Across the table, Bibb and the What Girl looked at Natalie with the pained, pinched expressions of popular girls forced to eat carbs. “Absolutely,” Bibb said, her eyes giving Natalie an I-told-you-so look. “We’re working on it.”

“Ryan, Natalie, this is your chance. I’ve got an algorithm we’ll use to measure your performance every day. We’ll call it the VOP—Voice of the People. It’s your Q score, plus your overnight rating in the Demo, your social media following, and online presence. We’ll track your VOP every day, and whoever has highest cumulative score wins the job.”

Natalie felt like she had rapid onset vertigo. The room was spinning so fast she had to grip the table to keep from leaning into Hal. “I’m sorry, sir, but are you saying you want us to compete against one another for the White House job?” she asked, hoping she’d managed to keep the panic out of her voice.

“Yes!” The Chief laughed as if Natalie had asked a hilarious question.

“Jeah!” Ryan punched his fist into the air. “I love games.”

Natalie swallowed hard. Ryan leaned across the table toward her. “I know you’re more experienced with news than me, Nat,” he said, saving her most loathed nickname for this prime moment, “but I got to warn you, I’m a quick learner.”

The Chief nodded. “The fact that the two of you are so different will make it that much more fun.”

Natalie heard the Chief’s words but none of them made any sense, like the way the word fun now seemed to rhyme with hell.

Under the table her phone buzzed. She glanced down.

MATT: And that’s just surprise number one.

Natalie was trying to remember if auto-da-fé was a method of suicide involving throwing herself out a window or setting herself on fire when the doors to the conference room flew open, delivering three What Girls into the room, all wearing their karate-shirt minidresses and carrying red jars.

“Now I have a fun surprise,” the Chief continued, still abusing that word, as the women placed the jars in the middle of the conference table. “We want to bring the people some relief. And you know what people like?”

Natalie studied the jars and saw that they were glass containers filled with red candies in various shapes.

“Candy,” the Chief said as Ryan exclaimed, “Red Hots!”

“Yes.” The Chief beamed. “And red sours and red taffy. People, this is what we need more of on ATN.”

Andrea looked like she might be sick. “Red dye number forty?”

“Titillation. Delight. Relief,” the Chief said, pronouncing each word with the excitement of a child on a sugar high. “Natalie, dig in. Have some fun. Tell me, why do people like candy?”

“Um, it tastes good?” she asked tentatively.

The Chief seemed to like her answer. “Yes. It stimulates the senses. It awakens an excited response. It satisfies a craving for distraction.”