The Time magazine building had a recording studio on one of the highest floors. The view was exceptional and became even more impressive when night came and the bright lights of the city were observed.

Mark was summoned just after dusk. Upon reaching the building, the last lights of the day could still be seen, and when he exited the elevator after going up just over 30 floors, the last ray of sunlight had already disappeared.

He was relieved to not have Secretary Keaton keeping up with him and saying stupid verbiage like last time. His way to the studio was pretty uneventful, he could tell he would miss the complete anonymity. He knew that after the interview, his face would be everywhere and almost anyone would be able to recognize him… whether for better or for worse. But if he continued to stay in the shadows, it would only make opponents of his work think that he was afraid. And fear is the last thing he would feel.

The floor he had reached was a jungle of hallways and cubicles. At first glance it looked like a normal office floor, but he could notice several employees working on what appeared to be codes and other computer stuff. For a moment he thought he was on the wrong floor, but a familiar voice calling his name made him sigh in relief.

“Mr. Kennedy!”

Eric approached him with a broad smile, holding a folder in his hands.

“God, Eric. Just Mark.”

Mark expected Eric to get nervous and embarrassed, but he just giggled and nodded.

“Sorry, I still haven't gotten used to it.”

“There is no need to apologize, if you really feel uncomfortable, it's okay to call me whatever you want.”

“Oh! I'm not uncomfortable at all... Mark.”

Mark nodded, a little calmer at noticing him in confidence. “Your glasses, you don't have them on.”

“Uh… I haven't had time to get it repaired. Do I look bad without them?”

“What question is that? Of course not! it's quite the opposite.”

It seemed as if Eric expected Mark to give him that compliment, especially by smiling slightly in satisfaction.

“Follow me, it's this way.”

Mark walked beside Eric into one of the hallways, soon the image of employees working in their cubicles almost glued to their computers changed.

“I'm not going to lie to you, for a moment I thought I was on the wrong floor or that the receptionist was wrong when she told me the floor number.”

Eric laughed. “The floor is too big to be allocated only for the recording studio. The employees you just saw belong to the IT department, just a few weeks ago they were assigned here, that's why the disaster.”

“What a relief. I didn't want to be up or down the elevator like I was in an amusement park.”

“Fear of heights?”

“To the movements that almost border on the supersonic. The elevator is very… efficient. Although it’s better not to complain, that if this building were at the level of the Burj Khalifa, they would probably require SpaceX to design the elevator.”

“God…” Eric began to laugh almost out loud, covering his mouth with one of his hands trying not to be so loud.

Mark was satisfied with the small trust and confidence he had managed to have with Eric when he had barely known him for a few days. Being a dominant alpha, befriending omegas without them thinking he had other intentions or those same omegas having other intentions was difficult.

“Please keep my bad jokes between us. I want to maintain my image as a serious journalist. And of course, a dominant alpha making an omega laugh? God, the other alphas who hate me would probably laugh in my face and say I'm just a clown.”

Mark's words only made it difficult for Eric to stop laughing. His rather flushed face seemed to explode. Just at the end of the hall, Eric stopped right at the double doors that led to the studio.

“Don’t worry,” Eric said, shaking his head, trying to regain his composure by taking a deep breath. “It won't come out of my mouth that your true calling is to be a stand-up comedian.” Now that Eric was calm, he handed Mark the folder he was holding. “The interview.”

Mark hesitated for a moment as he received the folder. He simply stared at it without opening it and then looked at Eric. “...Isn't this a spoiler from the interview? Where is the surprise factor?”

“Secretary Keaton wanted to make sure the interview went smoothly, so he asked me to give you the topics that will be covered in the interview. If there's a topic you don’t want to talk about, just tell me and I'll let him know so the interviewer won’t ask questions that would make you feel comfortable.”

Mark's mood diminished slightly as he heard him mention Secretary Keaton.

“Why go to so much trouble? Wouldn't it be better if I was outraged by an uncomfortable question and ended up leaving the studio? I'm sure it would attract a lot of views when published.” His words ranged from half joking to half annoyed. He ended up handing the folder back to Eric as he asked, “Did you read it?” Eric nodded. “What do you think?”

“Nothing exaggerated, although one of their objectives is to talk about your private life.”

“Well, take that away. I mean, I don't mind talking about my private life, but… Am I not supposed to be here for things outside of my private life? Let the interview focus on my work. Even if the questions are uncomfortable, if it’s related to my work, I will answer it to the best of my ability.”

