24 Interview with Leon

Alba knocked on the door, "You ready?" She called out. Jayce looked around to his friends and they nodded back to him. "Yes!" They exited the door and followed after her to the stage that had been prepared for the four of them. Two couches were arranged with a desk on to the left of them. Jayce sat down at the one farther away when Alba quickly spoke up. "Oh, Mr. Good could you please sit closest to the desk?" Jayce looked at her then nodded and switched to sit where she had directed. Ralnas sat next to him eyeing Alba suspiciously. "This feels like a trap." He whispered in Jayce's ear.

Jayce laughed softly and looked at his friend, "A trap that leads to what? Us getting questioned to death?" The lights above them then turned off and a flurry of people poured into the room from the one next door. Make-up artists quickly touched up their faces with brushes they controlled with their eyes. Cameramen directed their drones to circle around them so every angle was captured. Alba stepped back and whispered into her watch. "Mr. Leon we're ready for you." She then receded into the shadows.

Jayce felt like he was being examined the way lab rats were. He looked over to Ralnas who looked just as uncomfortable. "Micu's idea of getting media training probably isn't a bad idea," Jayce said softly. Ralnas nodded quickly and glanced over to their other two friends. Jenira was the least uncomfortable with all of this. The Chiron school had quite a few wealthy students and she had been around long enough to see scenes like these before school dances or big ceremonies. Micu had turned his face to stone and neither one of them could tell what he was thinking.

The lights blared back to life and their bright white light faded to a soft amber color. Leon Roberts entered from the right with a neat jacket on. He carried a notepad and a coffee cup. Setting down both of them on the desk he shook each of their hands and a greeting before adjusting the seat and sitting down behind the desk. He scanned his notes and then looked over at them. Noticing their obvious discomfort he smiled. "Now don't worry, this isn't a hard interview. Just follow my questions, answer them in more than one word and we'll have a hit on our hands." He then reviewed his notes one more time before making a thumbs up and setting the notepad down.

The same thin man called out from the back of the room, "We're live in ten seconds." "Five." "And go." Leon transformed his body from welcoming and warm to inquisitive and scholarly. Jayce was impressed by the transformation. "Welcome ladies and Gentlemen to a very special episode of the Leon Roberts show right here on the Human Daily network. I am joined tonight by four of the most interesting individuals to come from the human safe zone in a decade. They go by the team name of Chiron's Chosen and they certainly have the air of becoming legends about them. Stay tuned for my exclusive interview with them."

A man held up a whiteboard with the words "wave to the audience" written on it. As the camera drones circled them and zoomed in the four of them put on their most authentic smiles and waved happily to the robots. The lights dimmed to a blue and Leon smiled at them. "Well, you've passed the hardest part. Smiling and waving always drives me nuts. He motioned over an intern and had them fill his coffee cup with a rich dark brew. It smelled great to Jayce and he suddenly realized that besides the snacks that they had packed in Jenira's bag they hadn't eaten all day. His stomach rumbling he looked up at Leon embarrassed.

Leon smiled and pointed to a different man who quickly brought over a few protein bars. Each of them quickly bit into one while they listened to Leon explain the rest of the show. "It's pretty much three segments. The first segment is going to be about your past. This is the shortest segment because people usually tune into my show after it's already begun. The second segment will be questions about the exam, elite team interest, pretty much current events. The final segment is us just chatting, I don't have a direction yet but I'll let you know what I'm thinking during the commercial break. Now chins up, we're on in 45 seconds." He returned to his notes as the lights began flashing before returning to their previous amber color.

Leon sat up again and looked into the camera. "Welcome back to the Leon Robert's show! Now before we go any further I want to have my guests introduce themselves." And so it continued with Leon leading them skillfully through their past. It seemed he knew their lives as well as they did. He guided them through Jayce's penchant for pranks, Jenira's different fashion eras, Micu's claim to fame in the school competitions. He even brought up Ralnas tendency to train far longer than other students. Leon was creating their public personas with ease and pulling out aspects that would be forever associated with these four competitors. Though not complete pictures of them it was enough for viewers to grasp onto and create a vision of them in their minds.

The first segment flew by and the four quickly became comfortable with Leon controlling the conversation. Jayce was even getting relaxed enough to joke with Leon and the cameramen focused more and more of their attention on the rapport building between the two. Micu smiled to himself watching Jayce in action. "He's always been the one who brings some swagger to our team." Micu had replied when Leon had asked him to describe Jayce's part in their group. He felt that he was even more correct now than he had been when he said it. Jayce was carrying the lions share of the dialogue with Leon effortlessly. Micu sighed with contentment. "As long as it's not me." He thought happily to himself.

The lights faded to the blue again and Leon relaxed attitude returned. He smiled at Jayce, "You sure you've never been on TV before?" Although Leon knew very well that he had not. Jayce beamed at this faint praise and relaxed his back into the couch. Leon picked up his notepad and began rereading it. He looked up, "You met with team Nuke today correct?" They nodded. "Just making sure, I had an intern do this research for me today." He then returned to studying his notes. Ralnas breathed a sigh of relief at having survived the first round. "Jayce if you want to take over this interview I don't mind. I'm happy to just be a pretty face." Ralnas made what he thought a model pose would look like before Jayce punched him in the arm. "We're a team Ral. I wouldn't be here if not for you guys." His smile was infectious and Ralnas relented and agreed to try and be more vocal during the next segment.

