Jake could see that Tomlinson was nervous. The man had been holed up with his advisors and spin masters for two days, his campaign activities suspended, out of contact with everyone else while he prepared for this debate against Senator Leeds. Jake had handed a sheaf of talking points about MHD to Amy; he hadn’t been allowed to see the candidate himself.

Now, as the candidate and his closest aides walked down the concrete tunnel that led out to the arena, Tomlinson was fairly quivering with nervous energy. Jake remembered a classmate of his, Vince Tortoni, back in their freshman year at the university. Vince had been on the verge of failing their mandatory class in English literature, and had disappeared for several days before the final exam. Cramming, Jake knew. When Vince showed up for the exam he was bubbling with quotations from poetry. But as he grabbed his blue exam book and pencil, he turned to Jake and asked, agonized, “Dammit, what’s my name?”

Jake hoped that Tomlinson hadn’t overstudied the way Vince had.

The debate was staged at the university’s hockey rink, an arena big enough to hold more than a thousand spectators jammed in on tiers of benches. Jake knew that Amy had done her best to get Tomlinson supporters to pack the place. He supposed Leeds’s people had done the same.

The skating rink itself was covered with wooden flooring, yet the place still felt cold and clammy to Jake. The crowd was restless, impatient, voices buzzing in an expectant background hum. But as Tomlinson and his retinue stepped out of the tunnel and into the bright lights illuminating the arena, the throng got to their feet and applauded, cheered, whistled. Tomlinson turned on his gleaming smile and waved nonchalantly to them. The applause seemed to calm him, steady him.

Tomlinson went straight to one of the lecterns set up in the center of the floor while Jake took a seat on the front row, reserved for Tomlinson’s staff and volunteers. Across the floor, Leeds’s people sat facing them. Amy Wexler hurried over to the bench and squeezed in beside Jake.

The audience cheered even louder as Senator Leeds sauntered in, grinning and nodding. He stopped to shake hands with a few people in the crowd and Jake wished Tomlinson had been smart enough to think of that.

Instead of a single moderator, three news anchors from the state’s three major television stations took up the seats between the two lecterns.

The audience quieted and sat down. Three television cameras were set up around the periphery of the floor; one of them was close enough for Jake to almost touch the guy operating it. The only woman among the three news anchors welcomed the audience and introduced the two candidates. Leeds had won the coin toss an hour ago; he would speak first.

Leeds smiled handsomely as he turned slowly to survey the crowd. Then he began: