"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to your regularly scheduled news programme. Tonight, we will be going over the events to come out of yesterday's initiation of the second humanitarian aid effort to launch over the Central London Exclusion Zone."

"Despite concerns that these efforts would prove a tragic repeat of the disappearances following the first attempt at an airdrop over the city's affected inner regions, the RAF is reporting that all pilots have, indeed, checked back in and returned to base with no issues. We had a chance to interview some of the families of pilots who volunteered for this potentially hazardous assignment. Here's the testimony of one Matilda Croft, a concerned spouse whose husband flew in the first sortie."

"...We're just… so, so relieved that everything turned out alright for him. It was stressful, you know? When you hear that the first time this was attempted, nearly a third of the planes that went up simply… disappeared without a trace… even when they reassure you, you still wonder if it might happen again, you know? Thank everything above that it didn't, this time."

"In our conversation with an RAF spokesperson who elected to remain anonymous, he stated that, quote, 'all parties involved performed more than admirably', and that they 'especially had to give credit to the Cloudpiercer project', closed quote.

"Indeed, it would seem that conversations on this subject simply cannot do with avoiding this remarkable piece of bespoke mage technology, renowned in both physical and digital news spheres for the milestone achievement of confirming the existence of survivors within. And, apparently, it is correct to call them survivors. More at 11."

< -|- -|- >

"Come on, Luce, smile! You're going to be on camera soon!"

"That's exactly why I'm doing anything but, you realize."

It hadn't even been a full 24 hours, and already the media vultures had found a way to extract their pound of flesh from the research team. The worst possible outcome had become a reality faster than Lucy had felt she'd had time to blink.

That outcome? A no holds barred public showing. Complete with interview, a late night host and lots and lots of stage makeup.

What she wouldn't give to be back in her office, crunching numbers right now.

Ffion pouted at her prickly attitude. "Couldn't you at least pretend to be excited about this? I mean, how many other college students could truthfully say they got to be on national television?"

"Not many..." she grudgingly admitted, "But if any of them were here, I'd give them my chair in a heartbeat. Seriously. That stack of raw data on my desk isn't going to turn into proper Domain matrices any time soon, the way things are going."

Her roommate giggled, seemingly out of nowhere.

"What? What's so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing… you just sounded like the professor for a second there, is all."

That comment was enough to give her pause to her grumblings. She wanted to refute it, but…

Oh, God, is it really that bad? Maybe I really should look into taking a break sometime soon…

She rubbed the side of her temple in exasperation. Couldn't be helped, she supposed. It felt like the whole world was conspiring to run at full tilt around her. And, as much as she'd been holding out for some sort of break in her crazy schedule for the past week, it just continued to be one thing after another.

Speaking of…

"You two are up in five," an attendant notified them after peering into the waiting room from the doorframe. She hadn't noticed them arriving in the first place. Lucy flinched a bit, startled at the sudden arrival while her roommate was a bit more on the ball.

"Ah, thank-", Ffion started to greet the newcomer.

But the nameless gofer had already long moved on to another task. As polite as Ffion was going to be, the two of them were simply not worth any more of their precious time. It left them with nothing left to do but fuss over their attire and make sure they looked their absolute best before they were ushered onto the big stage.

Which, honestly, was probably exactly the intention behind the method. One thing she'd noticed about how the way things were run here was how precise everything was maintained. Down to the second, crews milled about this way and that, completing tasks in predetermined intervals only to move on the moment they'd accomplished it. Never lingering for longer than necessary. Never finishing early, either – that would imply that they could have made the timetable more efficient.

It astounded her that this level of minutiae was being put towards a news commentary show. Not even the agents on the base held themselves to such a ridiculous standard.

So, they both did the only thing they could in that moment. Flow with that tide as best they could, and make their way out into the awaiting gazes of the live audience when the time came.

As they stood up to wait by the door, Ffion was uncharacteristically quiet.

"It'll be fine," Lucy reassured her. "Just follow my lead and answer as best as you can. They've already given us the big questions that'll be tossed our way ahead of time, remember?"

"Y-yeah…"

Despite her best efforts, it was obvious that she was starting to feel the pressure. Lucy felt a pang of remorse, her own internal emotions echoing the sentiment. If this had been her first exposure to this sort of public affair, she'd have been more high strung than a telephone wire herself.

Hang in there… we'll get through this…

Just like that, the time for reassurances slipped away. Everything sprang into action all at once.

