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whiteboards, and generally creating the sort of hurricane of productive activity that signals absolutely nothing happening.

The senator was at the head of the table with his head in his hands, creating an island of stillness in the heart of the chaos. Carlos flanked him to the left, and as we crossed the threshold, Steve abandoned us to cut across the room and flank Senator Ryman to the right. Something must have alerted the senator to Steve’s presence because he raised his head, looking first toward the bodyguard and then toward us. One by one, the bustling aides stopped what they were doing and followed the direction of the senator’s gaze.

I raised a can of soda and popped the tab.

The sound seemed to snap the senator out of his fugue. He sat up, clearing his throat. “Shaun. Georgia. If the two of you wouldn’t mind taking your seats, we can get things started.”

“Thanks for holding the briefing until we got here,” I said, moving toward one of the open chairs and setting my MP3 recorder on the table. “Sorry we took so long.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, waving a hand. “I know how late you were out with the cleanup crews. A little sleep is hardly repayment for going above and beyond the call of duty like that.”

“In that case, I’d like some groupies,” said Shaun, settling in the chair next to mine. I kicked him in the shin. He yelped but grinned, unrepentant.

“I’ll see what we can do.” The senator rose, rapping his knuckles against the table. The last small eddies of conversation in the room died, all attention sliding back to him. Even Buffy stopped typing as the senator leaned forward, hands on the table, and said, “Now that we’re all here… how the hell did that happen?” His voice never rose above a conversational level. “We lost four guards last night, three of them at our own front gate. What happened to the concept of security? Did I miss the meeting where we decided that zombies weren’t something we needed to be concerned about anymore?”

One of the aides cleared his throat and said, “Well, sir, it looks like there was a power short on the anterior detection unit, which resulted in the doors failing to shut fast enough to prevent the incursion from—”

“Speak English at this table or I will fire you so fast you’ll wind up standing at the airport wondering how the hell you got from here to there without any goddamn pants on,” the senator snapped. The aide responded by paling and dropping the papers he’d been holding. “Can anyone here tell me what happened and how, in simple English words of two syllables or less?”

“Your screamer wasn’t working,” said Buffy. Every head in the room turned to her. She shrugged. “Every perimeter rig has a screamer built in. Yours didn’t switch on.”

“A screamer being…?” asked one of the aides.

“A heat-sensitive motion sensor,” said Chuck Wong. He looked anxious—and with good reason. Most of his job involves the design and maintenance of the convoy’s automated perimeter defenses. If there’d been a mechanical failure, it was technically his fault. “They scan moving objects for heat as well as motion. Anything below a certain range sets off an alert of possible zombies in the area.”

“A really fresh one can fool a screamer, but the packs we saw last night were too mixed for that. They should have set off the alerts, and they didn’t.” Buffy shrugged again. “That means we had a screamer failure.”

“Chuck? Care to tell us why that happened?”

“I can’t. Not until we can arrange for a physical inspection of the equipment.”

“It’s arranged. Carlos, get three of your men and take Chuck for an inspection run. Report back as soon as you have anything.” Carlos nodded, heading for the door. Three of the other bodyguards moved away from the walls and followed, not waiting to be asked.

“I’ll need my equipment—” Chuck protested.

“Your equipment should be with the convoy, and since that’s where you’re going, I’m sure you’ll have everything you need,” the senator said. There was no arguing with his tone. Chuck obviously saw that. He stood, thin-boned hands twitching by his sides as he turned toward the door.

“Mind if I go along?” asked Buffy. The room looked at her again. She flashed her most winning smile. “I’m pretty good at seeing why field equipment decided to fry. Maybe I could be a second opinion.”

And maybe she could get us some footage for a follow-up report. I nodded, and caught the senator watching the gesture before he, in turn, began to nod. “Thank you for volunteering, Miss Meissonier. I’m sure the group will be glad to have you along.”

“I’ll ring back,” Buffy said, and hopped off the counter, trotting out the door after Chuck and the bodyguards.

“There she goes,” Shaun muttered.

“Jealous?” I asked.

“Tech geeks trying to figure out why a screamer broke? Please. I’ll be jealous if she comes back saying there were actual dead guys to play with.”

“Right.” He was jealous. I folded my arms, returning my attention to the senator.

He wasn’t looking his best. He was leaning forward with his hands braced against the table, but it was clear even in that well-supported position that he hadn’t had nearly as much sleep as Shaun and I. His hair was uncombed, his shirt was wrinkled, and his collar was open. He looked like a man who’d been faced with the unexpected, and now, after a little time to consider the situation, was getting ready to ride out and kick its ass.

“Folks, whatever the cause of last night’s catastrophe, the facts are this: We lost four good men and three potential supporters right before the first round of primaries. This does not send a good message to the people. This sort of thing doesn’t say ‘Vote Ryman, he’ll protect you.’ If anything, it says ‘Vote Ryman if you want to get eaten.’ This isn’t our message, and I refuse to let it become our message, even though that’s the way my opponents are going to try to spin it. What’s our game plan?” He glared around the room. “Well?”

“Sir, the bloggers—”

“Will be staying for this little chat. We try covering it up, they’ll report it a lot less kindly when they manage to root it out. Now please, can we get down to business?”

That seemed to be the cue the room had been waiting for. The next forty minutes passed in a blaze of points and counterpoints, with the senator’s advisors arguing the finer aspects of spin while his security heads protested any attempts to categorize their handling of the campaign to date as “lax” or “insufficient.” Shaun and I sat and listened. We were there as observers, not participants, and after the argument had a little time to develop, it seemed as if most of the room forgot we were there at all. One camp held that they needed to minimize media coverage of the attack, make the requisite statements of increased vigilance, and move on. The other camp held that full openness was the only way to get through an incident of this magnitude without taking damage from other political quarters. Both camps had to admit that the reports released on our site the night before were impacting their opinions, although neither seemed aware of exactly how much traffic those reports had drawn. I opted not to inform them. Observing the political process without interfering with it is sometimes more entertaining than it sounds.

One of the senator’s advisors was beginning a rant on the evils of the modern media when my ear cuff beeped. I rose, moving to the back of the room before I answered. “Georgia here.”

“Georgia, it’s Buffy. Can you patch me to the speakerphone?”

I paused. She sounded harried. More than that, she sounded openly nervous. Not frightened, which meant she probably wasn’t being harassed by zombies or rival bloggers, but nervous. “Sure, Buff. Give me a second.” I strode back to the table and leaned across two of the arguing aides to grab the speaker phone. They squawked protests, but I ignored them, yanking off my ear cuff and snapping it into the transmission jack at the base of the phone.

“Miss Mason?” inquired the senator, eyebrows rising.

“Sorry, this is important.” I hit the Receive button.

“…testing, testing,” said Buffy’s voice, crackling slightly through the speaker. “Am I live?”

“We can hear you, Miss Meissonier,” said the senator. “May I ask what was so important that it required breaking in on our conference?”

Chuck Wong spoke next; apparently, ours wasn’t the only end on speakerphone. “We’re at the perimeter fence, sir, and it seemed important that we call you as quickly as possible.”