Apocalypse - Keith R. A. DeCandido [5]
Her vivacious voice came through the speakers next to Randall’s monitor.
“Six-ten in the a.m. and already the temperature is at a massive ninety-two degrees, as this unprecedented heat wave continues.”
Dabbing sweat from his brow, Randall figured it was more like a hundred and two in the control room.
“Why do people say ‘in the a.m.’ all the time?”
Randall looked at his assistant. “Loren, I’m not in the mood.”
“No, really, I mean, why put it there? What does it add to the sentence, except maybe a veneer of pseudo-hipsterism?”
“Clear skies, low humidity, a light breeze coming in from the west. And, as a special bonus just for you, we even have a pollen count of just point-seven.”
“Just for us,” Loren said, “right. Like the Fates got together and said, ‘Hey, let’s keep the pollen count down just for the people watching Terri Morales.’ ”
“Loren, shut the fuck up and ready Camera 3.”
“That’s right—zero-point-seven! And that’s a record low for this time of year. Good news for all you hay-fever and asthma sufferers. All in all, we’re in for another beautiful day.”
Loren shook his head. “She’s on fire this morning.”
“Yeah, too bad they don’t give out Emmys for the weather. Go to Camera 3.”
As Loren switched over to the two-shot of the anchor desk, he asked, “Hey, you think they’ll ever give her back the job as anchor? She’s certainly bland enough.”
Randall blurted a laugh. “Not in my lifetime.”
Sherry and Bill were finishing up.
“Stay with us—after the break we’ll be looking at your holiday hot spots.”
“Stand by—going to c-break in three…two…one…and we’re out.”
“Back in sixty,” Loren added.
As soon as the word “out” came out of Randall’s mouth, he saw Terri Morales’s face change on the Camera 4 monitor from perky and smiling to aggravated and scowling.
“Someone get me a fucking cappuccino before I puke!”
Even as one of the terrified production assistants ran to fulfill her request, Terri reached into a pocket and pulled out a pillbox. Randall knew that it was full of an assortment of uppers, downers, relaxants, and pep pills, none of which would be taken together by a rational, sane person.
However, nobody had ever accused Terri Morales of being a rational, sane person.
A rational, sane person wouldn’t have gone ahead and aired footage of a city councilman taking a bribe that she had been explicitly told not to air until she got a corroborating source. She claimed she had one and aired it anyhow, only to have the lie revealed later, and the footage likewise as being a fake. Instead of exposing Councilman Miller as a corrupt bastard, it had made him look good while vilifying the ever-untrustworthy TV news media. It was a major black eye to Raccoon 7, which until then had a pristine news reporting record.
The only thing that allowed Terri to stay employed was the Raccoon City Times publishing an exposé on Councilman Miller the following week. Taking bribes was a spit in the ocean of the man’s corruption, as it turned out, and while this didn’t exonerate Terri, it at least ameliorated her situation. After all, the only person really harmed by what she’d done was now facing a dozen indictments.
Still, it didn’t look good. One of the reasons Randall liked it at Channel 7 was that the station staff took their journalistic integrity seriously. Maybe they couldn’t fire Terri without risking a backlash—not to mention the chance of a competitor hiring her—but they could demoralize her. Demote her to the Raccoon 7 weather chick.
It also made her résumé look bad for any prospective employers.
Randall was really going to enjoy it when he moved on to bigger and better things in Hollywood while Terri Morales was still talking to Raccoon City about pollen counts.
“Remember how it used to be?”
Randall looked up at the commercial that was now running on the on-air monitor. It showed a beautiful woman of a type that Randall knew didn’t exist in real life getting out of bed. The bedroom was incredibly neat and snazzy—of a tax bracket Randall had long aspired