We both have our own ways of dealing with crazy. That?s why Super Tuesday found Shaun off with every other Irwin who?d shown up to cover the convention, looking for dead things to irritate, while I was packed onto a bus with six dozen other deeply uncomfortable-looking reporters, heading for the convention center. I didn?t know why they looked so uneasy; I had to get my press pass scanned three times and my blood tested twice before they?d even let me board. The only way anyone was going into conversion before we hit the convention center was if they suffered from cardiac arrest from the strain of being surrounded by other human beings.
A tense-looking man whose shirt was deformed in a way that telegraphed ?I am wearing poorly fitted Kevlar? got onto the bus, and the driver announced, ?We are at capacity. This bus is now departing for the convention center.? This garnered a smattering of applause from the riders, most of whom looked like they were rethinking their choice of careers. No one ever told them that being a reporter would mean talking to people!
If it seems as if I have little respect for the other members of my profession, that?s because it?s true: I frequently don?t. For every Dennis Stahl who?s willing to go out and chase down the story, you have three or four ?reporters? who?d rather edit together remotely taped feeds, interview their subjects by phone, and never leave their homes. There?s a fairly popular news site, Under the Lens, that makes that one of their selling points: They claim they must be truly objective, because none of their Newsies ever go into the field. None of them have Class A licenses, and they act like this is something to brag about, like being distanced from the news is a good thing. If the paparazzi clouds serve one purpose, it?s keeping that attitude from spreading.
Fear makes people stupid, and Kellis-Amberlee has had people scared for the last twenty years. There comes a point when you need to get over the fear and get on with your life, and a lot of people don?t seem to be capable of that anymore. From blood tests to gated communities, we have embraced the cult of fear, and now we don?t seem to know how to put it back where it belongs.
The ride to the convention center was almost silent, punctuated only by the various beeps and whirrs of people?s equipment recalibrating as we passed in and out of the various service zones and secure bands. Wireless tech has reached the point where you?d practically have to be in the middle of the rain forest or standing on an iceberg in uncharted waters to be truly ?out of service,? but privacy fields and encryption have progressed at roughly the same rate, which frequently results in service being present but unavailable unless you have the security keys.
No one?s supposed to interfere with the standard phone service channels. This doesn?t stop overenthusiastic security crews from occasionally blanking everything but the emergency bands. It was amusingly easy to spot the freelance journalists in the crowd: They were the ones hitting their PDAs against their palms, like this would somehow make the proper security keys for the convention center access points appear. Fortunately for the security techs of the world, this approach has yet to work for anyone, and the freelancers were still quietly abusing their equipment when we reached the convention center.
The bus stop was located in the underground parking garage, in a clear, well-lighted area equidistant from both the entrance and exit. The bus approached, the entry gate rose; the bus entered the garage, the gate descended. Assuming it was a standard security setup, there were circuit breakers in place to prevent the entry and exit gates from opening at the same time, and sounding the internal alarm would cause them both to descend and lock. In modern security design, ?death trap? isn?t always a bad phrase. The idea is minimizing casualties, not preventing them entirely.
Blank-faced security men approached the bus as the doors opened, each holding a blood testing kit. I bit back a groan as I exited and approached the first free guard, adjusting the strap of my shoulder bag before extending my hand toward him. He slipped the unit over my hand and clamped it down.
?Press pass,? he said.
?Georgia Mason, After the End Times.? I unclipped the pass from my shirt and offered it to him. ?I?m with Senator Ryman?s group.?
He fed the pass into the scanner at his waist. It beeped and popped the pass out again. He handed it back and glanced at the testing unit, which was showing a flashing green light. He frowned. ?Please remove the glasses, Ms. Mason.?
Lovely. Some of the extremely sensitive units can get confused by the elevated levels of inactive virus particles caused by retinal KA. I didn?t exactly want to expose my eyes to the harsh lights of the parking garage, but I didn?t feel like getting shot as a security precaution either. I removed by sunglasses, fighting the urge to squint.