THE FOUNDATION
PART ONE: THE VISION
9:34 AM — Moretti Operations Center, Conference Room
The woman sitting across from Aria was twenty three years old and had been rescued from a trafficking ring in Bangkok three months ago.
Her name was Anh. She’d been taken from Vietnam when she was nineteen, promised legitimate work, and instead had been sold into s****l slavery. She’d been forced to work sixteen-hour days, beaten when she resisted, medicated to keep her compliant.
She’d survived.
Now she was sitting in a Midtown Manhattan office, wearing clothes that fit properly, eating a meal that wasn’t designed to keep her in a controlled state of hunger, speaking about what she needed to rebuild her life.
“I want to go to school,” Anh said carefully. Her English was accented but clear. “Uni
