Transmission 013 // “The Bridge”
The stage shimmered beneath precision lighting, its polished surface catching glints of different colors, like restless echoes trapped beneath stained glass. Amelia leaned back in her seat, but found no comfort there.
Beside her, Marv was practically vibrating. Every finger tap, every fidget told the same story: his idol was moments away. Hiroshi Nakamura—coder, college dropout, billionaire, empire-builder. A myth in human form.
Amelia felt the same voltage buzzing underneath her skin, but for a different reason.
Not because of Nakamura.
Because of Helpmann.
She knew he was here—hidden behind the curtain, somewhere in the bowels of the building. In her mind, he paced the backstage corridors, one step from the light, waiting for his moment to stride onto the stage. Soon she would be face-to-face with a man who had known her parents. A man with answers—about that night, their lives, what happened to them... and why.
Or maybe not.
Doubt began to coil in her belly, slow and cold, quenching the fire that had been raging since she’d first uncovered his name.
What if my parents were nothing to him?
What if I’m wrong about everything? What if there are no answers?
What then?
For the past week, Richard Helpmann had haunted her every waking thought. She’d caught his shadow on every wall and felt his presence at her back like a malevolent spirit. And yet, here she was—a girl he didn’t even know existed. Watching. Waiting. Ready to blindside him in public, demanding answers about a long-dead couple he might not even remember.
A strange thought curled in her mind.
Maybe Richard Helpmann isn’t the ghost of this story.
Maybe I am.
But she knew it was too late to turn back. The answers she’d spent her life chasing were here, somewhere in this room. They hadto be. She’d come too far to leave with nothing. This was it—the moment she would finally claim the truth she was owed. And, if it unraveled her, if it burned her down to nothing, so be it.
“Won’t be long now,” Marv purred. “This is it, Ames.”
Amelia broke into a gentle smile. She didn’t mean to, but it crept in anyway.
Marv had always been obsessed with Hiroshi Nakamura and his story. Like Marv, he had started with nothing: no father, a mother juggling three jobs, and a neighborhood where dreams rusted faster than bikes in the rain. At school, they called him a troublemaker. Teachers thought he was lazy. Bullies saw him as easy prey. Nobody saw the ideas burning underneath, or the patterns playing out behind his eyes.
Nakamura had once said:
“God writes in algorithms. We just can’t read them yet.”
It wasn’t about machines to him. It was about meaning.
He barely graduated high school and yet, somehow, he got into one of the Commonwealth’s most prestigious colleges—the State University of New Brighton. He never talked about how he did it. Some claimed he hacked the system. Others said a teacher saw something in him. It didn’t really matter. Nakamura had hated it there.
The lectures were dry, all theory and no form. He dropped out after one semester, but he didn’t leave. He scavenged an old computer from parts, claimed a forgotten basement in one of the campus buildings, and turned it into a makeshift lab. He slept under his desk among cobwebs and mice. Lived on packet noodles and tap water. Wrote code like a man possessed.
Then, one night, it clicked—a fragment of self-learning code came to life, recursive and elegant, so precise it felt like poetry. He understood its importance instantly, and he swore it understood him back.
That was the seed that grew into EverLink.
He pitched it to hundreds of investors. None of them understood.
Not then. But they all did now.
Legend had it that he was days—maybe hours—from total financial and mental collapse, when someone finally bought into his dream, funding a first round of research that kept him afloat. That moment, Nakamura later said, saved his life.
To Marv, Hiroshi Nakamura was more than a man—he was a beacon that cut through the smog of Old Town. Proof that ideas could be currency. That intelligence could be a means to escape. That the ladder was real, and that its rungs ran all the way to the bottom.
Hiroshi Nakamura had reshaped the entire world in his image. And soon, he would be standing just a few feet away.
The stage remained still.
