You can’t be surprised, can you?…
You knew it would happen, just not quite like this.
Turing Love makes it easy…
Paul Wang straightened his tie as he walked up the steps to the entrance of the Wellman Medical Center. His Digim/Holo Specialist Tony Naughton walked a pace behind carrying his equipment case. They had come by subway from WNN World Headquarters. In that short twenty minutes Wang‘s excitement had grown to epic proportions and then waned to the cool professional calm that was his trademark. Tonight’s WNN World News would be a landmark show, even for him. He was at the peak of his profession as anchor of World News Network’s flagship evening news broadcast and today might just be the most important day of his career. He was on his way to interview a man reputed to be the wealthiest, most powerful individual in the world; the reclusive, almost invisible, Thomas C. Wellman.
Wellman had never before granted anyone an interview. The truth of it was that little was known of the man. Whatever information there was about him was carefully manicured and extremely well managed. His net bios were short and sparse. He had gradually garnered wealth and power in a quiet and reserved manner and for years very few people had realized just how involved he was in World affairs. That was about to change. Wang had been invited to interview him and no time or subject limits had been imposed: very unusual and most surprising! Wang certainly knew who Wellman was; he had covered his activities on several occasions and had even met the man once. But even with the resources at his disposal, knew little about him and his connection to the world’s wealth and power. This would be enlightening all the way around.
They were met at the door by a uniformed security officer who led them to the building’s security center where a thorough check was run on Naughton’s equipment to insure that it was only capable of recording the session not transmitting it. This was one of the few restrictions that had been placed on the interview. Tony had said they could easily block any transmission but they checked his equipment thoroughly anyway. Wang did not want a live interview in any case. He wanted time to edit and massage the material for all it was worth. He didn’t expect great revelations, but interest would be high because information on Wellman was so sparse. He wanted all the punch he could get from this opportunity. Wang was sure they would have time to edit and run the interview on tonight’s broadcast even if the session ran several hours. He hoped it would, he had a lot of questions for Wellman and this might be the only chance he would ever get.
They were conducted to the turbolift that ran directly to Wellman’s private suite on the top floor of the building. The ride up was swift and smooth; when the doors parted they were met by a cheerful blond woman dressed as an RN. She introduced herself as Madelyn Chapman and led them down a short hallway to Wellman’s room. It was not at all what they had expected. The large room was a complete hospital suite. The bed was a standard hospital model standing nearly in the middle of the floor. The entire exterior wall was a floor to ceiling glass wall. The glazing was obviously polarized and the light intensity carefully balanced so there was no glare or heat from the large exposure. The view of the city was spectacular from this height. Wang suspected that the glass was opaque from outside.