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night, but also, having won more T-slices than any other
agonist playing any character that night, she was also awarded an amount for
each T-slice she did win or tie – totaling a previously unheard-of $2,761,314.
The sum of these two numbers was close enough to three million dollars, everyone
called it three million, except the IRS.
    Truda Vallon and Duane Rondo came in second and third.
    Ellie dropped by, and they hugged and had a beer. Roger
called, and she disconnected him. Reporters took up residence on her lawn.
Everything was wonderful, exciting, dream-like. She was dreaming. Wasn’t. Was.
Wasn’t. – Wasn’t.
    By the time an officious aide called with the official word
and asked for her bank’s routing number, Jill was no longer in doubt; she was
rich.

Chapter 3: Eight Months Before the Assassination
    Senator Thomas James Conning, honorary doctor of various
things from Harvard, Yale, and Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania (his
alma mater), anticipating a third term as U.S. Senator from that state, was
worried.
    He’d done many things for America: voted 96% the way his
party wanted him to; given speeches in support of their causes; lent his name
to weighty and thoughtful op-eds; been photographed several times with the
President and with lesser Presidents from overseas. He’d even personally
contributed to candidates of his own party, those who could benefit his future
plans. Thomas Conning intended to run for the White House, a fact his staff had
hinted to the press, while the Senator himself was slightly more reticent, in
public, about the matter.
    Yes, Thomas Conning wanted to be President. But there was a near-term
threat to his Senate sea, and his Presidential ambitions, that was Ezra Barnes.
    Barnes was a popular Congressman from central Pennsylvania
who was expected to announce for Conning’s seat any day now. The race would be close,
Conning figured: he had experience and incumbency, but the demographics
cancelled out that advantage. Yes, Barnes would be a tough opponent. Although
Conning was a popular Senator, early polls showed Barnes narrowly behind and
closing fast.
    Barnes was a former prosecutor, which also concerned
Conning. He’d heard Barnes’ staff was looking into Conning’s voting record,
with an eye to accusing him of selling votes. Any accusation could be damaging,
even if untrue. But Conning hadn’t sold a single vote, had he? None that anyone
would find out about. And well, traded a few favors with the Administration,
but who hadn’t done that? Voted party line on bills when the Majority Whip told
him to play ball or eat shit. But who hadn’t done that? Play ball that is, not
eat shit.
    Conning considered the plusses and minuses of his
forthcoming campaign against Barnes. As Pennsylvania was a “politically
confused” state (as Conning thought of it), there were too many variables to
feel safe:
    First, Pennsylvania elected Democrats at times, and
Republicans at times; and which time was which, was unpredictable.
    Second, the state was heavily populated east and west, with
relatively few people in the fly-over counties. Conning lived in the east side
of the state, which gave him some advantages and some disadvantages. But Barnes
represented a district right in the middle. He could therefore seem appealing
to both east and west, or to neither. The Keystone State’s famously fickle
voters would decide which.
    Third, money, the one truly bright spot. Barnes was
struggling to raise enough to be competitive, whereas Conning’s war chest was
awash in money. The secretive way this money was raised, through an
intermediary named Sybille Haskin, was highly pertinent to the future of Thomas
James Conning, and indeed, the future of the entire Republic and the God
Indivisible for which it stands.
    Barnes’ staff was searching for a weakness, but Conning was
sure they hadn’t discovered the weekly, sometimes daily betrayal of his country,
Conning was actually performing. But that was