Lock In (Lock In, #1)(88)

“He looks like an ant,” I said. “Which for my father is pretty impressive.”

“We could get closer to the stage if you want,” she said. “The rumor is, you know a guy.”

“I do,” I said. “But I think we’re fine where we are.”

Vann and I stood at the periphery of the crowd, far down the Mall from the stage and the speeches.

“No riots,” Vann said. “I wouldn’t have put money on that yesterday morning.”

“I think the Hubbard thing took the air out of those sails,” I said. News of Hubbard’s and Schwartz’s arrests was significant enough to escape the news dead zone of a late Saturday afternoon. We made sure that everyone had as much information as they wanted on the details. Saturday night in D.C. was no more filled with incident than most Saturday nights. Sunday was Sunday.

“We dodged a bullet,” Vann said, agreeing. “In a general sense. You took several.”

“Yes,” I said. “If I have learned anything this week, it’s to invest in economy threeps. I can’t afford this sort of attrition.”

“Yes, you can,” Vann said.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “I can. But I don’t want to.”

We walked the Mall, her in her sling and me in a borrowed threep. She glanced back toward the stage. “You could have been up there,” she said. “Standing there with your father. You’re still famous enough that you could have given his deal with the Navajo even more credibility.”

“No,” I said. “Dad’s got credibility to burn, even after this week. And I don’t want that life anymore. There’s a reason I’m an FBI agent, Vann. I want to be useful for something else other than as a poster child.”

“The Hadens could still use a poster child,” Vann said. “Abrams-Kettering still takes effect at midnight. Things are going to get harder from here. A lot harder.”

“Someone else can do that job,” I said. “I think I’m better at doing this job.”

“You are,” Vann said. “At least this week you were.”

“They’re not all like this, right?” I said. “The weeks, I mean.”

“Would it be so bad if they were?” Vann asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes. It would.”

“I did say I was going to ask a lot of you,” Vann said. “On that first day. You remember.”

“I remember,” I said. “I’m not going to lie to you. I kind of just thought you were trying to scare me.”

Vann smiled and patted my shoulder. “Relax, Shane,” she said. “It gets better from here.”

“I hope so,” I said.

“Excuse me,” someone said. We looked over and there was a threep, standing with a few other people. It pointed to Vann. “You’re that FBI agent. The one that arrested Lucas Hubbard.”

“Yes,” Vann said. “One of them.”

“How cool!” the threep said, and then motioned at the group. “Would you mind? If we got a picture?”

“No,” Vann said. “Be happy to.”

“Awesome,” the threep said. Then it and the group began to crowd around Vann. One of them handed me a camera.

“Would you mind?” she asked.

“Not at all,” I said. “Everybody crowd in.” They crowded in.

“You’re loving this, aren’t you,” Vann said.

“Just a little,” I said. “Now. Everyone say ‘cheese.’”





Acknowledgments

As always, I think it’s important to acknowledge the people behind the scenes at my publisher, Tor Books, who make such an effort to getting my books to you. This time around, these include Patrick Nielsen Hayden, my editor; Miriam Weinberg, his assistant; Irene Gallo, art director; Peter Lutjen, cover designer; Heather Saunders, interior designer; and Christina MacDonald, copy editor. Also Alexis Saarela, my publicist, and of course Tom Doherty, publisher of Tor.

It’s also important to thank Ethan Ellenberg, my agent, and Evan Gregory, who handles my foreign sales. They do a frankly fantastic job for me, and I’m lucky to have them.

Thanks also to Steve Feldberg at Audible and to Gillian Redfearn at Gollancz.

Many thanks to friends and readers who have cheered me on and/or been there as welcome distractions when I needed to be distracted. This list is very long, so rather than list it out, assume that you’re on it. Thanks, y’all.

I really mostly just want to thank my wife, Kristine Blauser Scalzi. I wrote this book in 2013, which was in many important ways a really amazing year for me (I won a Hugo for Best Novel in it, for Redshirts, as just one salient example), but also very, very stressful. Simply put, she was the one who had to put up with me. That she did so with love and patience and encouragement instead of strangling me, throwing my remains into a wood chipper, and then pretending she had never been married to me at all is a testament to the fact that she is, in fact, the single best person I know. I love her more than I actually express in words—an irony for a writer—and am every day genuinely amazed I get to spend my life with her.

I try to let her know how much I appreciate her, as often as I can. This is me letting the rest of you know, too. You have this book because of her.