Flash Point (29 page)

The two girls lifted Gran on top of the service cart, and the camera image shifted to Violet.

It was again a black-and-white security-camera image. Violet, dressed in a hotel terry-cloth robe with a towel wrapped around her head, emerged into a corridor. A close-up of the door behind her showed its sign:
LADIES’ SAUNA
. Sweat filmed Violet’s face. She looked wildly around her, then pulled her cell from her robe pocket.

Amy had an inane thought: Did steam and high temperatures hurt cell phones? Why would Violet have hers in the sauna?

As she listened to her phone, Violet’s mouth made a round wet O. She ran down the corridor.

Rafe frowned. He said to no one in particular, “She’s going the wrong way. Into the fighting.”

Violet pushed through a set of double doors and into a group of rioters. One had a blowtorch.

Another camera switch: back to Rafe in the stairwell, facing the rioter’s gun. He threw his hands over his head and began talking very fast, although the film was without words. The rioter made a disgusted face, lowered his gun, and pushed past Rafe.

Kaylie said, “What did you say to him?”

Rafe didn’t answer her. On-screen, the rest of the rioters pushed past Rafe on the stairwell. The last one swung his baseball bat and caught Rafe on the side of the head. He fell forward, blood streaming from his head, and lay still.

The real-life Rafe chewed on his bottom lip hard enough to pierce it.

No one spoke for most of the rest of the broadcast. Amy watched herself make the phone call to 911 that told her there was a safe room on the sixth floor, and receive the call from Violet that said there wasn’t. She watched herself and Waverly discover Rafe and heard Waverly say, “He was coming
up
. Trying to get to you.” She heard herself say, “We’re going to take them both with us.”

Back to Violet, who had to fight and claw her way to safety, but eventually made it.
Escaped the building with difficulty.

For the rest of the broadcast the camera stayed on Amy, Waverly, and Rafe. Amy was careful not to look at the other girl when the on-screen Waverly started to cry and said, “Amy, I don’t want to die!” But when the camera caught Waverly kicking the linen-door lock open with her combat boots, Amy drew a breath of relief. There would be no cameras in the linen cellar, the freight elevator, or the tunnel. It was over.

Except that it wasn’t.

The image got much blurrier, but it was still in color. Everyone was seen from the back, without close-ups, as the girls carried Gran and Rafe to safety. Waverly said, “That’s not us!”

Rafe said, “I think it’s actors. This is a simulation of what happened.”

Amy said, “
The bastards
.”

It got worse. The simulation put rats in the tunnel, where there had been no rats. Pipes overhead dripped thick disgusting liquid onto them, where there had been no dripping. Worst of all, at one point Amy stopped dragging Rafe, forcing Waverly to stop pushing the cart. The blurry Amy said, “If I don’t make it and you do, tell Rafe I was in love with him.”

“What!” Amy exploded. Tears of pure fury sprang to her eyes. “I never said that!”

Kaylie said uncertainly, “It was your voice . . .”

Rafe said, “Voice sequencer. The software takes individual words you said in another context and joins them together to make sentences you never said.” He didn’t look at Amy.

Amy said, “Can I sue? I will sue!”

A moment later she realized that this might hurt Rafe’s feelings. Suing TLN over the statement that she loved him—didn’t that imply he was too horrible to love? That wasn’t what she meant at all. But the whole thing was so cheesy, so melodramatically stupid, even for television.

“Sshhh,” Kaylie said. Even though now there was no sound except the fake dripping of the fake pipe liquid.

The sequence ended with the rickety, cobwebby stairs up to the alley off Fenton Street. Now the image was not only blurry but bobbing up and down: shot with somebody’s cell phone, maybe. Waverly, at the top of the stairs, cried, “They’re down there!” People lifted Gran and Rafe from the tunnel and Amy, in her filthy pajamas, followed. The screen went black.

Long portentous moment, and then the soundtrack burst into cheering. What cheering? It didn’t matter. The announcer in the dark suit reappeared, saying, “Acts of courage, acts of heroism, acts of love. In that terrible night, three brave survivors. Amy’s grandmother and Rafe have both recovered completely. And all six of our participants will be back next week to test what
you
know about people, baby!”

The cheering rose in volume. A voice-over, barely audible over the din and speaking as quickly as the disclaimers in medication commercials, said that some parts of the preceding broadcast were re-creations. Amy had to strain to hear it. The list appeared on the screen, this time completed so voters could see how they’d done:

AMY: Tried to save someone else—and succeeded!

CAI: Escaped the building easily!

WAVERLY: Tried to save someone else—and succeeded!

RAFE: Tried to save someone else—and was rescued instead!

