[happy weekend I'm ready to start hell planning an event for 200+ people in less than a month (:]

Brendon's gone before I wake up. He leaves me a note on the table and a Tupperware container packed with lunch. He wishes me luck on the interview and reminds me to behave and stay calm if I hear something I don't like.

The paper I wrote my notes on still sits tucked under the placemat, out of sight. I toss it out before I grab my jacket and leave with my motorcycle since Brendon took my car for the day. I already know what I'm going to talk to her about. Pete shot me a text a few hours ago to tell me I am in fact interviewing Taylor Swift.

On my desk in my little cubicle sits my personalized pass to enter the Life Foundation without being stopped or questioned extensively, and a small envelope holding a small gift for Swift. It's a small pin badge with the news company's logo, and a cute little  thank you note from the head of our company. She'll probably throw the pin out at the first chance she gets.

There's no need for a helmet thanks to the city traffic. I never go over thirty down Main Street with the endless clog of cars packed from light to light, sign to sign, turn to turn. Things clear up by the time I'm driving up the road to the entrance to the Life Foundation, and sure enough I see my car parked in the employee lot. He's wedged between his friends' cars, hanging back out of a spot just a little too far because he sucks at parking, even with a back-up camera and placement detection sensors on all sides of the car.

The guard at the gate stops me and spends a good fifteen seconds examining the badge hung around my neck on a lanyard. He searches my bag and pulls out bags of chips instead of a weapon like he was expecting, and he waves me in immediately. A ridiculously high metal gate surrounds the property, complete with flashing red lights near each protected door as it opens and closes.

The Life Foundation building is at least twenty five stories high, with more levels sitting below ground. It's the first thing I take note of — the establishment costed upwards of a billion dollars due to the security features and unnecessary technological advancements. Nobody needs a smart coffee machine, but they have seven.

The floors are white marble, and the walls all flow together with a wispy grey design that travels up the staircases and towards the dual elevators. It snakes around the front desk and the crystal chandeliers hanging over a ring of couches and chairs set in an open room overlooking the city with a window that takes up an entire wall.

A bridge hangs over the lobby, which is two floors tall, connecting the second floor together. Swift stands in the middle, watching and waiting for me to look up. As soon as I notice her, she waves and heads to the elevators.

The doors open, and I'm overwhelmed. She's tall, even without her signature black heels. She wears a skintight burgundy dress that reaches just above her knees with sleek triangle cutouts at her waist. As far as I can tell, her teeth are a blinding white against her deep red lipstick, which stands out even more against her curled blonde hair.

She holds out her hand, and her long nails brush lightly against my skin as I take it. "You must be Dallon Weekes. I'm quite the fan of your show."

"I am. My fiancé works for you down in your labs." She grins as I hand her the envelope and asks me to hold it until we reach her office.

A small camera crew slides in through the front doors. It's only two people, but I know they'll capture almost anything and everything. "Brendon, right? He rambles on and on about you a lot while he works. He's actually how I started keeping up with you."

They both rush over and immediately start filming. The pressure is on. "I guess we can talk a little bit more while you give us a tour?"

She smiles. Her teeth are absolutely fucking perfect, spare the two freakishly sharp canines. It's like she could and would quite literally bite my head off. "Of course. I don't think we'll get to see everything before time is up, but I'll try to hit the best places. Is there anywhere specific you'd like to start?"

I turn to the camera lenses shoved in my face and they step back. "How about your main office? We can get a better feel and introduction for who you are in a personal space."

"Alright. Which main office would you like to start in?"

I pause and stare at her. She has multiple main offices? That has the be the most ridiculous thing I've heard all week, and Hayley read me an article about squirrels being trained to wear pants and act like a suburban family.

"No, no, I'm just joking," Swift blurts out as soon as she realizes I thought she was serious, "I have one, and it's more than enough for me. It's on the top floor. Let's go there first."

We follow her to the elevator and wait in silence as the red numbers click higher and higher until we reach floor twenty-seven. Underneath the above ground buttons are more buttons in a locked case for below ground. There's a fingerprint and retina scanner.

Her office is gorgeous. The building was already set near a cliff overlooking the city, but the two window walls open it up further and lead to the ocean on the horizon. In the center of the room sits her desk, open at the back but surrounding with pristine white on the thee sides. She has delicate abstract paintings hung on the walls and landscape photographs mounted behind three computers combined into one monster. Lights hang from the ceiling on thin silver chains in a never ending wavy circle.

"This is my office," she holds out her arms as she enters first and takes the envelope to set down, "it's a little big and flashy for my taste, probably because I don't actually have anything to put here for my own use. When classrooms come to visit for field trips, it's just perfect for them to come and hang out in while everyone sets up and locks up anything even potentially dangerous."

The cameras spread out to catch footage of every inch of her room. One of them passes me a recording box before heading off. "It seems like it's just a little bit plain for a class full of kids to have any fun. What do they do, do they play with the sharp metal spaceship mobile?"

She smiles and I desperately want to stop seeing her teeth. "Very funny, Dallon Weekes. Well, I haven't shown you all of it, keep in mind." She picks up a remote from the coffee table near the door, and presses a series of buttons. The corner wall compresses and flattens to form a large table, complete with a built-in aquarium, coloring sheets, and drawers stocked full with activities. I'm impressed.

