Nina took a deep breath. "Right, sorry.” She took hold of the doorknob and pushed the black slab inward.

The room’s white walls were almost blinding. Pristine but undecorated and flooded with natural light from a wall of windows. The focal point on the front wall was a massive rimless screen displaying a live feed of WWN - muted. On the opposite wall was a huge wrought iron clock - the kind with just hands and no edge. The only sound in the room was the slow, metallic ticking of the arm-length second hand.

In the center sat a surprisingly small black desk and two modernist-looking plastic chairs. Of course, the true centerpiece was the woman at the desk, trademark brown locks tied up with two oversize chopsticks, somehow typing without any sound.

Anchor. Editor-in-Chief. The most influential journalist of her generation.

Priscilla. Davis.

She did not look up.

"Ms. Davis?" Nina said, working not to let her voice quiver

"Oh." Priscilla's head jerked her direction, shaken out of her work. Then she gave a tight-lipped smile. "Right, Nina. Good to finally meet you in person. Won't you sit down?" She gestured at the chairs, then went back to typing.

Nina slid carefully into one of the chairs, realizing that Priscilla had no keyboard. The letters were laser-projected from a node at the bottom of her computer monitor, and her fingers were flying noiselessly across a sheet of black felt. After a few seconds, Priscilla hit the "Enter" key with a dramatic flourish that should have made a loud click, but only managed a soft thump. Her chair swiveled Nina's direction.  "Right, where were we?"

Priscilla scanned her desk, straightened a stack of old-school paper folders, and picked up the top one - labeled with Nina's name in neat letters. She opened it, scanned the contents, then snapped it closed.

"I've reacquainted myself with your resumé," she said, "It's been a while since I enjoyed reading a portfolio that much.”

Nina felt her shoulders loosen and allowed herself a bit of a grin. "Thanks. That's great to hear."

Davis smiled, again very tight-lipped. "I read a lot of boring applications from mid-level reporters in the big cities. They think this is their logical next step. You, on the other hand, took a garbage job in tiny market, then blew the doors off a local government that didn’t think anyone was watching. I like that trick."

"Appleton is my hometown,” Nina heard herself say. “I don’t like people who take advantage of it.”

"Good girl," Priscilla peered over her thick, black-framed glasses. "But I didn't hire you because of the city council scandal. I hired you because I watched what you didn’t put in your portfolio.” She set down the folder. “Your WAPL back-catalog was the single most mind-numbing array of irrelevant local puff pieces I have ever watched. If I’d been assigned those stories when I was twenty-five, I’d have shot myself. You threw yourself at all of them as if you were reporting the moon landing. I want that attitude here.”

“Well,” Nina bit her lip, thinking back on all the stories she’d done on county fairs and girl scouts, how happy they’d made her feel - suddenly wondering if she could ever love this place the same way.

"I-“ She felt her words catch in her throat. “I can try."

Priscilla raised her eyebrows lightly, "I hope you do more than try." She let the words hang in the air. "Because you're new. You're going to get our bottom-of-the-barrel stories for a while, and even small stories require a rigorous devotion to truth. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," Nina sat up a bit straighter, "and with respect, small stories here are huge where I come from.”

"Yes, well, where you come from is..." Priscilla trailed off before refocusing. "Quaint."

Nina felt herself stiffen. She was still a Constantinos after all, and no Constantinos takes lip about Appleton. "Actually, I -"

"Ms. Constantinos," Priscilla cut her off, "I’ll cut to the chase. It's been a very long time since I've hired from a market that small." She folded her hands on the desk.

“Well,” Nina stumbled, "I know it's a big jump, and you know I'll work really hard to prove it's worth it.”

"No, you misunderstand," Priscilla held up a hand. "Your work ethic is beyond question. However, smaller market outlets tend to toward brand of journalism which is, at a cultural level, rooted in the last century." She started clicking a nail against the desk. "WWN pursues modern journalism. Real truth, relentlessly focused on the now. Am I making myself clear?"

