This had not been a good day. They should have been in Los Angeles, for a rally the President had planned. Instead they were here, in Houston, a secure suite in the Intercontinental Hotel, redirected here by the President so he could publicly show support for the city in the wake of the PLF’s bombing of Westwood Baptist this morning. A bombing whose death toll might reach a thousand by night. A bombing that had killed men and women Stockton knew, friends of his, friends of Pryce’s.

A bombing that would have killed the President’s daughter, Julie, had her plans not changed at the last moment.

Could Julie Stockton have been the target? Or one of the targets? The President seemed convinced. Pryce was reserving judgment.

The nation should have been focused on Westwood Baptist, on solidarity with the city of Houston, on the epic scale of that tragedy, on the clear evil of the PLF, on the President’s message that there would be no compromise, no negotiation with these terrorists.

Instead the videos had come. The leaks.

A video of Rangan Shankari, one of the Nexus inventors, being interrogated, electroshocked, waterboarded, had leaked. It was gruesome stuff, all shown from his point of view.

That alone, Stockton could have weathered. Shankari was a convicted felon, guilty of violations of the Chandler act.

But then another video had been posted, just hours later. This one showed Nexus children in cure experiments, being subjected to aversive therapy as an attempt to flush Nexus from their system, being disciplined by their guards when they tried to bite or claw their way free.

Pryce had winced at that. How could you possibly explain that to the public? And when it was leaked along with plans for long term residence centers for Nexus-afflicted children? Plans that were already being referred to online as “concentration camps”?

However historically blind the comparison, it was resonating.

Text appeared on her slate, letters in green across the glossy black.

[Kaori: DHS IA just got in. Holtzman’s dead. Imagery follows.]

Pictures came next. Pryce opened one, let her eyes scan across the scene, then opened another, and another.

Damn it.

She looked up. From the wallscreen she heard Holtzman say, “PLF is a lie… you created.” A flash of lightning clearly illuminated Maximilian Barnes. Then the image went dead.

“It’s a fake,” John Stockton said, his voice a masterpiece of barely controlled anger. “It’s absurd.”

“Absolutely, Mr President,” a man replied from across the room. Greg Chase. Stockton’s Press Secretary. Trim and ram-rod straight in a sleek grey suit and a healthy tan with the matching blonde hair. Never a thing out of place. Always the perfect talking points, whatever policy you handed him. She was never sure whether she loathed Chase or was happy that Stockton had someone like him to do that job.

“Find Holtzman and Barnes,” the President said, “get them in front of the camera…”