The Machinery of Influence
The Assignment
They sent me to find Arthur Langston.
The newsroom was a living beast—hot, frantic, full of caffeine and ambition. Phones rang like alarm bells. Keyboards clattered with the urgency of deadlines no one could afford to miss. The hum of conversation ebbed and surged like an unpredictable tide, voices overlapping in an orchestra of pursuit.
I sat at my desk, watching the digital clock on my monitor blink 11:27am in unwavering red. The second hand on the newsroom’s wall clock ticked slower than I thought possible. In this place, minutes stretched when you were waiting for something big.
Then, the shadow of my editor, Miranda Cross, loomed over me. Cross didn’t talk unless she had something worth saying. She leaned down, a smirk playing on her lips, and slid a manila folder onto my desk with the deliberate grace of a poker dealer revealing a winning hand.
“Riley,” she said, her voice a mix of cigarette smoke and authority, “this is your shot.”
The folder wasn’t thick. A few sheets, a single photograph, but it felt heavier than it should have—weighted with something more than just paper.
I flipped it open.
Arthur Langston stared back at me from a black-and-white press photo, frozen in time. His silver hair was neatly combed, but not in the way of a man who cared about appearances. It was the kind of upkeep that suggested habit rather than vanity. His eyes were sharp, unwavering, and completely unreadable, as if they saw straight through the camera and beyond. A face weathered by decades of digging through rot and bringing secrets to light. The kind of man who didn’t just break stories—he shattered illusions.
Langston had been a goddamn institution. He’d exposed corruption at the highest levels, made powerful people sweat, and racked up more Pulitzers than any other journalist alive. Presidents had feared him. CEOs had lost empires because of him. And then, one day, he was gone.
No farewell tour. No retirement speeches. No memoir. Just… vanished.
Officially, he burned out. Unofficially, the whispers told a different story. Some claimed he had been silenced. Others said he had gone underground, still pulling strings from the shadows, the puppet master behind the media’s biggest decisions.
And now, Miranda Cross wanted me to drag him back into the light.
“You want to be somebody, Riley?” she asked, voice softer now, but no less dangerous. “Go find the man who knows everything.”
I shut the folder, feeling the weight of my own name stapled to the inside cover. This wasn’t just an assignment. It was an invitation to step into the kind of storm you don’t walk away from unchanged.
I nodded. “I’ll find him.”
Cross grinned. “Let’s see if you’re good enough to keep up.”
The First Warning
The D.C. dive bar stank of stale beer, sweat, and the kind of hopelessness that seeped into the furniture. A neon Budweiser sign buzzed and flickered in the corner, casting uneven red light against the walls. The place was nearly empty—just a couple of regulars nursing their drinks and a bored bartender wiping down glasses with the kind of apathy that suggested he’d been doing it for a decade too long.
Liam Drake was hunched over the bar, staring into his bourbon as if it held answers. His fingers traced the rim of the glass in slow, deliberate circles. Bloodshot eyes, the kind of weary that never fully left a man’s face, flicked up when I slid onto the stool beside him.
“They always send someone,” he muttered, not even bothering with introductions.
His voice was like crushed gravel underfoot, rough and dry. A smoker’s voice. A man who used to have something to say but had long since stopped expecting anyone to listen.
I set my elbows on the bar, mirroring his posture. “You knew him better than anyone.”
A bitter laugh escaped his lips, half-amusement, half-disgust. “I knew the man he was before he figured out the game.”
He downed the rest of his drink in one smooth motion, then turned to face me fully. Up close, he looked even worse. His skin was sallow, his hands trembling slightly when he set the empty glass down. Whatever haunted him, it wasn’t done with him yet.
“You want my advice?” he asked, voice low, conspiratorial.
I leaned in.
“Let him stay buried.” His breath was warm, soaked in bourbon, his words sticky with regret. “If you dig too deep, he’ll reach back.”
A chill slithered down my spine.
The bartender walked past, and Liam tapped the counter twice for a refill. I noticed then that his fingernails were bitten down to the quick.
“You’re scared of him,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
Drake scoffed. “Kid, you don’t get it.” He shook his head and grabbed his refilled glass, swirling the amber liquid. “Langston didn’t just cover stories. He decided which stories existed. He saw the machinery for what it was. And when you understand how the machine works, you either become part of it or get chewed up by the gears.”
