BENJAMIN WAS torn about the Teague vs. Sheldon-Kane contest. His own personal preference, politically speaking, was Sheldon-Kane, and as he had told Rachel, he had real suspicions about Paulson Teague. It would not take a lot of effort to put feelers out via his MudzNewz followers about Teague either. If the man were even a little bit sloppy, Benjamin would get a lead he could follow back to a crime. Being gay himself, he was not all too anxious to out the guy but so far, Benjamin’s sixth sense about corrupt politicians had been on the money, every time. Teague being in the closet just meant he was either more vulnerable to being blackmailed and bought by criminal interests, or he was sketchy as hell himself.
Benjamin was itching to find out, but all his best intentions had slammed to a damning halt because of the gorgeous, flirtatious, smart, and terrible Frank Sheldon.
There was no way Benjamin could pretend to be impartial to either Teague or Sheldon-Kane if he was banging Frank Sheldon. It would put MudzNewz directly in the kind of place he had no intention of it being: namely, partisan.
But….
Did it have to? If Teague were clean, there was nothing to worry about. Benjamin would not out him just to out him, as a matter of principle. On the other hand, if Teague were legitimately involved with anything shady, it wouldn’t matter if Benjamin and Frank were boning. Or dating. Or whatever. Teague would bring his downfall on himself either way.
Benjamin had to be honest, in that he had already given Sheldon-Kane some good coverage just with the article about Frank joining the campaign. That article had been written by one of Benjamin’s anonymous volunteers, the Mudzies as they called themselves. He did not use much they sent his way, because they were obviously not investigative reporters (except for possibly that one out of Kansas, who Benjamin secretly called Clark Kent in his own head, where no one could make fun of him), but that had the ironic result of making it a much higher honor. If a story got the approval of “Big Boss,” as Benjamin was referred to on the Reddit forum r/mudzies, then the person who wrote it got points. Benjamin did not keep up with the scoring system because he had nothing to do with it, and he rarely visited the Reddit site anyway. He found it hilarious, though.
It had seemed like a harmless post to put online, and he had done it mostly to see if it kicked any of the Sheldon-Kane camp into revealing dirty secrets the governor-wannabe might have. Even if Benjamin doubted there was anything there, he had to follow through.
He added the campaign to his “Throw Some Mud!” page, along with a few others he had suspicions about.
Then he went back to his secret project, which had nothing to do with politics or video games.
Automation and artificial intelligence were the future of everything, which Benjamin thought was exciting while everyone around him thought it was terrifying. He could not wait for autonomous cars. They would drive Rachel around with no fear of crashing no matter how drunk or high she was. He was excited to have delivery drones bring food, clothes, and all necessities of life to his house. And virtual reality porn? He was only human. It was going to be awesome.
Flight, though, was his first love. Planes, spaceships, drones—all of it, he didn’t care. He loved the idea of flight itself, and if he could develop wearable wings like those used by the comic book superhero Falcon, he would. He was pretty sure he had draft versions of that very thing sunk down deep in his miserable high school archives (a bunch of plastic bins in the attic). While spaceflight was alluring, he really preferred aeronautical engineering—he loved things that flew inside the atmosphere of the earth. When he had been young he had thought of becoming a pilot, but a combination of poor eyesight and poor parents meant that never happened. The Air Force was very obviously out of the question. All that was left for a genius-level super-geek like himself was aerospace engineering and a career with NASA. Or RAND. Or SpaceX, although Benjamin was pretty sure he and Elon Musk would end up in fisticuffs or something.
Benjamin had a slight problem with authority figures.
In any case, it meant whatever he was going to do, he had to do it on his own. None of the major aerospace engineering hubs (LA, DC, Houston, and of course Melbourne, Florida) were even within a day’s drive of his home. And his PhD was in comp-sci, not aerospace engineering. He cursed his younger self a lot for taking the easy way out, but he also knew he would never have done anything differently. Uprooting Rachel during high school was just point-blank out of the question because she was having enough problems as it was back then. He had been sorely tempted to leave town after the Lamarque incident, but then Rachel settled down and started getting good grades again and agreeing to therapy. Benjamin knew he was a terrible, awful excuse for a “parent,” but he at least had known enough not to rock the boat when it wasn’t sinking.
That left him with the option of going back for a second doctorate in the field he really wanted to work in in order to get jobs he would probably hate, or working in secret on his own project, independently, on spec. It was not as difficult a choice as he sometimes made it out to be.
He realized he was spaced-out and playing with Frank Sheldon’s card. Sighing, he shoved the card under his keyboard, got up, and went to the living room. Rachel was there eating ice cream and watching makeup artist videos on YouTube using their television. He flopped down next to her.
“I figured out why you are moping,” she said by way of hello.
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes! And I think you should totally ask out that helicopter pilot who is hitting on you.”
“I hate Jane. So much.”
Rachel waved her spoon around before spearing more ice cream. “She’s only looking out for you. Or him? Dunno. He’s a longtime client of hers, and she was having a hard time choosing between being excited about the fact he seemed genuinely interested in you, and being horrified by the idea that he’s genuinely interested in you.”
“That’s easy: she hates me.”
“No, she doesn’t.” Rachel knocked her knee against his.
“It’s a deep, profound relationship based on mutual animosity. Someday you’ll get married and understand.”
She laughed. “Ugh, don’t make me imagine you and Jane as a married couple, my life would be a living hell.”
He snorted in laughter. “Yeah, that’s an awful thought.”
“Especially since you have a truly excellent piece of ass stalking you.”
“Please never say ‘piece of ass’ in my presence again. And he’s not stalking. It was an apology lunch. He was saying sorry for getting me locked in the chem closet.”
“Well, you did call him a hooker,” Rachel said, shaking her head.
“No! I didn’t! Fuck.” He rubbed his face while Rachel laughed at him.
“It’s not unbelievable that you would. Social niceties aren’t your thing.”
He shrugged. “True enough.”
“And he is good-looking.”
“And I am jobless, living in my parents’ home with my sister, who works part-time as hairdresser.”
“Stylist,” she snarled.
“Right.”
“Don’t mock my ten-year plan. I’m going to have a cosmetology empire, just you wait.”
Benjamin did not, in fact, mock her ten-year plan. Between the two of them, Rachel was the ambitious one when it came to business and money. For Benjamin it was all about being able to work on things he found interesting—he took after their father that way, who as a musician had not cared at all how much money he made or if anyone ever bought his albums. He genuinely had no interest in “success,” far more wrapped up in his ethnomusicology studies and playing one of his wide, eclectic variety of instruments from around the world.
Rachel, on the other hand, took after their mother, who was always chasing stories to get her bylines and win awards. Not that their mother wasn’t an excellent journalist, but part of the meaning of success for her was being perceived socially as important and respected. Rachel, who had been interested in makeup and hairstyling since she was probably three years old, wanted to become a world-famous stylist with her own brand of hair care and makeup products. She needed to be rich to be seen as important. Benjamin suspected that part of her newfound zeal for business over the past six years was in order to have complete control over her life, but he wasn’t foolish enough to say that to anyone but her therapist, and even then only when asked.
“You gonna email him?” she asked, mouth full of ice cream. And people called him the philistine.
“Maybe.” He sighed.