U.S. forces had expanded their bombing campaign, but there was only so much an aerial campaign could accomplish. The Prophet’sforces had entwined themselves with the local populations, forcing them to remain in the cities and villages to act as humanshields. It was becoming increasingly clear that either ground troops would need to go in to clear out the capital, or theUnited States would have to cut its losses, declare victory, and leave the people of Niger to figure out their future forthemselves.
Watching the footage, Leigh was horrified to realize that she was almost bored watching the familiar sight of U.S. warplanespulverizing a desert country’s infrastructure into sand.
Then Reimer’s assistant had appeared and dragged her out of the conference room, telling her she needed to be up in Johannes’office immediately. None of her colleagues—even Eddie—would meet her eyes as she got up to leave. She was finally done—she’dpushed too hard. That’s all it could be, and honestly, she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t seen it coming.
Reimer was furious when she’d skipped out on her scheduled interview to film the Oracle riot. She’d gotten an extremely expensivecamera damaged, the company had to cover Eddie’s medical bills, and while she’d managed to retrieve the footage he’d shot,none of it was particularly newsworthy . . . all in all, a nightmare of wasted time and money for Urbanity.com.
Leigh hadn’t stepped out of line since, but evidently Reimer had just been letting her twist in the wind. Time was up.
The elevator doors opened. Leigh stepped out and made her way across the executive floor to Reimer’s office.
The door was open. She knocked on it anyway. Her boss looked up.
“Ms. Shore,” he said. “Come in, and please close the door behind you.”
Leigh closed the door and stood in front of Reimer’s desk. He gestured for her to sit. As she did, she noticed that his tiewas a bit loose, and the top button of his dress shirt was undone. For Johannes Reimer, that was on the same level as anyoneelse running through Central Park wearing a glitter-studded thong.
He was fiddling with a sheet of paper on his desk—a printed e-mail, maybe.
Leigh frantically thought back over every piece of communication that had left her computer since she’d started work at Urbanity.com,trying to remember if she’d ever written anything inappropriate, resulting in a flood of correspondence she would rather diethan see on her boss’ desk washing through her mind.
“Ms. Shore,” Reimer began, not looking at her, then stopped. He picked up a pencil on his desk and tapped it against the papera few times. “Will you read this and tell me what it means to you?”
With the eraser end of the pencil, he pushed the paper toward Leigh, rotating it so that it faced her. She reluctantly pickedit up. It was, in fact, an e-mail, but she hadn’t written it.
YOUR PROPOSAL IS ACCEPTED. THE ORACLE WILL MEET WITH AN INTERVIEWER FROM URBANITY. HOWEVER, THERE IS ONE CONDITION. THE PERSON TO CONDUCT THE INTERVIEW MUST BE LEIGH SHORE. IF THIS IS SATISFACTORY, INSTRUCTIONS FOR CONDUCTING THE INTERVIEW AND DEPOSITING THE NONREFUNDABLE FEE WILL BE SENT TO YOU. RESPOND WITHIN 24 HOURS.
Her heart began to pound. She read the e-mail three more times.
“I . . . I don’t understand,” she managed.
“You don’t know why you are mentioned specifically?”
“No, I don’t. Honestly. What’s going on?”
Reimer sighed heavily.
“You know about the e-mail address on the Site? For questions to the Oracle?”
Leigh nodded.
“I think everyone does, Mr. Reimer,” she said.
“I sent in a question.”
In the little corner of Leigh’s mind not consumed by whatever the hell the e-mail might mean, she wondered what Johannes Reimercould possibly want to know about his future, and more importantly, if he was actually about to share that with her. Pokingaround in other people’s Oracle questions had become a sort of taboo subject in polite society, like talking money or politics.You told your closest friends, maybe, but that was about it.
“I asked him if he would do an interview for our site.”
Leigh’s heart, already revving pretty hard, jumped up a few gears.
Reimer frowned heavily.
“I never thought he would answer. I mean, he doesn’t answer anyone, right? We’d have heard about it. So asking for an interview . . .it was a lark, I guess. Just part of feeling connected.”
Leigh had never seen Reimer with an expression anywhere near the one he was currently wearing. He looked lost. Afraid, even.
“I got the Oracle’s e-mail yesterday afternoon,” he said. “I spent last night considering what the hell I was going to do.I didn’t sleep.”
“What? Why?” Leigh blurted out. “You said yes, right? I mean, this is the best thing that could ever happen for this place.And me, too, I’m not pretending it’s not. Why wouldn’t you just go for it?”
“Because I proposed an interview fee of ten million dollars,” Reimer answered.
Leigh’s eyes widened.
“That’s the operating budget for this business for the next four years, Ms. Shore. I chose ten million because I thought itwas probably half what other outlets had to be offering. I never thought it would happen. It was a safe bet, just somethingto let me feel like I was in the game.”
Reimer rubbed a hand across his forehead.
“And then he called my bluff.”
“So fucking what?” Leigh said. “It doesn’t matter what it costs! There is no bigger thing than this. This is the . . . thebiggest thing.”
Shock rippled across Reimer’s face, then anger.
Leigh didn’t care. The Oracle wanted her, and there was no way she was letting that slip away.
“Look, I’m tempted,” Reimer said, wrestling himself back under control. “The Oracle’s the most famous person on the planet.An interview with him would pay for itself almost instantly. We film it, license it out, maybe do a documentary, even. It’snot really the money.
“The problem,” he continued, taking the e-mail printout
