86 MPH
Oliver & Marianne chase a hopefully-career defining story down Route 401
Every station in town was covering the same event, each of them locked onto the same swooping steel building. Different channels, same chaos.
_ NLTV's _ cold frosted glass graphics went full grim: high-contrast security footage, civilians sprinting from the museum doors, gunfire echoing like popcorn. A red lower-third screamed: CRISIS DOWNTOWN
_ Park & Weather _ still glowed green and gold, with a smiling sun in the corner, but now it framed police cruisers screeching into boulevards, cutting off traffic around the Market and Shore Districts while it's screenbug bounced with the temperature and humidity.
_ GOVLNQ _ was all business. A flat, blue ticker crawling across the bottom: NLPD GIVES STATEMENT ON MUSEUM ATTACK. A podium. A stone-faced Doberman. “Special units have been deployed. The suspects are armed and dangerous."
Chaos reigned on _ GUTPUNCH!! _ The screen buzzed with a swarm of emojis and real-time chat reactions. A breathless, handheld livestream captured a bear in a suit scrambling into a car, clearly unprepared to face reporter.
“Director, any word on the status of the artifacts in the museum vault?" the host shouted.
“I swear to God, if I have to say 'No Comment' one more time-"
Back on NLTV, a helicopter's aerial view captured a bright orange sports car weaving through highway traffic with a parade of flashing lights chasing behind it.
“We repeat," the anchor urged, voice rising, “stay off the highway if you...wait, what is that?"
The camera zoomed in. A small white news truck with a wobbly antenna jutting out from its roof and a bold '86' printed on its side, was weaving between cars, accelerating toward the police convoy.
The chase had a new participant.
<<! -- I don't really like this "what is that?" transition, like obv I need to get from this overhead to the MC POV but this just feels clunky-->
The Channel 86 News Truck was an ancient 1992 pickup. In the passenger seat, a Siamese Cat with more ambition than self-preservation instinct named Marianne casually picked at her teeth in the sun visor mirror. Her hair was tied back in a professional jet-black bun that complimented her cream-colored fur. Her driver, an unfortunate poodle named Jodie, gripped the steering wheel like it was going to fly away.
"Closer..." the cat said "Closer....closer...are you not hearing me say closer?"
"Closer?!" Jodie snapped "We're in the middle! This isn't journalism, it's a felony!"
Marianne ignored her comrade's pleas and fiddled with her in-ear headset. "Better to ask forgiveness than permission. Ollie, Status?"
In the open bed of a truck, a Donkey fiddled with an ancient, oversized camera, his shaggy mane whipped like reeds in a storm. His loose baja print pullover and cargo shorts gave him the appearance of someone who woke up in line waiting for Priest tickets. Sirens howled on every side, punctuated by the occasional thud of a tire or the screech of brakes as a cruiser cut too close. Oliver adjusted the lens with a focused indifference, an expression like someone choosing which coffee mug to use for the morning.
"Almost, Mari, hardware issues. Gimmie like sixty." Oliver mumbled, digging through the pockets of his cargo jacket. He pulled out a clunky cell phone that may have walked out of 2006 and held it to his ear.
"...C'mon you stupid..."
"Channel 86, Equipment Cage"
"Hey Craig it's Oliver, do you know who last used the 45mm? There's melted cheese or something gumming up the aperture lock, I can't pull a clean-"
"Oh shit, Ollie!" Craig was startled, but somehow not surprised. "Ditter is about to blow a fuse, you better get back to the-" The truck jolted. The camera nearly skated out of his lap, but he caught it absently, like saving a bottle from tipping over. The voice on the phone succumbed to the sounds of a scuffle before being overpowered by an infuriated station manager.
"OLIVER! WHY IS THE GOD DAMN TRUCK ON THE HIGHWAY?!" he asked calmly. Olivers' boss, a permanently high-strung rooster constantly on the edge of a heart attack. “This one had the most gas," Oliver said, unbothered. “Truck B's in the shop, Truck A was at that clam bake upstate..." Oliver could feel the spittle through the receiver. "Why is it that every time something happens in this city, it's the fucking cat and donkey?!"
"You know what?" Oliver interrupted "You sound really tense, lets circle back when you're in a more positive headspace. Going live in 45, later D." A furious "OLIVER!" was cut off by an undignified phone bleep. The shaky antenna array hummed to life with a swift strike from Oliver's fist, he shifted to his knee and adjusted the now-clean camera lens. "Boss is mad, Mar-Mar." Oliver shouted into his own headset, trying to be heard about the din of police sirens. "Video's bouncing a bit on compression, should smooth out post-transmit. Let's make some mistakes in UHF!"
