4338.210 · July 29, 2018 AD
Sophie Does the Shopping
The settlers needed shelter. Beatrix needed a disguise. Sophie was born in pixels and politeness—a woman who smiled without calculating, who shook hands without weighing consequences. She bought two caravans before lunch, cash deals sealed without receipts or real names. But between transactions, Luke dropped a theory that rewrote the rules of Portal travel. And by afternoon, Beatrix was sitting in Clivilian dust, wondering who was really in control.
Sophie was a useful fiction—friendly, vague, the kind of woman who owned tasteful mugs and used exclamation marks without irony. Beatrix built her from necessity: someone who could trawl online marketplaces, meet strangers in parks, and walk away with caravans and no paper trail. The settlers in Bixbus needed shelter. Sophie could provide it without exposing anyone to questions they couldn't answer.
The first purchase went smoothly. Jack and Mary, a retired couple in Queen's Domain, handed over the keys with handshakes and fond farewells. The second was faster still—Lisa and Malcolm at a Blackmans Bay café, cash on the table before the coffee cooled.
But between transactions, Luke arrived with a theory that landed like a grenade: if one Portal was active, the other couldn't open. The router experiment hadn't been sabotage—it had been interference. A single point of failure in their only escape route.
By afternoon, Beatrix had delivered two caravans, been overridden by Paul, dismissed by Luke, and left sitting in the Bixbus dust while others made decisions without her.
Sophie got things done. Beatrix was left holding the consequences.
