Feedback by Mira Grant Page A

sliding down the hill toward polished. I hit the button to kill the cycle. The door unlatched and swung open, releasing billows of steam into the bathroom and highlighting one of the issues with my having been herded into decon like a zombie being steered into the killing chute: I had no towel, and I certainly had no clean clothes.
    As if on cue, there was a knock at the bathroom door. “You decent?” called Audrey.
    â€œYou said I was pretty damn good last night,” I called back. “If I’ve been downgraded to ‘decent,’ we’re going to have words.”
    She opened the bathroom door and let herself in, holding an armload of fabric toward me. There was a towel on the top of the pile. I grabbed it and started drying my face and hair as quickly as I could manage. Audrey watched me, something between tolerance and trepidation in her expression. It was an odd combination, especially for her. I slowed in my drying and lowered the towel, eyeing her warily.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œDon’t freak out, all right? We needed to get you into decontamination as fast as possible because of our guests—they might have decided to leave, or they might have decided to shoot you, and either way would have been bad—but I’m up here to get you ready to come down, and to tell you not to freak out.”
    â€œIf I’m getting deported…”
    â€œIf you were getting deported, I would have met you in the garage, and we’d already be fifty miles from here. Screw decontamination.” Audrey’s expression hardened for a moment, turning icy cold. Then she shook her head, and the moment passed. Thankfully. She was
scary
when she got like that. “I just need you to promise not to freak out, all right?”
    â€œAll right. I won’t freak out.” I resumed drying. “This is definitely weird, however. On the scale of one to ‘alligators in the basement,’ I feel like we’re trending closer to ‘alligators’ than anything else.”
    â€œNot a bad choice of words,” said Audrey. She took a deep breath. “Does the name ‘Susan Kilburn’ mean anything to you?”
    â€œSounds like the girl I dated when I was in sixth form, but her name was Karen, and I doubt she’d come to America just to throw our lives into a tizzy,” I said.
    â€œShe’s the governor of Oregon,” said Audrey.
    â€œAll right, that works as well,” I said. I dropped my towel, taking the panties from the pile she was holding. She’d arranged everything in the order in which it was to be used, which was remarkably clever; I usually just carried an armload of jumbled fabric in, dumped it on the sink, and picked out what I needed.
    The panties matched the bra that had been sitting beneath them. I felt the first prickle of excitement. If this was something that needed me properly put together all the way down to the skin, then this was something
big
.
    â€œShe’s one of the three primary presidential candidates being put forth by the Democrats this year,” said Audrey. “It’s her, Governor Frances Blackburn out of Maine, and Senator Eliot York out of Illinois. No one’s sure who the front-runner is going to be, but Governor Kilburn is definitely in the running.”
    â€œAll right,” I repeated agreeably, and pulled my bra on. I was still damp; the fabric stuck to the skin, forcing me to spend more time arranging myself than usual. Maybe that’s why I missed the frustrated look on Audrey’s face, and the way her smile had frozen, becoming more of a rictus.
    â€œAsh,” she said.
    I kept fighting with my bra.
    â€œAislinn,” she said.
    I looked up. “Yeah?”
    â€œGovernor Susan Kilburn, one of the Democratic candidates for President of the United States of America, is sitting in our kitchen, enjoying Mat’s attempts at small talk, while Ben tries not to hyperventilate,” said