TOMMY: Escaped the building easily!

VIOLET: Escaped the building with difficulty!

Tommy seized the remote and turned off the TV. “I don’t like that show.”

Cai said, “No. None of us do. Rafe, have you got anything on the Internet?”

Rafe had been working his cell nonstop. Without looking up, he said, “Somebody at TLN ‘leaked’ response numbers. Higher than any other show this month, including the legitimate news specials on the riots. A lot of outraged posts about the whole thing, but outrage doesn’t condense easily into numbers. Oh, and—” He stopped.

“And what?” Kaylie said.

“One more burn victim from the riot just died in the hospital.”

No one said anything. Amy got up and stumbled from the room, back to her own. Sickened, she only wanted to never again see anyone connected in any way with Taunton Life Network.

Thirty

S
UNDAY

BY THE NEXT
morning, the death threats had appeared.

Amy would not have known this if Cai hadn’t called her. She stared at the ID. It was six thirty in the morning—why would Cai be calling her unless something had happened to Kaylie?

“Cai! What’s wrong?”

“Have you seen your e-mail? On the show site?”

“No, of course not, I just got up to get ready to go to the hospital and—why?”

“Take a look. Jillian just called me. Myra doesn’t want anyone to leave our floor of the hotel, not even to go to the restaurant. We’re supposed to order meals from room service.”

“I’m going to the hospital.”

“Just look at the e-mail first, OK?”

As soon as she clicked off, her cell rang again. Jillian. “Amy, I’m calling everyone. There are some threats being made against all of you connected with the show, so please don’t leave your floor until you hear from us.”

“I’m going to the hospital to see Gran!”

“That’s not a good idea,” Jillian said. “Really. The FBI will be here very soon.”

The FBI?

Amy brought up
MAIL
on the cell. She had more than five thousand, automatically forwarded from the show’s website. Quickly she read a handful:

Who do you think you are, turning other people’s deaths into so-called entertainment? You’re a fucking bitch!

I used to like you on WKPB-Y, but not now. You should not do that. People died or got burnt in those riots. You have no heart.

You all deserve to die, you exploitative fuckers, and I intend to see that you do.

Amy groaned. If the FBI was involved, somebody was taking this very seriously. But she was still going to the hospital.

Quickly she brushed her teeth, threw cold water on her face, and tossed on clothes. Outside her door stood a man the size of a small building. Amy stifled a scream.

“Sorry to scare you, Miss Kent. I’m Ethan, your bodyguard.”

“My what?”

“Bodyguard,” he said patiently. Bald and heavy-jowled, he had a face like a bulldog. “From TLN. I stay with you from now on.”

Amy drew herself up straight, trying to look taller than five-foot-two. “I’m going to the hospital to see my grandmother.”

“Yes, ma’am. And I’m going with you.”

“But Jillian said—”

“I don’t know who Jillian is. Ms. Townsend sent me.”

Amy glanced down the row of closed bedroom doors. No one else had a bodyguard. Evidently Myra decided that everyone else would stay in the hotel. If Amy left now, she might avoid the whole FBI thing—another plus.

“OK, let’s go, Mr.—”

“Ethan.”

He kept close to her in the deserted lobby, sat beside her in the cab, trailed her watchfully in the hospital. She could not get him to stop calling her “ma’am.” At Gran’s room he waited respectfully outside the door, and Amy decided she liked him.

Gran was awake, and fully herself. She didn’t confuse Amy with her mother, and she wanted to watch the news. “That’s good,” she said of the progress of the “Raise-Up-Everybody Act,” which the president was ramming through Congress. “It’ll cost him reelection, but it’ll save the economy. The opposition knows that and they’ll castigate him until it all succeeds, and then they’ll take credit for it themselves.”

“Does it always work like that, Gran?” Amy asked. She was thinking of the show, not the country.

“Always. Some try to do the right thing, some try to do the best thing for themselves, and most of us just muddle through, not sure what we’ve done until we see the consequences. Sshhh—I want to hear this part.”

Amy didn’t particularly want to hear that part. Of course she was glad that the economy would improve (if Gran was right), but the details seemed confusing. Well, wasn’t that what Gran had just said? “Most of us just muddle through.”

Midmorning, Kaylie turned up. “Hey, Amy. Is Gran asleep?”

“Yes. How did you get out of the hotel?”

Kaylie scowled. “Why wouldn’t I be able to get out? I’m not on the show, remember? Nobody’s sending
me
death threats.”

“Is everybody else getting them?”

“Yes. And the show’s ratings went through the roof, and Myra is giving you all a huge bonus so you won’t quit, and it’s all just great.”