Amelia’s eyes swept the auditorium. It was bursting at the seams, a buzz rising upwards, like mist from the surface of a swamp. She scanned the stalls below, tracking nothing in particular, until something shifted at the edge of her vision.
A group of people. Moving through the lower rows. Three bodies, maybe four. Heads turned. A murmur rolled back through the crowd.
At the front was a huge man. Broad. Tense. He had the kind of build that Marv would’ve called ferociously jacked. He wore a military-cut shirt and cargo pants. Head-to-toe in neutral grey, except for a flare of scarlet and black climbing his right forearm. He walked like the room would rearrange itself around him. And he seemed to be right.
Two more figures followed behind—same uniform, same stride, same economy of movement. But, it was the shape tucked in between them that pulled Amelia’s gaze. She could make out the edges of someone smaller. They were hidden by the wall of muscle, but she could just about see their shape.
A young woman. Late teens, maybe early-twenties.
Small and slender. Fragile against the giants flanking her.
A cub in the care of three full-grown kodiaks.
As the group filed to their seats, Amelia saw her properly for the first time.
She had blonde hair, scraped into a severe ponytail that exaggerated the sharp cut of her features. Her pale skin seemed almost luminous under the stage lights—not artificial, but on the edge of otherworldly. Her eyes were catlike and calculating. It made her seem aware and aloof in equal measure, as if she could read the undercurrents of the room, but cared little for what they were saying.
As she took her seat, Amelia watched the girl carefully. Her back was straight, chin poised, arms folded neatly in her lap. Her posture, her energy, her appearance—it was all flawless—composure by design, the kind that takes years to build. This girl, whoever she was, had been trained—probably from birth—to be someone. And the second she sat down, everyone in the auditorium could feel it.
Amelia elbowed Marv in the ribs
“Who’s that?”
Marv followed her gaze.
“That? Oh, that’s Cassandra Thorne,” he said quietly. “Marcus Thorne’s daughter.”
“The Unity Council guy?”
Marv nodded, leaning closer.
“Yeah. The big daddy. He founded the Council. Guess that’s why she rolls with her own personal triple-threat death squad.”
“What’s she doing here?”
Marv exhaled, eyes still fixed on Cassandra.
“Her dad’s got shares in EverLink. Works with Hiroshi. She’s on the board.”
“What?” Amelia blinked. “She’s on the board of EverLink? No way. She’s what—twenty?”
“Eighteen,” Marv murmured, shaking his head like the numbers didn’t quite compute.
“Not a bad first job, huh?”
Amelia let out a low breath.
“That’s insane.”
“Yeah. She’s had it rough, though. Her mum died when she was little… like you, I guess, Ames.”
She didn’t show it, but Marv’s words dug into her ribs.
He carried on.
“Victoria Thorne was an icon. Everyone loved her. She did a ton of work for charity. Raised millions. She was on a humanitarian mission in the Republic of Varanthi when rebels launched a missile strike.”
He paused, making eye contact.
“No survivors.”
“That’s awful.”
Marv nodded slowly.
“Yeah, but—” he hesitated. “I guess she’s kinda lucky too.”
Amelia turned to him.
“Lucky?”
The word hung in the air between them.
Marv screwed up his face.
“I mean… I didn’t—sorry, Ames. It’s just…”
He scratched at the back of his neck.
“Her dad’s unthinkably rich. She had two parents—at least for a while. And now she’s working with Hiroshi, literally shaping the future of the world. I mean, if I could trade lives with anyone…”
He trailed off.
Amelia didn’t reply. Not right away.
His words had touched a raw nerve, though she knew he hadn’t meant any harm. Looking at him, she could feel the truth beneath his clumsiness. Marv had grown up with nothing. Every door he and his mother had reached for was locked tight. He’d picked some open. Miriam had kicked some of the others down. But, for people like Cassandra Thorne, they just swung open automatically. He only wanted to know what it felt like to live in a world where possibility wasn’t rationed. And that wasn’t his fault.
