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"I…" Mahir stopped Squaring his shoulders, he looked me in the eye, and asked, "What is it you needwhat and how o up Also see who can play phone-tree We’re going to want to hold a short staff et out of here--and by ‘we,’ I ie" Becks and Alaric weren’t depart any essential supplies fro noises andwhere ere for the foreseeable future I hated the idea of lying to my crew, I hated it, but I didn’t see any alternative Not if anted to stay alive I didn’t think any of the for the enemy--Buffy was a special case--and I was pretty sure they were all willing to do whatever it took to help us spread the truth George had a gift for hiring good people, and the best thing about hiring good people is that they’ll recoood people when it comes time to expand

I would trust our staff with my life, and had, on several occasions But we couldn’t take them all with us, and thatMore cold equations If so, it was iive our location away

Mahir was clearly doing the same math I was because he looked stricken before he nodded "I’ll get the How long do you think we need?"

"Tell ’em to be online in fifteen et started can join late and try to catch up as best they can" I paused "Also… tell theesture like she did But if they want to quit without consequences, noould be the ti e first started to realize the size of the conspiracy ere facing She made sure everyone was connected--and fired them all Anybody anted to stay on could stay, but they had to sign another contract first They had to understand what they were getting into It was a big deal It was incredibly important And there just wasn’t time for that kind of theater They’d stay or they wouldn’t Anyone who’d signed on during the e knew the score, and so did anyone who’d signed on since

"All right," said Mahir He was alreadytoward the house terminal, my printout clutched in one hand

I leaned over and pluckedt fro a wan smile in his direction before I turned and started for the kitchen It was tiie to start packing, and get ready to go on the run

Bet you e’d never signed up for the Ryht has crossed my mind," I admitted "When you said, ‘Hey, Shaun, let’s be journalists,’ I’m pretty sure this part wasn’t in the brochure"

Would it have made any difference?

I paused with my hand raised to push the kitchen door open Mahir and Buffy, Maggie, Alaric, and Becks, we knew them all because of e’d chosen to do with our lives More important, they were our lives, notelse when I grew up, George would still have beco before I actually did

"Not a bit," I said, and stepped into the kitchen

I am a poet, and I as instateers:

Fuck you people and the horses you rode in on You better watch yourselves, because we are done screwing around, and we are going to take your bitch asses down

This is for Dave

--Frodalene Garcia, June 24, 2041

The world has gone insane, and you can’t get a decent pint of lager anywhere in this bloody country I think I can safely say that my schoolmates were correct when they predicted my eventual destination, and I a of Mahir Gowda, June 24, 2041

Twenty-five

The staffwent better than I was afraid it would That’s about the only good thing that I can say about it Everyone was scared, and everyone was expressing

that fear in a different way The Irere restless and pissed off about being forbidden to go into the field The Newsies were split into two distinct caet outside, and find out what the hell was going on out there, and the ones ere happy to stay as far away from the disaster zone as possible but wanted information to flow freely while they stayed indoors That’s the kind of Newsie attitude that’s always pissed me off, since it seems to come with a blanket assu their lives for the benefit of the Newsies’ careers

The Fictionals, on the other hand, were unifor inside, but were all scared out of their ents that required all business to coood at her job, maybe better than I ever realized, and not even she could keep them on track for more than a few minutes at a time After twenty minutes, I was ready to kill someone--and I wasn’t all that picky about who

Mahir saved everyone’s asses He took over the call and led it with calarten teacher, and otherwise keeping usforward He fielded every question that was tossed his way, soh that no one forgot ere there If he’d wanted to go into event planning instead of journalism, he probably could have made a fortune