He took another long sip, then set the glass down, fingers tapping absently against its base.
“Walk away, Riley.” His voice softened for the first time. “There’s no winning this.”
I held his gaze, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I could have walked away. I should have.
Instead, I pulled the black-and-white photograph of Langston from my pocket and slid it across the bar toward him.
“Where would he go if he didn’t want to be found?”
Drake exhaled slowly, then picked up the photo between two fingers. He studied it for a long moment. Then, without looking at me, he set it back down and reached into his jacket.
He pulled out a small black card and slid it toward me.
No words. Just a gold symbol embossed in the center. No name. No address.
I picked it up, turning it over in my fingers.
A single number was printed on the back.
Drake drained his glass and stood, tossing a few bills onto the counter. Before he walked away, he muttered one last thing.
“Don’t text that number.”
Then he was gone.
The Deeper I Went, The Less I Knew
I texted the number.
At exactly 9:00pm, my phone vibrated with a single reply:
Be outside in two minutes.
Two minutes later, a sleek black car rolled up to the curb in front of my apartment building. The driver, a tall man in an immaculate suit, stepped out and held the door open.
I hesitated.
No questions. No introductions. Just an expectation.
I stepped inside.
The interior was immaculate—dark leather seats, a faint scent of cologne, the low hum of classical music playing through unseen speakers. The city blurred past as we pulled away, the streetlights casting long streaks of gold against the tinted windows.
The driver didn’t speak.
Neither did I.
I checked my phone, but there was nothing. No tracking, no new messages. Just silence, the kind that wrapped around you like a noose.
The city disappeared, swallowed by older streets. The car slowed in front of a nameless brownstone. No markings. No security cameras. Just a single light glowing behind a heavy oak door.
The driver stepped out and opened my door.
“This is where you get out,” he said, voice smooth, controlled.
I stepped into the cold night air.
The door to the brownstone opened before I knocked.
Inside, a world I wasn’t ready for waited.
And at the far end of the room, Arthur Langston watched me walk inside.
The Club
The moment I stepped inside, the door shut behind me with a finality that sent a ripple down my spine.
The brownstone’s interior was nothing like I expected.
It was hushed, opulent, and old. Not in a way that suggested neglect, but in a way that suggested permanence. The walls were lined with mahogany shelves stacked with books—heavy, leather-bound tomes with gilded spines, the kind of books that hadn’t been printed in decades. A fireplace crackled in the corner, its glow licking at the edges of expensive furniture.
The air smelled like single-malt scotch, cigar smoke, and something else—power.
There were no security cameras. No buzzing electronics. Just men and women, dressed in tailored suits and evening wear, sipping from crystal glasses and speaking in hushed, measured tones. It wasn’t a party. It wasn’t a meeting. It was something else entirely.
I moved further inside, my heels barely making a sound on the plush Persian rug beneath me. The room was arranged in clusters—small groups engaged in quiet conversation, their eyes flicking toward me before returning to their discussions. Some of them looked familiar. Faces I had seen in bylines and primetime interviews. Reporters, editors, former politicians.
They didn’t just report the news.
They shaped it.
A woman brushed past me, her perfume a blend of jasmine and something metallic, her expression unreadable. She gave me a glance—not curious, not wary, just… assessing.
I exhaled, forcing myself to focus.
And then I saw him.
Arthur Langston.
He sat at the far end of the room, his silver hair catching the flickering light from the fireplace. He wasn’t tucked away in some corner, hiding. He was there, in plain sight, watching me with the same piercing intensity I had seen in every grainy photo I had studied.
His presence wasn’t loud, but it was absolute. He didn’t need to command attention. He owned it.
Langston didn’t look surprised to see me.
“You must be the one they sent this time,” he said, swirling his drink lazily in its glass.
My heart hammered, but I kept my expression neutral as I slid into the chair across from him.
“I wasn’t aware this was a recurring tradition,” I said.
A slow, knowing smile curled on his lips. “Every few years, someone like you comes looking for a ghost.”
He lifted his glass and took a slow sip, watching me over the rim.
