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have the National Guard deliver one if necessary. And our network is satellite-linked. Just plug the little antennae they gave us into a USB port and install the software. You obviously haven’t read your adjournment instructions.”
    “No. Been busy reading the damned newspapers. Whole mother-loving country is in an outright panic. Looting, robberies, hoarding, running to the hills. Businesses shutting their doors. And the stock exchange closed! Now they’re doing all trading electronically. Tell me that isn’t an invitation for disaster.”
    “The overwhelming majority of stock transactions have been done that way for more than a decade now, Wade. The exchange floor is a relic, something for tourists to go see. You need to get with the times.”
    “My constituency doesn’t want a man who gets with the times. They want a man who holds to the tried and true, and, most importantly, keeps the potheads and gun control freaks up in your district.”
    “Man?” Carol said.
    “They haven’t elected a woman yet.” Wade tossed back his drink. “As I’m sure you’re aware. All you liberals up there know better than to set foot in my town.”
    “Don’t look now but we’re coming.”
    “Only if you’re fleeing the big city in a panic. Otherwise, no one’s going anywhere until this thing plays out.”
    Carol sighed. “How do you think it will play out?”
    “They’ll come up with a vaccine. If you can vaccinate one kind of flu, you can learn how to do it for any of them. But it takes time to develop. The question is how many people are going to die first. And what will happen to our country’s infrastructure in the meantime.”
    “I don’t know why I ask you those kinds of questions.” Carol took a swig of gin directly from the mini-bottle. “You never know what you’re talking about.” Her voice was suddenly raspy.
    “That’s just an act, sweetheart. I know more than I let on.”
    The pilot announced they were on their final approach to Buckley Air Force Base. The passengers, mostly air force officers with a dozen or so legislators mixed in, fastened their seatbelts.
    “Poor Phil,” Carol said. “I’m going to visit his family. I’d ask if you want to come along, but I already know—”
    “Wait a week,” Wade said. “By then you’ll probably know whether to bring a casserole or not.”
    “You really are an ass.”
    “Sorry. No disrespect intended. I love Phil, you know that. It’s a good thing we all got the hell out of Washington, or the virus alone would have taken us below quorum. We’re damn fortunate our ranks weren’t reduced by more than ten or twelve percent, whatever it is.”
    “Thirty-eight from the house and twenty from the senate, last I heard.” Carol turned on her iPad and started playing some stupid-looking game that involved matching up pieces of candy.
    Wade only shook his head. Technology. In the end, that might prove to be all it was ever good for—playing stupid games.
     
    * * *
     
    Jenny turned on her iPad. Clint expected her to start playing the candy-matching game, but instead she opened Facebook.
    “How’re your folks?” Clint asked.
    “Called mom yesterday. Forgot to tell you. Leah was there with the kids, so she didn’t talk long. Had that tone of voice she gets when her grandkids are around.”
    “Like Leah’s the good daughter and you’re the bad one?”
    “Yep.”
    “Honey, I’d be happy to try and help you make them some more grandkids right now, but the guys will be here in a few minutes.”
    “That joke’s gotten old, Clint.”
    “Sorry. Your family’s not freaking out? I half expected them to come out here and stay with us by now.”
    “Ha! That’ll be the day. They said only a few cases have turned up in Pensacola so far. Not like the Miami area. I don’t think they’d get ever get desperate enough to ask me for help. Not until they were the last healthy people in Florida, anyway. And a food distribution center is setting up right