Across town, a blinking red light catches the attention of a Channel 86 Engineer. Behind him, an exhausted looking rooster looks up at the same light, pulsing in the smoke-filled atmosphere.
"Truck C is requesting a hookup."
"Goddammit, fine..."
A flurry of orders filled the small engineering bay. "Patching." "Cue music" "Got some signal bounce, stabilizing..."
Somewhere else in the building on the other side of miles of haphazard cabling, a handsome grey coyote, too handsome to be working behind such a low-rent desk, took a breath and waited for his cue to start speaking. The lights went on, and the music faded out.
"Good afternoon, for those of you just joining us; a robbery downtown at the Elias Museum has become a police chase moving down 401." A small picture-in-picture displaying a live feed from Oliver's camera appears over his shoulder. "Our own Marianne Sri is following the story…rather closely as I hear; Marianne can you hear me?"
The feed expands to fill the screen. A chyron, "Voice of: Marianne Sri" fades in.
"Loud and clear, Leonard! Approximately 10 minutes ago, two men accused of stealing a number of artifacts from the Museum of Art took off before police could apprehend them, we're gonna try and get a statement right now."
Inside a police cruiser, a pair of officers were laser-focused on the road ahead of them. The driver spat a flood of Tencode into a radio while the other inspected and secured a shotgun. Neither noticed the ancient white pickup sidling up to them at 70 miles until the cat leaned out and tapped their driver-side window with a smile and a wired microphone.
The driver lowered the window with a face somewhere between confusion and panic, Oliver winced and tapped the MIDI controller hanging off his side, trying to clean the roar of engines and rushing wind.
"Miss, you need to get—"
"Hi! Marianne Sri, Channel 86!" Marianne chirped, grinning like it was her birthday. "Can you give us an update on the current situation?" The intrepid reporter extended her arm as far out as she could in the direction of the open window.
"Get. Off. The. Highway!"
"Have you identified the suspects? Any relation to the string of car thefts—"
Oliver tucked himself into a corner of the truck bed, "Mari, can you get him to repeat that last line? Lotta crosswind." he looked around at the swarm of screaming sirens and rubber beyond the nest of wires and metal struts he found himself in. "And...lot of other noise..."
"Hold on, let me just..." Marianne shifted forward, gripping the cruisers window frame and thrusting the mic fully into the drivers compartment. The cruisers tires screamed in protest as the officer corrected a reflexive swerve that was probably inches, but felt like a mile. Marianne braced herself between the two vehicles like a clothesline. The cruiser erupted with overlapping shouts:
_“Get out!"
“What are you doing?"
“Have you identified the suspects?"
“You're interfering with a police operation!"
“Last year, the NLPD received a 30% budget increase, has that impacted your ability to prevent this kind of-"
“Hey, that increase is misleading!"_
Marianne allowed herself the faintest smile, a nerve. Paydirt.
“What exactly is preventing police from—"
Marianne yelped as the truck jerked violently to the left, away from the cruiser and past the deafening blare of an 18 wheeler passing between them and the officer. She's thrown clear back into her seat and the antenna relay whipped to the side with a metallic groan. A tiny microwave dish rattled loose, and flew off onto the highway behind them, crashing into a "Keep Nor'Udsa Litter Free!" sign with a loud clang. "Aw man..." Oliver groaned "We needed that!"
In the Channel 86 Control Room, a trio of engineers panicked as the CRT with Oliver's feed dissolved into digital snow. One of them calls total signal loss, and orders the feed cut to the desk. Leonard snapped to attention.
"Sorry folks, technical difficulties from our field team, we'll have more on this story as it develops…"
Back in the News Truck, Marianne punched the dashboard. She shouted "Dammit!" through gritted teeth "We almost had something! Get me back over there!"
"Almost?!" Jodie's voice cracked. "You were inside the car! Any closer and you were gonna be in the back seat!"
"That cop was pissed, I just know he was gonna say something stupid into the mic!"
Oliver chimed in over his headset. "Jodes, sick swerve but we lost our dish." He absentmindedly fiddled with the antennas control panel. "I might be able to coax something out of this, but I need tools to fix it, we're off the air."
"Dammit! OK, what do we have?"
"Plenty of tape, we can't go live but if we wrap up soon, we can probably get it onto the six o'clock broadcast"
"OK, Plan B..." Marianne told her driver. "Speed it up, we need to get ahead of the cops!"
