Frontline

by Warren Hately

  “OK.”

  “That reminds me,” Lenore said. “I’m starved.”

  Anna swallowed her irrational annoyance at being told to go home and directed her gaze back to Iskov, who was smart enough to see another request coming.

  “Serik,” Anna said. “Can you send a notification to everyone who just hit our landing page and everyone who’s liked our social media feeds, directing them to the panel discussion in a couple of minutes?”

  “You want to do that?” Lenore asked. “I thought there was a limit to how much we could hound people before they go elsewhere.”

  “This is the time to take that risk,” Anna said. “I just checked. Only two of the city’s four local networks even stream their channels to their own websites. If we lose even half our viewership, and retain the rest, that’s about five-hundred thousand potential eyeballs.”

  She settled her pale eyes on the editor to make it clear this was her area of expertise. But the numbers alone did the work for her. Lenore slowly nodded, reframing her ideas about the size of her audience as if for the first time, and also understanding now they were in the frontlines of something now audiences wanted to know about from overseas. The advertising dollars might give Fitz a heart attack.

  “As a newspaper here in Springfield,” Anna said, “we have a chance to make the local TV stations completely redundant … but we have to keep giving people content.”

  With the live stream finished, Iskov left to help Demien prepare the guests with the studio’s cheap body mics.

  Lenore Barrett screwed up her mouth and looked about to say something Anna really didn’t want to hear – reminding her about their limited staff hours, most likely – but a violent noise from outside the studio cut her short.

  THE CRASHING NOISE shattered the weird sense of victory in the control room.

  And then it came again, muted by the soundproofing, and followed by a man’s yell beyond the padded door.

  “That’s Fitz.”

  Lenore moved at once, but Anna grabbed her arm.

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  The news editor stopped, slowed, and turned a sarcastic smile on her subordinate.

  “Spooked?” she said. “Let me go, Anna … That sounds like Fitz.”

  Anna did as asked, not that she could do much else anyway. Irrational fear aside, curiosity drew her into Lenore’s wake as the editor swept from the booth, through the soundproofed door, and into the hallway outside where Gus Fitzwilliam stood.

  Frustration and a degree of embarrassment marred the big man’s face as he looked sheepishly towards his secret mistress. He held an empty metal room service platter and the rubberized carpet at his feet was a mess of dropped plates, pasta and Bolognese sauce.

  “Oh no,” Lenore said and her fingers covered her mouth as she stared at the disaster. “Was that from the Italian?”

  “I’m sorry,” Fitzwilliams said mournfully. “Trying to do too much at once.”

  He gestured to the culprit – the shoulder bag jutting across his broad body – and then to the mess on the floor.

  “I was just headed off, but I organized a little dinner for the late crew.”

  Fitzwilliams extended his sheepish look to Anna standing just outside the shut studio door as if he wasn’t the Gazette’s general manager after all.

  “Damn,” Lenore said. “You know that’s my favorite.”

  She glanced at Fitz, then Anna, suddenly self-conscious playing out the charade.

  “You’re … going?” Lenore asked him.

  “I hope you’re wrapping up too,” Fitzwilliams said to her politely, all but wiggling his eyebrows at her. “I’m staying at the apartment in town tonight.”

  He looked to Anna as if to explain.

  “Sounds like bedlam out there,” the manager said. “I’ve been watching your coverage. And I needed to talk to you, too.”

  “Are you going to clean up the mess you made?”

  Lenore’s reproach was over-familiar, and the pair was so locked into their dynamic neither registered how unusual it was that Fitzwilliams immediately dropped to one knee and started scooping spaghetti onto the metal platter barehanded as he looked up, red-faced, and continued speaking to Anna as if nothing’d happened.

  “I made a deal with Corizon Wireless,” he said to her. “How would you feel about taking ad breaks during your little broadcast in there?”

  Anna knelt carefully in her pencil skirt and picked up a plate to use as a scoop as she started to help. Lenore walked away with a harrumph.

