In a different section of Moon Lake, Tom woke up early with his bonded mate and fiancée, Alice Stevens. The werefox vixen was stunning, even first thing in the morning and the personal bond Tom felt to her was wonderful. Some could argue it could be overwhelming in how total it was and how ever present it was, but after becoming a werefox, Tom wouldn't have it any other way. Alice was wonderful and deserved to be able to show how wonderful she truly was without living in fear and that played a big role in his reasoning for the "big reveal." He still held his belief in the truth of the matter requiring the reveal to happen, as there had been too many close calls, that revealed that luck was about the only thing preventing at least the existence of weres being revealed in a more negative light. And for a time, he knew he might have revealed the were secret in a negative light when looking into Lionel Ulysses' tail.
But as his bond to Alice grew, the more the reveal came to be about making things better for her. Give her to show the world how wonderful she was and not have to hide it. Some level of optimism also assured him that revealing the were secret wouldn't entirely be a bad thing, though that would all have to depend on how getting the reveal made would work and the hurdles around it would be handled. So far they were going okay, even with the expected resistance from those that could accept change, but it was still a point that was requiring early starts and driving from Moon Lake to Seattle where both Alice and Tom worked.
"So... what will be the story of the day?" Alice asked to him as they got dressed and prepared for the day.
"Well... unless there comes any more emails accepting interviews or attempting to schedule them, the big thing will probably be completing the present story that I've been assigned to," Tom answered, "and once complete, that could make balancing work and the reveal easier."
"And then setting the stage for a happy future," Alice smiled back to him, which made Tom inwardly smile.
While there was plenty of opposition to his idea, and for much of the reasons that Tom expected from a small and secretive community, Alice had been very supportive of it. While there were times when he feared his bonded mate being in danger over this resistance, she'd actually put on the brave face and pushed him to continue with it. That was partially where Tom felt the bond strengthen that drive to push forward and balancing his work as a reporter and the desire to change the world and essentially make it better. It was something that made many things going forward. So, they went through their morning routine of getting dressed and getting breakfast, and finding the morning to be quiet with no protests or noise going on outside the Stevens home, which was good and hopefully would be indicative of things moving forward in a way that would be indicative of Tom's arguments gaining some weight in favor of the reveal.
Though, when both he and Alice came out of the Stevens home, the reminder of existing opposition remained with the presence of Ichiro and Yoshi Tachibana, two members of the Moon Lake Skulk's leadership and security services providing security for Tom and Alice in the wake of the opposition to the reveal plan. The most serious of it was a pair of werewolves that seemed to be operating like secret agents trying to get Tom to withdraw his petition and seemed willing to make threats about it as well. It was unlikely they'd do anything more in Seattle beyond some kind of "drive by shooting" if that was to be the actual action against him. But because Tom didn't know much about Quintus Fives and Gustavus Amehr, there had been the concern that they would do something dark and devious to protect the were secret, and thus the cooperation with Tachibana's security personnel.
"Things have been quiet through the night and so far this morning," Yoshi spoke from his car pared on the curb outside the Stevens home.
"Which is a good thing," Tom answered, "and we have nothing beside our own jobs."
There were appropriate nods, and Tom gave Alice a goodbye kiss before the got into their respective cars and began the drive from Moon Lake to Seattle. Alice would be off to her small costume shop where she'd likely be moving rapidly toward the standard cycle of her business that had it go down a bit after Halloween while Tom moved on to his place of work, the Seattle Times. As he arrived, Tom parked his car and then set his things down at his cubicle office area. He'd just set his briefcase down when he heard a few footsteps and then turned to find his editor coming out to see him, sipping from a mug of coffee as he went.
"Good morning, Herald," his editor spoke calmly.
"Good morning, sir," Tom answered, noting the use of his last name, "is there something you needed sir? Something you want put in the article if no one calls?"
"No," his editor spoke, "merely making sure that things are in order and you remember the plan with regard to getting your story together."
