05: Flashpoint

  Allison

  Allison adjusts the lapel of her blazer for the third time, trying to smooth away the nerves that cling to her skin like static. A conference staffer guides her toward the conference hall, saying something– probably instructions about time limits or the microphone she’s pinning to the dress shirt Allison’s wearing beneath her blazer– but she hears none of it. Her mind is still buzzing from Evelyn’s smile, from the way their hands lingered, and from the look Sara gave her after Evelyn walked away. She needs to focus now. This panel isn’t just another academic exercise; it’s a high-stakes debate on the future of exploration, streamed live across the solar network. Allison takes a slow breath as the doors to Galaxy Hall open before her, its soft blue light spilling out like starlight.

  The room unfolds as she steps inside, the walls draped in projected starfields– nebulae and slow-swirling galaxies displayed across half a dozen high-definition screens. Rows of seats slope gently toward the stage, already filled with scholars, diplomats, and corporate delegates, all murmuring in anticipation.

  Evelyn is already seated at the far end of the stage, her crossed legs and upright posture utterly mundane, yet somehow alluring. Allison steels herself and walks past the rows of turning heads. She’s always felt awkward in front of this many people, but after the keynote address, this should be a cakewalk. The sound of her blood pumping in her ears says otherwise. She does her best not to clumsily climb the small set of stairs and cross the stage to her chair, but like a homing beacon, her eyes find Evelyn’s warm smile. Another perfectly normal thing– though Allison quickly loses herself in the green well that is her eyes, and the staffer, now slightly bemused, gently redirects Allison to the proper chair.

  The next several minutes feel like hours, Allison determinately keeping her eyes on the doors to the conference hall. Every time Evelyn glances in her direction, the stage lights burn with furious intensity, and Allison blinks thirstily at the unopened bottle of water sweating on the small table next to her chair. The rows of seats continue to fill with curious faces, and the seconds tick away towards the top of the hour.

  As the doors close behind the arrival of the last audience members, Allison takes a deep breath, clearing her mind of the minx who, without even trying, has become a runaway distraction. Perhaps that is her intent, after all– not to engage Allison in polite discourse, but to embarrass her on the world stage.

  What a silly notion.

  The moderator’s amplified voice cuts through the din of conversation that fills the hall, burning away the fog that fills Allison’s mind like morning sunlight breaking over the horizon. The sudden clarity is a welcome change, and she focuses on the sound of the moderator’s voice, even casting a minutes-late welcoming smile of her own toward Evelyn.

  The first few minutes of the panel are like any other: the moderator introduces themselves and the six panelists, all names she recognizes from the field. The first series of questions are simple, polite– designed to give each panelist their strongest footing before diving into the more intense line of questioning.

  Allison answers easily, confidently, outlining her stance on responsible, ethical, safe innovation and how it sets the stage for exploration. The other panelists nod, adding their own affirmations, most of them leaning into familiar refrains about collaboration and incremental progress. Discussion on oversight, though, is notably absent.

  Then the moderator pivots.

  “We’ve talked about the collaborative potential of drive technology,” she says, her tone sharpening slightly. “But what about its more controversial applications? Defense. Deterrence. What role should FTL play in securing Federation interests– if any?”

  The question ripples across the panel. Here it comes.

  “Absolutely– unequivocally– none,” Evelyn all but spits, her words cracking the air like a whip. “Every time we pretend the Federation is some benevolent steward of progress, we ignore the graves they’ve buried in the name of stability. Deterrence? Defense? These are the same justifications that enabled reckless acceleration, that silenced dissent, that killed good people.” Her voice, sharp and cold, cuts straight through the crowd’s murmur. “When the Federation buried my parents, they called it progress. Some even called it reform.” Evelyn’s gaze shifts– not quite toward Allison, but enough to sting. “But my parents are still dead, and the policies that led to their death remain unchanged. Wordy promises are just that– words. Anything less than sweeping, systemic action is complicity. When you have a voice that those in power hear, tearing down a single corporation is simply not enough– no matter how noble your intentions.”

  At this point, Evelyn’s words aren’t even a thinly veiled attack. She’s directly challenging Allison’s actions. Her sacrifices. Her grief.

  She leans forward slightly, her voice calm, but steady.

  “People died trying to keep those labs safe,” Allison says, not to the audience, but directly to Evelyn.

  The room stills.

  “I didn’t tear down a corporation,” Allison says. “I dismantled the entire group of corrupt individuals whose greed led to their deaths. I took on the most powerful executives in the Federation, exposed falsified safety records, forced public hearings, rewrote the ethics charter that governs interstellar research, and brought forth unheard testimony– your testimony.” Her voice tightens. “You think I did that for applause? I did it so no one else would have to grow up feeling like a policy memo is worth more than their family. I did it for people like you.”

