On air, everything was different. Jim was more indignant and mocking than he ever was in real life. Victoria made vaguely dirty jokes that she wouldn't tolerate hearing off mike. And on air, they still mostly got along, bantering and feeding each other lines.
Victoria grabbed her mug and stood up. Even though she was half Japanese, she was five foot ten, with legs that went on forever. Handing him a padded envelope from a publisher, she said, "This was in my box this morning, but it's really yours."
When she pushed open the heavy door to the screening room, the weather strip on the bottom made a sucking sound. For a minute, Jim could hear Chris in the screener's booth talking to Willow, the intern, and Aaron, the program director. Then the door closed with a snick--there were magnets on the door and frame--and Jim was left in the silent bubble of the studio. In addition to the magnets and the weather stripping, the walls and ceiling were covered with blue, textured soundproofing material that resembled the loop side of Velcro.
Jim grabbed the first piece of mail from his in-box and slit it with a letter opener. He scanned the note inside. "Dad's seventy-fifth birthday ... love to have a signed photo," yada yada.
"Happy Birthday, Larry!" he scrawled on a black-and-white headshot he pulled from dozens kept in a file folder. "Your friend, Jim Fate." Paper-clipping the envelope and letter to the photo, he put them off to the side for Willow to handle. Three more photo requests, each of which took about twenty seconds to deal with. Jim had signed his name so many times in the last ten years that it was routine, but he still got a secret thrill each time he did it.
There were still about three minutes left, so he decided to open the package from the publisher. He liked books about true crime, politics, or culture--with authors he could book on the show.
Jim pulled the red string tab on the envelope. It got stuck halfway through, and he had to give it an extra hard tug. There was an odd hissing sound as a paperback--Talk Radio--fell onto his lap. A book of a play turned into a movie--both based on the true-life killing of talk show host Alan Berg, gunned down in his own driveway.
What the--?
Jim never finished the thought. The red string had been connected to a small canister of gas hidden in the envelope. Now it sprayed directly into his face.
He gasped. With just that first breath, Jim knew something was terribly wrong. He couldn't see the gas, couldn't smell it, but he could feel its damp fog coat the inside of his nose and throat.
He swept the package away. It landed behind him, in the far corner of the studio. Whatever it was, it was in the air. So he shouldn't breathe. Jim clamped his lips together and scrambled to his feet, yanking off the headphones.
It was just like what had happened in Seattle three weeks earlier. Fifty-eight people had died from sarin gas in what seemed to be a botched terrorist attack.
His chest already starting to ache, Jim looked out through the thick, glass wall into the control room on his right. Greg, the board operator, was half-turned away, gobbling a PayDay bar. He was watching his banks of equipment, ready to press the buttons for commercials and national feeds. In the call screener's booth directly in front of Jim, Aaron was still talking to Chris and Willow, waving his hands for emphasis. Jim was unnoticed, sealed away in his bubble.
He forced himself to concentrate. He had to get some air, some fresh air. If he staggered out, would the air there be enough to dilute what he had already breathed in? Would it be enough to clear the sarin from his lungs, from his body?
Would it be enough to save him?
But if he opened the door, what would happen to the people out there? Chris, Willow, Aaron, and the rest? He thought of the firefighters who had died in Seattle. Would invisible tendrils of poison snake out to the dozens of people who worked at the station, the hundreds who worked in the building? Greg in the control room, with its own soundproofing, might be safe if he kept his door closed. For a while, anyway. Until it got into the air ducts. Some of the people who died in Seattle had been nowhere near the original release of the gas. If Jim tried to escape, everyone out there might die too.
Die too. The words echoed in his head. Jim realized that he was dying, that he had been dying from the moment he first sucked in his breath in surprise. It had been, he thought, somewhere between fifteen and twenty seconds since the gas sprayed into his face.
Every morning, Jim swam two miles at the MAC club. He could hold his breath for two minutes. How long had that magician done it on Oprah? Seventeen minutes, wasn't that it? Jim couldn't hold his breath for that long, but he was sure he could hold it longer than two minutes. Maybe a lot longer. The first responders could surely get him some oxygen. The line might be thin enough to snake under the closed door.
Jim pressed the Talk button and spoke in a slurred, breathy voice. "Sarin gas! Call 911 and go! Don't open door!"