Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(3)
Still, in moments like these, it would be delicious to face the vid-emote recorder and utter a cheesy chess line like, “Queen takes your everything. Check. Mate.”
In prep for this remote interview, mech-Daniel—the high-tech, human-skinned mechanized clone built as a physically identical replacement for her husband—had set up their hotel suite with enough lights to fry a vampire. Angela perched in a hard-backed chair right in the middle, trying to come off as cool and in control despite the pancake cosmetics that threatened to melt under this broiler.
Zeke was going to owe her big time for this, but when he was reelected to the continental presidency, she had a couple of ideas for how he could repay her. How they all could repay her.
She flashed her sincerest furrow-down-the-middle-brow frown, clasped her gloved hands, and addressed the empty space that, in the editing room half a continent away, was being filled with a real-time holo of her interviewer, Rafael Castrejon, one of just a couple of media mavens she had met with in person. Trusted a little. Trusted enough. “I know it’s hard to believe, Rafa, but every word is true.”
The skin behind her left ear tingled as the psych-emitter engaged her neural net. She channeled worry/compassion/dismay, letting the emotional cocktail shiver her body. The implanted web over her brain recorded everything and ran it through the emotion translator, so her loyal fans/constituents could experience her reaction as if they were in her head, in her place. People trusted a leader who felt things. People trusted Angela.
“Let us be clear,” Rafael said, leaning forward in his chair, his color-enhanced eyes pooling liquid for the cameras. All over the unified continent, channel subscribers would be holding their breaths, awaiting his question. “Are you accusing the leadership of the Texas Provisional Authority of somehow causing Superstorm Agatha? That’s…” He chuckled, as if he considered his own words absurd. “That’s a serious charge, Senator. I mean, we don’t want to start a war here.”
Except starting a war was exactly what she was trying to do.
Angela didn’t allow herself even the tiniest eye roll. Instead, she firmed her mouth, took a deep, steadying breath, and said, “War might not be the right word, Rafa. We don’t recognize the TPA as a state. They’re violent extremists, domestic terrorists, and any action against them would be considered law enforcement or interior security at this time. However, yes, unequivocally I’m saying that Damon Vallejo and his rebel technocrats engineered the storm that destroyed Houston. I have proof.”
Statistics from the feeds of channel subscribers hung steady for a heartbeat, then climbed. In Las Cruces, critical subscriber, gossip hound, and uber-pollster Ursula Dioda sent a network-wide “high!alert!news” message. Way to work it, Dioda. The ripple of interest from her point of origin was logarithmic. Seventeen thousand logged-in subscribers cast similar nets out to their audiences. The feed stats soared.
Hopefully, somewhere, Zeke’s poll numbers were going up, too.
A bead of sweat formed between Angela’s shoulder blades, but her mask remained in place: caring, brave, resolute, the face of leadership. She concentrated on projecting matching emotions through the psych-emitter.
Deliberately she laid out her evidence, one bread crumb at a time. Ten years ago in Texas, Damon Vallejo had been in charge of the lab working on nanorobotic cloud seeding, weather displacement, and environmental engineering. Vallejo wouldn’t have developed the tech himself, but somebody in his lab had, and the research had been within his easy grasp, as had a particularly large not-otherwise-dedicated nanovat. Angela had recently uncovered transfer records for that vat, which had conveniently disappeared shortly after Superstorm Agatha.
Meaning Vallejo likely used it, a one-shot, to cause that goddamn storm. It was easy to build a narrative that he was the most prolific mass murderer in the history of the world.
A monster like that needed to be stopped. By Angela’s government.
The creation of a war ministry and her appointment as its head hovered so close now, she could taste it.
Rafa let her build her case, and then he paused, leaving a silence for viewers to fill with their own burgeoning horror. Finally he said, “So Damon Vallejo is actually alive?”
“Absolutely. He was captured by our special commando units during the Austin riots, but the TPA negotiated his release recently as part of our ongoing efforts to secure a lasting peace with the rebels.” She laid out the fresh meat for predator gossips to devour, and they went after it. Like piranhas. Everyone with a moderate-interest current-events profile would have the story in their newsfeed now. Angela blinked slowly, catching the green upward-pointed arrow and the notation “2%” on her heads-up display. A polling boost. Well, that was quick.
“How recently?” Rafa asked.
“Seventeen days ago.”
“Which coincides with…”
“It does indeed.”
Rafa raised the back of his hand to his mouth and engaged some sort of vasoconstrictive trickery that made him go pale beneath his smooth olive complexion. Chemical reaction to an ingestible? Or permanent body alteration? Regardless of the source, Angela coveted it. Despite her best attempts at control over body and mind and her famous unflappability, she still blushed inconveniently sometimes.
Though it had been a while. She missed the things that made her blush.
“The Red River drone attacks began again at roughly the same time. We believe Vallejo is behind those horrific crimes as well. He and his bombastic miscreants from Texas are a threat to our way of life, to our very civilization. We would be foolish to continue peace talks with a partner who cannot be trusted.” She leaned forward slightly, as if she were actually talking to Rafa and not a pasted-on holo of his form. “But I will say this. If the people of the United North American Nations reelect Ezekiel Medina as their president next week, these evils perpetrated by the Texas Provisional Authority, and its ruthless leader Damon Vallejo, will stop. We will bring Vallejo and Texas to justice.”