Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,46

our backs to the platform at least, and we’ll be able to look back and see the doors more clearly.

And then it happens.

There’s a boom from the central set of doors at the back of the hall. The boom increases to a sudden incessant banging.

The attention of the crowd is splintered, with half swiveling their heads to look at the commotion in the back of the hall, while the others keep hooting and mocking the guy on the stage.

“Here,” I say, pulling Imani close as we step into the semi-sheltered space at the front of the camera platform.

“Can you see Siggy and Blair?” Imani asks, straining to see our friends in the second row.

“No,” I say. “She’s still there, though, right in front of Linus.”

Imani keeps looking.

The platform itself is only about five feet tall, just enough of a rise that the camera and its operator are assured a clear shot of the stage.

The camera operator, a woman with wavy black hair and tawny skin, spares a glance down at us. She’s dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans like the rest of the crew.

She doesn’t let go of the camera arm, but she tips her head at the ground.

“Hey, girls, you can’t stand there. See the yellow tape?”

A tape line forms a box-shaped barrier on the carpet around the camera platform.

There’s a cheer as onstage a security guy finally gets a grip on the sleeve of the scientist’s shirt.

“Okay, we’re moving,” I say to the camerawoman.

But we don’t move.

I’m following my instincts, and my instinct is to keep the platform to my back, and to stay away from the back of the hall.

The echoing booms continue from the closed sets of doors at the back of the hall.

“It’s them! The infected!” the scientist yelps into the mic. He struggles, and his sleeve rips as he tries to pull away from the guard.

Another guard swiftly moves up behind him, unseen.

“There’s no cure! It’s too late for them, but we can save ourselves if we—”

The sneaky guard jumps at his back, pulling the scientist’s arms down and away, then locking them up high, some kind of wrestling move—a Melvin. No, a full Dawson. Something like that.

The mic drags on fabric, amplifying the rustling and thumps of the struggle.

The scientist keeps yelling, but the mic is away from his mouth so I can’t make out what he’s saying. No doubt more about the infected, how to save ourselves from the infected, or how the door is locked.

Impossible.

Except the doors are locked, right?

But he did that.

Then who’s banging on the doors?

The mic falls, landing on the stage with a thump so loud it gives a feedback whine.

The barrage of banging on the doors intensifies. It almost sounds like a large animal, a bull or something, running repeatedly into the door.

Two of the security guards have the scientist pinned between them, hauling him across the stage, his arms and shoulders jacked so high by the wrestling hold he’s stumbling along on his tiptoes.

Michaela steps forward and picks up the mic. She turns it off, and the shriek of feedback silences.

On the stage, the actors are all looking at each other with concern or amusement, as they once again become the center of attention.

Michaela turns the mic back on.

“Okay, sorry for that disruption. Whoa.” She smiles out at us, but on the big screen above her head we can see that her smile is edged with a tension that wasn’t there before.

The pounding on the doors is incessant.

“Thank you to con security, you guys are awesome. A round of applause, everyone.”

The audience applauds dutifully.

Except for those of us who were standing at the back. We’re not really paying attention, not even to the actors onstage.

Instead, unspoken, and en masse, people are all moving into the ballroom, away from