Deadline

“Not really, but we can pretend.” I walked back to my seat, belatedly realizing that my things were still in the kitchen. Oh, well. “So no one ever tried to figure out why so many people with reservoir conditions were dying?”

“Um.” Kelly blinked, apparently thrown by my return to the earlier topic. Then she nodded. “We got a new crop of interns recently. Very enthusiastic, very eager to prove themselves. One of them noticed the statistical anomaly while he was doing some filing, and he brought it to Dr. Wynne. What he said just didn’t sound right. I asked if I could look into it. Dr. Wynne was as surprised as I was, and he agreed.”

“That’s how you got started on this?” asked Alaric.

“I thought it was bad data. I thought I was chasing down a reporting error. Instead… this was huge. I put together a team of people I trusted once I realized what I was really looking at. Someone’s killing people with reservoir conditions in truly terrifying numbers.” She took a shaky breath. “And when my team started digging, they started killing us, too.”

“What?” Becks demanded.

Oh, shit, said George. I privately echoed the sentiment.

“There were eight people on my team when I started this study. Now I’m the only one left.” Kelly sniffled. I realized without any real surprise that she was on the verge of tears. “I need help. I didn’t know where else to go.”

Becks and I exchanged a look. Dave and Alaric did the same. Then everyone turned toward me, like they expected me to make the call. Oh, wait. With George gone, they did.

Crap.

It seems like everyone I work with has some great story about how their family shows support of their career in the news. Alaric’s father paid for his college education, no strings attached—scholarship by Daddy. Dave comes from this huge Russian family, and they’re all so proud of him they could explode. Maggie’s parents buy her everything her little Fictional heart desires, and Mahir’s parents are so happy with what he does that they send care packages to the office. Care packages from England, sent to an office where he doesn’t even work. That’s how cool with things they are.

Shaun may hate the Masons, but at least they supported what he chose to do with his life. No cotillions, no coming-out parties, no “Oh, honey, this is just a phase” or “Please, darling, it’s just one night.” Just one night, just one dance, just one silk dress, and the next thing I knew, I’d be just one more product of the Westchester Trophy Wife Factory, proudly producing quality goods since the days of the Mayflower. I am a card-carrying Daughter of the American Revolution. I can foxtrot, quickstep, waltz, and tango. I know how to plan a cocktail party, make small talk, and overlook a man’s personality, manners, and hygiene in favor of what matters: his bloodline and his bank account.

font size="3">These are the things my parents taught me. They raised me to be just like my sisters—sweet, pliant, pretty, and available to the highest bidder. It’s too bad I had other ideas. I am the shame of my family, the bad seed whose name will be quietly erased from the family tree the day after my picture gets posted on the Wall. I am the one who couldn’t be content playing nicely with the other children, and who had to go out and get her hands all dirty.

It’s days like this when I miss Georgia most of all. I may have abandoned the Newsies to go Irwin the second the opportunity presented itself, but she understood what I meant when I talked about my family, about not being sorry that I let them down. The things that made her a pretty lousy friend made her an excellent boss, and I think this would all be a hell of a lot easier if she were here.

Mom, Dad? The next horrible thing I do in public is for you. I hope you choke on it.

—From Charming Not Sincere, the blog of Rebecca Atherton, March 8, 2041

Hello, darlings! I hope you’re ready for some sizzling romance, swashbuckling adventure, tragic love, and mysterious happenings, because all those and more are on the schedule for this week. I’ll be on the live chat every night from seven to ten Pacific time, and I’m always happy to talk about anything your little hearts desire. I’m your private Scheherazade, and I’m here to tell you stories all night long. Welcome to Maggie’s House of Horrors—I hope you’re planning to stay for a while.

After all, you know I always miss you when you’re gone.

—From Dandelion Mine, the blog of Magdalene Grace Garcia, April 11, 2041

Four

What are we going to do?”

Becks asked the question, but all three of my staffers were looking at me with near-identical expressions of impatient expectation on their faces. It was all I could do to not turn and flee the room. They were expecting me to give them a direction; they were expecting me to make the call; they were expecting me to be George.

“What are we going to do?” I echoed, hoping they’d take the question as rhetorical.

The person it was aimed at didn’t. There are small mercies. We’re going to find out what’s going on, and we’re going to scream it from the mountaintops, said George. I repeated each word a half-beat behind her, creating a weird delay that no one outside my head could hear. We’re going to do our jobs. We’re going to go out there, and we’re going to get the news.

All four of the people in the room were staring at me by the time I—we—finished our little speech. Alaric was the first to look a yoducking his head slightly as he turned back to his computer screen. Dude always wanted me to be my sister when it came time to make a decision, but he was never okay with it when I actually did.