The van stopped, and the crowd began to gather around it. He pushed to the front, seeing Jason from Channel 11 and Sarah from the Fox affiliate jockeying to do the same. Only photogs had been sent, no reporters, given that no one knew if this was just going to be a loony parade.

As the crowd settled in, the passenger door opened, and a Birkenstock-clad foot extended. He could hear a few sighs of disappointment as an old woman with a head full of crazy hair stepped out, wearing a quilted vest over a denim shirt. She reached for the door to the back seat and pulled it open.

The crowd let loose.

“Shit,” he whispered as people stepped into his frame. He struggled to turn on the LiveU. He moved forward, zooming in as he scrambled to hold the phone up to his ear.

“She’s here,” he blurted out to the assignment editor who answered. “I’m streaming. Get one of the reporters down here pronto.”

The cheers and applause intensified as Lynn Roseworth made her way through the crowd. Jason had already begun to assemble a mic stand, with Sarah hurrying to attach her mic flag to it. He’d have to just stick the lav on it, which would make his news director pissed that his station wouldn’t have representation in the shot, but there wasn’t time.

The streaming technology wasn’t always perfect, but the signal would be good enough to give the other stations that chose to ignore the cryptic news conference email a true case of the craps. Ever since the old broad had been found at that house in Maryland and her daughter claimed she was being held against her will by the government, Lynn Roseworth had been on the radar of every media outlet in the world.

The email had hinted at her appearance for the protest in the warehouse district in DC. His assignment editor had just rolled her eyes and told him to check it out.

And there she was. Freakin’ Lynn Roseworth.

He hustled to get right up in front, and in the process accidentally bumped the shoulder of the other old woman who had stepped out of the car.

“Watch it, jerk off,” she said.

“Roxy,” he heard Lynn quietly chastise.

“That lens nearly took me out!” the woman said. “We want you here, but don’t crawl up my ass.”

Liking her already, he whispered an apology. To his delight, the woman moved up to the mics.