Until Help Comes, Part 2
Three days later, Jenna watched the news footage. She saw what she couldn’t see that day; the police rushing past the column of students and her and Maribelle. Her memory echoed and amplified the pounding of heavy boots. The crowd that had gathered behind the yellow caution tape with camera phones pointed at the hostages. At her. She saw herself, dried blood under her nose and on her chin, eyes bright red and nearly swollen shut, fumbling behind the steadier Maribelle.
“Obviously, this was a traumatic experience,” the anchor said.
Jenna blinked. She reminded herself she was on a set. Doing an interview. The interview she had agreed to, along with Maribelle, Rebecca, and Carson.
“Of course it was.” Rebecca continued talking, but Jenna was having trouble following the words.
Jenna tried to focus on the anchor but found herself distracted by the comparison between them. The anchor’s manicured nails, Jenna’s ragged edges. The anchor’s perfect makeup, Jenna’s bruises only partially covered. There had been a debate backstage among the producers. If we cover all her bruises, that’s like denying what happened. If we go too light on the makeup, it will look like we’re sensationalizing her victimhood. Jenna could see herself lecturing on the topic a year from now. Maybe.
Jenna had been close to danger as a journalist, but she hadn’t been held hostage until three days ago. She hadn’t slept a full night since. Her day of hell had been named the “Massachusetts Hostage Crisis.” A steady drip of bad news had come out every hour since.
Liam Jensen had made big plans. He had dossiers on every student and Maribelle and Jenna. He had planned to hold trials for every hostage. Fake courts but with real punishments. For all of his bluster, Jason had flipped on Liam after one night in jail. Jason claimed he had only wanted Maribelle fired.
The media went round and round with speculation about what Jason did or didn’t know. What the other students in Lawyers on the Right did or didn’t know. Jenna couldn’t care less; she hated them all.
“If you’re just tuning in, we’re here with journalist Carson Jones, who’s been on this story since minutes after it started,” the anchor said. “We also have Rebecca Nichols, a student who was held hostage on that day. Our final two guests are professors who were held hostage, Professor Jenna Michaels and Professor Maribelle Williams.”
They must have just come back from a commercial break. Which camera should Jenna be looking at?
“I’d like to get your perspective, Professor Michaels,” the anchor said. “In the middle of all of this, you decided to conduct an interview. As a fellow journalist, I have to admire your dedication to your craft.”
I was trying to keep him distracted and calm until help came. “Well, thank you. I think there’s still a lot of work to be done to understand how Lawyers on the Right fits in with the network of far-right groups on a local and national level.”
“It’s a credit to Jenna really,” Carson said. “Within the first few minutes she had given me the leads I needed to start unraveling this. I have a government source that confirms Liam Jensen has been present in several different cities where right-wing provocateurs and student groups have staged demonstrations like this. Many of which have turned violent.”
“What do you know about Liam Jensen’s plans for this latest incident? Is it true he planned to put Professor Williams and Professor Michaels on trial?”
“Oh, yes,” Carson said. “He planned to put everyone on trial. I’ve gained access to the forum where Liam’s group was organizing. They had incredibly detailed dossiers on every single student in the class.”
“Can you give us a couple examples?”
“I can say that they had access to student records,” Carson said. “They knew who was receiving financial aid. Who had made complaints about their professors. Who had reported a sexual assault.”
The bright lights in the studio were giving Jenna a headache. Or maybe it was how much Carson was enjoying this interview. Breaking this story was going to launch his career to where he had always hoped to be. A book. A regular commentator on CNN. Maybe even his own show someday. She couldn’t fault his work; she just disliked being his subject.
“Whether those records were bought or stolen by Liam’s group, I can’t say,” Carson continued. “But, clearly, they had been planning for a while.”
“There’s been some disbelief about these trials,” the anchor said. “And the whole plan sounds ridiculous on paper. What convinced you that Liam was serious about putting an entire class on trial?”
“He had contingency plans for everything. The trials were supposed to be live-streamed. If officials cut off his live stream, he planned to kill one hostage an hour until it was turned back on. He chose this class not just because he disliked the content but also because of the building it was in. He had escape routes and numbers to call for help and a sat phone in case officials jammed cell phone signals.”
Over the summer, while Jenna had been planning out a syllabus and picking out a reading list, Liam Jensen had been choosing escape routes and weapons.
“These trials,” the anchor said. “Why was it so important to have them live-streamed?”
“Liam planned to let the internet decide the punishments,” Carson said.