Alba walked up to them crisply. "Ralnas would you and your sister mind switching seats? Our statistics indicate that our viewers would like that arrangement more." Ralnas shot a warning glance at Jayce and then smiled at Alba, "Sure no problem!" Jayce rolled his eyes. Like he was going to do anything with the whole of humanity watching their every move. Alba nodded with satisfaction then disappeared once again.

The lights began flashing again and Leon set down his notes and returned to his public persona right as the amber light flooded the room again. "Welcome back everyone, or for those of you just now joining us welcome for the first time!" He smiled and took a sip from his coffee cup. "This group was the one who finished third in the logic puzzle exam two days ago. Which is the highest recorded score for a purely human team since we've been back in the simulation! Now Micu, I understand you're the brains of this operation. What was your secret?"

Micu stiffened, "Well you see Mr. Leon Jayce and I arrived almost two hours early and studied the competition looking for any potential clues to help us succeed. As you know every second counts in the logic puzzle exam." Leon nodded sagely. "Yes indeed if you had a few more seconds in the tenth room do you think you could have gotten second place?" Ralnas shook his head, "We were down to just my sister by that point. Even if she had gotten through the door the other three of us had already been eliminated by the tenth rooms traps."

"Ah, I see! So it was Jenira here who was the hero this last round?" Jenira smiled softly and nodded, "I got lucky that my extra practice with the gymnastics teacher from a couple years ago hadn't completely disappeared from my muscle memory." Leon laughed, "and so modest too!" He flipped his page in his notebook. "But Micu, lots of team studying the exams every year. It's no secret what's coming and some of the elite academies even recreate the tests to prepare their students for the exam. You're telling me all you did was study the exam for two hours before."

Micu was stumped. "I guess so? I mean I can't really point out anything else that we had done differently than anyone else." Leon smiled and then pulled up a clip that he displayed on the screen to his right. It was a clip of them running through the maze. "So this was just two hours of study?"

All four of them froze and each unconsciously turned their heads to face Jayce. Jayce noticed their looks and he felt a pang of panic in his heart. Leon also noticed this and looked to Jayce. His voice becoming more interested with every word, "Jayce, were you the one responsible for the maze strategy? Because your team solved it faster than any other team by more than 10 minutes. Even the first place team took longer on this section than you four did." He looked at Jayce expectantly.

Jayce was unsure of how much he should say, or if he should say anything at all. In the brief moment he was speechless Leon had already filled the silence. "Could it have anything to do with you being the first human to have negative potential since the great King Arthur of legend? Jayce you must have some secret stuff since even the potential scoring devices don't know exactly how to classify you." His smile seemed harmless but Jayce was feeling attacked by his words. "And isn't it also true that your team has the highest average potential score of any human team ever? Perhaps this is why you four were able to break into the top three." Leon was still smiling but behind his smile, Jayce felt there was the aura of a spider that had just caught a fly in its web.

Jayce frowned deeply and looked at Leon's facing trying to understand how the tone of this interview had shifted so suddenly. He hadn't wanted to come out and tell the world about his potential. And his mom had mentioned that he should keep it quiet too. Jayce frowned and looked up at Leon.

At the same time, Jenira almost jumped out of her seat. Hadn't Leon been the very person who told them not to tell others about Jayce's potential? Why was he telling the whole world now? Jenira scowled and was about to ask him as much when Jayce spoke up.

"Well maybe? I'm not so sure what negative potential even means. That's what I was going to ask you about after the show but I guess we might as well discuss it now." Leon looked momentarily startled before quickly regaining composure. He motioned for a commercial break to be loaded in and turned to the camera. "Well, folks we'll be right back with more Leon Roberts show and the answer to Jayce's question after a few words from our sponsors." He smiled at the camera and the lights went back to their blue shade.

Leon glanced at Jayce before standing up and striding off into the same direction that Alba had gone. The four of them looked at each other confused. Jenira looked to Ralnas. "Didn't Leon tell us not to tell anyone about Jayce's potential?" Ralnas thought for a moment before nodding. "Yeah he did, and that we should keep all of our potential scores secret too." Ralnas scratched his head. "Why would he come out and say Jayce's score like that now then?" Micu sighed, "because he wanted to save this story for himself probably. If we told everyone our scores it wouldn't be huge news like it would be if he broke it for the first time." Jayce's anger bubbled up and he looked at his friends, "You mean he just wanted to keep us quiet for his personal gain?"

Micu nodded. "Things are different in the celebrity world than in the normal one. I think we should treat this as a good learning experience about how much to trust someone." Ralnas nodded with the same kind of anger that was already building inside Jayce. Jenira looked down glumly. She had idolized the reporting Leon Roberts had done for years and even though something had felt off when they talked her during graduation she hadn't thought he was selfishly using them to make his own fame spread. An idol in her eyes turned to ash and she looked over to Jayce. "It's my fault we're here. I'm sorry everyone. I should've known better than to blindly trust Leon."

Jayce smiled at her, "The interview isn't over yet Jenira. Don't apologize to me just yet." His eyes had a devilish look about them. Ralnas was well familiar with that look, "What's the plan, Jay?"