Back on NLTVs helicopter coverage, the camera tightly centered on the orange sports coupe, the Anchor gave a running commentary on every scrap of up-to-date information they could muster.
"We have confirmed that the fleeing vehicle is a 1981 Northwind Pike, which was reported stolen a few days ago, the...It appears the channel 86 news truck has...thrown a microphone into the car..."
<<! -- Again, this overhead-to-ground transition just feels weird to me-->
Inside the fleeing vehicle, Marianne already has an interview underway. The two animals in the fleeing car are seemingly perfect subjects. Two collected, attentive, and lively opossums. Marianne looks thoughtfully out the side of her truck as the fleeing passenger holds the microphone up for himself and the driver.
"So really, it's about pride?" She asks curiously.
"Well yes I suppose, but not really about ego if that makes sense..."
Oliver re-mounts his camera on the edge of the truck bed and points it towards the drivers seat as Marianne continues the interview. "Jodie, this position isn't really working, can you me about five feet ahead of the windshield?" Oliver spoke into his headset with mild annoyance. "I need both of these guys in the frame"
"Stop giving me notes!"
"Jodie, not for nothing, but we're the field team, you're our intern and frankly you're not writing a great performance review right now…"
"Are you kidding me?!"
Marianne barely noticed the truck slowly outpacing the coupe as the interview continued. Oliver grinned and threw a thumbs-up in Jodie's general direct as the shot came together. "Practicality was also a factor" the driver continued. "It was easier to rob the museum than the civic bank, which was ah…our first choice. Little disappointed we couldn't pull that off, but part of planning is rolling with the punches". Marianne nodded thoughtfully.
"Fascinating, fascinating, do you have any response to the social media reaction? The exact nature of your relationship is—"
"—Oh, no!"
"No, no relationship, purely professional—"
"—You know what, no comment on that, cut that out. And blur our faces! "
"I'll see what we can do. Now concerning the artifacts you stole, was there any intentionality to—
Suddenly Jodie shouted "Spike Strip!" Oliver's camera whipped towards the nose of the truck just in time for a strip of metal to come flying out from behind a parked SUV and slide under the truck.
_ POP. _ The front-right tire detonated like a gunshot, the truck shook violently as rubber shredded on asphalt.
_ SCREECH _. Bare steel rims cried and resisted control. The wheel fought back, twitching under Jodie's grip as the truck heaved.
_ CRUNCH. _ The bumper dips and swerves hard right into the fleeing coupe with a deep metallic thud. It flips over and through a bridge's guardrail in a blur of bright orange as the Channel 86 News Truck struggled to stay in one piece. The air fills with the sharp scent of ozone and heated metal
"AAAH!"
"Hold On!"
"My sunglasses!"
The truck spun out and spiraled off the road. Marianne braced against the dashboard, Jodie's teeth clenched so hard they could crack, Oliver clung to the antenna array for dear life as the truck shrouded itself in a cloud of dirt.
The NLTV Helicopter slowly rotates around the orange coupe bobbing in the river. Police cruisers screeched to a halt on the bank, officers emerged with weapons drawn as a police boat lazily drifted into frame.
"...just ended in a dramatic turn, we don't see the passengers but the police seem to see them-" The anchors' voice, clear as a bell, held back a laugh. "-I don't think we're gonna get much closer than 86 did."
Offscreen, far from the flying eye, the Channel 86 truck crouched, dented and battered in a tree-covered drainage ditch. The passenger door popped out with a metallic scratch and Jodie flopped out, barely resisting the urge to kiss the ground. Marianne stumbled out and popped her spine before looking around and brushing the dust off her coat. Suddenly, a sense of urgency crossed her face. The Donkey is nowhere in sight.
"Oliver? Ollie!"
"Up here!" Marianne snapped her eyes up to see Oliver hanging from a bough like a stuck kite. "It takes more than that to kill a—" Oliver yelped as the branch broke and sent him careening back to to solid ground. "Still alive."
With the knowledge that her friend was in fact not dead, Marianne shook with excitement. "YYYESSSS!" she punched the air triumphantly. "That was incredible! Ollie, this is total Emmy bait!"
"Hell friggin' YES, Park and Weather can eat it! We journalism-ed the hell out of that tragedy!" Marianne slapped her palms on Oliver's hard enough to hurt, but neither cared. Oliver half-tackled-half-hugged his co-worker while Jodie looked on as if the pair had just torched a hospital.
