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“Sleep well, if you ever do,” I said, and stayed on the floor with Audrey's foot resting on my shoulder as I watched him walk out of the room.

Once we were alone I looked up at her and asked, “Is this going to be a good thing, really, or is this the worst thing we've ever agreed to do?”

Audrey leaned down to rest her forehead against mine. It left her twisted like a pretzel, her leg caught between our bodies. She seemed perfectly comfortable that way, and so I didn't say anything. Some of the angles she viewed as normal were impossible for me, and I was in the best shape of my life. Damn the naturally flexible. Damn them all to a lifetime with me.

“Probably both,” she said. “We're not just going to make the news anymore; we're going to
be
the news, and that isn't always as much fun as people think it's going to be. We're going to get jealous assholes writing articles about Mat's ‘real' gender, and why you left Ireland, and whether we're all perverts for sleeping together, even though we're actually not.”

I pulled back a little, untangling myself from her until I could get the distance I needed to look into her eyes. “That's not all we're going to get, Aud, and you know it.”

She looked away.

“We need to talk about this.”

“There's nothing to talk about.”

“Someone's going to find out.”

“So let them find out. I didn't break any laws. I didn't do anything morally wrong.”

“You walked away from your entire life and changed your name so you could join a blogging collective in Alameda. I'm eternally grateful that you did that, honestly I am, but there are going to be people who think it's odd. And Kilburn knows, you know she does. She paused when she said ‘Yale.' She knows.”

“Fuck those people, and fuck Kilburn if she has a problem with this.” Audrey shook her head, looking back to me. “Fuck them forever. They can eat a bucket of assholes for all I care. I'm not going to do full disclosure, and no one can make me. I'm a Fictional, remember? We have different journalistic ethics.”

“No one can make you, but somebody might do it for you, and I'd rather it be your choice. What is it Ben always says? ‘Try to stay ahead of the story.' I don't want you to get behind this one.”

“Your concern wasn't enough to make you tell the governor no,” said Audrey.

“Because I knew what that look on your face meant. You'd already told her yes. I worry about you. I love you a lot. I'm not going to start protecting you from yourself. That isn't my job.”

“Not yet,” said Audrey. “When this is over, when we have all the money and all the fame and can write our own tickets, I want you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

She smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. “I want you to get a divorce.”

I blinked. “From Ben?”

“Unless you have another husband sitting around, yes,” said Audrey. “You have your citizenship now, we've been prepping the ‘Ben wants kids' excuse, and I want to stop being the other woman. I'm not saying I want to get married right away—we still need to figure some things out, and maybe you need to be attainable for a while before I go proposing—but I want it to be an option. You're a
citizen
. You have nothing to lose by divorcing him, and maybe it would be good for him. He might actually get out and date again. He's lonely, you know. He's not waiting for you to change who you are, but he made you a promise, and he's hurting himself keeping it.”

I was silent for a moment, working my way through her request. It had been coming for a while. I'd seen it in her eyes, and heard it in her laughter. But this had already been an evening full of surprises, and I hadn't been expecting another one.

Audrey stood. “Thought so,” she said, and walked out of the kitchen.

I almost jumped to my feet and ran after her. In the end, I couldn't make myself move. I just sat there on the kitchen floor, staring at the cupboard, and waiting for the future to begin.

The thing about the past is in the name: It's the past. It may shape us. It may inform us. It may be the foundation on which we are built. But it's dead. Leave it in the grave, and live for the living.

—A
UDREY
L
IQIU
W
EN

One day we're going to look back on this and laugh. Assuming we, you know, manage to live that long.

—A
ISLINN
“A
SH
” N
ORTH

G
overnor Kilburn's people ran in every direction, frantically prepping the site for her arrival. If it had been possible for humans to spontaneously develop the power of flight, they would have done it, just so they could be sure their lighting and security rigs were properly set up. It was sort of impressive, in that “someone has just kicked a nest of wasps, and now we're all going to pay for their carelessness” kind of way.

Mat was in heaven. They'd been talking with the local techs all morning, babbling rapid-fire about things like the bearing capacity of the temporary wireless and the number of electric charges in the fence. It was sort of adorable. It was also sort of intensely frustrating, since we were surrounded on all sides by forest, and I wasn't being allowed to go running off into it with my hands in the air and a big “COME AND GET IT” sign taped to my chest. We'd been attached to the campaign for three weeks. We'd been on the road for two. I hadn't seen a single dead person during that time, and I was starting to get twitchy about it.

Audrey patted my arm with one hand, eyes never leaving the preparations around us. “There, there, Ash, there, there,” she said. “I'm sure you'll find something horribly dangerous to play with soon.”

“I didn't say anything,” I said, giving her a narrow-eyed look.

“You didn't need to. I know what it means when you start looking at forested areas the way you usually look at my boobs. We have a three-day break after this, while Governor Kilburn does private donor dinners. I bet we can find you a hole in the fence and a good poking stick.”

I abandoned my glowering to give her a warm smile. “You really get me.”

“I really do,” Audrey agreed. “Have you noticed the blind spots in their motion detectors? If everything wasn't electrified, I'd be worried.”

