“It’s Mrs. Emerson to you, Captain.” She turned her back on Magill and headed back toward her office in Maggie’s Place. Entering through the front door, she stopped at the second table she came to, turned and waited for them to join her.

When MacIntosh and Magill were in place, she pointed at the two seats that would put them with their backs to the door.

“Who’s your second?” Victoria asked, indicating the wan lieutenant.

“Hunter MacIntosh,” the man said. “People call me Mack.”

“What are you in real life?” McCrea asked. “Outside the Reserves?”

Victoria bristled at the question. This was her meeting, not the major’s. She was surrounded by military hot-heads, driven by testosterone, and she needed to exert civilian control.

“I worked in a warehouse. Shift supervisor.”

“Forgive me for saying this,” Victoria said, “but you don’t look well.” His eyes seemed to have sunken into his head, his color wasn’t right, and he looked like he’d lost weight faster than his skin could accommodate.

“You don’t have to say anything to her,” Magill said.

“I think I might have been a little too close to the radiation,” Mack said.

“How big is that problem with the rest of your people?” Victoria asked.

“Why is our health any concern to you?” Magill asked. “Radiation sickness, if that’s what this is, is not contagious.”

“No, it’s not,” Victoria agreed. “I don’t believe I said it was. I was concerned about your friend’s health, so I thought I’d ask him about it.” That was not entirely true, of course. Sick people sucked up rare and valuable resources. Terminally sick patients could be a particularly difficult drain, and these folks were not from around here.

She decided to shift gears. “What are your intentions, Captain?”

He cocked his head to the side, but said nothing.

Victoria clarified her question. “We’ve had people wandering into town ever since Hell Day. You’re the first group that came in threatening the other residents. Why would you come in hard and fast like that, threatening to arrest people?”

“I saw your weapons, and drew the wrong conclusion, I suppose.”

McCrea shifted his stance as if preparing to speak, but backed off from Victoria’s glare. “That’s not true, Captain,” she said. “You announced yourself as representing the United States government, and you ordered our towns-folk to put down their weapons or face arrest. You came in with a plan, and I want to know what that plan is.”

“You’re imagining things,” Magill said with a dismissive flick of his hand. His eyes grew large as a thought occurred to him and he snapped his fingers. “Aren’t you a congresswoman? I’ve seen you on television.”