“Uh-huh. Did you break up with Cai?”

“No. And I want your advice.”

Amy blinked. Kaylie never wanted her advice. She said cautiously, “About what?”

“Mark Meyer. He’s not so old, you know? And he’s sort of cute. If I hit on him, would it improve my chances of getting on the show?”

Amy put her head in her hands. “No. That’s been tried. Kaylie, don’t you ever want to earn anything for yourself, without using some guy to get it for you?”

“It’s been tried? Really? Did you try it?”

“
No
. But Mark told me Waverly tried to seduce him for information, and I saw Violet come on to him, and it just made him dislike them.”

“Oh. Thanks for the info. I—hey, Gran!”

“Kayla. Hello, honey.”

For the next hour Kaylie devoted herself to Gran. She made herself Kaylie-at-her-most-magnetic, telling funny stories and asking questions and listening to Gran’s answers, even when they wandered a bit. When Gran said she was cold, Kaylie ran to get another blanket, and in the way that Kaylie pulled it up to Gran’s chin, Amy saw genuine tenderness. Kaylie was not performing. In her own way, she did care about Gran, even if this turned out to be her only visit. Which Amy suspected it might be.

But Kaylie was not Gran’s only visitor. In the afternoon, to Amy’s surprise, Rafe walked into the room.

“Hello, Mrs. Whitcomb. Amy.”

Gran’s eyes brightened. Amy didn’t meet Rafe’s gaze. He sat down beside Gran and immediately they plunged into a discussion of the economic package. Rafe had all the interest in details that Amy lacked. The discussion went on until Gran tired too much.

“Rafe—” Amy said, her first word in half an hour.

“Yeah, I’ve got to be going. Wonderful to see you, Mrs. Whitcomb.”

“Come anytime.”

“Amy, can I see you in the hall for a minute?”

In the corridor, between a rolling cart filled with cleaning equipment and an empty wheelchair, Rafe handed her a cell. “Here, you need this. You can’t just be out of touch with the world in here.”

“But—is this yours?”

“My old one. Jillian gave me a new one this morning. She doesn’t know that this one actually came through the fire.”

“Rafe—did you come all the way down here just to give me a cell?”

He didn’t answer, avoiding her gaze and saying instead. “Don’t reply to your e-mail. In fact, don’t even look at it.”

“I already did. Jillian gave me a phone last night. Kaylie said everybody’s getting death threats.”

“Yeah. We’re under more security than the Oval Office.”

“Then how did you get out and come here?”

Finally Rafe looked at her. He grinned. “Security’s focused on keeping intruders out, not us. I just slipped out through the kitchen and hitched here.”

All at once Amy wanted to kiss him. Astonished at herself, she wondered why: Was it just gratitude for his thoughtfulness, admiration for his brains, what? Rafe didn’t seem to notice anything. He said, “Well, bye,” and loped down the hall.

Most of us just muddle through
.

Amy went back into Gran’s room. Gran was asleep again. Only she didn’t wake up; she had slipped into a coma.

* * *

This, the doctors said, was probably the final coma, and it would all be over in a few more days. Gran looked peacefully asleep. Kaylie came each day to bring Amy fresh clothes, and at night the nurses wheeled in a cot for her. Time felt suspended.

Amy watched TV, but not
Who–You
. The first time she turned it on, she saw that it was the scenario with the real spiders and fake puppy, and suddenly she didn’t care who had done what. She clicked off the TV before she saw anyone’s responses.

Violet never answered her cell, which both surprised and hurt Amy. Mostly Amy watched TV. Now that Gran was no longer able to care about the Raise-Up-Everybody package of laws, Amy concentrated on them until she finally understood what the laws were supposed to do and how they would radically restructure the American economy. On her cell she played anonymous online chess, a lot of chess, with strangers who had no idea who she was. Daily she checked the TLN website. The death threats fell off as the loonies turned their attention elsewhere, but the outrage over the hotel-fire show didn’t subside. Nonetheless, TLN withdrew Ethan from the hospital door. And after each airing of the show, the ratings sagged more. Viewers could send in comments, and Amy was always surprised at how many did: Didn’t these people have anything better to do?

Boring.

Really lame. Who cares if a pretend dog gets rescued?

The Frustration Box thing was just stupid. I’m done watching.

Give us something REAL, like the riot where that girl takes her clothes off or, even better, the hotel fire. More like that!

Amy stared a long time at that last comment.

There were other, gentler ones, some even positive, but these were in the minority. Eventually she gave up reading any of them. Violet did not call her. And the ratings continued to sag.

Then, on the last afternoon of Gran’s life, Waverly came to see Amy, and Amy realized that nothing was close to being over.