Convergence - The Last Science #2.1 - In Plain Sight

Interlude VI - Fame and Fortune - V

  A whirlwind week of interviews, questions, teases, excerpts. More editing questions, but now from the professionals instead of Linda's small team. They'd all been signed and sworn to secrecy, even from their own companies and superiors. All it took was one person to break contract, but they all knew the fortune they'd give up if they did, as well as the sheer loss of reputation. They'd never work in the field again.

  More than that, they all felt the importance of what they were doing. Nate could feel it too. There was sensation building up, like they were on a roller coaster approaching the top of the hill. Any day now, everything was about to start rushing forward, but for the moment they kept working, kept preparing, anticipating that final, anxious moment of release.

  He had power, too. More power than he'd expected. All the reporters completely deferred to him. After a day of consideration, Nate picked Ted Winters as the lead. Ted would be the one to conduct the interviews and present the story, while the rest began to prep auxiliary content. Interviews with relatives, additional research, background information. Nate picked Ted because he was the most familiar, and because Nate felt like he deserved some credit for the work he'd already done.

  They talked about bringing in the perspective of "paranormal" experts, but Nate shot it down. After all, none of those crazy idiots had known what magic would really be like. They were all spouting nonsense or running scams, in his eyes. They did have a couple prominent scientists on call, in physics and biology, to start analyzing anything they could get their hands on. All of that would wait though. They didn't want to bring too many people in when the reveal was so close.

  The interview sessions with Ted were grueling. The guy was nice enough, but with the heavy spotlights and all the prep work, Nate just wanted them to be done already. All the time spent in makeup before-hand, on top of the effort to put up and take down the set, was exhausting—especially since they were working with an absolute skeleton crew. Plus, he didn't exactly like reliving the events of Rallsburg.

  "It says that you were aware of the Awakened long before you became one yourself. How did you find out, exactly?"

  "By accident. I saw someone casting spells on a security camera outside the grounds of our house. After I went and talked to them, they put me in touch with Rachel."

  "Who is this someone?"

  "The redacted minor from the book."

  "Ah." Ted scribbled a note, even though the cameras were recording everything anyway. "And 'Rachel' is Rachel DuValle?"

  "DuValle, like 'tall'."

  "She was the elected leader of the Council?"

  "Yeah."

  And on and on they went, confirming every little bit of the story, expanding on details where Cinza's journals fell short. She only wrote events that she personally witnessed, in order, and while the attention to detail was astonishing (and the style almost lyrical in its prose, as one of the editors put it), events beyond her knowledge were relegated to brief paragraphs between each entry, if they were even mentioned at all. It was up to Nate to fill in the gaps.

  "The so-called 'ritual killings' in the center of town, the twenty-five people struck by lightning—"

  "Not a ritual. Nothing to do with magic."

  "But they were certainly killed by magic, right?"

  "Yeah. I mean, I didn't see it, and neither did Cinza, but... well, there's only one person who could use lightning magic, right? So it had to be her."