  She glances toward the audience, then back to Evelyn.

  “You want sweeping change? So do I. But if you burn the whole system to the ground without a plan, the wrong people rise from the ashes. You’re not fixing the problem. You’re just lighting another match.”

  For the first time since the panel began, Evelyn doesn’t immediately respond. She holds Allison’s gaze across the stage, jaw tight, eyes narrowed– not in thought, but in something akin to disbelief. She shifts in her chair, subtly, imperceptibly, but Allison catches it. A flicker of something behind those emerald eyes. Not doubt, exactly, but hesitation. Evelyn had clearly expected a polished deflection or a corporate talking point. Not that.

  Then Evelyn straightens.

  “There’s always a speech,” she says coolly, finally turning her eyes back to the audience. “Always a carefully crafted justification for why a little suffering was necessary. Why incremental change is preferable to justice. Look at you now, Doctor Harper.”

  Evelyn’s gaze cuts back to her, sharp enough to draw blood.

  “Respected. Decorated. A symbol of progress who helped reform one of the most powerful, corrupt corporations in human history. And you were rewarded handsomely for it. A private lab. Funding that would make most scientists weep. A seat on every major council you choose to grace.”

  She lets the silence hang for a moment.

  “And still, when given the chance to turn your reform into revolution– to help Ms. Prescott change not just one company, but the entire Federation– you declined. Surely not because you disagree with her ideas. Not because you didn’t believe in the cause. But because it might cost you. You claim to be this altruist, but you’re still choosing comfort over conviction.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The double doors to the conference hall creak open, and an impeccable dressed short, fat man waddles inside, hugging the back wall. He interlaces his ringed fingers, resting them on the swell of his belly, and raises an eyebrow toward the stage. Evelyn’s fierce expression wavers for an instant. Recognition. Confusion. Perhaps a mixture of both.

  But Allison cannot afford to be distracted. Evelyn’s words have wounded her. The uncomfortable truth behind her accusation has been dragged– kicking and screaming– from the recesses of Allison’s mind, where she’d buried it beneath layers of justification and personal preservation. Evelyn’s words, no matter how callous, how retributive, are accurate.

  Allison did stop.

  She settled for good enough.

  She opens her mouth, grasping for words to defend herself, to rebut Evelyn’s poignant accusation– when the static images of the wall-mounted televisions spring to life.

  Flickering onto every screen in the room is shaky aerial footage from a hovering drone. Smoke coils into the sky from a jagged, blackened crater where a building used to stand. Emergency lights pulse weakly through the dust, and a half-collapsed tower smolders in the background.

  Something about the image strikes Allison as familiar– inescapable. Her heart sinks.

  The silence is broken when the conference room audio is shifted away from the panelists to the incoming video feed, “... where an explosion has just rocked the StellarCorp research facility. Emergency crews and vehicles are already at the scene, but speculation is swirling…”

  Allison’s ears begin ringing. The words echo, but barely register. The smoke. The sirens. It’s all too familiar. She can practically feel the buzz of her datapad– a kinetic memory– vibrating against the kitchen counter that fateful morning. She’d ignored it at first. Too tired, too busy with her course work. But then came the next alert, and the next.

  She stands up, the air in the conference hall turning thin. Her knees buckle. The screens– the newscaster’s monotonous voice– all mercilessly forcing her to relive her past.

  “Allison.”

  An anchoring voice– Sara’s, calls out from nearby.

  “Allison.”

  She closes her eyes forcefully, wishing the reel in her head would stop, but the name Harper Kessler flashes across the memory of her datapad like a punch to her stomach.

  “Allison!” Sara’s hand grips her arm just below the shoulder and pulls Allison to her feet. “We need to go.”

  All she can do is nod, and as Sara leads her from the room through the sea of worried and panicked faces, Allison notices the door is slightly ajar. The rotund figure, like a phantom harbinger of doom, is gone. Vanished just as quietly as he arrived.

  ***

  Evelyn

  Evelyn doesn’t move.

  The moment Allison stumbles from the stage, carried out by that little soldier she keeps by her side at all times, Evelyn remains perfectly still in her chair. The footage continues to loop above her: smoke curling into a sky that might as well be the same as what she watched from the obliterated floor all those years ago. The same color. The same silence after the blast. Though she’s not there, she knows… the same smell.

  But Evelyn doesn't tremble. She doesn’t collapse. She burns.

  Cruz.

  Of course it would be him.

  She rises without excusing herself, heels clicking sharply against the floor as she cuts through the stunned hush of the conference hall. Panelists and audience members murmur around her, some still frozen by the news feed.

