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though they didn't describe the world she knew at all.
    There were only a few other passengers on the bus. She sat in an empty row, expecting the bus to be boarded by police or attacked at any moment.
    She relaxed just a little when the driver finally started the bus, and a little more when they reached the highway. It was two in the morning, the interstate was wide open, and they left the city without incident.
    It was a two-hour ride to Columbus, where she would have to wait half an hour for the bus to Pittsburgh. She was again struck by how flawless this city looked--pristine, grassy suburbs surrounding a city with no barricades, no secure perimeter, and no visible artillery or bomb damage.
    She hadn't had a chance to look at her data cube since the attack on her motel room, so she stepped outside the terminal in Columbus, looking for a place to project holograms and play audio without anyone spying on her. It was four in the morning, and the sidewalks were deserted.
    Blocks away, she found an industrial yard enclosed by solid sheet-metal fencing. The chain-link gate was the only place through which she could peer inside. The yard stored amusement-park equipment under makeshift tin roofs--roller coaster and tilt-a-whirl cars, Ferris wheel seats, a one-story funhouse painted with creepy grinning clowns. A carousel with cheerfully painted ponies occupied one corner.
    The high, solid sheet-metal panels that composed most of the fence would afford plenty of privacy. She climbed over the padlocked gate. Her boots crunched on gravel as she landed.
    Raven activated the cube. The start-up image appeared above it, a blue sphere surrounded by orbiting icons. The icons were little meaningless blobs of multicolored geometric shapes, so she touched several at random.
    Glowing clusters of text, images, and flowing video erupted from the cube, surrounding her, offering terabytes of data. She didn't know where to begin.
    She shifted through the data, all of which centered on a man who made her shudder with revulsion. His face was craggy, his hair sparse and gray, his green eyes hard and reptilian. In most images, he dressed in a black suit and wore a golden lapel pin depicting an eye inside a triangle.
    Providence Security , she thought. Her attackers had displayed the identical emblem on their armor.
    A bit of memory came back: this old man's face twenty feet high, glowing down on the urban slum-sprawls from every digital billboard, breaking into the flow of advertisements whenever he addressed the public. His voice would echo down the streets and alleyways, and people would throw beer cans at his looming face.
    The text identified the hideous old man as Secretary-General Logan Carraway, Supreme Executive of the United States. Raven reached for bubbles of news video and played a few at once, soaking up the different stories. Years of history unfolded in front of her.
    "...Carraway successfully won the Senate seat once held by his late grandfather, after a particularly negative campaign against his opponent..." one reporter said.
    "...left the Senate after a single term to replace his father as CEO of Providence Security, after rumors of the elder Carraway's poor health made shareholders skittish..." reported another face above a financial news channel logo.
    "...Providence Security chairman Logan Carraway narrowly lost his White House bid to Montana Governor Regina Vasquez, long considered a dark horse candidate...pundits are calling this the ugliest election in Presidential history, as supporters of each camp accuse the other candidate of voter fraud and manipulation..."
    Raven shook her head, trying to loosen the memories locked inside.
    "...demonstrations in Washington have turned to riots as hundreds of thousands of protesters grew violent...we're hearing the Capitol has been surrounded, trapping Congress inside...the mob has overrun the White House, where President Vasquez had a scheduled Cabinet meeting...the President's condition