Frontline

by Warren Hately

  “OK,” Anna said quietly to her colleagues. “She said ‘nukes’.”

  Anna picked up her iPad, disturbed to see the charge quite low. It was enough to summon Safari with a few still-open news sites, and they all had live feeds of some sort now, NBC even mirroring the Gazette’s panel discussion with several internationally famous guests trying hard not to lose their shit.

  She kept the tablet on silent, ear cocked as Melina’s narration continued, but another site streamed a terrified-looking anchorman with a banner, “President bunkering down”, at the bottom of his screen. The screen changed to a camera’s view outside the Capitol, and then a gigantic military helicopter lifting into the sky rather than one of the Presidential ones.

  Melina’s voiceover cut out, drawing Anna back to the camera’s point-of-view as it fell, the camera on the ground amid much muffling, then lifting again with a mechanical crack to shoot images of several running men and women moving along the same outside wall as before.

  The image focused slightly more. Two TV reporters ran with their microphones stretched before them like sponsored batons, a lone cameraman trying to keep up behind.

  The City Hall officials and their guards, still coming in twos and threes from the fire door, didn’t appreciate the media intrusion, and one of the face-masked cops drew his sidearm and bawled a warning to keep the intruders back. He was still yelling commands, the reporters slowing up, hands raised, when completely unrelated gunfire sounded shockingly close in the LD1’s built-in boom mic.

  Melina swung the camera around the other way – back now, past some previously unseen hedges adding to her concealment, the female reporter audible as she cursed the slow autofocus hampered by the poor light conditions.

  The black screen dissolved in the face of several white flashes. When a picture finally to emerge, the view returned to shoulder height, then started shaking with Melina’s staggered run, even capturing the moment the frightened reporter paused mid-stride to pull off one of her shoes with a broken heel.

  Then the camera just as quickly lurched about as a horrendous snarling drowned out everything else.

  THE CAMERA LAY unfocused on a patch of gloom, the flicker of police lights at one edge of the frame as a loud scream sounded, the camera fell to the ground, and then sat unmoving for a stomach-churning number of seconds before Melina picked it up again and ran barefoot across the grass, threading between several of the queued police cars as the cruisers up ahead gunned forward, eager to depart as fast as the cars in front of them allowed. The LD1 caught a brief flash of two Kevlar-clad cops wearing balaclavas failing to notice Melina as she hurdled a length of ornamental black chain enclosing the far side of the driveway, and then she turned the camera back around to film the convoy’s departure with crystal focus even though Melina was walking backwards across the compound’s moonlit lawn.

  “That person who just attacked me had been shot,” she said, trying to even her breaths.

  On cue, more gunshots rang out nearby. The point of view dipped as Melina crouched, even though she was surely exposed, out in the middle of the landscaping.

  She zeroed in on the gunfire instead, and the autofocus had more to grab onto this time as a handful of cops in riot gear poured more gunfire into several figures running into them at point-blank range.

  And then without warning, Melina’s feed went completely black.

  “Jesus,” O’Dowd intoned again. “We have to do something.”

  He looked intensely at Anna.

  “We have to report something.”

  As reigning news editor, Anna agreed.

  She stood, nodding, conveying the vibe they were working together on this, and regretting nearly taking the older reporter’s head off earlier on. He’d already apologized – a Biblical first, for O’Dowd, Anna was sure – which left her wondering what else she expected from O’Dowd before she’d trust him.

  Her iPad remained cradled in one arm, and Anna tapped it back into service, confirming what she already knew: increasing numbers of international media outlets were jumping in on the crisis as more and more cities on the wrong side of the President’s Crisis Line devolved into total chaos.

  A sharp bang outside the Gazette building made them jump, but Anna ignored it.

  “We have to package up the footage from the press conference and get it onto the site, pronto,” Anna said, finishing her thought before looking worriedly towards the door.

  “Was that in the building?” Alexandra asked.

  “That was the street outside,” O’Dowd said with a high degree of uncertainty.

  Alex stood from the console.

  “It had to be pretty loud, if we heard it that clear in here.”

  “Jesus,” O’Dowd said.

  “I’ll go and check,” Alex said.

  THERE WAS A car on fire in the street, but otherwise not a person to be seen, Alexandra reported back several minutes later.

  Then she sat again, watching intently as Anna showed O’Dowd and her the quick-step procedures to harness the previous live transmission, trimming the video package, adding a Gazette banner, then everything else needed to keep the sponsors happy in case that was even relevant anymore – and then moving across so Alex could sit down and start repeating the procedure with Melina’s still ominously blank screen hovering over them. Anna took the chance now to thumb Melina’s number on speed dial, but the network was so congested her phone only received a weird piercing squeal before collapsing into signal noise.

  “This really, really doesn’t bode well,” she said.

  The other two nodded. Then the studio door opened and Iskov appeared scratching his head.

  “Anyone else hear that car blow up?”

  “Sleepyhead,” Alexandra smirked.

  It was the first time Anna saw Iskov grin. He motioned behind him to the door.

  “Troops outside getting restless,” he said. “And hungry.”

  “Hungry?”