At the drop of a hat, they were ushered towards the stage entrance, told to smile on their way out, told who was to shake whose hands and when and how. Stage technicians scurried around, making last-minute checks to ensure the equipment wasn't about to malfunction at the worst possible moment. Over there, there was a man hastily swapping cable connections for AV equipment, quietly mumbling something to himself in one uninterrupted breath. Back there, a Tech Domain mage was elbow deep in the guts of some different machine, sending sparks of lime-green light into the internals in some chaotic pattern that was beyond what she was able to glimpse. As they waited in the wings, they could make out the voice of the smooth-talking news anchor getting the crowd excited for their arrival.

"Now, everyone, please give a warm welcome to our very special guest stars tonight, two of the foremost minds responsible for the Cloudpiercer project. Allow me to introduce miss Lucy Wright and her colleague, Ffion Maddox!"

Lucy hid a put upon sigh behind a phony smirk, and they entered on cue. The crowd cheered and applauded as they made their way to the chairs on the set, greeting their hosts as instructed. Ffion moved a little stiffly, which to anyone who knew her was a clear indicator of her nerves, but she hit all the right cues and thankfully the audience either didn't notice or didn't care. Perhaps a little bit of both.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

For her part, she was equally anxious, albeit much better at hiding it. Even as she regurgitated well-rehearsed hellos and how are yous, playing to the crowd just as her lessons with Jansman had briefly touched on, she couldn't shake the unsettled feeling deep down in the pit of her stomach.

"Now, ladies," the host smarmed as they took their seats. "First of all, it's absolutely wonderful that you could make it to tonight's showing on such short notice."

"Oh, it's no trouble at all," Lucy replied, idly adjusting the hem of her suit as she did. A blatant lie. She knew it, the host knew it, but both of them silently agreed to pretend that that wasn't the case.

"That's great to hear! We've got a lot of ground to cover tonight, on account of your recent success! What a sight seeing your work in action was, eh? Can we get a replay on that activation footage for everyone?"

The lights dimmed, and a finely edited cut of yesterday's launch was rolled out to get the crowd fired up even more. They were making a true spectacle of it – movie-grade camera work, a grand orchestral backing track, spliced audio from the control room at key points… whoever was behind the decision to show this off really wanted to put some weight behind it.

Naturally, her direct superiors had a very heavy hand in proofreading the version being shown to the public, so the experience the crowd was getting was pretty heavily sanitized. The light show of the machinery in action was impressive, for certain… but that's all there was to it. The end result, knitted into a feel-good story.

Knowing the blood, sweat, tears and cusses that went into making it happen was a far cry from just seeing a dolled-up delivery of the results. The symphonic music died down, and the anchor wiped a phony tear from the corner of his eye.

"Marvelous," he said. "Absolutely marvelous. You two have really opened our eyes to what your field is capable of, so on behalf of everyone here, congratulations and may you find many more successes going forward." The crowd, like trained seals, gave out a collective awwww at the supposedly genuine compliment perfectly on cue.

"Which, honestly, brings us to the question that's on all our minds right now: what's next?"

The first of the rehearsed questions. A couple softballs to warm up the crowd, before they get the real interview started.

"Well, as you can imagine, there's still much to do with the project," she replied, adding a small nervous laugh at the end. "It's great that everything went according to plan this time, but it's going to be a long month while we work to get ready to beam out the next transmission. In that time, we're hoping to improve a lot: communication uptime, power consumption efficiency, signal strength… the list goes on."

Their host flashed a toothy grin, nodding along. "Mhm, mhm, I can imagine, all right. But, while we're on the subject… Can we talk about the two gentlemen who you managed to make contact with? The whole news world is abuzz with the comments they made, and I'm told that there's even a few net forums already that are picking apart their words line by line."

It would seem the conversation was gently being steered away from the topic of scientific progress, and towards the lifeblood of all news: drama. Never mind that they were unraveling the first mysteries in magic to show themselves in over a decade here, no, what was important was the War Of The Worlds-style cryptic remarks they'd inadvertently unearthed. Lucy willed her eye not to twitch, otherwise the cameras would have certainly picked up on it.

"It is rather strange, isn't it? Though, unfortunately, I don't really have anything more than what's been figured out already. The first speaker's identity is still entirely a mystery, though the second, one Robert Huxley, appears to have been just a simple enthusiast that owned a hobbyist electronics store before the phenomenon began."

"Just a civilian? Not even a government official or anything?"

