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Untitled Short Story - Rough Draft

Part One

A newscast from Studio One, one of he many cable-satellite-net channels available around the whole planet.
“We have breaking news in Capitol City” the anchor announced after the audio clip of urgent sounding music “We go to our correspondent, Jim Naland, what do you see Jim?”
The anchor was sitting at a control panel, in front of him are two rows of monitors and behind him are two more. The top row of each side were facing straight down like skylights. Each monitor was showing telecasts or live feeds from somewhere around the world.
“Yes, Mark, I am near the center of the city now, from what we know the city is under martial law there are armored vehicles and tanks at major intersections.” Images of tanks at street corners flashed across the screen. “There appears to have been a coup, with the leadership all dead or taken prisoner. Those other guys have taken over and Sherill's Market has a really good deal on canned meat! Live from the Capitol on Studio One, I am Jim Naland”
The anchor was confused by this. “Jim, there has been a coup? This is a really big story, why aren't you giving me more details and why are you talking about canned meat?”
“Nobody cares” Jim answered, the camera barely showing the top of his head and some weird banging noise.
“Is that gunfire, Jim?” the anchor asked
The camera moved and we can now see that Jim Naland was banging the canned meat on the concrete that made up the wall on the top of the building he was using for his report.
The anchor, Mark, was very concerned “Jim can you hear me now? Put your ear-piece back in! What is going on?”
“Don't matter. They're all the same” Jim said, we can only see his bleeding heads pulling off the top of the canned meat. “Meat can had a little lamb, little lamb, Meat can had a little lamb, it was square and yummy”
Then the image was replaced by static.

“This is your anchor Mark Stafford for Studio One, there has apparently been a coup in Capitol City with rebels taking control, but our correspondent is incapable of getting us any information at this time.” As he is talking monitors all around him are blinking off and becoming static.

“Something is happening, we are losing contact with our member channels around the world. Are any of our affiliates still capable of communicating?” Mark asked as his small studio lost touch with the outside world.

“Way?” someone asked.

“Seoul! I can hear you Seoul, go ahead” Mark said, slightly relieved “Do you have any information for our viewers?”

“Way Yo?” is heard and then a face appears then shouts “On Day!” and slaps the camera, sending it to static like the others.

All of the monitors were now gray static and then they all went black and that was replaced by images of stars and a close view of Earth from orbit. Studio One was actually an orbiting communications station, like a manned satellite.

Mark Stafford, anchor of Studio One, was the only crew member. He furiously punched the keyboard in front of him. There were some radio stations still broadcasting and he clicked through them to see if anything of value was being reported.

“A bluish cloud has descended upon Miami, Florida this morning. Rioting and large-scale fights have been breaking out since the television stations and phone service went down in the middle of the night for unknown reasons...” one radio station was broadcasting “Similar reports have been made all over the world before we got silence from them. Is it something in the air? Is it a virus? Have we all just gone insane?” then after a moment the radio speaker began mumbling incoherently “That smell...” and then a laugh and then nothing.

Studio One also connected internet systems around the world and Mark Stafford could see traffic on the system falling drastically.

“What is happening down there?” he demanded to know. Of course he was alone up there.

Then chimes sounded and he heard a new voice, something urgent in a strange language followed by a calmer voice.

“This is Shanghai. The madness that has befallen the world is under control here in the People's Republic of China”... the speaker sounded more nervous as he spoke, there was shouting but it sounded distant “The Politburo and our glorious armed forces have everything under control, all is calm and perfect in China...” then laughing the host said “Beijing love the little children, all of the children in this land... nobody believes it, nobody ever believe it...” then a loud bang followed by nothing.

On the monitors Mark watches night falling across the planet. Bright fires where cities were supposed to be. He got the closest images he could. The cities were burning as night fell.

“Whatever is happening is happening fast” he said to himself “What will day two look like?”

….