  Alex shook her head, still looking vaguely spaced-out with everything she’d had to take in. Anna tried to ignore her own quailing guts.

  “Are you still working for a living?” she asked Serik.

  “I don’t know,” the technician replied. “Do you think there’s any paychecks still coming?”

  It was an awkwardly on-point question. Anna snorted instead, motioning to the live studio room beyond the glass screen.

  “We’ve still got work to do,” she said. “Can you and Douglas go in there and prepare to record a package?”

  “Live?” the young Kazakh asked.

  “No,” Anna said and looked to O’Dowd. “We need to append some kind of report onto the two packages to offer some context, but I’m damned if I know what to tell people. What do you think, Douglas?”

  Anna’s phone buzzed with a text from Stefan. O’Dowd made a face as she checked it, though the older reporter answered her anyway.

  “After that broadcast from the Mayor’s office, people are going to leave the city, no matter what we tell them,” he said. “And maybe we should be going online right now to tell people to get the hell out of here. But I don’t know if that’s even what they should do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Anna kept the phone in her hand, but deliberately didn’t read the message, hoping to mollify O’Dowd that he had her undivided attention.

  “You heard Nick Hocking before,” Douglas said. “He was pulling his hair out at the situation and begging people to stay indoors.”

  “That could be just to keep the people compliant,” Iskov said and shrugged.

  Anna was slightly surprised to hear the technician voice an opinion, but she forced herself to unclench and acknowledge everyone had a stake in this thing now.

  Her eyes flicked around to count just Alexandra, Serik, and Douglas with her in the room and the unanswerable question that hung over all of them.

  “What if … But what if they are sending a nuke?” she asked.

  “Well that would be �
��”

  “Douglas,” Anna said soothingly. “I’m not asking for your expert analysis.”

  She recaptured their attention for a second.

  “What if … we are sitting here … debating the fine points of news coverage . . . and we only have a few hours left to live?”

  Anna composed herself some more, strangling her internal critic mocking her for playing leader in dead Lenore Barrett’s wake, instead forcing a calming breath and direct eye contact with each of them in turn, hoping maybe to fake being some kind of pillar of strength for them that she couldn’t be for herself.

  “If there’s nukes in the air, we’re fucked anyway,” O’Dowd said.

  “Agreed,” Iskov said and tipped an imaginary hat.

  Alexandra’s only contribution was to mutter, “Oh wow,” and clutch her head.

  Her lovely narrow eyes watered, looking back at Anna. Then she moved off to the side, hands to her face, turning then to perch her slim derriere on the end of the technical console next to Iskov. Then she sighed loudly in obvious surrender.

  “As if I have anywhere else to go anyway.”

  O’Dowd grunted.

  “So what are we doing then?” he asked with mock gruffness.

  Iskov pushed off from beside Alexandra.

  “Sounds like we have a studio to prep.”

  “Has anyone seen Buddy and Dwayne?” Anna asked. “Or have they gone too?”

  “They took over Lenore’s office to get some R&R,” Alex answered.

  “Rest and recreation?”

  “I just meant that they’re probably sleeping,” she said.

  “Oh,” Anna said. “Cool.”

  She smiled weakly, then finally checked the message from Stefan.

  Stefan: Say something to me sis.

  Anna: OK, where’s that CIA contact you promised me?

  THEY FILED A report of sorts, relying on sound bites from the Mayor to show how little they really knew, summarizing the coverage of the wider networks, building an OK-what- do-we-know picture overshadowed by speculation out of DC that the President had stopped taking calls. Out of respect for Melina’s footage, Anna told viewers the Gazette’s reporter’s whereabouts also weren’t known. It hung like a gloomy note over everything, like a semaphore for the threat of impending nuclear annihilation.

  Afterwards, Anna slumped, drained, sitting in as unladylike a manner as her dignity allowed, or at least until Iskov strolled back into the control booth where she’d finished uploading updated packages to the website.

  “You look beat,” he said.

  “And you look like the bearer of bad news,” Anna said. “Is it Charlotte?”

  “No,” Serik said. “Have you seen the audience figures?”

  Thankfully, Internet ratings had vanished from Anna’s mind during the recent hours, and now she felt as close to disinterested as any newshound could become, which was nonsense, of course. She scooped up her tablet and pulled up the app.

  “Jeez,” Anna said. “They really love you and leave you, huh?”

  “Two-point-three million unique visitor IDs isn’t exactly bad.”

  “No, I know,” she answered tiredly. “A week ago, I would’ve cut your mother’s throat if someone offered me a major news event on my first day trying to prove myself on the job if it had even half that viewership.”

  “My mother’s already dead.”

  “Sorry,” Anna said. “No disrespect intended.”

  “Cool,” he said. “Congrats on getting your report out.”

  “Cheers,” Anna said and wondered if Serik was about to proposition her again, now the end-of-the-world vibe was holding steady.

  “What time is it?” she asked instead. “I’m starved.”

  “Yeah, so’s everyone,” the technician replied. “Except no one wants to go outside.”

  And Anna didn’t blame them. Neither did she.