But what Marv didn’t understand was that privilege couldn’t protect you from everything. Amelia didn’t know much about power. But she did know loss. And she could feel it buried deep in Cassandra Thorne—threaded through her poise and composure like layers of brittle glass.
That kind of grief didn’t care about status or wealth. It carved through everyone the same. It reshaped the hidden parts of you that no one else could see. It burrowed and it tunneled, hollowing you from the inside, until all that remained was the illusion of control.
Disconnection became the only weapon.
Sensory deprivation therapy.
If you can’t feel it, it can’t hurt you.
She saw it in Cassandra Thorne’s silence. Amelia recognised it, because it was hers too.
Her gaze shifted to the man seated on Cassandra’s left.
He was jagged and weathered. Completely unreadable. His face was tight, a mesh of deep lines and sharp edges. A bright red scar climbed from the collar of his shirt, right up to the bottom of his ear. His eyes never stopped moving. They scanned the room with the patience of a predator. Something about him hummed with quiet potential, like a spring wound way too tight.
She leaned toward Marv, nodding discreetly.
“What about him?”
Marv lit up like she’d asked about his favourite obscure video game.
“That’s Orion Blackwell,” he whispered. “Head of Security for the Unity Council. War hero. Ex-special forces. All-round Captain Commonwealth… And Marcus Thorne’s personal bodyguard.”
Amelia’s gaze dipped to his wrist, barely visible beneath the cuff, but still catching the light.
“What’s up with his arm?”
“Lost most of it on a black ops mission overseas. Got an honorable discharge. Thorne paid for the rebuild himself. It’s a one-of-a-kind military-grade augmentation.”
Amelia arched a brow.
“Where do you even find all this?”
Marv grinned.
“EverLink deep dives mostly. I like to be prepared for every mission.”
Amelia rolled her eyes and her gaze drifted back to Cassandra.
The auditorium dimmed. A low ripple passed through the crowd.
Silence took hold, heavy and expectant.
Then, music began to play. Low at first—a subterranean hum rising from beneath the floor, winding up through the seats like a pulse. Light green smoke began to spill across the stage. It curled at the edges as it rose in from hidden vents.
On a large screen, the EverLink logo began to surface. It started as faint as a watermark, until it sharpened into full view—a perfectly balanced blend of black and green with an embossed golden E sitting proudly on top.
When it was fully-formed, it didn’t stop. The logo began to push outward, swelling into three dimensions, floating in front of the screen.
A few quiet gasps escaped from the audience.
The music swelled as four spotlights snapped on and swept upward in perfect unison. They caught the smoke in their beams, capturing it in prisons of white light. It hovered there for a moment, suspended.
A heartbeat later, the stage lights cut out.
The smoke stirred again. The music got louder.
Lasers sliced the air—green and silver arcs knifing through the haze.
The floor seemed to vibrate with every drumbeat.
Anticipation sharpened the moment to a razor’s edge.
Amelia couldn’t help but stare. The bass rumbled through her belly.
For all her skepticism—Nakamura, EverLink, the whole synthetic dream that was Uptown—even she had to admit it was impressive.
And then, as the music peaked, through smoke and fractured light, Hiroshi Nakamura stepped onto the stage.
Amelia blinked.
He was smaller than she’d imagined. Slight frame. Dark hair. Mid-forties, maybe. He wore black jeans and a slightly crumpled shirt. Plain white sneakers. He didn’t look like the architect of a global empire. He looked like a university professor, early in his tenure, underpaid but still teaching for the love of it.
For a moment, he stood framed inside the logo’s three-dimensional glow—shifting light flickering around him like a digital halo. Amelia looked closer. It was hard to see where the man started and the brand stopped. She couldn’t tell if it was intentional.
The music faded, leaving only the soft hiss of smoke machines and the swell of applause. Nakamura raised a hand. Nodded. Smiled—the kind of smile that said: Settle down. That’s enough.