  Evelyn doesn't look back. She barrels into the hallway, eyes scanning left and right, her mind already racing with the possibilities– the implications. Cruz is never anywhere by accident. And he certainly doesn’t vanish without leaving a trail.

  “Doctor Stone!”

  The voice is young. Crisp. Too eager.

  The trail.

  Evelyn keeps walking. A pair of footsteps fall faster behind her until a bright-eyed young woman matches her pace, barely winded. She’s too clean-cut to be a staffer, too confident to be a fan. She’s striking. Mid-twenties, maybe. Her lips are just barely touched with gloss, and her blond hair is pinned back behind a pair of smart-glasses that do nothing to hide how deliberately she’s dressed to impress.

  And yet– there’s something off about her. Not in her appearance per se, but in the way she leans in as they walk, as if proximity itself is part of the strategy. Evelyn’s seen this kind of hunger before– hell, she’s felt it. Opportunistic. Calculated. The kind of woman who studies your speeches for the applause breaks and quotes them back at you as flattery.

  A shadow in designer heels.

  “I’m Emelia Lawson,” she says, thrusting out a hand as they walk. “Harvard, class of ‘30, NovaTech internship cohort ’31. I just wanted to say– your remarks on systemic complicity? They were invigorating.”

  Evelyn doesn’t slow down. “Now’s not the time.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. But it’s just– what you said, about how the Federation lets this happen again and again? You’re absolutely right. The timing on this is uncanny… prophetic.”

  Evelyn stops short and Emelia nearly crashes into her.

  “What did you just say?”

  The intern shrugs, that too-bright smile twitching. “It was all but inevitable,” she says, with just enough of a guilty grin to make Evelyn’s stomach twist.

  Evelyn stares at her for a long second. She has no idea who this girl is.

  “Where did he go?” Evelyn demands.

  “Who?”

  “Don’t test me, girl. Not right now.”

  Something like confusion flashes in her blue eyes, shielded behind those glasses.

  “Director Cruz?”

  Evelyn looks at her like she’s stupid, and the intern’s confused expression shifts into one of hurt.

  “Umm,” she stammers, looking behind her down the hall. “I– I don’t know.”

  Evelyn’s pulse thuds behind her eyes. Somewhere inside the walls of the conference center, Cruz is hiding. Or gloating. Or both. She turns on her heels and storms down the hall, the intern falling into step behind her– uninvited. Evelyn cannot help but feel the girl is exactly where she wants to be.

  When she finds Cruz he is leaning nonchalantly against the wall.

  “Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Evelyn snaps, striding toward him with all the restraint of a loaded weapon.

  Cruz cocks an eyebrow, unbothered. “Nice to see you too, Miss Stone.”

  “Don’t you dare play this game with me. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  “If you’re referring to the incident,” he says, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the conference hall, “I had nothing to do with it.”

  “You always have ‘nothing to do with it’,” Evelyn seethes. “Yet somehow, wherever there’s destruction and plausible deniability, there you are.”

  Cruz clicks his tongue. “Evelyn, you’re upset. Understandably.”

  “You’ve gone too far, Marcus.”

  “You’re letting your personal history cloud your judgement.”

  Evelyn takes a step closer, her eyes narrowing.”This is a gift-wrapped propaganda nightmare for StellarCorp. It’s too good to be true. Which means it isn’t true and this is a setup.”

  “Oh,” Cruz replies coolly, feigning happy surprise. “A happy accident indeed! But politics isn’t my concern.”

  “Bullshit, Cruz!”

  “People have died, Evelyn. Show some respect.”

  “You’re lucky we’re being recorded, or I’d slap the shit out of you.”

  “And frankly,” he says smugly, ignoring her, “I don’t like what you’re insinuating.”

  Evelyn scoffs, half-laughing in disbelief. “You really think it won’t trace back to us? You think Shaw will take the fall if this spirals?”

  Cruz shrugs. “Why would Shaw care what I’m doing, Evelyn? I’m not up to anything.”

  But his mouth curves too quickly, and his gaze flickers toward the exit. She’s making him uncomfortable, and she can smell the guilt.

  “Does Shaw know what you’ve done?” Evelyn’s voice is low now, dangerous.

  “Like I said,” Cruz replies, spreading his hands, palms up. “I’m not up to anything, so why would he need to know?”

  Their eyes lock, and for one loaded second, Evelyn considers slamming him into the wall just to feel something crack. Instead, she turns.

  “I’m not finished with you,” she mutters, venom threading every word.

  As she storms away, Emelia moves to intercept her with another, all-too-eager step forward. “Dr. Stone, if I may–”

  Evelyn breezes past her without slowing down, her voice cold and clipped. “Out of my way.”

  She walks briskly down the hallway back toward the conference hall. This time, Emelia doesn’t follow.