He says you shot him in the face.

It didn’t take long for Wilford to forget all about the horrible, creepy elves that were taking over Milliways. There were other things that needed his attention, which were all far more interesting. Things that didn’t completely set Wilford’s teeth on edge. He listened to Billy’s morning updates while he flipped through messy and disorganised files. Out in the hall, people were shouting at one another and pounding on the walls. They were getting new neighbours in the only other studio in the building that week. Wilford’s guys were no doubt trying to the new boys a proper welcome. Best to let them know what they were in for early, rather than letting them find out two weeks after they got settled.

Wilford didn’t actually care what anyone got up to, as long as they also finished their jobs on time. He ran a messy and disorganised ship, but it worked. Stories were finished on time, segments were filmed on schedule, and the show continued to do well in the ratings even without touching on subjects like sex scandals or politics. The network heads weren’t happy with any of it, but Wilford could not have possibly cared less about what anybody at the network wanted.

As the fight out in the hallway turned into a brawl, Wilford realised his morning report was light. There was a file missing. Wilford quickly shuffled through all of them, trying to work out who hadn’t turned theirs in yet.

“Where the fuck is Kevin?” Wilford asked, checking again to make sure he hadn’t simply missed the file.

“He didn’t come in today. He’s mad at you,” Billy said. He picked up the files Wilford had already gone through and moved them to a shelf where they could sit out of the way.

“The hell’s he mad at me for?” Wilford asked.

“He says you shot him in the face.”

Wilford did not remember shooting Kevin in the face, but that wasn’t exactly proof that it hadn’t happened. Kevin was the single most irritating person Wilford had ever had the displeasure of knowing, and this wasn’t the first time he’d called off with a similar excuse. Wilford shrugged, accepted this account of events, and moved on.

“When he decides to show his face around here again, tell him he’s off the Bigfoot story,” Wilford said.

“Oh? You’re done being mad at him, then?” Billy asked.

“No. I just need him to get some real work done.”

The rest of the files were much of the same. Mostly little things Wilford had people looking into. They only ever had a few solid stories running at once, with most of the crew being sent out to sniff out new stories that would be worth reporting on. Most of them would end up in the bin by the end of the week, when nothing managed to materialise. But every now and then, something would catch Wilford’s attention. This time, it was the project he’d put Mandy on. Using the video Jim had provided, the social media team had been putting out short hoax videos. None of them had gone viral (which was good thing), but they were gaining traction. Other videos and anecdotes were starting to surface, and Mandy had been collecting all of them. Pocket dimensions and dimensional hopping weren’t exactly a big news thing, though. That was a thing that just happened sometimes. Sure, it usually sucked for the person getting caught up in it, but that was last-page filler. But Mandy had managed to find something interesting and tangential, and with just the right amount of spin, it could be made into something huge.

“Where’s Mandy? Get him in here,” Wilford said, handing the rest of the files back to Billy.

“I’ll see if he’s still here,” Billy said.

Mandy was still in the building, and ten minutes later he was taking Wilford through his convoluted trail of breadcrumbs that led a path across every social networking site on the planet.

“It was here. The garage,” Mandy said, bringing up the hoax video he’d manufactured from Jim’s footage. He hadn’t done much doctoring to it at all, but apparently, he hadn’t needed to. It got people talking anyway. “You were right. It found something.”

“Of course I was right. I’m always fucking right,” Wilford said as he hijacked the laptop to scroll through the endless sea of replies on Twitter.

“Yeah, sure.” Mandy rotated the laptop back towards himself so he could better reach the keyboard. “It was a lot of little things at first. Chop shops, smuggling. And then this guy.”

He turned the laptop back to Wilford, so he could read the posts Mandy had saved. By the time the hoax video had made its way to LifeInvader, something a bit bigger than hot cars and rhino horns had become the talk of the day. It was all entirely unsubstantiated speculation, but since when had that ever stopped anybody on Wilford’s team?

“You do any digging?” he asked.

“Some. He’s a big-time benefactor to several youth shelters across South San Andreas. One of those kids disappears, and nobody’s gonna notice. But it still helps to push a little cash to make sure it stays that way,” Mandy said.

Wilford picked up the laptop and leaned back in his seat to read. “Which shelters?” he asked.

Mandy’s folder was still sitting open on Wilford’s desk. Mandy picked it up and thumbed through the disorganised mess of it, eventually finding a hand-written list on the back of a fast food receipt. “These ones here.” He handed the receipt over to Wilford. “All private non-profits. Very little government involvement.”

Wilford spared a brief glance at the list of shelters. The names meant nothing to him, but he hadn’t expected them to.

“Kevin can pass for a high schooler, can’t he?” Wilford asked, returning his attention to another LifeInvader post.

“When he remembers to shave, yeah. You want to put him in there?” Mandy asked. Wilford could hear the hesitation in his voice.

“Better him than some kid we pick up off the street. Kevin at least almost knows how not to get killed,” Wilford reasoned.

“I fucking hate working with him,” Mandy protested.

“What? Like that makes you special?” Wilford closed the laptop and put it back on his desk. “He’s perfect for this. They’ll jump at the chance to get rid of him.”

Voicing his disagreement through quiet grumbles, Mandy stood and picked up his laptop. Ignoring him, Wilford checked the clock, wondering if he had enough time to sneak off before the interview that afternoon.

–

It was always a good interview when the guest got angry enough to take a swing. It usually meant something had been said that should have been kept quiet. Wilford could get people to admit to damn near anything he wanted to, but they only ever seemed to react with physical violence when the thing they admitted wasn’t complete bullshit.

By the time Wilford got home, it was dark, and the air still thick and hazy from wildfires to the north and east. As he got out of his car, he was greeted with something crashing to the ground in his back yard, followed immediately by something leaping right over the wooden fence keeping the neighbourhood brats out of his swimming pool. The thing sped right on past Wilford before he even had time to react.

“Jesus Christ!” he shouted, turning sharply to see what it was.

Under the street lamps, Wilford could just make out the shape of one of the spindly feral dogs that had moved into the neighbourhood. And wasn’t that just fantastic. Picking up trash from his back yard was exactly what Wilford wanted to be doing at ten o’clock at night.