Hannibal waited until he could hear the thud of running boots before popping out from cover. Three Tabs were jogging down the middle of the hallway and Hannibal opened up on them. Almost immediately all of the men around him did the same, and the Tabs fell to sliding stops on the floor before they could return fire.
But there’d been only three soldiers. “SkyBox, three Tabs down over here, look out for the rest,” Hannibal said into the radio. He’d barely finished speaking when he heard gunfire deeper in the building. There was a narrow corridor there. He left half the men to cover the main hallway and pushed toward the fighting with the rest of them. They approached cautiously, weapons up, but before they got close enough to see anything there was a loud blast from a grenade, some fierce screaming, a second grenade detonation, and then the shooting and screaming stopped as if someone had thrown a switch.
“SkyBox is clear, we got the other three over here,” they heard over their radios, Chan’s voice breathless but recognizable. “We’ve got one man down,” he spat. “All SkyBox to the rally point,” he ordered flatly. “And somebody get that lady, bring her back up.”
The building had thirty-one elevators, but they’d been told only one bank was working, and it not very reliably. That was why nobody in the building was working above the fourth floor. However, the elevator they were interested in was the freight elevator, set off alone and apart from the others. It continued to function.
Lydia led the men to the freight elevator, but large as it was only eight of the fourteen remaining members of Kermit and Yosemite (plus Morris’ loaners and Lydia) could fit into it. “Go, and send her back down ASAP,” Hannibal told Chan. The two squad leaders shared a look, then Chan nodded.
“Defensive perimeter,” Hannibal said. The freight elevator was in a back hall, and hopefully, after all the gunfire, nobody would come exploring and find them there before the elevator returned. Their plan was to disappear, at least for the moment. It seemed to take forever, but finally they heard the big metal box descending toward them. Lydia was alone in it.
The men backed into the freight elevator, packing it, and waited for the doors to close. No one appeared in the hallway before them. Then the elevator began its slow trek upward, creaking constantly.
Ed wasn’t alone in not wanting to climb eight flights of stairs, but if there were any soldiers stationed at the VOP broadcast offices upstairs when the elevator doors opened it would become a kill box. Still, the elevator would be much quicker, and they could get attacked climbing the stairs by soldiers above them just as easily as they could trying to exit the elevators. So he split the men, sending more than half up the stairs, and the rest up in two elevators, leaving six to cover the lobby.
He rode up in the elevator with Weasel, Mark, and one of Hannibal’s men. When the elevator reached the eighth floor they all had their rifles up, fingers tense on triggers as they hugged the walls. The doors slid open, and… nothing.
The lobby was small and at one point had been nicely decorated, but the furniture was aging badly. They pushed out and cleared the corners. Not just lights, but lights and the faint coolness of air conditioning on their cheeks was a bit disconcerting. And, above their heads from hidden speakers, was faint music. Ed couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard music. It had been months.
On the far side of the lobby was one receptionist and a secure door. The slender young man stared at them with an open mouth and wide eyes. The second elevator dinged and four dogsoldiers piled out, ready for killing. They stopped abruptly, seeing everything was under control.
Ed walked up to the receptionist and leaned against the counter. “Hi,” he said with a smile. “We’re here to interrupt your regularly scheduled programming.”
“What?”
“Open the fucking door and take us back,” Hannibal growled over Ed’s shoulder.
“There any Tabs back there?” Mark asked the receptionist.
“What?”
“Soldiers! Are there any soldiers stationed back there to watch the broadcast?”
“Oh. No.”
One of Hannibal’s men grabbed the terrified receptionist and pulled him out of the way. They waited. Mark walked over to the stairs and opened the door. “Hurry up you fat bastards,” he called out cheerfully. Fifteen seconds later the men who’d taken the harder route up appeared, sweating and blowing hard. They did not find Mark amusing.
Ed found the button beside the desk to open the door heading into the back, looked around to make sure everyone was ready, and then hit it.
It was all rather anticlimactic. Two minutes later Ed was standing with George and Hannibal in the broadcast booth as the dogsoldiers who’d climbed the stairs up to the eighth floor stood around panting and waiting for their heartbeats to slow. Two broadcast producers were sitting before a dozen screens. Some showed the newsroom set just on the other side of the soundproof wall, others were paused to display video ready to be played at the touch of a button. The control panel in front of them looked more complicated than the cockpit of an airliner. Several of the squad members were on the set, looking very out of place with their armor and rifles, making sure the cameramen stayed where they were. The male and female “anchors” had been removed from the set after the live feed had been killed from the booth. The two talking heads seemed to be having nervous breakdowns and were hugging each other in a nearby dressing room, under guard.
“You’re good? You know what I want?” Ed said.
“Yeah, yeah,” George said, waving him on.
Ed moved onto the news room set and sat behind the desk. George moved where Ed could see him. Hannibal stood behind the two producers in the broadcast booth. “Which is the feed that shows what’s going out?” he asked the two very nervous men. They weren’t used to having enemy soldiers with rifles standing behind them.
“Right there,” one said, pointing at a screen showing nothing but static.
“Right. Okay, you get a camera on him, and when I tell you to, you put that feed out on the air. And when I tell you to cut it, I want it back to static. Immediately. Got it?”
The men nodded. One said into his headset, “Mike, center up on him there.” The producer pointed at the resulting image on one of the monitors. “Is that okay?”
Hannibal nodded. “That’s fine. Everybody be cool and calm and nobody will need to get shot. You guys ready?” he called to George through the open door. George looked at Ed, who was waiting patiently, and gave a thumbs up.
“Waitwaitwait,” George said. He strode out of the booth and over to Jason, who was looking around the studio with wide eyes. “Kid, gimme your… no, wait, never mind, you don’t have your lever action any more. Early!”
“Yeah boss,” he said laconically.
“Give Ed your rifle.”
“And I’d be doing this why?” he asked, even as he strode across the studio floor.
“Because it looks like a piece of shit if all you know is ARs. But the Captain’s suppressed carbine looks high speed. We are not trying to look high speed.”
“Gotcha.” Ed tucked his Geissele behind the desk, and laid Early’s giant wood-stocked M1A across it.
“Okay, now we’re good,” George said, with a thumbs up to the booth.
“All right, on my count, you put that out live,” Hannibal said, pointing at the image of Ed. “Five,” he said loudly. “Four, three,” and then he pointed to George, who pointed to Ed.
Ed looked off to the side, waited several seconds, then said in a confused tone, “Is it on? Are we on?” He turned and seemingly with some difficulty found the live camera. “My fellow Americans,” he began, “you’ve been lied to for too long. Voice of the People does nothing but spew hate and lies. You need to rise up and fight with us…”