“I know, honey,” I said, and leaned my head against her shoulder. Audrey
liked
security systems. Audrey especially liked security systems that had been constructed with triplicate redundancy, making it unlikely that a single failure could endanger anyone who was supposed to be protected. It was one of the few day-to-day reminders of the life she'd walked away from, the one she didn't like to discuss and didn't want me thinking about any harder than I had to.

I didn't have all the details of who she'd been before she came to us—before she came to me. No one did, except for Audrey. But it had left her very aware of the bars on the windows and the locks on the doors, and ever eager to add another layer.

Not that Governor Kilburn's campaign lacked for security. It was just that it was part of the American political machine, and was hence innately divided against itself. Blame the need for any major political candidate's coffers to be continually reinforced with sweet, sweet cash. Public events, like the speech we were about to cover, were open to everyone who wanted to show up. They were also broadcast live on the governor's website, and dissected and remixed for posting on our site. It was campaign as theater, and she was very, very good at it. The private side of things was sometimes open to us and sometimes not. A certain amount of “behind closed doors” footage was included in our contract; it humanized the candidate without weakening her, and it would have been silly to hire a team of bloggers and refuse to give us access. But some events were still off-limits, usually because they involved people who'd donated such an obscene amount of money to the campaign that they had essentially bought her time for an evening in the process.

Supposedly, there were limits as to how much money an individual or concern could give to a candidate for office. In practice, those limits were as easily circumvented as the data rights management software on a new video game. There were the super PACs to worry about, of course. On top of that, people wrote checks in the names of pets and children, gave gifts that could be traded for monetary value, and generally made it clear that they were willing to pay for the President they wanted. Governor Kilburn never looked
happy
about those dinners, but she went. I couldn't blame her. If someone waved a million dollars in my face and said it could be mine if I'd eat a plate of their private chef's spaghetti, I'd be reaching for the fork.

On those “private donor nights,” we were free to do whatever struck our fancy. Ben spent them updating his reports with new information and hiring more support staff—coders, baby bloggers, forum moderators—for our site, which was growing by leaps and bounds, thanks to our sudden elevation to “second biggest concern in the blogging world.” The Masons were ahead of us in ratings and respectability, but we were closing the gap fast. They'd had a head start. They had more name recognition. We had a candidate who was willing to get into water balloon fights with kids. We also had Mat's makeup tutorials, which were starting to take on a distinctly patriotic flair. Mat was making weekly trips to Sephora for red, white, and blue eye shadows, and had been ordering custom lipsticks, stains, and tars from various online vendors at a terrifying rate. By the time we reached the actual election, I fully expected to be surrounded by people who looked like they'd been eating blueberry popsicles for months.

“Candidate on site, repeat, candidate on site,” said a member of the governor's security team, speaking into his wrist as he rushed past us, like he was afraid he might otherwise make eye contact with a filthy journalist and have to stop for a chat. Some of the security staffers were lovely people, like John, who spent a lot of time drinking whiskey and discussing law enforcement with Audrey when he wasn't on duty, or Amber, who had the dirtiest sense of humor I'd ever encountered on someone who wasn't an Irwin. Those people were outnumbered by their stiffer, more professional colleagues, who really didn't like the fact that they had a bunch of wild cards running around. Mat's refusal to go to binary pronouns confused them, Ben's insistence on asking endless questions annoyed them, and Audrey's tendency to dismiss their security protocols as insufficient pissed them off.

For once, I wasn't the most irritating member of our team. It was great. I was thinking of making myself a “yay, I'm the good child for a change” ribbon. Something big and flashy, like I'd just won the first prize at a church bake sale.

“Guess that means we have to get to work,” said Audrey, with a small, barely muffled sigh. She was a Fictional, but she was also the best-informed when it came to law enforcement and judicial procedures. Ben used her a lot for the candidate's public appearances. Having her to translate the parts that were outside his usual wheelhouse made the process more pleasant for everyone involved.

“Whee,” I said agreeably, and followed her to the small press pen where Ben and Mat were already waiting.

Today's event was being held in a wide, beautifully manicured park that was also, according to Amber, the official Portland rose test garden. People from all over the world brought new rose cultivars here to see whether they'd perform in the real world the way they performed in hothouses and horticultural labs. Roses were the most popular flower on the planet, thanks to their versatility, hardiness, and ability to scratch the ever-loving crap out of anyone who got too close. I would have thought thorns and their tendency to draw blood would make roses
less
popular, since it could turn a thriving garden into a hazard zone, but it turned out people really appreciated having an organic line of home defense. If blood appeared on the roses, they got rooted out, burned, and replaced with an electric fence essentially overnight. Until then, the yard could be regarded as halfway safe. Roses were also one of the few symbols of conspicuous consumption left to the average home owner. After all, if you could afford to replace your landscaping at the first hint of contamination, you must have been doing pretty well for yourself.