“But you don’t even know what you’re looking for, do you?”
Meeting the Ghost
The fire crackled beside us, filling the silence between his question and my answer.
I had come with a plan, with questions I had rehearsed, but now, sitting across from him, they all felt insufficient. He wasn’t what I expected.
I had imagined someone paranoid. Someone bitter. Someone with regret etched into his face.
But Langston was none of those things. He was… amused.
I folded my hands on the table, keeping my voice even. “I know you disappeared. I know you had the kind of influence most journalists only dream of. And I know people still whisper your name like a warning.”
Langston chuckled, low and effortless. He set his glass down, the ice clinking against the crystal.
“Influence is a currency,” he said. “Some people spend it. Others invest it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And you? You control it?”
His smile didn’t fade. “Control is an illusion. I simply understand how the machine works.”
I leaned forward, lowering my voice. “Then help me understand. Why did you walk away?”
Langston exhaled through his nose, a small, almost imperceptible amusement playing at the corner of his lips. He studied me—not just my words, but the way I held myself, the way my fingers curled slightly in my lap, the way my pulse betrayed me in my throat.
“You still believe in truth,” he murmured. “That’s adorable.”
A flicker of anger sparked in my chest, but I shoved it down. “Didn’t you? You spent your entire career exposing it.”
His expression didn’t change. If anything, it softened, as if he was looking at something distant, something already decided.
“Truth isn’t what gets published, Riley,” he said. “Truth is what gets remembered.”
A chill threaded through my veins.
He wasn’t dismissing me. He was teaching me.
And I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn.
The First Test
Langston let me ask my questions. He let me push.
Where had he gone? Why had he left? Did he still control the media behind the scenes?
He never gave direct answers. Instead, he unraveled my assumptions, one by one, peeling back the layers of my belief in how journalism worked, in how power worked.
“Who decides what makes the front page?” he asked.
I frowned. “The editors.”
Langston shook his head. “Who funds the editors? Who owns the papers, the networks, the digital platforms?”
I opened my mouth, but he kept going.
“You think corruption is about men in smoke-filled rooms?” His voice was soft, almost pitying. “It’s much cleaner than that. All you need is influence. A whisper in the right ear. A redirection of resources. A well-placed distraction.”
I gritted my teeth. “You sound like a conspiracy theorist.”
He chuckled. “That’s what they call you when you get too close.”
I exhaled sharply. “So what is this? You luring me here just to tell me that truth is a lie? That journalism is dead?”
Langston swirled his drink, watching the way the liquid moved before meeting my gaze.
“Journalism isn’t dead,” he said. “It’s just… obedient.”
The words made my stomach tighten.
Obedient.
I thought about the headlines I had written. The stories that had been approved. The ones that had been buried.
How many decisions had I made, thinking they were mine, when in reality, they had been shaped by forces I never even saw?
Langston leaned in, his voice lowering. “You think you’re investigating corruption, Riley?”
I swallowed. “I know I am.”
He tilted his head, studying me like I was a fascinating puzzle. Then, he smiled.
“No,” he said. “You’re being recruited.”
The breath hitched in my throat.
The room suddenly felt smaller. The walls closer. The conversations around me a distant hum, like static.
I should have left right then. Should have stood up, walked out, deleted every note I had ever written about Arthur Langston.
But I didn’t.
I stayed.
Because despite every instinct screaming at me to run—curiosity held me in place.
Curiosity, and something deeper.
Something darker.
The smallest part of me wanted to know what came next.
And that, I would later realize, was the first step toward losing myself completely.
The Moment I Should Have Left
Langston’s eyes locked onto mine, sharp as cut glass, unyielding as steel.
The ambient murmur of the club—the low hum of conversations, the clinking of ice against crystal glasses, the rustle of fabric as figures shifted in their seats—seemed to fade into a low, indecipherable drone. It was as if the world had funneled down to just the two of us, locked in this quiet, inescapable moment.
“You’re being recruited,” he said again, as if testing how the words would sit in my mind.
I should have stood. Should have thrown my napkin onto the table, muttered a tight-lipped thanks for the drink, and walked straight out of that brownstone without looking back.
