study law and follow in her father’s footsteps. She’d been riding since she was old enough to walk; that’s how she was able to bridle that postamplification horse and get her baby sisters off the grounds. She was a real American hero—at least, that’s what all the papers and news sites say. Even mine.
If you’ll allow a reporter her brief moment of sentiment, I’d like to tell you about the Rebecca that I met, if only for a moment, in the words and the faces of her parents.
Rebecca Ryman was a teenage girl. She was petulant. She was sulky. She hated being asked to sit for her sisters on a Friday night, especially when there was a new Byron Bloom movie opening. She liked to read trashy romances and eat ice cream straight from the container, and nothing made her happier than working with the horses. She stayed home from the Republican National Convention partially to get ready for college and partially to be with the horses. Because of that decision, she died, and her sisters lived. She couldn’t save her grandparents or the men who worked the ranch, but she saved her sisters, and in the end, what more could anyone have asked of her?
I told her parents she was dead. That, if nothing else, qualifies me to say this:
Rebecca, you will be deeply missed.
Thirteen
The funeral services for Rebecca Ryman and her grandparents were held a week after the convention at the family ranch. The delay wasn’t for mourning or to allow family members time to travel; that’s how long it took for regional authorities to downgrade the ranch from a Level 2 hazard zone to a Level 5. It was still illegal to enter unarmed, but now at least nonmilitary personnel could enter unescorted. The area would return to its original Level 7 designation if it could go three years without signs of further contamination. Until then, even the kids would need to carry weapons at all times.
Most public opinion held that it wouldn’t matter how long it took for the hazard rating to drop; no family would choose to stay in a home and a profession—viewed by many as a dangerous, glorified hobby—that claimed the life of one of their children. They said the ranch would be long deserted by the time that happened.
I wish I could say that attitude was confined to the conservative fringe, but it wasn’t. Within six hours of Rebecca’s death, half the children’s safety advocacy groups were clamoring for tighter guidelines and attempting to organize legislation that would make the life led by the Rymans illegal. No more early riding classes or family farms; they wanted it shut down, shut down now, and shut down hard. It wasn’t a surprise to anyone but the Rymans, I think: Peter and Emily never attempted to map out the scenarios leading to the martyrdom of their eldest daughter, and so they’d never considered what a boon her death would be to certain organizations. Americans for the Children was the worst. Its “Remember Rebecca” campaign was entirely legal and entirely sleazy, although its attempts to use pictures of Jeanne and Amber had been quashed by the Rymans’ legal team. It didn’t matter. The images of Rebecca with her horses—and of postamplification horses attempting to disembowel the federal authorities putting them down—had already done their damage.
In the chaos and noise surrounding the outbreak at the ranch, it wasn’t really a surprise that Senator Ryman’s selection of a running mate barely made anyone’s radar, save for the hardcore politicos who couldn’t care less that people were dead… and me. I wasn’t surprised, although I must admit that I was more than slightly disappointed when it was announced that Governor Tate would accompany Senator Ryman on the ballot. It was a good, balanced ticket; it would carry most of the country, and it stood a good chance of putting Senator Ryman in the White House. The tragedy at the ranch had already put him twenty points up on his opponent in the early polls. The Democratic candidate, Governor Frances Blackburn, was a solid politician with an excellent record of service, but she couldn’t compete with a teenage heroine who sacrificed herself to save her sisters. This early in the race, people weren’t voting for the candidate. They were voting for his daughter. And she was winning.
My team and I offered to head back to California until after the services. While our contract with the senator said “constant access,” there’s a difference between honest reporting and playing the ghoul. Let the local news film the funeral. We’d do our laundry, give Buffy a chance to upgrade the equipment, and introduce Rick to the parents. Nothing says “crash course in working as a team” like starting with a major political convention, then moving on to meeting my mother on her home turf. Shaun can seem like a minor natural disaster sometimes, but Mom’s
That plan was scotched on the drawing board by Senator Ryman, who took me aside the day after the convention and informed me that it would mean a great deal to everyone if we would attend—and cover—the funeral. Rebecca loved our coverage of the elections, and given his position as the Republican Party candidate, he knew there would be reporters trying to get in to report on the funeral. This way, he’d know the press was reputable.
What was I supposed to say? Buffy can order most of what she needs online, and they have Laundromats everywhere. The only thing that might have been a sticking point was Rick, since he was still moving his personal belongings out of the hotel that had been the base camp for the Wagman campaign, but I didn’t anticipate it being much of a problem. He’d been forced to hit the ground running, and he’d done it without a murmur of complaint. His footage of Senator Ryman’s acceptance speech was top-notch, especially after we had cut it with the video feed of the assault on the ranch. Our viewer numbers have jumped more than eighteen percent since the convention, and they’re still climbing; I attribute it partially to adding Rick to the team. No one else got an exclusive on the Wagman pullout. Add that to the acceptance and the tragedy, and well…
Sometimes in the news, “luck” is just a matter of “capitalizing on someone else’s pain.”
March in Wisconsin is very different from March in California. The day of the funeral was gray and cold, with patches of snow dotting the struggling lawn of the O’Neil family cemetery. Emily’s family had been in the area long enough to have their own graveyard. If the old zombie flicks had been right about the dead clawing their way out of the ground, the funeral would have been a blood bath.
Fortunately, that’s one detail the movies got wrong. The earth was smooth beneath its uneven blanket of snow, save for the darker, recently dug patches in front of three headstones near the west wall. Folding chairs were set up on the central green and people sat close together, steadfastly not looking toward the displaced ground. A woman who bore a vague resemblance to Peter—enough that I was willing to tentatively place her as a cousin, if not a sister—murmured to her companion, “They’re so
Of course. Cemeteries are an oddity in this modern world; since most bodies are cremated, there’s no need for them unless you’re fabulously wealthy, strongly religious, or clinging to tradition with both hands. When you do have an actual burial, you’re not looking at the iconic rectangles of disturbed earth that you find in pre-Rising movies. Modern graves are little circles in the grass, big enough to hold a handful of ash.
The mingled Ryman and O’Neil clans were dressed in the mourning editions of their Sunday best: all blacks and charcoal grays, with the occasional hint of off-white or cream in someone’s shirtfront or blouse. Even the little girls, Jeanne and Amber, were wearing black velvet. Shaun, Buffy, and I were the only attendees who weren’t related to the family; the senator’s security detail—a combination of the campaign agents and the new guys from the Secret Service—had stopped at the cemetery gates, guarding the perimeter without disturbing the ceremony. We were the privileged few, and everyone knew it. More than a few unpleasant looks had been tossed our way by the relatives as we moved into position.
Not that I cared. We were there for Peter, for Emily, and for the news. What the rest of the family thought didn’t matter.
“… and so we have come together, in the sight of God, to commend the mortal remains of His beloved children into His keeping, to be held in trust, no longer subject to the dangers of the world, until the day we may be reunited in the Kingdom of Heaven,” said the priest. “For His is the Kingdom, the life and the glory, and through His grace may we be granted everlasting life. Let us pray.” The family bowed their heads. So did Buffy, who was raised to a faith beyond “tell the truth, know the escape routes, and always carry extra ammunition.”
Shaun and I didn’t bow. Someone has to keep the lookout. After checking to make sure my shoulder cameras were still recording on an even keel, I turned my head, surveying the cemetery. It was completely indefensible; the
