Chapter 2 - The Innocent Conversation
Inside the quiet, glass-walled executive lounge, the morning sun was just beginning to filter through the blinds, casting long, golden bars across the polished hardwood floor.
Sophie sat cross-legged on a velvet armchair, her pink sneakers dangling several inches above the floor. Spread around her were a dozen colorful crayons, a sketchbook filled with drawings of airplanes with smiley faces, and a half-eaten box of apple slices.
The quiet hum of electric motors made her look up.
Camille Hawthorne rolled through the doorway. She had expected an empty room. Instead, she found herself face-to-face with a small girl who was holding a bright yellow crayon in mid-air, staring at her with wide, unblinking hazel eyes.
Camille stopped her wheelchair instantly. Her brow furrowed into a sharp line. For four years—ever since the horrific aircraft crash that had taken her father’s life and destroyed her ability to walk—people had looked at her in one of three ways: with pity, with discomfort, or with hidden, greedy ambition.
She braced herself for the awkward silence or the fearful stare that children usually gave her chair.
Sophie, however, did not look fearful. She did not look away. She lowered her crayon, picked up her plush rabbit, and looked directly at the sleek carbon-fiber wheels.
"Is that a super-chair?" Sophie asked softly.
Camille blinked, caught completely off guard. "A... what?"
"A super-chair," Sophie repeated, leaning forward over her knees. "My daddy told me that some people have special chairs with engines that make them go fast like race cars. Yours looks super fast. Does it have turbo boosters?"
Camille stared at the little girl. The cold, defensive armor she had worn every single day since her accident suddenly felt strangely heavy and out of place.
"It... doesn't have turbo boosters," Camille found herself answering, her voice far gentler than she had used in months. "But it has two high-torque electric motors. It can go six miles an hour."
Sophie’s eyes went wide with genuine awe. "That’s faster than my scooter!"
A tiny, involuntary smile touched the corners of Camille’s lips. She rolled a few feet closer, her eyes falling on the drawing spread across the table. "Did you draw that airplane?"
"Yes," Sophie said proudly, holding up the paper. "That’s my daddy’s big plane. He used to fly huge grey planes for the Army, but now he flies the black one outside. My daddy is the best pilot in the whole world."
Camille looked at the drawing, then at the small girl’s face. She recognized the intelligence in Sophie’s eyes—and she recognized the quiet, lingering shadow of loss.
"Your father is Daniel," Camille said quietly.
"Yup! Daniel Mercer," Sophie nodded. She looked at Camille’s lap, noticing the thick, black leather folder resting beside her hand. "Are you my daddy’s new boss lady?"
"I am," Camille said.
Sophie put her crayons down and scrambled down off the chair. She walked over until she was standing right beside Camille’s wheelchair. She didn't touch it, showing a natural, polite respect for personal space, but she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, metallic object tied to a blue ribbon.
It was a brass Air Force command coin.
"My daddy gave me this when my mommy went to live with the angels," Sophie whispered, looking up into Camille’s eyes with absolute seriousness. "He said whenever I feel scared or lonely, I hold the coin and remember that my daddy is always watching over me from the sky. You look like you work very, very hard. Do you ever feel lonely?"
Camille felt a sudden, sharp tightness in her throat. The cold, sterile corporate world she inhabited—filled with hostile board members, legal battles, and ruthless competitors—seemed to evaporate into nothingness under the innocent gaze of this six-year-old child.
"Sometimes," Camille confessed softly, her voice barely above a whisper. "Sometimes I do."
"You can hold my coin for a minute if you want," Sophie offered, extending her tiny hand.
Camille reached out, her fingers trembling slightly as she touched the cold brass coin in the child's palm. But as she leaned down, her leather folder shifted on her lap, sliding off the polished armrest and hitting the floor with a loud thud.
A cascade of papers spilled across the hardwood floor—financial ledgers, engineering schematics, and internal audit reports for Hawthorne Robotics’ defense division.
"Oh! I'll help!" Sophie exclaimed, immediately dropping to her knees to gather the loose pages.
"Sophie, no, sweetie, don't worry about it—" Camille began, reaching down.
Before Camille could stop her, Sophie’s little hands picked up a thick, glossy photograph that had slipped out from an envelope marked HAWTHORNE FLIGHT ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION - CONFIDENTIAL.
It was an ultra-high-resolution forensic photograph of the wreckage of Samuel Hawthorne’s private aircraft—the twin-engine turboprop that had crashed four years ago in northern Wisconsin, killing Camille’s father and leaving her paralyzed.
Sophie picked up the photograph. But instead of looking frightened by the twisted metal, her thumb brushed across the bottom left corner of the image, where a close-up schematic of the plane’s main flight control computer was displayed.
Sophie tilted her head, her brow furrowing in deep concentration.
"Hey..." Sophie said innocently, pointing her tiny finger at a small, dark rectangular box wired into the flight computer harness shown in the photo. "That's the same black box with the red light."
Camille stopped moving. Her breath caught in her lungs. "What did you say?"
"That box," Sophie repeated, pointing at the schematic. "The man with the grey hair put a box just like that under the floor of my daddy's black plane this morning."
Camille’s blood ran cold. "Sophie... look at me. What man?"
"The man with the silver hair and the shiny suit," Sophie said, her innocence completely unaware of the mountain she had just moved. "He was in the hangar early before you came. He had a yellow bag, and he opened a little door under the floorboards inside the kitchen part of the black plane. He put a little grey box with red wires right there, just like in this picture. Then he saw me watching and told me to go back to my room or my daddy would get fired."
Camille’s vision swam. The silver-haired man in the shiny suit. Marcus Croft.
Before Camille could speak, the lounge door opened, and Daniel Mercer stepped into the room, his face pale with concern.
"Ms. Hawthorne! Sophie!" Daniel hurried across the room, immediately dropping to his knees beside his daughter. "Sophie, I am so sorry, Ms. Hawthorne. She wasn't supposed to wander out—"
"Captain Mercer," Camille interrupted. Her voice was no longer soft. It was flat, icy, and vibrating with an terrifying, lethal intensity that made Daniel stop mid-sentence.
"Ms. Hawthorne?"
May you like
Camille looked up, her dark eyes locking onto Daniel’s with absolute clarity.
"Cancel our flight clearance to Detroit immediately," Camille ordered. "And tell the line crew to lock the hangar doors from the inside. Nobody leaves this building."
