“Why have you refused to be interviewed until now?” Ollie Gibings of Breaking News asks. She has a smug smile on her face.

I could still demand that someone else interview me, but if I don’t let her interview me she might try to break into my house again.

I wish I could reposition in the uncomfortable mess of a desk chair they sat me in, but since they’re recording the interview, everyone would see that as a sign of weakness. I have to keep the calm exterior that is the world’s version of Jackie Smalls. All I agreed to do was show up to this interview, meaning I don’t have to reveal anything I don’t want to. Refusing to answer a question would be too small of an offense for Ash to tell the world what she’s using to blackmail me. If she does, she’ll have me as an enemy, and no control over me. All I’ve done in this interview is state my name, but it already feels like I’ve been here for hours.

“A friend convinced me to.”

She smiles. “Isn’t that nice of them?” I think she’s the one who hired Ash. “Now, please tell me about Smalls Industries?”

“What about it?” I’m going to make this difficult for her.

“You’ve been the CEO since your mother’s death but you’ve kept most things the same. Other than your new product line, I don’t think anything’s changed.”

I don’t see why that matters, but she’s right. All I’ve really done is shift our invertor’s focus. I think I’ve lead as best I can, but if I say that, Gibings will dig for more so instead I say nothing in a sentence. “It hasn’t.”

Gibings moves onto her next question. “Is your research team still working off of what your father left in his lab?”

“Tangentially.” My father was a genius; it was a real superpower, like the kind that Naturalist has.

“What do you mean?”

“We take parts of his original designs and turn them into something new.”

“Like what?”

“Small things.” My father would probably hate what I’m making. My mother would too.

“What are you working on now?” Gibings asks.

“A bunch of things.”

“What kinds of things?” I think she’s getting annoyed. That means she should let me leave soon.

“Things similar to the controlled temperature jacket we released last year.”

My parents wanted my dad’s research to change the world. Instead it made a bomb that destroyed half the city.

Despite everything, my kept chasing their dream. The company and the city renovations were both attempts to do that. No matter what she did, the world didn’t change.

My mother was a much better woman than I am, and she failed to change the world, so I’m not trying to. I’m just trying to keep her company going.

“When your mother was CEO she made industrial things,” Gibings states. “Are you sure your parents would have wanted you to shift from making those products to making things for the masses?”

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I stare Ollie Gibings down as the interview turns into a standoff, like the kind in movies where the hero and antagonist are finally fighting one-on-one.

“I’m sure, they wouldn’t mind.” She doesn’t need to know the truth.

“Really? Didn’t your mother say, and I quote ‘If this factory ever turns into another big corporation, shoot me’?” She’s more like an interrogator than an interviewer.

“She may have said that, but she was not referring to what we produce. She was talking about the things our company cares about. She was saying she wanted us to care more about the world we live in than the money we make.”

“Do you do that?”

“Yes. Smalls Industries has never put money before the wellbeing of our customers, employees, or before the quality of our products.”

“Then why change what you’re making?”

“...” She’s got me boxed in here. “Changing our client base does not change the moral standard of our company.”

“Maybe it’s because you are no longer strictly necessary to the corporation?”

She’s just trying to push my buttons. “What do you mean by that?”

“A former employee revealed that you work from home five days out of seven. That employee also said that you have no control over what the full-time higher-ups do. Your response?”

“While it is true that I tend to work from home, My mother did the same. She worked from home full-time and still had complete control of the company.”

“But you aren’t your mother.”

Ow.

“No, I am not my mother and I never will be, but I am as fierce and as capable as her.” I glare at Gibings.

“You seem angry. Do you hate your mother?”

She’s trying to throw me off. “No. I would never hate my mother. I simply know that she, as both a single mom and CEO of a company she built from the ground up, worked a lot harder than I’ve had too and deserves all the respect in the world.”

“Do you think you deserve less respect?”

“No, that is not what I said. I just think that my mother had it harder and deserves credit for what she did.”

“What about your father?”

“My father died before I reached puberty, but he was a strong and intelligent man.”

“It is said that you are smarter than your father; do you think that is true?”

I take a second to think; she’s gotten me to respond on instinct several times. I can’t let that continue. “Not really. I am smart in my own right, but my father was someone you’d be stupid not to fear.”

“You don't seem to think you live up to your parents' reputation?”

“You’re wrong.” I pause after forcing out that sentence so she doesn’t think I was hesitating. “My parents would be proud of me.”

“I’m glad that you had such good parents.” She smiles fakely. “Let’s move on to a different part of your life.”

“Sure.” I don’t want to talk about my parents anymore.

“Are you romantically involved with anyone?”

I raise my eyebrow. “I am not.” Why is she talking about this?

“Do you ever plan to date again?”

I need to change the subject. “I’m too busy for any of that.”

“Really? Or are you waiting for your former partner, Avery Brown, to take you back?”

I’m starting to hyperventilate.

Deep breath.

In.

Out.

Clear the mind and attack this logically. “No.” Is all I manage to say. “That was nothing special.”

“On the contrary, it is believed that Avery was the only person you ever had an actual relationship with, romantic or otherwise. You were seen with them for years. Why were they so special to you?”

I can’t just tell her not to talk about this, but I can’t face those memories again. I have to pretend it was nothing.

I shrug. “First loves are always special.”

“That is true, but this feels different.”

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you. Avery is just an ex, nothing more.” It hurts to say that, to diminish everything we’d been through to that.