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THE SEGMENT by Genevieve Valentine

WHEN MASON SHOWED ME THE SCRIPT SIDES FOR THE CHILD soldier, I jumped on it.

“Think about this,” he said. “The segment could be huge. Is that how you want to make your career?”

He talked a big game, but this segment was special. He had to know it, too; I was the only one at our agency he’d even talked to about it.

I said, “I’ll take my chances.”

“All right,” he said. He looked serious, but I was pretty sure he was just full of it.

The best gig I’d had so far was the front half of a black bear for a nature documentary. It was on cable.

I’m not complaining—you have to pay your way at the agency, and rent be not proud—but I needed to earn some more, soon, and “bear half ” didn’t set your career on fire.

Face time was an upgrade. And this wasn’t some bit part as a muddy orphan in an establishing shot. This was the big time.

This was the evening news.

That night I walked under our painted motto (Let Those Who Would Be Fooled, Be Fooled) into the dining hall, packed with kids from the Lowers that the agency hired out as sympathetic faces on news segments for the Uppers to go watch when they were feeling generous.

I sat down, grinning, next to Bree.

“I’m in the audition pool for a soldier.”

She barely looked up from her vegetable mash. “Oh? Congratulations.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s big. Investor backing for the cause, too, so the pay is pretty solid.”

“Wonderful,” she said. “I was beginning to worry you’d aged out of your best work. It’s nice they’re skewing older on something.”

I was sixteen. Bree was nineteen, and kind of a bitch.

“What’s the story?”

“My brother is missing,” I said, “and he was the last thing I had left of home. Now I’m fighting the people who took him since I’m dead inside anyway, grenades exploding on us any moment, blah, blah, blah. They wanted someone who can handle a gun, not for crying or anything.”

Bree’s fork wasn’t moving anymore. “Is this for some newspaper?”

I grinned. “The evening news.”

Now she was looking up, her head angled by instinct to catch the best light on her face. “What?”

“Yup.” I shrugged like it was nothing. “I was handpicked. If the segment breaks big, they’ll probably have to retire me.”

Bree looked stunned. After a second, she recovered and said, “Dream big.”