"There's always something for them to do. Most of the time, they spend time in the labs downstairs with our scientists, which is why I don't keep this setup out. We have special laboratory slots prepared daily in order to perform harmless and innocent experiments and tests on the second ground level while people are here, and it's very rare that anybody does ever need to stay for a little bit longer."

For a while, I forgotten about the aliens and tests and all the withheld information because she seems cool. She's created an infinite waterfall facade to disguise the monsters she's hiding in the labs, to hide the test subjects, to hide the fact she killed multiple people to get aliens to her. Her deep blue eyes are warm and kind, but everything else about her is the antithesis.

"Could you demonstrate some of those experiments? I think it'd be cool to show the viewers exactly what goes on down there."

Her eye twitches every so slightly, but the cameras are too busy snooping around her computers to catch it like I do. "Of course. We can go now if you'd like."

The dress she's wearing has magical pockets, because she pulls out a thin cellphone that I hadn't seen, and calls the employees down in the lab to start setting up before we get there. Either she wants them to hide the aliens and presumably dead test subjects, or they're doing exactly what she says she they are. I don't believe it. "Your fiancé is unavailable today. I know he isn't allowed to reveal any part of his work, but I can tell you he's busy with our most recent and intense project. I can give you a rain check to come visit him another day, a few hours to yourselves here or at a restaurant? The employee lounge is incredibly comfortable, if I do say so myself."

I'll have to try to pry it out of him later. "That would be great, thank you. And I guess since this is an interview after all, can I ask what he's doing right now if he isn't available?"

She falters slightly in her steps as she turns to look at me, then the recording device, then holds a stare at the cameras. "I'm afraid that's confidential."

"You seem to have a lot of confidential projects. How do you handle so many at the same time at such a young age? You're only in your mid-twenties, you're a billionaire, you've sent a dozen expeditions into space, and you fund all your own projects and some for others on top of that. There has to be something you aren't telling us."

She adjusts her posture and lets us in the elevator first. "I hide nothing that poses an immediate threat to the public. My confidential projects are only supposed to keep the science behind it to the use of my company only, in case it falls into the wrong hands." Swift shoots me a side glare. "After all, I am a sort of prodigy. There's a reason why I created and own the Life Foundation, Mr. Weekes. I know what I'm doing."

I'm starting to get frustrated, and I don't exactly know why. She has every right to dodge my attempts to expose her, she has every right to continue to uphold her company for fear it gets torn to shreds if word of dangerous killer aliens leaks. But my cheeks are burning hot, and I'm on the verge of shattering my pen from squeezing the grip too hard.

The elevator doors open and she begins to lead us down a hallway, walls lined with decorative lamps and even more abstract paintings. Her heels echo as we walk, and I see my opportunity.

"Can you explain what happened to the crew you sent into space a few weeks ago? You didn't tell the public about that, or even the fact that a brand new ship was being launched in the first place."

Swift stops dead in her tracks. She doesn't turn around, she doesn't answer, she doesn't do or say anything until a few seconds pass and she's figured out the best way to phrase her comeback.

"Again, that's confidential information that is only shared with my employees. I don't believe I can allow you to use this footage in your interview video anymore," she gives a calm but terrifying stare to the cameramen, and they immediately lower the lenses to the tile flooring, "and I don't believe you are at liberty to discuss that topic to begin with. I would love to know how you gained access to that."

"Everything you do is a secret. If it wasn't a bad thing, then you wouldn't avoid it. You're hiding something. What were the astronauts looking for, what were they retrieving for you? Where did they go—"

"I don't—"

"Where are the fucking aliens, Swift?! I know you have them down in there somewhere, where'd you put them?! You legally have to tell us if you have them, you can't keep secrets forever, motherfu..." I trail off, because I've already cursed once, and I definitely shouldn't direct one at her. The other one was for the secret aliens.

She doesn't speak. She clasps her hands together at her waist and purses her lips, glaring holes through my skull. It takes about another minute for her to finally clear her throat and shove past me.

"This interview is over," Swift doesn't glance back until she reaches the elevator, "and I will be contacting your manager to have you reprimanded for asking such invasive and rude questions, which I believe have been recorded on all your devices."

Shit. She's right. I have the proof that could destroy me directly in my hands, and I have two cameras that caught everything on film. I'm fucked. "You can't do that. I was only conducting an interview, I was just doing my job."

"Not only did you use profanity after I specifically invited you into my company to have a behind-the-scenes glimpse into my private office and the inter workings of my lab, but you invaded and attempted to, quote unquote, expose, the things I intentionally keep private to preserve the ability my employees hold for the sole use of the Life Foundation. You portrayed a pattern of disrespect since you set foot on my property, beginning with parking your motorcycle in the wrong place."

The motorcycle was not my fault, but I'm pretty sure she only added it in at the last moment to be petty more than anything. The other reasons she listed were ridiculous and only part of my job. "You can try all you want, but you can't get me fired."

She smiles sweetly, but her eyes burn with hatred like fire. "But I can, and don't think you're the only one that will pay the price for invading the privacy and records of my company."

"You c—"

"I can, and I will. Have a nice life, Dallon."