Jenna squeezed her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking on camera. This news had broken yesterday. But it hadn’t gotten any easier to hear.
“And the death penalty was on the table?” the anchor asked.
Carson glanced at the three women beside him before answering. “Yes.”
“That’s—” the anchor stopped herself. “That’s insane.”
“It’s the logical conclusion of believing in a distorted reality,” Carson said.
Jenna was sure he’d practiced that line before the interview.
“These trials, they’re basically a list of every far-right grievance,” Carson said. “Put the student getting financial aid on trial for ‘infringing on taxpayer freedom’ because they’re not poor enough. Put the student who reported a sexual assault on trial for hurting their attacker’s reputation. Put the students seen at Pride events on trial for breaking down traditional values.”
Jenna wondered what her dossier said. What would she have been on trial for? Corrupting youth with left-leaning ideas?
“But the death penalty,” the anchor said. “That’s usually only discussed for extreme cases.”
“The far-right sees liberalism as an existential threat. It’s no coincidence they targeted a liberal arts university. Jenna, do you remember when Liam told Jason to shut up?”
Of course she did. “Jason was bragging about being part of some national group,” Jenna said. “He said the group stood for liberty or equality or . . . something like that.”
“I thought it was word salad too, at first.” Carson leaned forward with excitement. He had just used Jenna as his segue. “Liam cut Jason off because Jason was announcing the name of the group—Libertarians for Equality and Autonomy Pushing for Free Will and Determination.”
“That acronym would be . . . LEAP FWD,” the anchor said.
“I gained access to LEAP’s forum yesterday,” Carson said. “They’re a secretive national group. They have dramatic, sometimes violent goals. Which Liam has been working toward by traveling around and hijacking these local student events. Professor William’s involvement in a high-profile court case made this event particularly important to him.”
“I imagine we’ll be having you on again in a few weeks as you find more parts to the story.” The anchor smiled broadly. “Professor Williams, we haven’t discussed your personal connection to this event yet. Lawyers on the Right was protesting against you.”
“They aren’t protestors,” Maribelle said curtly. “They’re domestic terrorists.”
“Terrorists?” the anchor asked. “I don’t know if I’d—”
“Did you hear anything Carson just said?” Maribelle had dark bags under her eyes. Her forceful gestures made the anchor shrink back. “They used the threat of violence to make a political point. What else would you call it?”
“I have a statement from Lawyers on the Right,” the anchor said. “They released this after you publicly called them domestic terrorists. I’d like to get your reaction to it.”
The statement appeared where the news footage had been shown earlier. Each letter of the short statement was the size of Jenna’s head on the large screen.
Lawyers on the Right is not responsible for and was unaware of Liam Jensen’s plans. We were exercising our first amendment right to peaceful protest. Professor Maribelle Williams should be familiar with this tradition as her history of arrests shows.
“Even if they’re telling the truth, there’s no comparison between the protests I’ve participated in and them holding hostages,” Maribelle said. “I did sit-ins and street protests. The worse thing I could be accused of was holding up traffic.”
Week seven, Jenna thought. “This is actually a topic we cover in my Ethics of Journalism class,” Jenna said. “How extreme groups manipulate journalistic neutrality to establish false equivalency.”
“Let’s move on,” the anchor said.
Sure, yeah, let’s move on.
“Jenna, you’re being sued by Jason, a student from Lawyers on the Right,” the anchor said. “He’s filed a civil suit against you for his medical bills and injuries sustained during the protest.”
“Is this woman for real?” Rebecca asked Maribelle. “This is the same damn thing.”
Maribelle smiled. “Elaborate for the audience.”
“You think you’re being neutral by asking Jenna to respond to this suit. But Jason’s and Jenna’s actions aren’t equivalent; they don’t deserve equal consideration,” Rebecca said. “Jenna was defending herself. They brought weapons. They blocked us from leaving the room. And Jenna trying to escape—that’s the problem? The civil suit is bullshit.” Rebecca looked away from the camera and directly at the anchor. “And you should call it bullshit.”
The producers stepped onto the set, but the anchor waved them away. “I’d like to finish the interview. Rebecca, I’d like to talk about you and your role in all this.”
Rebecca looked wary.
“Feel free to call bullshit whenever you like.”
“I will,” Rebecca said.
“You led the hostages’ escape. What made you decide that Liam Jensen arriving was the right moment to fight back?”
