The Revolution

Chapter 6

The rocking of the rotary engine aircraft almost shook the metapad from Stacy Fairgold's well manicured fingers. She steadied the pad with one hand and the other hand she put on the waist of her sensible black slacks.
"We're two minutes out, it's gonna be hot," the pilot said, his voice playing in Stacy's headed as the sound of the copter's engine drowned out voices.
Into her headset, she grumbled, "I'm connecting now." Stacy raised the metapad up and away from her body in an attempt to increase network connectivity. "I hate this stupid Spinner video streaming app."
The screen of the metapad showed Rebecca frowning, her raspberry blonde hair blown across the front of her face. There was a banner at the top that read "Metanet connection in progress, please wait."
Finally after a few seconds, that yellow banner turned green and simply said "Connected." Stacy breathed a ragged sigh of relief.
The pilot believed he was on an official GNN story, doing the job he was paid to do. In a way, Stacy figured, he would continue to draw a paycheck. Stacy, on the other hand, would not.
The reports of a mass of thousands of citizens marching toward the Flux market, and intelligence said that the end goal was to eventually occupy the Flux market. They were moving with a singular purpose and spoke with one voice. Chants of "Remember Earlie" and "Abolish Homelessness," rose spontaneously through the ranks.
The chopper saw the mass while the buildings of the Flux Market looked like toys in the distance.
A couple of hours earlier, Stacy threw open the doors of GNN Director of News, Albert Falcone. She wanted to cover the Flux Market live on air. She was surprised when he declined.
"E-excuse me?" Stacy stammered.
"The reports from Governor White himself is that it's only a few troublemakers who are probably going to bluster themselves out and go home before you can ever get there." Falcone said, his chubby face emotionless, his enormous chest rising up and down breathing as he stared her up and down. He opened a box and pulled out a long tobacco cigar. As he lit it, Stacy wondered where Falcone had gotten it. He blew the first cloud of smoke into her face.
Stacy tried to fan the smoke away with her hand, "that's bullshit and you know it."
Falcone snorted dismissively.
"You laugh, but wait until the awards start being handed out to other organizations." Stacy said, her voice higher and more hurried than normal, betraying more of her desperation than she would have liked.
"That's where you're wrong. No other org is covering this. There is no story." He ashed the cigar into his cold cup of bean brew.
"White has a plan. We can break the story."
"Stacy, honey, I love you but the answer is no."
Stacy knew that there was a reason she was bring held at bay. It wasn't normal.
She had to see this with her own eyes. Finding a pilot was as simple as flashing her famous green eyes and promising eternal glory.
Now, two hours later, she was looking at a mass of people as far as the eye could see. Stacy heard the pilot curse under his breath.
"Got a problem, Mitch?"
"Look north. There's a lot of smoke down street level."
"Get us closer," she said just as the two noticed a ball of fire erupt from the mass of people. Stacy gave her settings a half second glance, took a deep breath, and hit the gold, "Go Live" button at the bottom of the screen.
"Thank you, my friends, for joining me for a very special edition of Stacy's Spin exclusively on the Spinner app. I'm Stacy Fairgold and I am currently in the heart of Grandville City where seemingly hundreds or maybe thousands of people are marching in protest for 'Dirty' Earlie Jackson." She wiped an unruly hair from her mouth. "There seems to be some sort of violence that is springing up among the mass of people and were hoping to get a better look.
"Many people may be wondering why I'm on the Spinner app and not GNN. The truth is folks, GNN, and as I've found out all news organizations are taking the seemingly misleading words of Grandville Governor Greg White and are declining to cover this impressive protest for the rights of a marginalized class."
"What?" asked the pilot snappily. She ignored him.
Viewers had starting pouring in and comments had started to be shown in the corner of the screen. Many were positive platitudes such as, "Stacy tells the truth," but there were also the decidedly negative ones such as "Stacy is Gaiacrat scum."
She turned the camera toward the crowd below who were moving in a raging torrent against the walls of the buildings. "It looks like there is some commotion down below."
"HOLY SHIT!" the pilot screamed through his headset' "Surface to Air missile 0730. Hold on to someth--"
A loud detonation could be heard from the aft side of the cabin before heavy explosive pressure sheared off the rear rotors.
The 'copter fell into a clockwise spin. The pilot struggled in vain control of the burning, spinning, falling machine.
Stacy was pinned to the starboard wall of the fuselage. She steadied herself as much as she could by gripping the nearest head rest in a white knuckle grip.
They slammed into one of the buildings, the glass windows giving little resistance to the wreck before shattering and falling to the crowd before. They were several stories above the ground, rolling to a stop among file cabinets and the flaming remains of their paper innards floating gracefully to the oddly patterned tile floor.
It took Stacy a moment to realize she was still alive. She had to get out. The port door had been ripped from its hinges and she took a step toward the door and immediately fell to the ground, whimpering in pain.
Her knee was shattered, she'd be lucky if she would ever walk without a limp again.
She struggled out of the 'coptor with her arms to pull her body and fell onto the floor onto a wet and soft something that took too long to realize was the body of the pilot, or most of it, a lot of the left side was paste.
She coughed from exhaustion and a partially collapsed right lung. There was a bit of blood in her hand. Darkness over took her for a moment, but was roused by the sound of heavy boot falls.
She noticed that the metapad had survived and was still streaming.
"The reports say the wreckage is in here. No survivors." A female voice said from the far end of the storage floor.
Stacy scrambled to the nearest hiding spot.
"Come out, you're surrounded." Came a voice from near the wreckage.
Stacy tried to stifle a cough but was unsuccessful and the sound came out louder than was safe. The man loudly looked her direction and moved toward her, his rifle at the ready.
She had her hands in the air, showing she was unarmed.
"I've found a survivor," the soldier said, his voice muffled by a lower half respirator which hid his face.
"What are your orders, infantryman?" The unseen woman answered back.
"Ma'am, it's Stacy Fairgold."
There was a pause, "What are your orders?"
"Y-yes ma'am." He upholstered his sidearm and flipped the safety.
I've been setup, she thought.
The sound of the pistol was deafening in the enclosed space, but Stacy was dead before she could register the sound.
The soldier looked at the metapad and realized it was still streaming. He cursed and slammed his boot down on it.
The last image of the stream before it disconnected was of Stacy Fairgold and her emptied skull.