Folding chairs were set up between the cordoned-off flower beds, creating tiers of seating. The best seats were right up front, where no flowers would block the view of the governor. Those were reserved for friends, family, and people who'd already donated a lot of money to her campaign, but could potentially be convinced to open their wallets a little further. Oregon was all about the bottom line. The rest of the country was going to be about the politics.

There was a big press pen at the back of the venue, for local bloggers or newspaper people who wanted to show up but hadn't been able to secure a personal interview or permission to take photos from closer up. The small pen at the front was reserved for our team, the governor's official photographer—Herc O'Halloran, who treated every photo shoot like it was going to win him a Pulitzer—and two junior bloggers who'd won a competition at their high school. They huddled together, terrified and elated in equal measure, eyeing the rest of us with the sort of wariness that I normally only saw in the feral cats that stalked our neighborhood. Both of them wanted to go into Factual News, and had been treating Ben like he was the second coming of Anderson Cooper. Ben was pretty confused by this sort of adulation, but he'd been going gamely along with it, probably in part because he didn't have any other choice.

With the candidate imminent, the two teen journalists had returned to their seats. One was taking rapid photos of everything around him, including, I suspected, the air, while the other was whispering into a handheld recorder, face pale and eyes darting from side to side like she expected an attack at any moment. I plopped myself down in the seat next to Ben, checking that my sundress was draping correctly over my knees before I crossed my ankles and flashed him a bright smile.

“Hello, oh handsome savior of the journalistic world,” I said. “Have you passed the wisdom of your long, long lifetime on to your new acolytes?”

“Stop,” he said, heatlessly.

“She's not going to,” said Audrey, as she took the seat on my other side. “You know she's not going to. She never stops. She's like the Energizer Bunny of being a pain in the ass. Why do you continue to try to make her?”

“I believe in miracles,” he said.

I looked around and frowned. “Where's Mat?”

Ben actually cracked a smile at that. “You're not going to believe it,” he said. “I was here when it happened, and I almost don't believe it.”

“Mat has decided to retire from journalism and become a full-time makeup artist,” I guessed.

“Mat has returned to their home planet,” said Audrey.

“Ash is sort of right,” said Ben. “We were getting settled for the event when Chuck came over and asked Mat to come help with makeup.”

I breathed slowly in as I pulled the mag from my pocket and got it seated on the bridge of my nose. It was almost time for the fun to begin, and I didn't want to miss a frame. “You're kidding.”

“My hand to God,” said Ben, holding up his left hand like he was taking a Boy Scout oath.

“Damn.” I shook my head. “We may lose Mat over this campaign after all.” Chuck was Governor Kilburn's campaign manager. He made sure she was dressed for whatever event she was heading into, that her hair was always perfect, and that her makeup was never either too aggressive or too understated. He was, in short, the final arbiter of her public image, and if he was trying to sneak Mat away from us, we were going to be in for a fight.

“Don't worry,” said Audrey, bumping my shoulder with hers. “Mat might think they'd like to live the high life of movie stars and politicians, but the first time someone asks them why they're taking apart the toaster, they'll come running right back to us.”

“We are a safe harbor of blessed madness in this wonderland of excessive sanity,” said Ben gravely.

Three security staffers appeared at the front of the venue as if by magic, lining themselves up with the posts between the podium and the rose beds. They were trying to be unobtrusive. It was a nice trick for a group that averaged almost six feet in height, and came with more guns than the average bodybuilding competition. The music started a moment later, a twangy, country-accented cover of some pre-Rising pop song that I didn't recognize but knew I'd heard before. It was always something I'd heard before. If you asked the politicians of the world, the age of good music ended in the summer of 2014, before Taylor Swift dropped her first heavily political album. They wanted to evoke a more innocent, less zombie-filled age. Maybe it worked. I didn't know; I wasn't the target audience.

The applause followed the music after about thirty seconds, when Governor Kilburn appeared from the side of the rose garden and made her way toward the podium. She was casually dressed in jeans and a dark pink sweater with a draped neckline. I wondered how many of the people watching this live would recognize her red rose earrings as connected to the latest
Sailor Moon
resurgence. I tapped the arm of my mag, zooming in on her ears. Pop culture reporting wasn't so much my thing, but we probably had a baby blogger on staff by now who would be happy to dig into the governor's media tastes for a fluff piece. Or hell, maybe not so fluff. You could tell a lot about a person by what they chose to entertain themselves. If Governor Kilburn was a secret
Sailor Moon
fan, we could be looking at a girl-power campaign of celestial proportions.

The applause died down as Governor Kilburn stepped into position and cast a practiced smile at the crowd. Someone from the back shouted, “We love you, Susan!” Her smile cracked, becoming less technically perfect and a hell of a lot more sincere.

“I love you too, Portland,” she said, leaning a hairbreadth closer to the mic. “You have no idea how good it is to be home.” Cheering. “We would have made this a morning event, but I wanted to go by Powell's before I had to pack and get on the road. There's a lot of country to cover. I needed something to read—and hopefully, I'll have a job soon that takes up a lot of my time.” More cheering, this time accompanied by laughter. It was clear she knew her audience. It wasn't as clear whether she'd be able to work a crowd like this outside of Portland.