Instead, I exhaled slowly and forced a laugh—too light, too artificial. “That’s a hell of a way to pitch a job.”
Langston didn’t blink.
“This isn’t a job, Riley. It’s a choice.”
I swallowed. “A choice for what?”
Langston leaned back in his chair, the firelight catching the sharp angles of his face. His hand curled around his glass, but he didn’t lift it.
“The only choice that matters in this profession.” He let the words hang for a moment. “Do you want to report on the machine, or do you want to be inside of it?”
I had spent years believing in the first option. Believing that as long as I wrote the truth, as long as I dug deep enough, revealed enough, the machine could be exposed, dismantled, rebuilt into something better.
But Langston’s smirk told me how naive that had always been.
I felt the weight of his words settle into my bones. A slow, creeping cold.
“You think you’re above it all,” he continued, reading my silence as easily as a printed headline. “That you’ll be the one to resist. The one to break through.” He shook his head, almost pitying. “They all think that at first.”
I clenched my jaw. “I’m not like them.”
Langston’s smile deepened, as if I had just proven his point.
“That’s what they always say.”
I stood abruptly. The chair scraped against the hardwood, the sound slicing through the ambient hush of the club. Heads turned. Eyes flickered toward us. But no one intervened.
Langston just stared up at me, patient. Unbothered. Knowing.
I turned on my heel, heart hammering, and strode toward the exit.
I didn’t realize my hands were shaking until I reached the cold night air.
And I didn’t realize just how wrong I was about everything until the next day.
The Corruption Begins
It started with a phone call.
An unknown number. No caller ID.
I let it go to voicemail. A few minutes later, my phone vibrated against my desk.
New message.
I pressed play.
A voice crackled through the speaker, smooth and even. “You’re already in.”
That was it. No name. No further instructions. Just those three words.
I stared at my phone, an uneasy weight settling in my chest.
Then the emails started.
Anonymous tips. Leads I hadn’t even been looking for. Names I hadn’t dared to chase before, now conveniently falling into my lap.
I opened one. Confidential DOJ memo attached.
My breath caught. This wasn’t just a leak—it was the kind of classified document that could bring down careers, shake institutions.
A second email. Financial records of a sitting senator.
A third. A story—my story—published on the front page before I had even submitted it to my editor.
I sat frozen in my chair, pulse pounding.
This wasn’t normal.
This wasn’t mine.
Then, Miranda Cross, my editor, walked over. She didn’t look smug, didn’t look impressed. If anything, she looked… concerned.
“You’re making powerful friends,” she said, a cigarette dangling from her lips. She exhaled smoke into the dim newsroom, watching me through the haze.
I forced a tight smile. “I’m just following leads.”
Cross studied me for a long moment, then flicked ash into a coffee cup someone had abandoned on the counter.
“That’s the thing about powerful friends,” she murmured, turning to walk away. “They don’t wait for you to follow.”
I sat motionless long after she was gone, the glow of my computer screen searing into my retinas.
I should have stopped then. Should have erased the emails, burned the papers, walked away while I still could.
But I didn’t.
Because deep down, beneath the unease, there was something else.
A thrill.
And that thrill was louder than my fear.
The Point of No Return
A week passed.
The exclusive leaks continued. My bylines dominated headlines. My inbox overflowed with requests for interviews, television appearances, panel discussions.
I should have felt powerful.
Instead, I felt like a passenger in my own career.
Then, one night, I found his name.
Michael Lorne.
I nearly dropped my coffee mug.
Years ago, Michael had been me. A young, hungry journalist, unafraid of the system. He had built a reputation on stories that hit too close to home—stories about the quiet, hidden hands guiding public opinion.
Then, one day, he disappeared.
No scandal. No public disgrace. Just… gone.
Curious, I searched for his work.
Nothing.
No articles. No op-eds. Not even a trace of his name on archived pieces.
Erased.
The realization struck like ice water down my spine. Langston didn’t just control influence. He decided who had it—and who ceased to exist.
And now, I was tangled in the same web.
My laptop chimed—a new email.
No sender. No subject. Just a single line of text:
“Meet me. 10pm. Same place.”
Langston.
I exhaled, my breath unsteady.
I could still turn back.
