The volume was off, but a headline on the screen read: Consular Candidates Make Campaign Stops. Justin had to read it twice. “He’s…running for consul?”
The saleswoman, who’d seemed quite charmed by Justin when he came in, now looked at him like he was crazy. “How can you not know that?”
“Even I know that,” said Tessa, timidly stepping out in the pink dress.
“You live in front of the screen,” he said. He glanced back at the beaming senator as he shook hands with a crowd. “What the hell did he do to his hair? Are those highlights?”
“They’re hot,” said the saleswoman.
Justin didn’t dignify that with a response and instead tried to focus on Tessa and the dress. The bold color contrasted with her nervousness, but overall, the look transformed her. She looked like a typical Gemman girl.
“It’s cute,” he told her fondly. Tessa blushed with pleasure.
“Where would I wear this?” she asked.
“We’ll find a place,” he assured her. “Maybe the Feriae—the summer holidays.”
Or maybe a date, suggested Horatio slyly. Only a matter of time before boys come calling. Time to get a taste of your own medicine.
Shut up, Justin told him.
In the end, at Justin’s urging, Tessa ended up with two dresses. As the saleswoman wrapped them up, Justin asked Tessa, “Tell me about Lucian, media expert. Why is he running for consul?”
She looked startled but proved to be a diligent reporter. “Because he wants to run the country? I don’t know. But he’s on the news every day. He’s one of the most popular candidates. They make a lot of jokes about his name, and his big thing is that it’s time to progress into the next phase. He says the Age of Decline is over and that the Age of Renewal should be too, that it’s time for something bigger and greater. His campaign slogan is ‘Ushering in the New Age.’”
“Catchy. I knew that outstanding memory of yours would come in handy,” he told her.
Tessa smiled at him as she accepted the bag from the saleswoman. “His opponents give him a hard time about it not being specific enough. They call it ‘Darling’s Unknown Age’ and ‘Age of X.’ Do you know him?”
“He was my college roommate,” Justin said, still unable to believe this development. He’d always thought Lucian had gone into politics only to get wined and dined by lobbyists, a theory backed by Lucian’s having been on the most brainless senate committees available. How did one go from that to consul?
“You guys have the same smile, you know,” said Tessa after several moments of thought. “Did you guys practice with each other?”
Justin headed for the door. “He stole it from me.”
His first task for SCI actually wasn’t a visit to the murder sites or even the religious groups he’d tagged as possible culprits. He’d meant what he said to Cornelia: He had someone he was certain could crack the video. If it really was faked. The problem was, his contact was being annoyingly uncooperative. Leo Chan was the best biotech engineer Justin had ever met, one Justin had eventually used exclusively because everyone else looked like an amateur in comparison. Apparently in the last four years, though, Leo had given up his government job for the private sector and relocated to Portland. Leo had been wary when Justin called, and refused the invitation to come up to Vancouver. That meant Justin had to go to Portland, since he wasn’t allowed to send that dangerous video through the stream. It had to be delivered in person.
The morning of the trip, Justin got up early to go jogging. It had sort of become a mandatory practice after resuming his Exerzol habit. Exerzol was a hundred times better than caffeine when it came to focus and alertness, though not nearly as powerful as a similar one he’d found in Panama. Unlike that sketchy drug, however, Exerzol was much less likely to give him a heart attack. It always hit him with a jolt in the mornings, providing a burst of nervous energy that had immediately been apparent to Cynthia. “Do not hang around this house high,” she warned him the first time she’d noticed the rush. There’d been a look in her eyes he knew all too well, one that only a fool would cross.
And so, jogging became his way of dealing with Exerzol’s exuberant entrance. An hour loop through their sedate suburb usually brought him back down to a reasonable energy level, and the exercise wasn’t a bad thing anyway. Living in a world of bodyguards and constant threats in Panama had encouraged him to stay in good shape, and he didn’t want to lose that now.
As he returned to the house that morning, he found Mae approaching. He didn’t really think his trip to Leo required a bodyguard, but SCI had been adamant that she be his shadow whenever he conducted any official business.
“What’s that look for?” he asked her.