Martial Lawless (Calm Act Book 3) by Ginger Booth

Author:Ginger Booth [Booth, Ginger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-06-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Interesting fact: The U.S. as a whole was over 50% deeply religious before the Calm Act. In contrast, its fellow wealthy English-speaking countries – the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand – hovered around 20% religious.

“Wow, Brandy, what great footage!” I praised her. “You too, Blake, well done!”

While I was gerrymandering the meshnet last night, the militia sects resumed their re-enactment of the Thirty Years’ War on the streets of Pittsburgh. Brandy and Blake spent the evening on the roof filming. Camera man Blake Sondheim did us proud with steady footage of weapons in the distance, and daytime shots to clarify the same terrain. Brandy did a polished job in the talking head department, making liberal use of our local religion research in an attempt to explain the fighting.

Not surprisingly, they’d slept in until lunch. We were using Blake’s bedroom as a workroom, since his equipment was a hassle to move. IndieNews was flatly forbidden access to the meeting room and interrogation corridor where Emmett had claimed an office.

“Hey, Blake,” I said thoughtfully. “Could we edit together about a ten-minute segment of this?”

“What are you thinking here, Dee?” Brandy asked.

“Honestly? I’d like to show it to Emmett and Drum and the IBIS investigators,” I told them. “Probably our troops as well.”

“An audience of what, fifty?” Brandy complained. “Christ, Dee.” No doubt she was hoping for a top news story to grab millions of viewers.

“Well, we might get it past the censors,” I allowed. “What do you think our chances are of that?” Brandy sighed agreement. Not much chance today. “But once Emmett has such a video, he’d show it to the military governors. Cullen, Schwabacher, Taibbi, Link. You’ll play to a small but very select audience,” I coaxed. “Besides, I already paid you for it. And some of the footage will get declassified, sooner or later.”

After a little more wheedling, they conceded that they didn’t have any brighter ideas that could reach today’s headlines. We cobbled it together quickly, though Blake and I made time to shoot a short sequence on the Monongahela river walk near the hotel. That was just a quick script – me on screen, saying here we are in Pittsburgh, over there’s the deserted downtown damaged by tornados, we’ve found a city torn by religious conflict. Just enough to preface Brandy’s war from the rooftop narrative. IndieNews had collected enough footage for filler, including the wreckage of the famous Monongahela Incline and assorted other tornado damage closeups. At the end, we tacked on the local meshnet map, annotated with factions. That segment could simply drop off anything we tried to publish.

We invited Emmett and company up for a screening after dinner.

Major Drumpeter was enchanted. Closeted with Emmett on their mysterious business, she’d seen less of the nocturnal fireworks than the rest of us. And she’d certainly never worked with a news crew preparing custom briefing materials. Not many officers had, aside from Emmett.

“Why is there no fighting close to the hotel?” Drum pounced. She had her meshnet map out on her phone to follow along.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.