As Johnny followed Anastasia and Alison out of the studio, Weston shook his head. He'd been fuzzy all day, but it seemed to be clearing up a touch. He picked up his guitar and started to strum, hitting the G chord quickly. The band perked up, the drummer hitting a rock beat hard and the horns chiming in with a repeated "D". Winston smiled as he said, "That's great!" and started again.
"That's great! It starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes..."
The REM hit had been rolling around in his head since Anastasia had shown up. Maybe a bit obvious, but the crowd responded, getting into the groove of the music - sometimes obvious was obvious for a reason. The band played the song joyously, the horns adding in a lightness that the original didn't have. The crowd was fully in as he sang about declining, and as they played the chorus a second time some were up dancing and singing along.
"Mountains set in a line," he sang, pausing to let the crowd take their favorite line.
"AN-A-STA-SIA," the crowd roared as one, with the rest of the band singing along. Weston fumbled briefly, not recovering in time to sing about Lenny Bruce or Lester Bangs but seeing the crowd didn't care. He picked everything back up in time to get the "right" callback from Rick and continue to the ending chorus, but he was playing by rote. Anastasia's hold wasn't going to be broken by music, it seemed.
As the song ended the crowd cheered, but seemed restless. The energy he felt coming from them was turning ugly - he hadn't felt like this since his days playing behind chicken wire in roadside bars. He eyed the security for the show and realized they were simply audience members now, no help to him if it came down to it. He regretted starting the music up in the first place, since it gave the crowd a place to focus.
"Lots of energy out here tonight," he drawled into the microphone, leaning into the slow accent he grew up with. The crowd focused on him, the restlessness subsiding slightly as they waited for him to play something. He strummed the guitar briefly, stalling for time, but the crowd was already beginning to turn. The strum turned into the opening chord of Deep Purple's "Anya", before he felt a stabbing pain in his left hand. He watched as a drop of blood fell to the floor, time slowing as it hit and splashed. He hissed slightly from the pain, muttering "Ow" as he clenched his hand.
His drummer, Marcus, heard him and started drumming out a quick beat. Weston got it instantly, as did the band, and the pain in his hand disappeared. He hit a few more primal screams at the right times, then started strumming an E chord as he started to sing.
"Please allow me to introduce myself..."
You can do this, Carrie repeated to herself as she crossed the studio floor. Weston was playing the song from that vampire movie her Dad made her watch when she was little for some reason, and the crowd was singing along. She continued to repeat her mantra until she reached the floor director.
"Manny!" She had to yell to get through to him, but he finally focused on her. He looked to have no idea who she was, but Carrie told herself that was just because of the general weirdness of the day. "Manny, Alison sent me to get Crowd Quiz ready for the segment after the round table."
Manny smiled and started to turn away, saying, "No Crowd Quiz tonight. Just Her."
Carrie could hear the capital, and it made her pause, but she chanted to herself a few more times and pressed on. "No, Manny, Alison wants us to do it. She wants people to have this opportunity to talk to Anastasia."
That got through somehow, and Manny was on board. He started to gather his crew together to change the setup, and Carrie set off for the next part - getting the Crowd ready for the Quiz. And this time, she'd start at the back.
As she was climbing the bleachers to the back row, the crowd scream sang in unison, "ANASTASIA, screamed in vain!" Well, that explains that one, she thought. Still a weird choice.
The back of the studio audience was always a strange place - it was always best if the entire studio was full, so once the people who had prearranged for tickets were in place, they opened the back up to people who just happened to come by. Since it was a climate-controlled space where snacks were handed out, a lot of those people were the same people with nothing else to do coming by on a regular basis. Certainly not the type of people they wanted asking questions of stars, so Crowd Quiz never went past row 20.
Today, she went all the way up to row 30, and she smiled as she arrived. Duckman and friends were filling the top row, and they seemed to be much less under the sway of Anastasia than the rest of the crowd. Carrie wondered if Alison knew something she didn't (of course she does) or if it was serendipity at work.