"Give the various police departments until around four this afternoon and then begin putting the article together," Tom said slowly, and going over his present assignment in his mind, to report and see if some of the events that had happened recently in Seattle and had some connections to Moon Lake were connected to some sort of larger crime wave. That things like Lionel Ulysses' street gang, the Gamboni crime family, and some Alabama power company owner were all part of a larger wave that might be coming. For the most part, the answers that Tom had gotten so far, when interview requests were accepted, the answers seemed to indicate that the that these events that had been big in Seattle were not really a sign of anything big. None of the groups that had attracted attention had any real connections to each other, and the only things they had in common were that they either came from outside Washington state or had left the state for a period of time. It gave Tom the impression that things weren't too out of the unusual, regardless of certain details that he couldn't get into.
"Right then," his editor commented, "if things stay quiet... you can even get your thoughts together to start the article... and from what you've found so far with this project, that may help you save time with regard to writing it."
Tom smiled to that and nodded. That fit with his growing hunch on the present assignment and then moved to go about his work. He expected it to be relatively quiet and uneventful, as most of his interview requests had been rejected. Most were polite, but there were a handful of ones that came off as irritated as being asked for specialty interviews from a paper that didn't normally cover their town events, let alone the police department in their town. Both had raised the sort of climate in which Tom didn't expect to get much more in the way of contact, and that most of what came in would be more rejections.
However, the day soon began to develop something into something he didn't expect. He turned on his computer and went to get himself a cup of coffee from the break room and then returned to his cubicle. Through much of the morning, things did go quietly as Tom expected, however, by about ten AM, he got a call on his cubicle phone, one that almost made him jump with some surprise. He answered it quickly.
"Tom Herald, Seattle Times," Tom answered and waited for a reply. Often these calls could be a tip to a story or something else, and normally would be a part of his assignment, but given little contact he'd gotten back on the subject he'd figured that he wouldn't get much in the way a reply, at least by phone anyway.
"Yes, Mr. Herald, this is the Asotin County Sheriff's office," came a male voice on the other end, and one that Tom had noted had already rejected his interview request, "You'd sent us an email requesting an interview..."
"Yes, sir," Tom said respectfully, "and your office replied to the email with a polite denial of my request."
"Yes, I'm sorry about that," the voice answered, "I'm afraid your email came in on a day in which I was dealing with some personal issues at home and was a bit... distracted, and didn't know your paper's weight would help with our county's funding efforts. After a discussion with one of our suppliers, which I believe actually works in Seattle, I've changed my mind and would happy to have the interview... say tomorrow at eight AM. That way we can conduct business before a lot of my normal press related dealings get started."
Tom privately found this odd, as while he had sent out a lot of interview requests to police departments, he hadn't sent out any to any suppliers as he'd gotten no other reports from within his paper or seen in other papers that local companies that were involved with supplying the various city and state police services had reported increases in buying supplies. And even if they did, Tom didn't think that these companies would know to contact people he'd requested interviews from and get them to change their minds on interview requests. Though, for the moment, he couldn't reason it and didn't want to antagonize the officer, if he had changed his mind. He quickly checked with a travel distance site and calculated the distance to Asotin, Washington, and noted that it would be a pretty much all day trip. He'd need to leave now just to get to town and be able to get to an eight AM interview fully rested.
"Tomorrow at eight AM may be a bit hectic, as it is nearly ten and I've had a fair number of requests I haven't heard back from yet," Tom replied, "I could I push that back a day, give me the time to pack and travel? Or if it has to be tomorrow, push it back into the afternoon?"
"I suppose we could move back to Sunday at 8 AM," the voice replied, "but you'd need to be there ON TIME."
"Can do, and thank you," Tom replied.
And with that the call ended. The shift was a surprise, and he didn't quite believe that this station would have changed its mind as a result of a supplier convincing him, and he moved to check the phone number that was displayed on a digit record screen on recent calls and then double checked that number against what could be confirmed as the Asotin County Sheriff's Office number. To Tom's surprise the numbers DID match, which while he didn't quite trust the reasoning for the call, it did come from the appropriate office. In this it was a surprise, and a big one, but it did meet the requirements that his editor had assigned. Though as the day progressed, it wasn't the only surprise. At around noon, Vancouver, Washington sent an email that they would meet him on Saturday at 10 AM and this sort of cycle repeated through the day, as several interviews came in, though he noted that some of them looked to spread those interviews out over a few days, some Tom was able to reschedule, including getting interviews with South Bend and Montesano from Monday and Tuesday over to different times in the coming afternoon, Montesano at three thirty and South Bend at five PM.
"This will mean some changes to the day," Tom said to himself.