"What is wrong with you two?! Do you have any idea how many Journalism Ethics 101 rules we just broke?! Not to mention you know, laws?!"
Oliver released Marianne from his grasp. "That, Jodie, is called getting the shot."
"Gotta break news to make news!" Oliver added unhelpfully.
"No!" Jodie screeched "Screw the shot, Screw you, screw him, screw Channel 86, screw this internship, I'm out!" Jodie yanked off his press badge, threw it on the ground, and stormed away.
"Bye Jodie!" Oliver chirped happily. He looked around before finally spying the camera, leaning against the tree he fell out of earlier. He hefted it on his shoulder and gave it a congratulatory pat. "That's what I love about this old equipment, it's sturdy! Little damage, but nothing I cant fix with a screwdriver and a roll of..."
oliver trailed off as the camera disintegrated into a shower of plastic, metal and glass.
"...dreams"
"No..." Marianne was despondent. "No no no no no no-no-no!!!" The cat fell to her knees, picked up the plastic camera shell and pressed it against Oliver's chest. "You can fix it, right!? You can fix anything!"
"Uuhhhh...." Oliver crouches down and picks up a large plastic piece. "Look, the memory unit! I bet I can-" The memory unit fell apart as well. "...the important thing is that WE survived."
Marianne gripped her pointed ears like she wass about to tear them off. "We HAD it! We the best interview in the history of New Lonquattalataukinautniqattsi! This was gonna get us out of this stupid UHF station and we lost it!..." Marianne turns to the half-wrecked truck, he expression contorts from despondent to angry. "...and it's all because our stupid intern can't drive in a straight line to save his stupid—" She stops mid-sentence to kick the truck in a rage, he body stiffens at at the impact. "OOWWW." Oliver scoops up as much of the camera as he can as Marianne hops on one foot cursing in pain.
"C'mon...lets change this tire and get back to the station..."
The ancient florescent lights cast a sickly yellow glow over the ancient break room of the Channel 86. The tile, counters, and appliances had all been with the station since the 70s, and it showed. The newest thing in the room was the 2000s-era plasma screen mounted up in the corner. Marianne sat slouched in a folding chair staring at it. It was the W86 six o'clock broadcast. Someone else's voice, someone else's footage. Oliver trotted in, carrying a stack of pizza boxes he could barely see over.
"You know, Mari...people often ask me what it's like to be a hero." He dropped the boxes onto the sad plastic table with a thud. "...and I just tell them, it's pretty great." Oliver pops open the top box, an inelegant bridge of cheese stretched and contracted as Oliver tries to wrangle a slice onto a plate. "Fire Department's bought food for the whole station since we made the cops look dumb!
The TV cut to shaky footage of a perp walk outside the police station. A soaking-wet bandit grinned at the camera. "I just robbed The Elias Museum of Art & History, and I watch Channel 86!" Oliver grinned and waggled his finger towards the TV with a mouthful of too-hot Jalapeno & Cheddar. "We got a shout-out! I think we have to send them a T-shirt now!" He finally noticed that his friend isn't celebrating. "C'mon, don't be like that. We were in a police chase! We got the art or whatever back! We got pizza!"
"...but NLTV got the story." She sighs. "SSDD..."
Oliver opens another box and delicately places a slice of Anchovy on a paper plate, holding it under Marianne's nose.
"Memory unit was toast, but I was able to extract some of the audio...might be a little grainy, but I've saved worse..." Marianne got up and walked towards the breakroom fridge. "That bit about the museum being easier than the bank? Emmy bait, right?" Marianne opened the fridge and pulled out a paper bag with her name on it.
"We've been at 86 for three years, Ollie. And we're still covering charity bake sales and school board meetings..."
"Well, you've been here for three years, it's been five for me." She didn't acknowledge the discrepancy.
"I'm just...sick of feeling stuck. I kind of thought I'd be further along by now..."
Ollies voice softens. "Mari, you've got contacts up and down city hall, and every greasy spoon and union hall in New Lonq knows that when something the big guys are too slow to touch goes down, you're the one to call. People trust your face, even when it's a terrible idea." Marianne blinks, Oliver has her attention.
"Look, one of these days NLTV is gonna realize how much of a killer you are and they're gonna BEG you to work for them...and when that happens, I'll be right behind you, making you look smart."
She stares, then cracks a smile. Not big, but real. She plucks the plate from his hand.
"We've got our work cut out for us." Marianne takes a bite from her pizza, tiny puffs of steam shoot from her lips.
"Ah! tshhh, tssssh!...hot, hot!"