Collateral Beauty

Ivy gripped the edge of the cot, willing her hands to stop trembling. The medical gown felt too thin, her skin too raw. She needed clothes. A phone. Answers. But most of all, she needed to remember what happened after the blast. The doctor—he still hadn’t told her his name—watched her as if gauging how far she could be pushed. “I want my things,” she said. “Now.” He didn’t argue. He simply walked to a cabinet and pulled out a sealed plastic bag. Inside were her scorched coat, a cracked phone, her camera bag, and a necklace—her son’s fingerprint etched into a silver oval. She stared at it. The only thing that survived untouched. She reached for it with both hands and clasped it to her chest. Elias. The name stirred something deep and cold in her chest. It was his necklace, a gift from her last visit before— Before what? She struggled to recall his face clearly. He’d been five the last time she saw him. Maybe six. Why couldn’t she remember the last thing he said to her? “You were muttering his name in your sleep,” the doctor said quietly. “Elias.” Ivy looked up sharply. “You know about him?” “No. Only what I heard.” “Did someone come looking for me? Family?” He shook his head. “Not a soul.” She nodded slowly, trying not to let the hurt show. It made sense. She hadn’t spoken to her parents in two years. Her sister hadn’t called since the custody hearing. And Elias was with them now—her sister’s family. The courts said Ivy wasn’t fit. Not after what happened overseas. Not with her medical history. The scar on her face felt like proof that they’d been right. She opened the camera bag carefully. The body was dented, the lens shattered, but the two SD cards inside the battery grip were intact. She fumbled for her backup reader—also damaged, but potentially salvageable. “I need to view these,” she said. “You can use the station computer. I’ll set it up.” As he left, Ivy pulled on the least damaged parts of her clothes and sat back down, staring at her reflection in the metal tray. Her face was distorted, but her eyes—still green, still sharp—held the same fire. She wasn’t done yet. --- The clinic computer was ancient—likely a leftover from a high school computer lab—but it worked. Ivy inserted the card and waited as it loaded. The images were out of order, jumbled by impact. She flipped through them one by one. Candids from the gala. A slow progression of high-end cocktails and false laughter. Businessmen and scientists. Danika laughing with someone off-frame. Ivy had snapped it quickly—blurry, but the moment was genuine. She kept scrolling. And then… a photo that wasn’t hers. She paused. A man—mid-thirties, sharp suit, standing in a hallway Ivy didn’t remember walking through. His eyes were cold. Calculating. His hand held a device. Something flat. It looked like a detonator. She clicked the metadata. The timestamp was seven minutes before the explosion. Ivy’s stomach turned. She flipped to the next image—a partial shot of a room behind him. Whiteboards. A Vireon logo. A map of something… a research compound? The next image was blank. Corrupted. Then came the fire. The frame was blurred, shaking, orange. She must have clicked the shutter as the blast hit her. She hit “Save All,” pulling the important ones to a flash drive. Behind her, the doctor returned. “Get what you needed?” “More than I wanted,” she said, pocketing the drive. “And I need your name.” He hesitated. Then, “Hart. Caleb Hart.” “Dr. Hart?” “Not anymore.” There was a story there, but she filed it away. “Who owns this clinic?” she asked. “Technically, a church. Realistically, no one. It's off-book. I volunteer here when I need time off-grid.” “You live off the map?” “I like quiet places.” Ivy stared at him. “And yet, you took in a woman with a bleeding head wound and federal secrets in her bag.” He smiled faintly. “Maybe I wanted to meet someone louder than me.” --- Later that night, Ivy stood outside in the gravel lot behind the clinic, wrapped in a threadbare sweater Caleb lent her. The stars stretched overhead like holes poked in a velvet sheet. She tried to breathe it in—the silence, the darkness, the safety—but it wouldn’t sit. She couldn’t stay hidden. Danika had known something. That man in the hallway—he wasn’t a party guest. He was the reason the building burned. And Ivy had the only surviving proof. She would not let her death be written without her permission. --- The next morning, she dressed in borrowed jeans and boots. Caleb offered her a burner phone and bus fare. She accepted both. “Where will you go?” he asked. She stared down the road. “Back to the beginning.” --- Washington, D.C. — 3 Days Later The city moved like a clockwork creature—fast, loud, surgical. Ivy pulled her hoodie low and slipped through the crowd near Union Station, her eyes sweeping over cameras, patrols, and crosswalks like a seasoned fugitive. She wasn’t famous anymore. Her obituaries saw to that. But someone still might recognize her. She made her way to an old café near Georgetown. It hadn’t changed—brick walls, scuffed floorboards, coffee that tasted like burnt truth. And in the far corner sat the man she came to see. Anton Vale. Ex-hacker. Now data security analyst. Once her source. Always dangerous. “Ivy?” he said as she approached. “You look like hell.” “Good,” she said, sliding into the seat. “I need a favor.” He scanned her face, eyes catching on the scar. “You’re supposed to be dead.” “Tell me something I don’t know.” --- By sunset, Anton had decrypted the flash drive and gone pale halfway through. “Jesus,” he muttered. “This is bad.” “How bad?” “Worse than just terrorism. This—this is bio-research. Neural mapping tech. Prototype stage. Military contracts. Vireon was building tech that could read and rewrite memory signatures.” Ivy felt her blood chill. “Rewriting memories?” Anton nodded. “They weren’t working alone. There’s a subproject. Codenamed Icarus. Black-ink level stuff. And one of the names on these logs... is yours.” “What?” “See for yourself.” He flipped the screen. There it was. MARLOWE, IVY – Trial Subject Status: SURVIVED Trial subject? “I never—” She stopped. Flashes of memory returned. The clinic. Pain in her head. Something injected. Cold. “You think they experimented on me?” she whispered. “I think they already did.” --- Outside the café, Ivy stood with her back to the wall, her lungs fighting the air. Vireon wasn’t just researching human thought. They were manipulating it. And if her name was on that list, it meant she hadn’t escaped the explosion. She’d been targeted by it.