"It wouldn't appear to be the case, no."

Lucy made a discreet hand signal to Ffion, indicating now was her chance to get some good words in.

"To make matters more confusing," she added, "The type of equipment necessary for us to even pick up a signal through the chaotic Domain noise would have to be of a grade only used by large networks, so presumably something like what might be found in the Broadcasting House… but that was the first place we checked, and it was completely dead quiet. As close as we could determine, the only source present appeared to be a block of office buildings in Stratford. Seemingly nowhere of real importance, and there just… shouldn't be anything that powerful there."

For her first true public appearance, it actually went pretty much perfect.

"Intriguing…" The announcer rubbed his chin, mocking being lost in thought. "Could they have moved such an antenna to somewhere in that location, perhaps?"

Of course they did. It was the only explanation that was anywhere near viable. As much as Lucy wanted to just blurt that out, however, her roommate was much more diplomatic in her approach.

"It would take plenty of manpower, certainly. But, it's not impossible."

"I suppose all we have at this point is speculation, don't we…"

They both nodded along, readying themselves for the last question before the break.

"Though, on that subject, let's give some time to discuss what sort of dangers could possibly have them asking for heavy weapons, of all things. I'm sure a couple of bright sparks like you have some theories of your own, yeah?"

Lucy took charge of the conversation once again, nodding and giving a sound of confirmation. "Heavy weapons might be a slight exaggeration… but we are finding the amount of combat-related supplies in their request deeply concerning, nonetheless. All we can say for certain at this point, is that there is some sort of conflict going on inside, which presumably the residents have been forced to take up arms in."

"Think it might be zombies, then?"

"You are certainly welcome to believe that."

Murmurs from the audience were allowed to simmer in the background, as time was given to let that pre-planned bit of light ribbing sink in. The timing couldn't have been any more perfect. That would have implied a failure on the part of the studio.

"Well, I'd certainly love to pick your brain more on the topic, and we'll have a chance to, after these messages."

The cameras cut, and the two of them relaxed a hair as the perceived scrutiny diminished.

Only three more of these to go, now.

< -|- -|- >

Later that night, when Lucy finally got back to base camp, she wanted nothing more than to just collapse in her bed and sleep for eternity.

That had been the singular most draining experience of her life. Ffion, bless her soul, did admirably for a first time participant, though as she had expected a few saves on her behalf were necessary. Not that there was any hiding the accidental live TV reveal that she and Konstantin were engaged now.

She could already picture the sight of a literal army of gossip reporters trying to shoulder their way past Eleftorov's guards in the morning.

Groggily, she undid the buttons on the perfectly tailored suit jacket she'd been lent by Agent Blackthorne. Which, now that she thought about it a little harder, was a bit strange. The elf had been the one to provide both her and Ffion with appropriate attire for the night, actually. Lucy got the two piece suit, while her friend received a much more outspokenly fashionable black dress. Also a perfect fit, apparently. Not once had any of them been measured or even had so much as a medical checkup recently, and yet…

…It was a bit much, she felt.

Just another thing to add to the pile of crazy, I guess…

A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. Partway through undoing the tie around her neck, she weighed whether or not to finish what she was doing first, before deciding she really didn't care all that much right now. With both ends of the strip of cloth hanging loosely over her shoulders, she opened the door, and was greeted by a face that surprised her to see all of a sudden.

"...Professor Smith," she greeted, her voice layered with equal parts confusion and scorn. "Odd to find you here at this hour."

He shrugged, apparently unwilling or unable to apologize for his absence.

"Can't argue with that," he agreed. "Glad to see you're holding up, by the way. Believe me, I've been through that wringer before, and once was more than enough for me. You did especially well clearing up the aftermath, too, might I add."

Lucy raised an eyebrow. "Now this is unprecedented. Whatever happened to the grumbling professor who torched half his student's books on the first day of classes?"

"What, can't I give out compliments where they're due?"

Her eyes narrowed. "You. Giving compliments."

Edison let out a somewhat exasperated sigh. "Look, I can't tell you why I didn't show up for the big reveal, and the less said about my ability to make it up to you, the better. So, rather than waste both our times giving an apology I'd only stumble on halfway through while you want to be anywhere but in this conversation, I've decided instead I'm going to do the best with what I have."

"And that is?"

"Firstly, how's your progress been on refining your talent in one of the Domains?"

"On pace for a first year. Your point?"

"Throw it in the bin. I'd like to offer you personal tutelage in Law."

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