  UNLIKE THE SURVIVORS in the foyer, Anna knew Demien Christopher kept chocolate and energy bars in his drawer in the editorial hub, and slinking along as barefoot as ever – despite another costume overhaul for the latest recording – Anna eased into the unlit bullpen and switched on the lights and moved as quickly to the departed science reporter’s defunct work area as stealth allowed.

  And was devastated to find his drawer already picked clean.

  Someone had taken Demien’s surface spray too, as if maybe the other civilians were already that desperate. It wasn’t just low sugar levels that had Anna ready to level the office, but they sure weren’t helping, knowing as well that she could feel herself coming up to the end of her month.

  Anna growled and muttered a mouthful too profane to type without blushing, then she stalked back into the studio to sink into the sofa and roll up in her spare, snotty jacket, fuming and hungry and annoyed, and then remembering her emotional collapse earlier, the echoes of it still ongoing within her.

  The prospect of her monthly bleed on top of everything else assailing her right now was almost enough to trigger a further collapse. She hugged her knees instead, squeezing further thoughts about Crisis Lines and scorched earth responses from her mind.

  Sleep claimed her with a surprisingly swift hand. And some kind angel switched off the control room light at some point, because Anna blinked awake an indeterminate while later seeing only the silhouette of Douglas O’Dowd backlit by the studio’s short hallway bulb.

  “Douglas?”

  Anna winced at having to be awake again so soon, sitting up as O’Dowd stepped out of his hesitation and moved properly into the room.

  “I didn’t know you were sleeping,” he said.

  “It’s OK,” she said. “What time is it, anyway? Hold on. I hate people who ask that question all the time.”

  She retrieved her phone from the floor and pressed the button until it lit.

  It was just a little after 1am.

  They were still alive. The city wasn’t a smoking ruin. Yet. Nuclear Armageddon was the last thought before she slept and now the first to return.

  “Do you think they really might’ve been flying them out from the airport, despite what the President said?” Anna asked the other reporter. “Did our President, like, lie to eighty per cent of the American people?”

  O’Dowd sat at the other end of the long cushioned sofa.

  “Look,” he said wearily. “It’s been troubling me, too. And Buddy and Dwayne are still here … and we’ve been talking between ourselves.”

  “Talking about what?”

  “We want to head outside in the van, see what we turn up.”

  “You, Douglas O’Dowd, want to go play TV reporter in the middle of the night?”

  O’Dowd’s face split into a handsome grin that made him a natural for TV, because it was obviously a performance. He had a slight uptick at one corner of his mouth that was always either a perpetual snarl in Anna’s vicinity, or otherwise Douglas found it hard swallowing orders from the younger woman.

  “We got the report out,” he said. “But without any confirmation. Doesn’t it worry you we might’ve helped spark a needless panic?”

  “We can only tell them what we know,” Anna said. “That includes what we don’t know. I couldn’t even get a call out before. Do we think anyone at the White House’s still dealing with media requests? If the country’s in meltdown and the President’s MIA, there’s no more news conferences to wait for, Douglas. I don’t know what we’re meant to do.”

  O’Dowd slowly shook his head, but offered her a conciliatory grin.

  “We get out there and pound the fucking beat,” he growled. “Turn over rocks, visit old sources, find out what they know that we don’t know they know, right? You go out and actually make the calls, actually hit the street, never know what you’ll find out.”

  Anna stood with a weak smile despite his veiled tirade.

  “It’s great to hear you so fired up, Douglas,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re waiting for my permission. I’d be disappointed in you. Are you sure Dway
ne and Buddy are in on this for real, though?”

  O’Dowd stood as well.

  “Come ask them yourself.”

  DOUGLAS AND BUDDY crept away through the people sleeping in the Gazette foyer, with Dwayne following along from behind assuring Anna he’d be fine with his knee since he was only the driver. Buddy offered her one final wave, expression oblique on his dark face in the unlighted room, and then Anna hurried back to the control room.

  She yawned as she settled onto Iskov’s stool, craving the leftover sleep she’d had interrupted, and maybe a strong drink to wash it down with as well. Instead, she chewed on a lacquered fingernail and glanced at her pencil skirt and wondered if she was imagining it already feeling slightly more loose thanks to her unintended fast.

  Thoughts about what to do and what it meant for the weeks and months ahead – not just the next few days – flowed through her, only to be choked out by Anna’s iron will as she directed herself sternly back to the familiar: the live broadcast routed from the TV van and the vision coming on with the close light showing Dwayne behind the wheel and O’Dowd riding shotgun in the passenger seat. On the monitor, Dwayne fussed a paw back at his partner, and Buddy switched off the harsh camera light in favor of the soft ambient light within the van as its engine roared into life.

  O’Dowd leaned backwards out of his chair in front to address the camera, insouciant as the dashing war reporter he’d somehow become.

  “We made it to the van without any sign of the … Furies,” he said.

  In the control room, Anna’s fingers flew across the keyboard, punching in a scroll across the bottom of the screen with the Gazette’s web address so she could later add bullet points for news updates. By now, in her mind, they were effectively an online TV station themselves, and everything had to be structured that way.