Soon, I remembered the EMP outside at the rear exit. I popped back into the lobby, then around the corridor to the stairwell that I calculated would lead down to the door where I had left the device. It would be an emergency exit of course, and I would have to be quick. When I got there, I eyed it carefully—the thick metallic door, the large red lettering informing “Alarm Will Sound.” If I could just open it lighting fast, grab it and jolt back up the stairs, maybe the brief siren would be muddled by the screaming monkeys
above and I could quickly melt into the crowd without being seen. But just then, I heard voices outside the door, serious voices. Creeping closer, ear to the cold metal, I heard also radio chatter, a static voice through a walkietalkie, and I heard the word: “Explosive.” Shit! They found the device, and they had it all wrong! But what did they care? I’d be hung for sure on this one.

I raced back up and came out of the stairwell, walking quickly away and back toward the main hall to get lost in the herd. Looking behind, I noticed a couple of uniformed officers rushing outside, walkies in hand, and a man in a suit following quickly at their heels. I turned back. Don’t look! Shit. They’ve got to have cameras outside or in those stairwells, I thought. The hammer is coming down for sure.

I drew briefly into the hall to catch a glimpse. My experiment gone awry, the least I could do was gain proof of the effervescent super‐governor from Alaska. And there she was. And she was real. Lord help us. But me first, I thought. Just let me get out of this city and back on a plane without a longer criminal record.

With no solid interviews, no proven hypotheses about the existence of cyborgs, and my heart racing against the modern advances of fingerprinting and video enhancement, I had time barely to gather my suitcase and pills, get to the airport, and buy a stupid T‐shirt. I wore it onto the plane. People looked at me funny from all directions, but that was a good thing. Take their attention away from my face, I thought—which would surely be on the evening news and in the hands of airport security—black and white and pixelated from stairwell security cameras, but clear enough for an arrest.

The shirt read simply: “I went to the Republican National Concession, and all I got was this stupid T‐shirt and a badge named Annie.”