Against the Tide - A New Elysium Story [Complete]

24. Containment Breach

CONTENT WARNING:

Rape (not explicit)
__________________


On a beach under a starlit sky, there stood a girl.

Her neck was craned upward, and she looked at the stars. Their light reflected in her eyes, and on the traces of tears on her cheeks. She had waited so long. She was tired and she felt so lonely. She knew that chances were slim, but she held onto that remaining sliver of hope with all her might.

Seven times better odds, she thought, might not have been enough. I should have wished on all of them.

She came here every night. She spent hours waiting, staring up at that constellation, until the seven bright lights had burned themselves into her retina. The seven sisters that she had wished upon had forsaken her. She had always known that it had been a silly wish. A stupid dream. She didn't mind that she would not get to visit these distant stars after all. What bothered her was that she wouldn't get to fulfill her promise to the most important person in her life.

Tonight, she had told herself, would be the last night that she would come to this place. Not just because she couldn't bear looking up at that sky any longer, but also because she knew, she wouldn't survive the next cycle. This was her last night on this planet, one way or another.

Lars watched the girl as she lowered her head again and rubbed her sore neck. Her dark hair fell over her face, but he would have recognized her any place, any time, instantly.

"Null?" he called out her name, confused. He couldn't recall how they had gotten back here.

She raised her head to look at him, surprise and confusion on her face, too. Her cheeks were hollow and there were dark shadows under her eyes. She looked weary, but besides that, also much younger than she usually did in this place.

"Null?" he spoke her name again, and took a step toward her.

"Who is Null?" the girl asked, puzzled. Behind her, a bright star flickered in the sky, and began to descend towards the horizon.

"My name is Evelyn."

~ ~ ~

Evelyn.

The name hung in the air, heavy like the scent of jasmine flowers.

"Evelyn," the man whispered, "You're Evelyn Langdon. It's a pleasure..."

She looked up at the man she had just bumped into. He was tall, wore an expensive looking dark grey suit, and his sleek dark hair was combed back in a neat fashion. His eyes were of a curious amber color. Too light to qualify as hazel, they looked more like liquid gold in the harsh light of the hydroponics deck. His gaze wandered up from her name tag, which only had 'E. Langdon' written on it, and came to rest on her face.

"How do you know my first name?" she asked, puzzled.

"I heard it before," he just said, as he bent down to pick up the stack of papers she had dropped. He handed them to her with a smirk.

She narrowed her eyes at him as she took them. He didn't look like the kind of person who would read the scientific literature on artificial photosynthetic systems that she had co-authored during the past two years of her internship. Even if he had read it, her name only came up close to the very end of those authorship lists, with the other interns and technicians. And even there, she was only 'E. Langdon'.

"From whom?" she asked. He also didn't look like the kind of person who would just casually take a stroll on the hydroponics deck in the first place, and she wondered what had brought him here.

"From people praising you," he said and pointed over his shoulder, towards the office of her boss.

Her eyes widened as the realization hit her. Her boss had told her about an important visitor - and she had just literally bumped into him. This man was Riga Lawrence. She recalled seeing his face before, but only on some network broadcasts, and she had never really paid much attention to those.