Eric looked at him a little doubtful.

“Don't worry… I won't leave the studio mid-interview,” Eric sighed in relief. However, Mark added, “Or at least I'll try.” Mark winked at him and they entered the studio.

The studio looked completely like a television studio. Mark felt that instead of being interviewed for a video on the magazine's YouTube channel, he would be a guest on a talk show. He even felt that at any moment Jimmy Fallon would come in saying that he would be the one to interview him. Even the setting was similar to the setting on The Tonight Show, only with New York City in the background.

Eric and Mark parted ways. While Eric kept an eye on the cameras and lighting, Mark was greeting the entire crew just before starting. He even exchanged a few words with Secretary Keaton, but only to confirm the requests he heard from Eric.

The interview started, and it really felt like a talk show. Mark expected a straightforward interview by answering question after question, but the interviewer preferred to have a conversation with Mark and bring up the questions in between.

The interviewer was quite professional and trained. Even when Mark said that he didn’t want to answer personal questions, the interviewer managed to bring things related to this into the conversation but from the point of view of his work. What a cunning rat, he thought. But just as the interviewer was astute at mixing the personal with the professional, Mark gave him answers that although satisfied his curiosity, it failed to reveal beyond what was necessary.

Almost half an hour later, the interview ended. Mark felt mentally drained and just wanted to go home. However, people in the studio came back to him asking even more about his work. He couldn't be rude, so he spent more time chatting with them.

“I honestly didn't believe much in your work, Mr. Kennedy… I thought you were just one more dominant alpha who just wanted attention, but then I read your work about brands on omegas... and I was very touched!”

“True! I didn’t know that a group of conservative dominant alphas wanted to abolish the law that prohibits brands on omegas. That's horrible! How dare they? And they even want to make it look romantic! There is nothing romantic about branding an omega! Let me be branded by an alpha so that later only he can control me? No way!”

“The only romantic thing is the bond. Nobody controls anybody there and it happens naturally.”

“But once bonded, if they are not together, their bodies are going to weaken and become ill… Is that romantic?”

“That will only happen if they separate for a long time... Also, I read that bonding only happens in couples who are destined to never separate.”

“I don't know… Although a bond is definitely much better than branding. To brand means to subdue an omega, and a bond is something that neither of us controls and is inevitable.”

A couple of omegas; a woman and a man were the last to continue to seek conversation with Mark, although he felt that he had already been left out of the conversation for a long time.

“Excuse me, do you know where Eric is? I want to say goodbye to him.”

The omegas were so immersed in their conversation that they had a hard time understanding Mark's question.

The omega woman said, “Eric? Oh! Eric Marshall?” Mark nodded and the girl shook her head. “You know where he is?” she asked the omega man, but he shook his head too.

“I saw him going to the control room.” A man who was moving the cameras answered.

“Thank you. Where is the control room?”

The omega girl pointed to a hallway and said, “Over there, you will see a door with that name.”

Mark thanked again and headed down the hall. He didn't have to walk far to get to the control room. He knocked on the door a couple of times out of courtesy and went inside.

“Sorry to interrupt. Is Eric Marshall here?”

As he asked, he looked around the control room, but there was no sign of him. One of the people in the room answered his question confirming his observation:

“He was here just now, didn't you see him come out?”

Mark frowned somewhat surprised. There was only one hallway in the studio and the door that led to the IT department was close to where he was chatting with the recording crew. If Eric had been out, Mark would have seen him.

He left the control room and was about to go back the way he came when he noticed that further down the hall, there were two more doors, one was the emergency exit and the other was a storage room. Could it be that he left through the emergency exit? For what reason?

He suddenly remembered that Eric was an omega recessive. Did he suddenly feel ill?

He couldn't help but worry, so he walked towards the emergency exit. It was almost thirty floors of stairs. What if he has an accident? When he was about to open the door, he suddenly felt a horrible smell coming out of the storage: alpha pheromones.

As a dominant alpha, Mark had the ability to sense pheromones in other alphas even when they controlled it, so the scent became familiar.

Those pheromones belonged to Secretary Keaton. But why is he emitting pheromones so uncontrollably? Is he having a secret affair?

He could hear a voice coming out of the storage room that didn’t belong to Keaton. If it already caused him anger to hear that voice begging in the middle of the crying for Keaton to stop, realizing that that voice belonged to Eric, made Mark feel real anger.