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did
herself. The studio was a beehive. Crew members raced around
recalibrating the monitors and stage lights that had been thrown
out of whack by the aftershock. Somebody brought her a Styrofoam
cup of lukewarm water.
    Natalie fumbled to insert her earpiece. It
took a few tries to plug the endpiece into the correct jack under
the console. Her fingers felt bloated and awkward, like on a hot
day. Even in the studio's frigid air she felt a bead of sweat
shiver down her back.
    How can I be so nervous? She struggled
to slow her breathing. This is insane! I've done this a million
times!
    "Thirty seconds," the stage manager
announced. He stood sentry next to Camera One, talking on his
headset.
    Natalie clutched the anchor desk's cool
laminated surface. Her clammy fingers left damp marks, telltale
smudges of panic.
    In her mind's eye she saw Tony arch his
brows. Maybe your judgment isn't what it used to be. "Ten."
    No! Natalie banished the image. A
female intern, tee-shirted and ponytailed and breathless, ran in to
dump a pile of just-ripped wires on the desk. The girl pulled her
hand back too fast and knocked into the cup of water, sending the
liquid in a fast-moving river across the anchor desk. The girl's
hands flew to her horrified face. "Oh, Miss Daniels, I am so
sorry—"
    "Five, four, three—"
    Someone grabbed the girl out of the way. Time
tunneled into slow motion. Mesmerized, Natalie watched the stage
manager's fingers count down the seconds to airtime. As though it
were happening to someone else, she saw the water soak the print on
her wires into illegible blobs of bluish ink, then cascade in a
stained rivulet onto her lap.
    That was the only information I had ,
she realized, settling into an odd, surreal calm. I don't know a
damn thing about the aftershock. Going live without the shred
of a fact to rely on was so catastrophic she'd zoomed right past
fear into a bemused acceptance.
    The studio filled with a booming male
announcer's voice. " This is a KXLA News Special Report.
Now from our studios in Hollywood, Natalie Daniels ."
    The bright fight above Camera One bloomed
fire-engine red. She was live.
    Natalie took a deep breath, her heart
pounding a staccato rhythm. "Good evening. At 2:25 this afternoon
Cal Tech seismologists registered a magnitude 6 point 2 earthquake,
the epicenter in Paramount, twelve miles southeast of downtown Los
Angeles."
    She paused. The lens stared back,
all-seeing.
    "Just a few minutes ago," she went on, "the
Southland was shaken by a sizable aftershock—"
    Was it an aftershock? Maybe it was an
unrelated quake?
    "—We do not yet know the magnitude of that
temblor—"
    At least I don't. I haven't read the
wires.
    "—but it appeared to be considerably weaker
than the initial jolt."
    At least to me. But what do I know?
    She struggled to remember what she could
about the first quake. Somebody would bring in new wires any
second—they had to. Anxiety congealed into a solid mass in her
stomach. Gooseflesh rose on her thighs from the spilled water,
which had by now soaked not only her legs but her upholstered
anchor chair.
    "The earlier temblor brought down a portion
of the 210 freeway at Sierra Madre Boulevard," she added
desperately.
    Old news! People want to hear about the
aftershock!
    She glanced down at the sodden wires, trying
to pull one off the top without looking obvious. She was still on a
tight shot. Why didn't the director go to video? Why didn't
somebody bring in new wire copy?
    Then she broke one of her cardinal rules, one
she hadn't broken in almost two decades of television news. She
simply stopped speaking and looked down from the lens. In the odd
silence that gripped the studio, her eyes flew across the blurred
wires, searching frenziedly for anything faintly legible.
    Then to her immense relief she saw a number
she could make out. Immediately she began speaking. "Seismologists
report the aftershock to have registered 8 point 3 on the Richter
scale," she reported, then stopped.
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