Tuesday, 9 AM. Conference Room B.
Delaney arrived early, face still bruised but carefully made up to minimize the damage. She arranged folders at the head of the table—each one labeled with a name. Inside: assignments, non-disclosure agreements, and one piece of carefully selected leverage.
They trickled in looking confused, wary. Marshall Chen clutched his coffee like a shield. Sandy Kowalski took a seat near the door—escape route visible. A photo intern whose name Delaney hadn't bothered learning sat ramrod straight, desperate to impress. Three others filled the remaining chairs: a fact-checker drowning in student loans, a copy editor passed over for promotion twice, a junior reporter who'd been written up for "attitude problems."
All of them worked two floors down. All of them had seen Delaney in the break room, heard the whispers, watched colleagues avoid her desk.
None of them knew why they were here.
Delaney closed the door. The click echoed.
"Thank you for coming." Her voice was calm, almost warm. "You're here because you're hungry. Because you want more than grunt work and byline scraps. Because you understand that real journalism—the kind that matters—requires commitment."
Marshall shifted uncomfortably.
"What kind of commitment?"
"The Fighter." Delaney smiled. "You've all seen the coverage. Golden boy, inspirational story, champion with a heart." She paused. "It's bullshit. And we're going to prove it."
Sandy frowned.
"Isn't Ms. Vargas pretty clear about not—"
"Ms. Vargas," Delaney interrupted smoothly, "wants safe stories. Puff pieces. I'm offering you the chance to break something real. Something that gets you noticed. Gets you hired somewhere that actually values talent."
She opened the first folder, sliding a photo across the table. The Fighter at a restaurant, laughing.
"This is newsgathering. Observation. Documentation. Nothing illegal."
The fact-checker leaned forward.
"What are we documenting?"
"Everything. His routine. His friends. His sister." Delaney's expression didn't change. "Especially his sister. Elena Volkov attacked me because she's unstable. Violent. And he's protecting her. That's the story."
The photo intern's voice cracked slightly.
"You want us to follow them?"
"I want you to *investigate* them." Delaney met each person's eyes in turn. "Shifts. Rotations. No one person gets too visible. We work as a team. I coordinate, you execute."
Marshall picked up his folder. Inside: photos of him at an underground poker game, chips stacked high. His face went white.
Sandy opened hers: a printout of an article she'd written in 2016, highlighted passages matching another publication word-for-word.
One by one, they opened their folders. One by one, their faces changed.
"This isn't a threat," Delaney said quietly. "This is insurance. I need people I can trust. People who understand that we protect each other. What's in those folders stays between us—as long as we're a team."
Silence.
"There's money," Delaney added. "Bonuses for good intel. I'm paying out of pocket for this. Triple your freelance rate."
The fact-checker's eyes widened. Student loans, Delaney remembered. Crushing debt.
"And when we break this story," Delaney continued, "your names are on it. Front page. Career-making journalism. The kind that gets you hired at the Times, the Post, wherever you want to go."
She stood, gathering the folders.
"You're not required to participate. Walk away now, no hard feelings. But if you stay..." She paused at the door. "You're in. Completely. No half measures. No second-guessing. We do this right, or we don't do it at all."
She left the room.
Behind her, six people sat frozen, folders in hand, phones silent on the table.
No one stood up.
No one left.
After a long moment, Marshall's phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number:
Unknown Number
First assignment: Cavanaugh Street. Lunch spot. Photos only. Due Friday. - DS
He looked around the table. Everyone else's phones were lighting up too.
Sandy exhaled slowly.
"Fuck."
But she was already opening her camera app, checking the settings.
They were in.
> Chapter complete. Continue to next chapter? [Y/N] █