The London Tribune's headquarters buzzed with energy.
Reporters whispered in corners. Editors flipped through mockup headlines. Security was doubled at every door.
Sophia Moore — presumed dead, now very much alive — was set to give the most anticipated live broadcast of the decade.
And James made sure there was no room for failure.
"She'll speak directly," he told the producer. "No edits. No filters. Live stream with a triple backup — if they shut down one feed, the others go global."
The editor nodded. "And if they trace the IP?"
"They won't," James said calmly. "Because it's bouncing off six continents and three satellites. I built the system myself."
I watched as my mother sat in the make-up chair, serene… yet impossibly strong.
She looked years younger now — like carrying the truth, finally, had lifted the weight of hiding it.
"You sure you want to do this?" I asked softly.
She looked at me in the mirror. "I've been waiting twenty years for this moment."
I squeezed her hand. "Then let's give them the storm they tried to bury."
---
The broadcast was scheduled for 8:00 p.m.
By 7:58, the stream was already pulling 1.5 million live viewers across YouTube, X, and Sky Media. The hashtag #SophiaMooreSpeaks trended worldwide.
I stood behind the camera with James and the Tribune's legal team as the countdown hit:
5… 4… 3… 2…
The light turned red.
Sophia looked straight into the lens — and the world went silent.
> "My name is Sophia Moore. Twenty-one years ago, I was declared dead. But the truth is… I was silenced. By men who believed their money made them untouchable."
> "Tonight, I take that silence back."
She began with the Redwood experiments — describing how women were lured with promises of treatment and used as human test subjects.
She named names. Showed contracts. Dates. Locations.
She named Johnathan Windsor.
> "He ordered the experiment's expansion. He authorized the bribes. He signed the termination order… that was meant to end my life."
The room around us was still.
Then she said the words that would never be forgotten:
> "He took my daughter."
I felt my throat close.
> "They told me she was dead. Just as they told her I was. They separated us to keep the story buried. But lies don't stay buried forever."
> "She is here. She is watching. And she is the reason I lived."
Tears welled in my eyes.
But just as the feed reached its peak, a screen in the control booth flickered.
"Signal disruption!" the tech shouted. "Someone's trying to intercept the stream!"
"Hold it steady," James snapped, already moving toward the firewall panel.
"They're using a malware override — someone inside the system."
I froze.
It wasn't just an outside attack.
This was an inside job.
James's fingers flew across the board.
"I need thirty seconds!" he shouted.
"We've only got fifteen before they reroute us to a blank feed," the producer called back.
I didn't think. I just acted.
Slipping out of the control room, I moved fast — to the broadcast server's access hallway, just like James had shown me.
And that's when I saw her.
Victoria.
Johnathan Windsor's former PR queen. The woman who once spun lies better than any politician alive.
She was crouched over the backup server with a small USB in hand — wired with a virus.
"Step away," I said.
She didn't flinch.
"You're too late," she said. "By the time you stop this, no one will remember your mother's name."
"I remember it," I said. "And that's enough."
Then I kicked the USB from her hand, hard enough to send it skidding across the floor.
She lunged — but I'd already pulled the emergency lockdown.
> Steel doors slammed down.
Lights flashed red.
Security swarmed seconds later, dragging her back into the hallway.
By the time I returned to the control room, the stream was back.
> Sophia's voice still rang loud and clear.
> "And now, I ask you… how many more lies have we accepted? How many more voices were buried because the truth was inconvenient?"
> "I lived. And I remember everything."