Nina nodded, although to be honest, she was anything but clear.

Priscilla continued, "The last market that small we hired from was McAllen, Texas. That was ten years ago for a reason. You're an experiment, Nina. However,” her smile returned, "I’m confident you’ll do fine if you put your mind to it. Any further questions?"

Nina shook her head. She was going to have a lot of questions, but not until she came back to Earth, screwed her head back on, and decided what to even ask.

"Right," Priscilla said, pulling a folder from the bottom of her pile. "This is all the information you'll need for Rome."

Nina's mind re-entered her body. That last word has made her very present and, to use Priscilla’s term, ‘relentlessly focused on the now.’

"Excuse me. Rome?"

"Yes," Priscilla turned back to her computer. "You're flying out with us this Wednesday to cover the conclave to elect the new Pope. I’ll trust you with our garbage stories after I get an up close and personal look at your work. Seeing as I’m the Editor-in-Chief, the only way I can work with you directly is if you’re on our top story. Sinéad will show you to your desk. Welcome to WWN.”

Priscilla gave a tight smile and went silent, which Nina figured meant it was time to leave. She pushed her chair out as silently as possible and slipped out of the room, being careful to close the door on the way out.

Back in the anteroom, Sinéad was sitting at her desk and apparently partaking in this year’s hot retro time-wasting trend - Minesweeper. At the sound of the door, the secretary shot to her feet, picked up a stack of folders off the copier, then beckoned Nina with her hand. “Come with me.”

Nina barely heard her. She’d noticed a thick book sitting on Sinéad’s desk, with a bookmark near the end.

“Constantinos?” Sinéad said louder and with some annoyance, leaving the room.

“Yes, I'm coming.” Nina hurried after her. Catching up, she reached for an icebreaker in hopes of cracking Sinéad’s stony demeanor. “I noticed you’re reading A Game of Thrones. That series was epic.”

“It’s okay.” Sinéad responded blankly, opening a door marked Stairs. “So, I bet you think you're hot stuff for getting this Rome assignment.”

Nina stopped in her tracks, hearing the stairwell door echo shut behind her. “Well,” she ventured, “I'm certainly honored.”

“Don't be.” Sinéad dispensed with her stiff demeanor in favor of open aggression. “It's not an honor, and it's not a reflection of your importance to this network. Get that through your farm-fresh, organic head right now. Every newbie here gets a big story out of the gate. You eff up, you disappear. So, if you don't want to be back in Appleton covering the Eighty-Fifth Annual Goat-Manure Festival, don't eff up.”

Nina gulped, feeling goosebumps rise and trying to figure out what to make of the sudden outburst. “Um, I’ll try.”

Sinéad rolled her eyes and sighed. “You are so screwed.”

Then she theatrically pasted on a professional smile and exited the stairwell one floor down, into the chaos of the main newsroom.

She led Nina to a seat at a large white table near the back, subdivided to seat four reporters. It was furnished rolling office chair, a wafer-thin computer monitor and a cordless telephone. Nina didn’t recognize all the nameplates on the other seats, but noticed that one of them was Emma Poissonier, who she knew from the network’s morning show. 

 “This is where you'll be sitting,” Sinéad said. “If you check the desk drawer, we've also issued you a tablet and a phone. I.T. should be up shortly to help you set those up. Welcome to the WWN family – we're so happy to have you.” With that, Sinéad turned neatly on her heels and walked away a fast clip.  

Nina plopped in the chair and let out a huge breath as she booted up the computer. “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

While the machine loaded, she reached into her purse and pulled out the two desk ornaments she’d brought from Appleton: The Starship Defiant paperweight and the framed glossy headshot that started this whole journey.

She took a second to read the inscription in faded silver Sharpie. The thing she’d pushed for after a night of broken glass. The thing she re-read every time she wondered whether this had been the right life to choose.

Nina,
Thanks so much for shadowing me for the day! Follow your dreams!

XOXO,
Ally Talamantez

"Basic Cable" text copyright © 2020 Adam Brickley. All rights reserved.