whether or not to fire our asses.”