Chapter 1: The Dorian Collective
The Interview
Harrison Wensley sat across from a man he knew was not actually a man. His rugged European façade said he was, but the eyes gave it away.
“Who told you?” the man asked.
Harrison busied himself with the stack of papers on the table by his armrest.
“Told me what?” replied Harrison.
“Aris? Demar? Matthew? Who was it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A mousy girl pulled her headset away from her temples and let the sunflower-sized earpieces droop to the ridges of her collarbone. Her anxious face glimmered with oily perspiration as she leaned into the stage lighting.
“Mr. Wensley?” she called. “We’re on in thirty seconds.”
The body across from Harrison leaned forward, aching to stand up and leave.
“I’ll have your head for this, you know.”
Harrison raised his eyes and met his guest’s for the first time.
“You can stop with the threats. They won’t work. If they had any substance, you’d have already left.”
“Ten seconds!” off-stage yelled.
“I suggest you answer the questions,” continued Harrison. “I don’t believe you have any other choice.”
A series of lights snapped into action, but Harrison—being a man of the camera—remained unaffected by their obnoxious glow, unlike his guest, who squinted painfully to shield his eyes.
“And three...two...one...action.”
Harrison leveled his eyes to the lens at his two o’clock and smiled as professionally as he could muster. He envisioned—as he always did—a million viewers staring back at him with fateful, attentive eyes.
“Good evening, America, and welcome to a special installment of Your News Tonight.”
It felt good to smile, to see the familiar shine bent across the camera lens. He relaxed, leaned back in his armchair, and crossed his right leg over his left.
“Tonight is truly historic. What we are about to do here is nothing short of extraordinary. I am proud to join you on this walk into our future.”
Clipboards bundled into the chests of the nervous off-camera crew, watching from backstage. Anxious energy riddled their shoulder blades and stiffened neck muscles across the board.
“This man,” the camera panned from Harrison to the second armchair situated opposite him, connected to Harrison by a coffee table holding two crystalline glasses of water, “is Jarvis Kranz—CEO of Tetra Consolidated—one of the world’s leading distributors of twenty-first century space-grade metalloid fuels. It’s the stuff that has taken credit—and rightly so—for sending humanity out into the habitable worlds of our galaxy. Welcome, Mr. Kranz.”
Unexpectedly, not a sign of wariness had settled into the fault lines of Jarvis’s smiling face. He appeared calm, refreshed. A spasm of doubt crept into Harrison’s chest.
There’s nothing this man hasn’t seen, is there?
Jarvis noticed the flicker in Harrison’s eyes and let it fuel his first words with a haughty smile.
“Happy to be here, Harrison.”
Harrison leaned forward, eyes deadlocked with those of his guest. This was the moment. This was what everybody at home would be waiting to see—a reaction.
“Shall we get started?”
Kranz raised a hand to usher Harrison into the lexiconic field of battle.
“After you,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
A question for the interviewer, thought Harrison. Oldest trick in the book.
Harrison lifted his eyes to the camera lens and felt the rush of the moment—heart racing, throat dry. There would never be another chance for something so explosive as this. It was time to go to work.
“Let’s start by telling us your real name…”