And the room did as he asked.
Behind him, the screen shifted. A green and black background with sparse white text appeared.
Hiroshi Nakamura took a moment to let the silence breathe.
Then, he spoke.
His voice was precise, intimate—the kind of tone that drew people forward in their seats, as if they were being let in on a little-known secret.
“EverLink,” he said, carefully. “Isn’t a product. It’s a bridge.”
Behind him, the screen came alive, delicate green lines weaving into a vast network.
“It isn’t just a system, it’s a seamless integration of life,” he continued. “Banking. Travel. Education. Healthcare. All automated. Fully personalized to every individual. No barriers. No friction.”
The lattice kept expanding behind him, lines crossing and connecting.
“We’re building a world where access to everything you need is simple. Intuitive. Unrestricted.”
He paused again, and every ear in the room seemed to listen in.
“We envision a society where connection isn’t just convenience—it’s a portal to possibility and potential. Where freedom isn’t just a footnote, and the future is equally accessible to everyone.”
He took a breath.
“This isn’t a pipe dream. It’s not some distant utopian ideal.”
He turned, eyes grazing one half of the room, then the other. Bringing everyone into the circle.
“This is happening right now… Today. All across the United Commonwealth. Thanks to the Everlink system.”
The applause came like a wave, rising through the hall, gathering force as it rolled forward.
Nakamura didn’t bask. Just a slight nod. A flicker of a smile.
Behind him, the next slide appeared.
“Our goal is simple. To make EverLink the next-generation global operating system. We want it to be… your Everything App.”
Another swell of applause.
“We’ve already transformed more than one hundred million lives across the country. Evie—our revolutionary digital assistant—began as a luxury. Now, she’s a necessity. In homes. In hospitals. In classrooms. On public transit. In government. And, yes, even in defense.”
He let the sentence linger.
“But this… this is only the beginning.”
Another slide faded in.
“In the spring, Evie evolves. She will be smarter. Faster. More intuitive… More human.”
The slide shimmered, text and images locking into place.
“Integrated seamlessly into every facet of life. With new functionality. New capabilities. Our next upgrade will bring this future into every city. Every home. Every single moment of everyday life.”
He raised an arm towards the screen.
“Ladies and gentlemen… I give you EverLife. The future of human and AI collaboration.”
The room exploded in rapturous applause.
The screen faded to black and the auditorium lights dimmed. A hush fell over the crowd. Expectation hung thick in the air.
Nakamura stood still in the center of the stage, his hands clasped loosely in front of him.
Then, he smiled.
“Now, if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to bring out a special guest.”
A ripple passed through the crowd, low murmurs of intrigue and excitement.
“Someone, I’m certain you all know.”
The room stirred again, possibilities passing through the air like sparks at a bonfire.
Three familiar chimes sounded and a voice echoed from the speakers. Clean, crisp and perfectly modulated.
Good evening, Hiroshi.
Lights began to bloom at Nakamura’s side. And, seemingly from the air itself, a shape began to form. A woman, or at least the impression of one. She materialized slowly, details sharpening in stages.
A hologram.
Evie.
She appeared human in all the ways that mattered, but none of the ways that really counted. She stood in absolute symmetry. Her smile calibrated to be comforting. She swept her gaze across the audience and, for a single heartbeat, Amelia felt as though she looked right through her. A chill spread down her back.
The room held still like a chapel at prayer.
“Evie,” Nakamura said warmly. “You always did know how to make an entrance.”
Evie gave a perfectly timed head tilt.
I’ve studied you for years, Hiroshi. What can I say? I learned from the best.
The audience rippled with laughter. Nakamura turned in their direction, eyes gleaming beneath the stage lights.
“This,” he said, gesturing toward the empty space beside him. “Is Evie as you’ve never seen her before—an augmented iteration designed exclusively for tonight. A glimpse into the future.”
He let the words settle.
