John Barnes - Directive 51

Bottoms up, Cletus, he thought. Come on, after I was so rude to you, you deserve a drink, bucko. And then drunk dial your ex and violate that restraining order.

He was down in the front lobby three minutes before official go time. The other six network guys weren’t there yet, so Chris had his choice of spots. Just this once, fuck Cletus, fuck 247NN, and do it right .

Norcross actually waved at him, and said, “Hey, Chris,” and he was alarmed at how much he enjoyed that. Jeez, I wish I could just send them the story the way I want to, use it or have nothing. It would be so—

Hunh. Only three reasons he didn’t send out live stories just the way he wanted them, with everything locked. One, it made him nervous because live mix in the field was hard. Two, it was rare that they carried anything Norcross did or said live, even when they had him give them live feed. And three, because if he did it, he’d definitely be fired.

Hunh.

He set up the last of his six wireless remotes, scattering them widely; he was set up for some real reaction shots of the press corps, and some nice side angles that would really show emotions from the hastily-assembled audience—a few supporters who had been holding a post-rally party, about fifty people who had been at the bars or doing some late shopping, maybe another thirty businesspeople and traveling families who had been told history was happening and to come downstairs to see it, and a great number of hastily-dragooned hotel workers.

Three reasons why I can’t do this right, the way I want to do it, Chris thought. One, I’m not sure I’m good enough; two, it doesn’t usually go out live; three, I don’t want to be fired.

Hunh. I’m good enough, it’s going live tonight, and I’ d enjoy getting fired.

He checked his remotes, checked his main camera, smiled when Norcross announced they’d have to start a few minutes late to accommodate the other networks. All the time I need to be ready. Here we go, lock the structure, send only one camera at a time, lock the audio over the video I send…

Whack! Crash! “Uh, um, damn.” Thud, thud-thud . Heather smiled, visualizing Graham’s awkward, startled fumbling as the secured handset plunged to the end of its cord. “Heather. What’s up?”

“I think your old student”— I don’t dare say the name or the office, but if anyone’s listening in, they’ll know, they just won’t be able to prove it —“may need your, um, advice —like the unofficial advice I’ve gotten from you a few times—and he might need it very, very badly. He’s here at the, um, old hospital where I’ve been all afternoon. The guy I’m working with here is sending a car—”

“Yes, of course, of course, I’ll be down front in about three minutes.”

“You can go eight,” Heather said, looking at her screen. “That’s the earliest the limo will get there. Bring a spare shirt and a toothbrush. Oh, and the Arnie Show was less of a disaster than we expected—he deigned to speak English to the mere mortals. See you soon.”

“Food’s here!” Cameron’s voice cut through the dense fog of chatter around her. “I’ll have to ask you all to stay where you can see your screens and hear your alarms, and a few critical people including me will have to stay fully online, but otherwise I insist that you make this as much of a break as you can make it. We probably won’t have any more major information coming in for the next half hour or more, so eat, relax, rest as much as you can, and take care of yourselves like the valuable people you are.” Aides were wheeling in carts of food.

“Also,” Cameron announced, “for those of you who care, the Commissioner of Baseball has ruled that since Game Seven of the World Series was tied at the end of the sixth inning when the evacuation began, by the agreement of both the Angels and Pirates management, we have the first tied Series in history; both teams will share the championship. America’s bookies are in total despair. Now, eat, relax, and be ready.”

“He takes care of his people,” Lenny said, stirring wasabi into soy sauce.

“Yeah. One of many things he’s good at,” Heather said. She pried a piece of pizza loose and slipped it onto a napkin. “This is an embarrassing thing for anyone from the Department of the Future to say, but do you have any feeling for how this is going to come out?”

“For the country, no idea. For people like us, same as anything else, free food and overtime.”

Chris Manckiewicz ran through his cameras and mikes one more time. Clear tight view of the hastily-set-up rostrum. Nice wide angle of the area behind it, get Mrs. Norcross, the Secret Service, the local politicians, check. Clear view of the night cleaning staff and bellhops standing nervously in the back. Clear shot of the small group of press; camera preset to pan across a cluster of biz folks, a family with the dad and mom in sweats, young soldier in uniform with his arm around a dark-haired girl in a nice maroon dress. Hell of an interruption for your leave, guy . Sorry about all the history breaking in . Another camera preset to swing between the dignified black guy in a suit (the host for the coffee shop), the mixed-race-and-gender group of young people in scruffy clothes (bunch of art students from Loras, grabbed out of a bar), and the brown-skinned woman in a pale green uniform with a big ring of keys (the night building engineer). All remotes good, broadband to 247NN open and clear.

It didn’t hurt that the crowd was pretty Frank Capra to begin with, but Chris thought he’d really set things to look all-American. And Lexy, Cletus’s after-hours assistant and the only person who might hate Cletus even more than Chris did, had gleefully slipped the word to Chris: Cletus was drunk and passed out.

So here we go. Edited live and on the fly and direct to air. My personal masterpiece. The story I see, the way I see it, and fuck the network with a garden rake. Gonna be so worth it.

“So, Chris, here we are in another town for another speech.” Norcross’s raspy nasal tenor was instantly recognizable; Chris turned and smiled. The Republican candidate said, “I think you’ve listened to me more than my wife.”

“I’m sure he has,” Mrs. Norcross put in.

Chris smiled. “Break a leg, Senator. I’m ready when you are.”

Norcross clapped Chris’s shoulder and strode to the rostrum. He looks exactly like he knows what he’s doing. People said Pendano was the guy Hollywood would cast as the president; Chris figured Norcross would be cast as the president’s barber—the man usually looked like he had really expected to be out on the road selling vacuum cleaners today. Nonetheless, I almost like the Jesus-spouting batshit-crazy son of a bitch.

The room quieted instantly when Will Norcross said, “Soundcheck, one, two, three, soundcheck; are we good?”

Thumbs went up all along the media tables. Norcross drew a breath, glanced down— probably praying, Chris decided. In his place, I sure would.

“Media alert,” Marshall called over the speakers. “Will Norcross’s statement is going in less than one.”

“Main screen,” Cameron said. The whole room turned silently toward the larger-than-life view from the Dubuque Radisson.