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Chapter 1: The Sister Company

"This is Just In, that's all for now."

As soon as the camera was turned off, Nadia's sweet smile drained from her face and was replaced by her usual tired look.

Being an anchor and a lead journalist meant her workload was not light and she felt like she had not slept in months. She was in charge of celebrity news which meant there was always a constant flow of it heading her way. Early nights were only a dream for her. Her office replaced her bedroom and most nights her clock read 2am before she finally finished up and left the office building for the night.

"Hey, you okay?" a voice asked her as she ran a hand from her previously perfect hair. It was Declan, her fellow host and friend.

He had been there on her first day and they became friends almost immediately which helped both on and off camera. Many viewers speculated that they were in a relationship together but they weren't. Declan had a girlfriend who was currently pregnant and who he wanted to marry. Nadia was alone but content with that – not that she had had that much time to think about that.

"What? Yeah, no I'm fine," Nadia said with a weak smile as she smoothed her slightly creased blazer. "Just the workload getting me stressed as ever."

"Tell me about it! I have to go to a film premiere in LA which means I leave Millie for a week. Andrew knows she's pregnant but he still sends me across the country!" he said and anyone could tell he was really annoyed about this.

"Hey easy, we all know Andrew is a dick. I'm sure she'll understand that it's not your fault. She has your family and hers to look after her too. She'll be fine." Nadia said, trying to stop him stressing too much.

Andrew was their producer and their boss, he was a grade A jerk and liked everyone to know it. He was the kind of person you instantly want to punch in the face but unfortunately for Nadia she couldn't otherwise it was bye-bye dream job.

"Ah Miss Latin, a word please." The man in question said from just behind her. Nadia spun to face him and really hoped he hadn't heard that – he was always out looking to fire one of his employees.

The one thing that annoyed Nadia about the way he addressed her was the way he pronounced her last name. It was Latino but he deliberately called it Latin since he first met her and there was a typo on her profile sheet. He saw it annoyed her so he always did it, that's why he always called her 'Miss Latin' rather than her first name like he did everyone else.

"See ya later Nadia." Declan called as Andrew lead her away from the studio and out into the empty adjoining corridor.

"What's up Andrew?" Nadia asked with polite friendliness as they walked along, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had formed.

"You're needed, apparently you need to explain to some of the scientist from the sister company what we do here." He said though he sounded like he wasn't particularly interested but also didn't like the situation.

Nadia hadn't met anyone from the sister company before but Andrew obviously hated them a little more than he did his own crew considering how he sounded like he didn't want her to do this.

"The sister company? Don't they deal with drugs and medicine and science? Why do they want me, why not speak to our science guy Dom?"

"They requested to see you." Andrew said, already sounding bored of the conversation. Nadia just ignored his tone, she had more questions she wanted to ask. In all of the time she had been at Abstergo Entertainment she had never once heard of the sister company visiting. Not once, so why now?

"Why are they here?"

"Because they have are doing an interview with Dom later about some ridiculous, pointless, money wasting experiment that they want to share with the world." Nadia definitely thought Andrew hated them and she was getting more evidence by the minute. Usually, he would call something, or someone, just one negative adjective but today he had gone the whole hog and called their project 3! It was some kind of personal record Nadia thought she should note.

"Okay sorry for asking." Nadia muttered and Andrew gave her a glare like he almost always did.

"You're in the room straight ahead, I would stay and play twenty questions with you but I don't have the time and I don't really care about you. Try not to let your New York accent spoil the interview too much." Andrew said, signing off with sarcasm and an insult as usual before he turned and walked back the way they came – which Nadia noticed was actually quite far away from where they started.

Nadia had a fairly strong accent since her mama and papa were first generation Italians and she had been brought up in Little Italy with them. Over the years though she had toned it down enough for people not familiar with the accent to be able to understand her while still retaining enough of her accent for her to feel like herself.

Nadia paused outside the wooden door for a moment to practice her 'I'm-totally-not-tired-or-over-worked' smile that she usually reserved for the camera. Once she thought she was ready she knocked on the door and entered when a friendly male voice told her she could come in.

{This is an idea I had a little while ago, I've got the whole plot and everything planned out but haven't wrote anything but this at the moment. I wasn't going to publish it yet but I want to see what readers think of it so far. Also I haven't really published much lately so this is here to make up for that.}