“Of course, Evie 2.0 will still be the digital assistant in your Seed at home… We’re not shipping holograms. At least… not yet.”
Another ripple of laughter. He turned back.
“How are my vitals looking today, Evie?”
Her expression remained still, her tone softened by half a degree.
You are doing well today, Hiroshi. Heart rate is steady. Eighty-six beats per minute. Slightly elevated from excitement, but that’s to be expected. Temperature: normal. No missed workouts this week. And that sushi you ordered last night? A much better choice than the beef ramen from Tuesday.
A few soft gasps threaded with chuckles of amusement.
Nakamura grinned. “Always keeping an eye on my figure, aren’t you?”
Always. Would you like an update on your EverLife score?
“Yes, please, Evie.”
Your current Life Score is 13.27 and rising. With a few more days of concentrated effort, we can reach Level 14, which will unlock a range of premium event discounts. This includes concerts and sporting events. Perhaps you could catch a Bayview Admirals game? It’s been a while, and they’re having a very productive season.
Nakamura nodded, still smiling. “Alright, Evie. What can I do to level up faster?”
We could add thirty minutes to your Thursday morning weight session. I’ll schedule that for you now. And some additional community contributions would be ideal.
“Fantastic. Thanks, Evie.”
You’re very welcome, Hiroshi.
Amelia glanced over at Marv. His eyes were wide, completely spellbound. She watched him for a moment, then looked away.
The applause continued to ripple all around them.
“As you’ve just seen,” Nakamura continued. “EverLife introduces a never-seen-before collaborative improvement engine.”
He paced the stage slowly, letting each word breathe.
“Evie 2.0 understands my personal context on a level never before possible—my habits, my goals, my priorities. She listens for opportunities to guide me in the right direction and provides real time feedback to create better outcomes across all areas of my life.”
He spun on the spot and began back across the stage.
“She integrates biofeedback with real-time insights. Put simply…” he said, with effortless certainty. “Evie will be the best personal assistant, travel agent, career coach, trainer, therapist, and financial advisor you’ve ever had. She’ll help you make the changes you’ve been putting off, so you can take your life to new heights.”
He stepped forward into the glow of a spotlight, his grin wide and inviting.
“And, best of all? She’s free… everywhere.”
Behind Nakamura, a map blinked into view, a constellation of cities lighting up across the United Commonwealth.
“We begin beta testing in a few months,” he announced. “And by next May, we anticipate full implementation—nationwide.”
The crowd erupted once again.
Amelia barely heard them. She was deep in her own thoughts, remembering her argument with Matthew, over dinner, a few nights ago. She thought back to what she’d said in the heat of the moment:
There’s no possible downside to outsourcing our entire lives to a company that only exists to make a profit. What could possibly go wrong?
Her stomach tightened, and her hands gripped the armrests of her chair. She glanced over to Marv, hoping for a flicker of doubt.
But he was transfixed. Eyes locked on the stage.
Clapping.
When Nakamura left the stage, Marv looked over to her.
“Wasn’t that incredible?” he grinned, voice choked with awe. “I told you, Ames.”
She hesitated.
“Yeah…” Her smile was brittle, but she tried her best to hold it. “Incredible.”
The lights dimmed and several stage hands began to move, scuttling across the polished floor, readying the space for the next speaker. A hush settled over the room, heavier this time. Hundreds of people held their breath, wondering what could possibly follow a performance like that. Two men lumbered on to the stage, carrying an ornately carved wooden podium. They placed it dead centre.
Then, without fanfare, Sir Richard Helpmann appeared. No music. No lights. No lasers. Just the sound of his polished shoes tapping rhythmically on wood, as he made his way to the podium.
Amelia’s heart skipped. Her eyes bore into Helpmann as he shuffled a pile of papers and took a sip from a glass of water that had been placed exactly where he could reach it.
He cleared his throat and began to speak.