  “We planned for advertising support, but this is sooner than I expected.”

  “Corizon’s uploaded a ten-second video package.”

  The manager’s comment came as Iskov conveniently exited the studio to register the peculiar sight of the two of them kneeling cleaning up pasta. Fitzwilliams kept scooping while also addressing Serik.

  “You can do that, right Serik?” he asked. “The HD package should be on our server already. You can prep that?”

  Fitzwilliams grinned at Anna, then back to the technician.

  “It’s not like you’ve got a home to go to, right?”

  The Kazakh shrugged as if it didn’t trouble him at all, which also, oddly, seemed to be the case.

  “Sure,” he shrugged, then calmly asked Anna, “How do you want to handle the crossover?”

  “Demien’s miked up?” Anna replied. “I’ll have to explain it to him, too.”

  She put her improvised scoop onto Fitzwilliams’ filthy platter. The manager stood with an ursine grunt, the platter still on the floor.

  “There’s another tray in the Oval Office,” he said and smiled. “As your manager, I’m obliged to provide you a meal under your conditions.”

  He motioned to the floor.

  “Sorry about that.”

  Then he strode off towards the men’s bathroom.

  Serik shrugged and picked up the gruesome platter without complaint, but he only blank-faced Anna when she looked suitably aghast that he’d clean up Fitz’s mess without complaint. Then he walked away with the tray headed for the back rooms.

  Iskov’s departure and the substantial mess still on the floor slowly drew Anna’s attention to the silence in the building. At nearly eight o’clock, there was practically no one else around, and no else in the building as well. She drifted down to the vacant reception area, Charlotte gone from the newsroom, Irene long departed, and Anna continued through into the front of the office, eyeing the Gazette’s glass front door closed, but unlocked.

  She then crossed to the windows with their view down onto the lighted street.

  Several cars went past, then a couple of pedestrians hurried on their way along the far side of the road. Just as Anna thought to retreat, she saw a dark figure run from the shadows beyond the next intersection and hurl something. The detonation of glass as a far building’s ground-floor window broke sounded only faintly through Anna’s window. The running figure kept on, tinny laughter echoing even more faintly. A police car with sirens blazing shot through the next cross street, and Anna felt her pulse quicken within alarm, but the police had more urgent business than an opportunistic vandal on the loose.

  The front office phones were silent. Anna glanced towards them as she headed back to the newsroom, then did a double-take seeing the silent phones blinking with flashing lights. All eight of the Gazette’s phone lines flashed or played dead for a moment, before lighting up again with the next caller going unanswered.

  “OK… .”

  Melina Martelle came in through the front door and caught the tail end of Anna’s remark, punctuating her observation with a snicker.

  “Talking to yourself?”

  “Calls aren’t coming through,” Anna explained and pointed.

  “Irene must’ve switched the phones to out-of-hours,” Melina said and evidently didn’t share Anna’s concern. “They’ll go to message bank.”

  Anna remained pointing at the display as Melina rounded t
he counter. The black reporter’s face fell as she registered six of the eight buttons alive with calls.

  “Shit,” she said. “Well, it is damned crazy out there.”

  “Don’t worry about the phones,” Lenore Barrett said.

  The editor walked into the reception area from the back offices. She had her satchel over one shoulder, and Anna couldn’t helping wonder at the timing of her departure so soon after Fitz.

  “It’s late,” the editor said. “Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.”

  Anna and Melina swapped looks, both of the same mind.

  “The panel discussion –” Anna started.

  “I know, I know,” Lenore said and smiled and probably didn’t mean for it to appear condescending. “One day at a time, tiger. We’re not going to run out of news, by the look of things. Go home. Both of you. It’s an order.”

  The editor saluted them and left.

  Anna and Melina glanced back at the phones.

  “O’Dowd?”

  “He left from City Hall,” Melina replied. “I had my own car. He was right, too, it was a bitch getting over there. It’s a lot quieter now.”

