This Just In... « Thread Started on Jun 29, 2009, 5:16pm »
The newsroom buzzed with excitement. Even as his assistant hurriedly applied his make-up, Drake Torin scowled. Following up on a press conference was never good. It meant the pithy pearls of carefully worded, politically correct wisdom fed to him by the Teleprompters would, at best, be hastily crafted. It meant he might have to improvise.
He hated improvising.
The video the Senator was going to show was being guardedly protected, but he’d seen a leaked clip. (Her office had probably done the leaking.) The world had seen that much, and bloggers were already theorizing about its authenticity. If it was real, this was an incredibly juicy story: one that would have stopped the presses, when they had still used presses.
They were already calling it “OrkinGate”.
Drake Torin took his seat behind the anchor desk, he and his perfectly coiffed hair ready to respond once the conference was over. He was practically salivating as he turned his attention to the monitors.
Senator Samantha Robbins stood behind a podium in an elegant red suit and pearls. Her dirty blonde hair was pulled back. This, combined with the bags under her eyes and tightness at the corners of her lips, gave the impression of one barely under control of a devastating situation. The camera zoomed in on her as the press took their seats. “I want to thank you all for agreeing to this last-minute press conference.
“This afternoon, out of concern for the public, an anonymous source delivered a video file to my office. After validating its authenticity as far as I am able, I have decided to go directly to the public with it. It will warrant further investigation after today, but I feel confident enough that my conscience does not allow me to wait.” She paused, looking directly into the camera with compassion. “I must warn you: the contents are upsetting.” Her eyes bright with unshed tears, she nodded to someone in the back of the room. The television screen beside her came to life.
The sepia colors might be disorienting at first, but soon people realized it was a video feed of last week’s rally in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The camera panned the crowd repeatedly, focusing on members of the crowd that were highlighted by some sort of technology built into the viewer.
A voice came over the audio. “Friggin’ muties. Might as well be maggots.” The viewer paused as a girl before him – one lit up by the computer’s sensors and sporting the obvious mutation of a tail. “Hey Fletcher – somebody call Orkin?”
Rough laughter followed. Another voice - presumably Fletcher’s – spoke. “Lazy slobs wouldn’t know what to do with this nest. We’ll need to clean up the gene pool.”
The screen panned to focus on Brian Diaz, the human boy the world now knew by name as the victim of the tragedy. Almost anyone would recognize him: the photo of him in Archangel’s arms had been on the front page of every magazine and newspaper. He didn’t light up on the screen; he was, in fact, pushing another person in the crowd that lit up like a Christmas tree. Fletcher’s voice chimed in again. “You got a problem over there, Larry?”
By now, everyone knew the scene was a recording from Larry Peletier’s suit, but that cemented it. They were about to watch the boy die, up close and personal. “No problem. Just some runt trying to do our work for us. I swear to God, I don’t know which is worse, the mutie-lovers, or these schmucks. Talk about gene pool contamination.”
“Looks like trouble. What’s his problem? Seriously, Lar – tell him to back off.” Fletcher didn’t sound amused anymore. “We don’t need some inbred idiot kid starting a fight.”
“I’m done with this shit,” said Peletier in a thick Brooklyn accent. The media had heard that accent often lately. It got thicker when he protested his innocence. “I’m sick of babysittin’ people who don’t know better than to get bit. If he’s gonna pick a fight, let’s show him a fight. Maybe then they’ll learn some respect.” There was a pause where the arm of the Sentinel Suit came into view, aiming at the child on the screen. “If they ask, we’ll just say he’s a freak. No one will care.”
The video cut out as the screen lit up with the Sentinel’s attack. Samantha Robbins, looking appropriately horrified, turned to the press. She paused to gather her composure and for impact before speaking. “Last week, an unspeakable tragedy occurred in New York City. This video shows that the situation was far worse than the Mutant Task Force and Friends of Humanity will admit.”
Lifting her chin, she took another deep breath before continuing. “In light of this evidence, I am calling for Congress to immediately disband the Sentinel program and investigate the MTF and Friends of Humanity. Hatred in any form should not be tolerated. Not in America.” The press room exploded with sound as the reporters all stood up and shouted questions.
When they cut back to Drake Torin, the newsroom was silent. Drake stared at the screen for a moment before speaking. “We have… just heard … shocking news from Washington. Senator Samantha Robbins, known for her compassion towards mutants, has just revealed a damning tape of the attack in New York last week. It appears… that the attack on young Brian Diaz was unprovoked, and Lawrence Peletier’s claims that his systems informed him Diaz was a threat, and that he warned the child repeatedly to stand down… are false. Robbins has called for the disbanding of the Sentinel program. We have no immediate response from the Friends of Humanity or the Mutant Task Force.”
There was a buzz of words in his ear, mostly telling him to shut up. “We now return to the press conference in Washington…”
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