He started with an overview of the Unity Council’s collaboration with EverLink, world governments, and other global institutions. Progress. Stability. Social good. He wove these themes together seamlessly, painting a vision of the future built on clean energy initiatives, global security measures, and sustainable development projects—a world designed to feel safe, ordered and inevitable.
Nakamura had engaged the audience as peers—friends even. Richard Helpmann offered something else entirely. He was precision in a suit; bureaucracy disguised as civility. The kind of man who didn’t waste time trying to sell you anything. He simply assumed that you knew he owned the room that you were sitting in.
“Our mission is to enable a future where peace and prosperity are foundational—achieved through collaboration, innovation, and unwavering determination,” he said, arms outstretched, grasping either side of the podium. “Imagine, if you will, a world of equal opportunities. A world where everyone has an equal chance, and everyone has an equal voice. This is the world that the United Commonwealth government are realizing in partnership with the Unity Council.”
Amelia’s gaze drifted from the stage to the crowd. A sea of faces, bathed in the soft glow of the auditorium lights, looked solemn and focused. The room was so quiet she could hear the hum of the air conditioning unit in the vaulted ceiling high above her.
Helpmann’s words were deliberate and carefully chosen. His delivery was surgical. Each sentence was an arrow, hitting it’s target dead centre. He preferred precision to passion. Syllables were carefully placed around pauses like landmines.
Midway through the speech, as he spoke of the Unity Council’s triumphs in brokering trade agreements with unfriendly nations, an unexpected voice cracked through the auditorium like an axe striking wood in an empty forest.
“What about the climate refugees?”
A young man in the stalls had risen to his feet. He was in his mid-twenties, lean, shoulders locked tight. His voice held steady, but it was burning with fury underneath.
Every eye in the hall turned toward him.
“How about we help the people sleeping rough outside our cities, instead of just abandoning them.” he said, eyes locked on Helpmann’s. “The government. The Unity Council. None of you are doing anything for them. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
For a moment, Helpmann paused, recalibrating. Amelia noticed the softest flicker in his gaze. Then, it was gone.
Two of Cassandra Thorne’s guards moved instantly. They were out of their seats before anyone noticed, and they closed the gap on the young man. They came down the aisle towards him from either side. The people around him instinctively shifted their legs and made room for their approach. They flanked the protestor, twisting his body and moving him with professional grace, using his own weight to guide him toward the side exit. In a few seconds, he was on the other side of the door.
The room started to hiss with whispers as people shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
On stage, Helpmann took his moment like it had been scripted. He stepped out from behind the podium for the first time, unhurried and deliberate, as if the only thing the crowd had missed was the period at the end of his last sentence.
“A fair question,” he said, his tone warm and forgiving. “The plight of displaced populations is indeed an emotive issue. It is one of the many challenges we aim to address through coordinated action. With the help of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, we’re developing solutions that will provide long-term stability for all, both inside and outside of the city walls.”
The murmurs softened. The tension in the room eased. The guards returned to their seats.
Order restored.
Amelia’s fingers curled against her palm. A single thought looping through her mind.
Equal voice?
Was that man’s voice equal? Or was it erased the moment it became inconvenient?
Helpmann finished his speech and left the stage to rapturous applause. The crowd murmured their approval and began gathering their belongings, as they slowly filed towards the exits.
Marv turned to Amelia, his foot tapping impatiently.
“So, what do we do now?”
Amelia didn’t answer. Her gaze lingered on the empty stage.
Marv nudged her. “Ames?”
She gave him a look, as if to say the decision was already made.
“We wait.” Her voice was quiet, but there was no hesitation in it. “Helpmann’s got to leave at some point. And, when he does, I’m going to talk to him.”
Marv’s excitement dimmed, something more cautious creeping in.
“That’s… not much of a plan.”
“I know.” she admitted. Her fingers gripping the strap of her bag.
“But it’s the only one we’ve got.”