  “That’s something.”

  “Yeah,” Melina said. “You have a place or something?”

  “Yes.”

  “Need a ride?”

  The smell of more Italian food finally reached Anna’s nose, emanating from the nearby open conference room. Anna’s stomach gurgled loud enough to elicit more of Melina’s bemusement.

  “Are you hungry?” Anna asked.

  “Sure,” the other woman replied. “Caesar’s place is so good. Fitzwilliams gets it on contra.”

  “Of course he does,” Anna chuckled. “That reminds me about his advertising deal, though.”

  She glanced regretfully at the Oval Office door.

  “First, I have to check in on Demien.”

  THEY TOOK THEIR food into the control booth, Iskov welcoming a plate of lasagna and salad from the delivery in the conference room big enough that they could make total pigs of themselves if they wanted.

  And they wanted.

  Trapped on the other side of the glass, Demien Christopher kept glancing their way as his three experts droned on and on, the conversation not exactly lively as each rehashed prior points. And because the glass was two-way, the weary-looking science reporter could watch their every bite.

  “Looks like he’s starving,” Melina smirked as she forked up salad.

  “You’re vegetarian?”

  “Yeah,” she replied without much enthusiasm. “Sucks.”

  “There was another tray. …”

  “I saw the mess in the corridor,” Melina said. “Fitz is usually pretty good providing late-shift meals. Saves the company paying us a separate allowance, though.”

  The three experts were a Department of Health tropical diseases consultant, a retired Democrat ex-Governor, and a sandy-haired man who’d retired from Oxfam to work in Springfield with schools, and the men were far too agreeable for a lively debate. The diseases consultant was clearly motivated by the valuable media exposure boosting his profile, and so his emphatic belief the City had to move fast to contain a potential infectious outbreak seemed somehow less credible, while contributing dangerously to any public panic that might be well into development among some of the less savvy viewers. There were plenty of reasons to believe the night’s violence resulted from something transmissible, because as the NGO guy said, the only metric they had to compare such a fast-evolving rate of violent crime was in civil conflicts in Africa. Such a comparison to home soil USA seemed unconscionable. The rare ex-Governor was pushing eight years of age, sitting on the sidelines of the discussion as if too slow to get a word in edgewise. Anna reminded herself to update Lenore’s contacts file with a warning note.

  “The City’s advice is still good,” the ex-NGO guy said. “Whether its civil unrest we don’t understand yet, or maladaptation brought about by disease, the pollution of the water supply, an airborne chemical, or some other agent, staying in your home and staying out of the way is a fair guideline.”

  Anna set her half-eaten meal aside to retrieve her iPad. The metrics showed an online audience of almost two million people. Anna confirmed the numbers again, nonplussed, and marveling at how quickly such astonishing viewership figures already felt normal – but it’d been an obnoxiously long day, so it was equally hard to believe it was only twelve hours since she’d also tried and failed to have coffee with Tom.

  Iskov excused himself from the control room and Demien threw to their pre-arranged break as the Corizon Wireless package played to their viewership.

  “You called me ‘white girl before,” Anna said quietly to Melina. “I’m curious if that’s still an issue for you? My father is Czech and my mother’s a Finn.”

  Hoping to undercut any intensity in her question, Anna checked back on the tablet in her lap and called up her social media feeds running quietly in the background. There were a handful of direct messages from random Facebook friends asking if she was OK.

  “You want to know if it’s safe to call me ‘black girl’?”

  “No,” Anna said, shrugged, and smile. “But I’m interested in your heritage?”

  Anna set her tablet down. Melina gently sighed and started dissecting a chunk of lasagna to get rid of the meat.

  “My mother was French Creole, and my father’s as black as they come.”

  “Cool,” Anna said. “I believe assholes come in all shapes and colors, and likewise good people too.”

  “That sounds fair.”

  “And are you queer, too?”

