She practically skied the four flights down to the studio in her excitement. Her hand trembled a little as she ran a pass over the digital lock from the stairwell. She had a scoop about the First Lady of the United States! This was nearly the pinnacle of the scoop pyramid and by far the highest level story she’d ever broken. Stairs one, elevator zero, she thought. Let’s hear it for being smart and not dropping the ball. And having big hair.

The door to the flash studio clicked open and she stepped into inky darkness. It was dead silent and cold enough to freeze meat. The room had the quality of a morgue.

The only light came from a picture of the White House projected on a plasma screen behind a large news desk. In front of it stood a robotic camera with lights hung overhead, still dark, which was odd because the control room in New York should have known she was coming by now. Shivering, she made her way to the news desk, fished around for a microphone which she ran up her shirt, and plugged in the earpiece. She could hear the anchor in New York talking about the photos. A TV monitor in front of her was flashing Breaking News!

“Hey, guys, I’m here!” Natalie said to anyone who might be listening. “Can you turn on the lights?”

As she waited, Natalie started rehearsing what she would say. “Heath, these photos are many things. Unexpected, controversial, and ATN can exclusively report—fake. What we can definitively say is they raise questions about the First Lady’s migraine and her whereabouts.” She stopped herself. The build had taken too long. “Heath,” she tried again, “ATN can exclusively report that this stunning photo...is a fake. This image of the First Lady was taken months if not years ago. And we know because of the tiny telltale mole on her neck.”

The room was still pitch-black, and she hadn’t heard anything from the control room. Her fingers felt like icicles.

Impatient, she was reaching for her phone to dial the news desk when a voice spoke in her ear. “This is Mitch in New York with TalkTalk Live! What do you have for us?”

Classic. The control room, in charge of everything that went on air, was always the last to know the news. “Hi, Mitch. I’ve got a scoop about the photo. It’s about the mole on FLOTUS’ neck.”

“Cool. I heard something about that. Stand by.”

The lights came on, the room began slowly to brighten, and Natalie waited, counting seconds as she practiced the words she would say. “If you look closely at the photo, you’ll see a mole on the First Lady’s neck that was removed six months ago. No—” She stopped, took a breath and restarted. “If these photos had been taken today, even this week, that mole would be missing.”