Rebecca glanced at Jenna before answering. “The right moment was earlier,” Rebecca said. “The second Jason stood up and said he was taking over the room.”
“But we didn’t know—” Maribelle started.
“We had them surrounded,” Rebecca said. “There were at least twenty of us. We could have forced them up against the front row of seats and ended the whole damn thing.”
Jenna had never considered the possibility. She played back the scene, tried to imagine them as the wolves and Jason’s group as the prey.
“Why did you call everyone down to the front?” Rebecca’s voice grew louder with every word.
Jenna saw the camera man zooming in on them. “I—” This interview was live. Thousands of people were watching. I must look like a deer in headlights. “I—I was trying to protect everyone. Until help came.”
“Until help came,” Rebecca sneered. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?”
The anchor leaned in, focused on Rebecca’s intense, quiet rage. A journalist following a story. Following the drama. “What’s the problem, Rebecca?”
Jenna would have done the same thing, once upon a time. It was a good story. The angry, impetuous youth. The earnest, well-meaning elders. No, not earnest. Lost. Rebecca was right. They could have stopped Jason and his crew and barricaded the doors. Or escaped before the protestors outside had organized.
“Your advice is shit, Professor Michaels,” Rebecca said coldly to Jenna. Then to Maribelle. “Yours too, Professor Williams.”
Jenna would have preferred explosive anger. Tears. Instead, Rebecca had discounted them.
“You had us filming, calling everyone, asking for help. Help from who? The police who didn’t show up at Uvalde? The officer who kneeled on George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes? The ones who arrested Black Lives Matter protestors on campus two weeks ago and left the assholes in khakis with the Confederate flag alone?”
“Now hold on,” Maribelle said. “I’ve been fighting these battles for years and—”
“Years!” Rebecca flung her hand out toward the camera. “Exactly. And what have all your nonviolent protests brought us? My grandmother had more rights to her body than I do. Affirmative action is out. Homophobia is legal. I’m breathing wildfire smoke every other week. The world is literally burning and you’re still trying to make peace with fascists.”
The professor in Jenna wanted to untangle Rebecca’s arguments, organize them neatly, and fill in the gaps. There was a semester’s worth of material in those few sentences. Start with the root. Can a soap dispenser be racist? “You’re focusing your anger on people, we win by focusing on the system,” Jenna said. “How is the system failing us and how do people participate in those failures, sometimes without knowing it.”
“We didn’t know about the weapons or the trials when Jason said he was taking over the room,” Maribelle said. “If we’d attacked then, the conversation we’d be having now would be very different. People would be asking why we overreacted. Why we’re so violent. In the long term, progress happens because—”
“Nonviolent campaigns empower moderates or reformers within the ruling elites,” Rebecca said. “I read the Harvard Business Review article you assigned us. I don’t fucking care anymore.”
“I understand as much as anyone how unfair the world can be,” Maribelle said. “But I still believe . . ." She twisted the topaz ring on her finger. Her son’s birthstone.
“You’re congratulating yourself for writing letters and filing motions,” Rebecca said. “How many more years will your son be stuck in prison while you politely ask his masters to free him?”
The comment was cruel in the way only youth can be. Maribelle shrunk, just like she had when Jason had used the story of her son against her. “I can’t.” The words were as shaky as her steps. “I can’t, not right now.”
Jenna watched a camera follow Maribelle’s hasty exit offstage. Jenna wanted to smash the lens. She knew what came next; Maribelle’s pain would be a meme within the hour. The left would use it in their emotional appeals. The right would mock her. Her emotional distress would be a commodity in the culture wars.
Did Rebecca know what she had done?
“Don’t look at me like that,” Rebecca said to Jenna. “How many death threats did you have graffitied on your door today?”
Jenna had gotten plenty of death threats to her email. But she wasn’t living in a dorm room surrounded by other students, some of whom sympathized with Lawyers on the Right. “Rebecca, I know it’s not fair—”
“That’s your advice? It’s not fair? You want to know why we fought back? My friends and I spend Friday nights discussing how we’d survive a mass shooting or a counterprotest. You’re saying we should be passive victims because it’s good for progress? I don’t want to be a martyr. What advice do you have for that?”
Jenna heard a mechanical whir as a camera zoomed in on her face. Had the lights gotten brighter? Her face felt like it was burning. She was supposed to be a guide for her students. Give them a path through a difficult future. She saw herself from the perspective of the lens. As if she were a spectator to her own crisis of faith. She gave the only honest answer she could. “I don’t know.”