  Melina smirked, laughed and nodded, holding the returned eye contact.

  “Yeah,” she said. “You interested?”

  Something halfway between Anna’s wide smile and complete uncertainty was interrupted by Demien entering with a huff.

  “Is the food still warm?”

  “Yes, it’s in the Oval Office,” Anna said and smiled.

  She stood and patted the young man on the shoulder.

  “Good job in there,” Anna said. “We’re going to re-run the press conference again now, get a few more of them Corizon dollars, then we’ll re-run the whole panel all over again, OK? We recorded it.”

  “You mean I can go home now?”

  “Yes,” Anna said and performed a warm smile. “Eat something first though, OK?”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

  Demien took off and Melina stood to join her.

  “I’ll go break the news to our resident experts and see them out,” she said.

  “Are you ready to roll after that?”

  “Actually,” Anna replied, “there’s a couple of things I wanted to do first.”

  “Lenore said go home.”

  “And I will.”

  Melina’s smirk gradually returned.

  “You plannin’ on misbehavin’?”

  “What, and do my job?”

  Melina smirked at the remark, nodded, and dropped her grin.

  “OK,” she said. “What are we thinkin’?”

  THEY WRESTLED ONE of the desks from the bullpen to the live studio and mocked it up as best they could, which was easy going with a minimalist design. Iskov brought the portable lights in closer, adjusted the LD1 on its mount, and swapped out its long-life battery. The foreign-born technician didn’t have any obvious reluctance about staying back to help, though he remained bullet-proof when it came to showing any noticeable emotions. Anna understood why the equally minimalist young Kazakh was such a natural fit for the Gazette.

  She drank another tall glass of water because why the fuck not, then sponged her armpits with wet napkins, updated her make-up, and re-entered the live studio tugging down hard on the suit jacket from the emergency wardrobe she’d brought with her, and always had on hand no matter where she worked.

  Anna settled behind the desk with Melina’s wide grin fixed, standing beside the LD1 and giving it one final check over.
<
br />   “You ready for this?”

  “Yep.”

  “Try not to think about 3.5 million people tuning in right now.”

  Anna’s distracted eyes flicked back to Melina, her iPad cradled in her arms at the desk.

  “Geez, some friend you are.”

  Melina only snickered, “‘Friend’.” And then she quit for the control booth.

  Despite so many eyeballs on her worldwide at that moment, Anna felt surprisingly alone in the studio. The enormity of it all, this transformation, the diabolical madness of the City – it all bubbled up into that moment of emptiness and could’ve easily overwhelmed her. Instead, Anna nodded, Iskov’s voice dull in her ear piece as he asked, “Good to go?” and she turned her eyes to the camera.

  “GOOD EVENING, I’M Anna Novak for the Springfield Gazette, here in Springfield, Illinois, in the great country of the United States,” Anna said and forced herself to pause a moment, not wanting to appear hurried and breathless despite the adrenalin smashing now through her veins like white-water rafting.

  “And I say that,” she went on, “because many of our viewers and readers tonight are joining us from overseas as it increasingly looks as if the eyes of the world are turning on our great nation as we face a crisis – an increasing crisis – of unprecedented occurrence.”

  Anna swallowed, unhappy with the ungainliness of her last line, immediately resolving to slow herself down even further. Her eyes flicked to the iPad in one hand, but it was for the viewers’ benefit. She’d tested the image with her two remaining colleagues before going live to air, the frame capturing Anna from just the edge of the desktop and up.

  “Here at the Springfield Gazette, we are first and foremost a newspaper.”

  Anna tightened her smile as she played the good company gal, making sure their brand awareness was underscored in what, for most, would be first-time use of the local news service.

  “Please excuse us any technical difficulties as we endeavor to report to you live,” she continued. “It’s been a long day. When my producers Melina Martelle and Serik Iskov walked into work this morning, just like me, and like everywhere in Springfield, there was no sign of the crisis we’re now experiencing.