William Duckman watched as the production assistant approached the top row of the audience seating. He recognized her, although she was a new addition to the show. She was often working the entrance, deciding who was deemed worthy of admittance. She was an acceptable judge, he conceded, although more than willing to sideline his fellows if a tourist came along. Understandable, of course, since his compatriots could return tomorrow while the tourists may never be in such a position again, but it still rankled slightly.
The show was strange tonight, and the approaching assistant was but a symptom of it. Crew members simply do not come this high up - perhaps a bouncer if one of the outcasts refused to conform, but not a PA. This was unprecedented under the current regime - past producers had used the outcasts for cheap laughs in the past, but the Belinda incident put a stop to that.
The PA arrived, just as Duckman dredged her name up from memory. "Carrie, is it not?" he said, it clearly not a question. The woman nodded, and Duckman continued. "Have you not been warned of us up here, Carrie? Do you not know of Belinda?"
Carrie seemed to mouth something Duckman couldn't make out as she worked up a response. She breathed deeply, once, and answered. "No, I don't know about Belinda, but I have heard of you, Duckman--"
"Duck Man? Like I'm some sort of knockoff superhero? Not even the courtesy of 'mister'?"
Carrie stopped, unsure of what to do now. She knew about Duck Man, and that everyone just called him Duck Man, although she never knew why. Was that his name? She breathed again, and started anew.
"I apologize, Mr. Duckman," she said, the name flowing less as Duck Man and closer to Duckmun. "I had not heard your name pronounced properly, but that's no excuse. I hope you can overlook it and we can work together." She had picked up on him somehow leading the group of misfits up here, which surprised her and would have likely surprised everyone else on the crew. Why they even had a leader was a mystery, but so low on today's list she was going to let it go.
"Of course."
"OK, great. I'm here looking for people to be part of Crowd Quiz?" It's not a question, don't talk like it is, Carrie. "Crowd Quiz is the segment where--"
"I am aware. I am also aware that no one above row 10 has been asked to participate in Crowd Quiz in a long time. Why now?"
"Well, with Anastasia here we wanted to make sure that our fans could interact with her--"
"I know well why you want to have Crowd Quiz. I am quite sure that you could spend the rest of the show and more besides with questions just from those in the first 10 rows. So I ask again, why us, why now?"
"Alison - that's our producer," Carrie saw Duckman motion that he was aware of who Alison was, "asked me to get people together for the Quiz. And she specifically requested I come up here, and I put you on first."
"And you simply accepted this, asking no questions, forming no opinions? Are you nothing more than an extension of Alison's will, Carrie?"
This was most certainly not what she expected when she came up here, and wondered exactly what the crew in general thought of Duckman. She had expected the man to be carrying a duck under his coat or something, but instead she gets this. "Fine, Duck Man, you want to know? Alison seemed pretty pissed off about the whole Anastasia thing, and directed me to get you as the only thing she could think of to make life a bit less comfortable for her. Seems like pretty good instincts to me, since this is about as uncomfortable as I've been since starting to work here. It's your big shot at getting on TV, and I don't care if you take it."
Duckman smiled at her. "Why my dear, of course we'll take it. We'll all take it. We just wanted to know what you would take. We'll form an orderly line down in the wings, ready whenever you are."
"Thank you, Mr. Duckman. I'll see you soon." Callie turned away to head back down, and would have sworn she heard a duck quack as soon as her back was turned. She breathed deeply once, decided her mantra was no longer appropriate, and walked away. She walked down the steps to the sound of a hard rock guitar and synthesized string instruments coming from the band. Another one from my Dad, she thought. Giant lizard in New York. Puff Daddy? Are these the right lyrics?
She reached the bottom of the steps and headed to the offices, trying to find Alison. As she left, the sound of Weston singing, "My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon, I will return again..." She walked away, humming along.