I could ignore the email, pretend I hadn’t seen it, keep my head down and wait for this all to fade.
But I already knew the truth.
There was no turning back.
Not now.
Not anymore.
The Final Choice
I arrived at the meeting spot at exactly 10:00pm.
The night smelled of rain-soaked pavement, damp earth, and something floral—jasmine, maybe, carried by the breeze. The street was empty, except for the glow of a dimly lit lamppost flickering against the black expanse of the brownstone.
The same brownstone where I had met Langston for the first time.
The front door was already ajar.
I hesitated at the threshold, but hesitation was meaningless now. I had already made too many decisions that led me here.
I stepped inside.
The club was quieter than before, emptier, like the remnants of a storm that had already passed through. A few figures lingered in the shadows, murmuring amongst themselves, but I ignored them.
Langston was exactly where I expected him to be.
Seated at the same table, same drink in hand, same unreadable expression. Only this time, he wasn’t alone.
A thin file sat before him, untouched, waiting for me.
He didn’t bother with pleasantries.
“Michael Lorne,” he said.
My breath hitched. I had spent the last twenty-four hours trying to dig up anything on him. I had found nothing.
“You had him erased,” I said, voice steady despite the unease curling inside me.
Langston exhaled through his nose, like I had just said something painfully obvious. “I don’t erase people, Riley. I reposition them.”
I clenched my fists. “And what does that mean?”
Langston finally leaned forward, his voice lowering like he was letting me in on some grand secret.
“It means Michael made a choice.”
He tapped the folder.
“And now, you get to make one too.”
The weight of the moment pressed against my chest, threatening to collapse my ribs.
Slowly, cautiously, I reached for the folder.
Inside were three things.
A contract. No company name, no formal headers—just an agreement to step into Langston’s world.
A single, grainy photograph of Michael Lorne, sitting at an outdoor café in some unnamed European city, reading a book as if he had never been a journalist at all.
A printed article draft—one I had never written, yet it had my name at the top. The headline alone made my blood turn cold.
EXPOSING THE ARCHITECT: THE SHADOW HAND THAT CONTROLS MEDIA
I swallowed. “You want me to publish this.”
Langston smiled, slow and deliberate. “I want you to choose.”
My stomach twisted. I wasn’t naïve enough to believe this was a real choice—not anymore.
If I published it, I’d be signing my own erasure. I’d become Michael Lorne, another ghost in the machine, my career, my name, my existence systematically removed.
But if I signed the contract, if I stepped into Langston’s world…
I’d become one of them.
I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply. The scent of scotch and leather filled my lungs.
Langston watched me, patient as ever, like a man who had played this game before and already knew the outcome.
In the end, the choice wasn’t dramatic.
It wasn’t cinematic.
It was just a moment.
A single, silent decision.
I picked up the contract.
And I signed my name.
The Next One
Months passed.
The transformation wasn’t sudden. It happened in increments—so small, so imperceptible, that I almost convinced myself I was still the same person.
But I wasn’t.
I knew I wasn’t.
I stopped questioning where my leads came from. I stopped wondering why certain stories fell into my lap at just the right moment, why my headlines dictated the national conversation.
I stopped asking myself if I was still a journalist.
Because I knew the answer.
I wasn’t writing the truth anymore.
I was manufacturing it.
And the worst part?
It didn’t bother me.
Not the way it should have.
Not the way it used to.
I told myself it was just another part of the machine. Another cog turning in the same inevitable cycle.
Then, one evening, at an exclusive gathering in the city, I saw her.
A young journalist, fresh-faced, eager, ambitious. She moved through the room with wide eyes, taking in the opulence, the power, the significance of the people around her.
She was me.
Before Langston. Before the brownstone. Before the choice.
I sipped my drink, watching as she was gently steered toward him—Langston, seated at his usual spot, waiting with the same effortless patience he had always exuded.
She hesitated, just for a second.
Then, curiosity won.
She approached.
I exhaled slowly, setting my glass down.
From across the room, Langston caught my gaze.
And he smiled.
A knowing, satisfied smirk.
Because the cycle continued.
And this time, I was part of it.
Wow.....probably shouldn't read these first thing in the morning. I'll be thinking about this all day.....this is what has happened to the media......OMG