K Gillenwater: The Man in 14C: A Collection of Science Fiction Stories

Instead of offering her lunch, however, he fired her. It hit like a punch to her gut. Eighteen years of loyalty gone in a split second. Ford had claimed the economic crash had forced them to tighten their belts. Advertisers were barely spending any more. The morning news desk was top heavy and cuts needed to be made. Jim Dasher, of course, pushing sixty, would stay. The country trusted him and trust was most needed in such uncertain times.

When Lucinda had asked about the weather girl, Susie, a straight-from-university amateur who could barely read much less understand a meteorological report, Ford informed Lucinda that Susie would be taking over at the news desk. They had two women on the morning show and only could afford one. Lucinda wasn’t surprised that she, the senior of the two, would be leaving.

If she were in Ford’s shoes, she probably would’ve done the same. But she wasn’t going to break down in front of her boss. No, she was tougher than that. She’d learned over the years that tears only meant weakness.

After Ford had fired her and had security escort her out of the building, Lucinda Quant kept her chin high and her face blank of any emotion. She wasn’t going to give up on her career so easily. Who cared what the news world thought? She’d persevere. She’d find a way. She’d made a name for herself in news and wasn’t about to let that slip away.

Six months later, she knew this was no ordinary economic crash. She’d sent a video of her work to every news station in the city. Not a peep. Some of the stations went belly-up. Their news trucks and camera equipment sold off to the highest bidder. She’d even heard her old boss, Cranston Ford, had fallen on hard times when most of his investments went sour.

Lucinda hoarded her savings as best she could, but her penthouse wasn’t cheap. She slowly sold off her jewelry, designer clothes, expensive collectibles. To give up her penthouse meant she was no better than Lucinda Quantillo-Hermosa who grew up on the other side of the tracks. She wasn’t going back there. No way. No way in hell. She’d fight until she couldn’t fight anymore.

After a year of looking for work and trying to keep her head above water, she’d gotten a call from a reality tv producer. He’d asked her a few questions. How did she feel about live, on-camera interviews? What did she think about expose journalism? Did she have a problem with asking difficult questions? How well did she handle emotional topics?

The producer had no idea how desperate Lucinda’s situation had become. Her power had been shut off weeks ago. She showered under cold water in her travertine tile shower, kept her naturally dark hair as blonde as possible using cheap peroxide, and ate Ramen noodles heated up on a propane camping stove in her kitchen. The owner of her building had gone bankrupt, so luckily she didn’t have to pay rent anymore, but scavengers had started to take over some of the abandoned apartments on the lower floors. It wasn’t much of a life, but it was better than most.

The only connection she had to her old life was her cell phone. She kept it charged using a solar charger she’d bought for emergency purposes years ago. On a good day she could get a full charge with eight hours of sunlight. Without that phone, she might never have connected with the producer. She thanked God she’d kept it.

She didn’t hesitate when the reality TV producer asked his questions. She answered all of them in the affirmative and spoke of her commitment to ‘gritty’ journalism.

The producer must have liked her answers, not only did she get the job, but he wanted to add her name to the title: The Home Front with Lucinda Quant. She thought it had a nice ring to it. Some of her old fans might actually tune in to watch, which is probably what the producer had been banking on. In this day and age, TV shows were difficult to produce. Advertisers were slim. Dollars were tight. She wondered if she were the first out-of-work reporter he’d called.

Not until the first day of work, however, did she find out what she’d signed on for. An old news van showed up at her building. She’d been told that wardrobe was up to her. Their budget didn’t allow for wardrobe. She’d kept a handful of nicer things in her expansive walk-in closet. They’d have to work.

A teenage girl greeted her as they zoomed across the city to their first assignment. The girl read off the particulars of that day’s work. The show entailed focusing on a single family who were about to lose their home. Lucinda would interview the family, wring out every sob story possible about their old life before the crash and how they’d ended up destitute. After taking a tour of their home, pawing through their personal belongings and taking some shots of the family outside their house, Lucinda was supposed to turn to the audience and ask for viewers to help the downtrodden family with their plight. A hotline number would appear on screen and donations were taken.

Lucinda, not one to care about ethics or decency, dove into the work. She’d faked sincerity for so long, it came naturally to her. In the early seasons of her new job, she’d garnered quite a following. The audience watching The Home Front remembered her from National News Today . She received quite a few pieces of fan mail. People loved to be snoops and watch someone in a worse situation than themselves. The show took off quickly. There was no end to the supply of forlorn families in dire straits. The show was cheap to produce, emotionally over-the-top and played on everyone’s fear that they would be next to have Lucinda Quant show up at their front door.

One day, the van drove her to a familiar part of the city. Her old neighborhood. Most of the people who lived here were already dirt poor before the financial meltdown. Lucinda wondered about the selection for today’s show. The audience seemed to respond best to episodes about the once-well-to-do and their descent into the poor house. Watching former vice presidents of big companies or plastic surgeons with a sliced-and-diced trophy wife going belly up was infinitely more satisfying to her viewers than watching one of their own.

Lucinda wondered what the crew would think of her if they had any idea she came from one of these very same rundown brownstones with the boarded up windows and broken steps.

The van stopped. Her teen girl assistant slid open the door. The girl mumbled something about how ‘gross’ it was and how she hoped they’d be done with this shoot early.

Lucinda stepped out of the van and caught sight of a familiar face – her mother sitting on the stoop, boxes piled around her, Lucinda’s siblings wailing and crying.

Lucinda’s gaze met her mother’s. Lucinda plastered a smile on her face, grabbed the mike and nodded at the cameraman to start filming. Without missing a beat, she stepped right up to her mother – a woman she hadn’t seen or spoken to since she graduated from high school – and asked her the first question she always asked the families on her show: “So, tell me about your life, Mrs. Quantillo-Hermosa. How did you end up here? Our audience would really like to know.”

Contest:This was K.J.’s entry for the XPrize Short Story contest using the following prompt: At 4:58am on June 28th, 2017, the passengers on board ANA Flight 008, en route from Tokyo to San Francisco, are cruising at an altitude of 37,000 feet, approximately 1,500 nautical miles off the West Coast of the United States. A small bump, otherwise noted as a barely perceptible bout of turbulence, passes Flight 008 through a temporary wrinkle in the local region of space-time. What these passengers will soon find out as they descend into SFO is that the wrinkle has transported them 20 years in the future, and the year is now 2037.