I cleared my throat again. “Guys…” Everyone loked at me expectantly. I faltered, losing my place for a second before I tried again: “This has been one hell of a year. For those of you who hired on with us after the campaign, I’m sorry. You’ve never seen me at my best. Hell, if it weren’t for the fact that we have the best damn administrative staff in the known universe, you would never have seen me at all, because we would have gone under a long time ago.”

“He’s quite right about that,” said Mahir.

Ignoring him seemed like the best idea, so I did. “And for those of you who’ve been with us since the beginning, I know this isn’t what you signed on for. Hell, it’s not what I signed on for, and you’d think I might have some say in what we do, right? But the thing is, regardless of when you came on with us, whether it was day one or yesterday, you have all done an amazing, amazing job. If I were asked to put together a team to record the end of the world, there’s not one of you who I wouldn’t want to have on board—and yeah, I don’t know all of you that well, but I know the people who recommended you, and since I would trust them with my life, I figure you’re worth taking the gamble on.”

Laughter followed this statement, some nervous, most not. A few people were nodding. That was sort of unnerving.

“I don’t know how much worse things are going to get before they get better. We’re in the same place now that we were in twenty years ago—the dead are rising, the situation looks grim as hell, and no one really knows what’s going on. I won’t lie to you. If the first Rising is anything to go by, we’re not all going to live to see the end of this. Some of us will be going up on the Wall before this is over.” I paused, the litany of the dead running in the back of my mind. Buffy, Georgia, Dave, Kelly. The convoy guards in Eakly, Oklahoma. All our neighbors back in Oakland. Alaric’s family. Too damn many people. “Some of us already have. But see, the thing is, that isn’t what matters. What matters is that we’re going to keep doing what we do. We’re going to keep getting the news out. We’re going to keep telling the truth. And if we go up on the Wall, we’re by God going to know that we did the best we could—and that we’ve left behind as much information as we can for the ones who’ll tell the truth after us.”

There was a long pause. Well said, said George.

And then someone—one of the Irwins, I think, since we’re the ones trained to start making noise whenever we get the excuse—cheered. Several more people joined in, and the ones who didn’t clapped their hands, or just grinned. I stared at them, dumbfounded.