“I’m so sad that you won’t be at least visiting home this summer, Maya,” my mother opined over the phone.

  It was a bit chaotic in my apartment today. My assistant Karen had arranged for a moving service to pack up everything I would need for my summer in Washington. There were no cheap cardboard boxes here; the white glove service that had been arranged was neatly folding my growing wardrobe of professional clothing into padded crates, and while I was leaving most of my things here in Chicago there were certain items such as my guitar equipment that was being carefully placed into shipping containers.

  “I’m disappointed too, Mom, but classes finished last week and the intern orientation is this coming Monday. That’ll give Catherine and I the entire weekend to get situated in the West End apartment.”

  “I’m glad she’s going to be staying with you. Is she interning as well?”

  “No,” I answered. “We’ve enrolled her in an executive assistant training program in DC, at Karen’s insistence. She sees a lot of potential in Catherine, which is why she’s going to be my remote assistant as well. I’ll be the only intern that has a house manager.”

  “Well, good for her. This internship at the White House, well, you can’t very well say no. I tried to keep quiet, but your father has told everyone who will listen what you’ll be doing this summer.”

  I sighed. “Of course he did.”

  “Well, he’s proud of you, sweetie. And so am I. Though I’m surprised that you’re doing this, given your…finances. I would have thought you’d spend the summer traveling.”

  That had been the original plan; after last summer’s whirlwind of Florida canvassing, and ensuring that the Bush administration never happens in this new timeline, I had planned on spending at least a little time this summer unwinding abroad. However, when the Chief of Staff to the president calls you to serve, you’re sort of obliged. That, and my investigator O’Toole had insisted that I accept the assignment, and not just because of the opportunity to network.

  At my urging, O’Toole had investigated what I knew to be the earliest movements of the 9/11 hijackers. I pointed him in the right direction, and for the last year he had been putting a comprehensive report together and determined that what he uncovered needed to breach the bureaucracy and get to the most actionable people in law enforcement. While I was excited at the prospect of interning at the White House, my primary motivation was to make sure that the Twin Tower attacks wouldn’t occur three months from now.

  “Well, it’s a good opportunity, Mom. Besides, I’m going to fly all four of you out this summer to DC to visit. First Class.”

  “You will have to tell your father eventually, Maya. The idea that our daughter is a multi-millionaire is not a secret I’m particularly happy about keeping all myself.”

  “I know, I know. Listen, I’ll make sure to call you as soon as we land tomorrow. Love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  I hung up the phone, and stood at my window to gaze at Lake Michigan to stay out of the movers’ way as I listened to Catherine direct them in the other room. It may do well for the idle rich to lounge around, but it was a luxury that I couldn’t entertain. I had too many responsibilities and lives were at stake, even if I was the only one who knew what was coming.

  ***

  The following Monday I found myself in a massive, ornate room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. You hardly ever see this building in the photographs of the White House, but it is where the majority of the staffers and my fellow interns, of which I was only one in the crowd, would be working.

  The entire morning had been a process of security screenings, orientations, and speeches much like the one the Director of the Internship program was giving to us right now. I was in a sea of young professionals, perhaps the most ambitious collection of twenty-somethings in the entire country. Everyone was passing out business cards and introducing themselves, trying to suss out who was going to get the best assignments.

  It took all of Thorne’s training to keep myself composed among the chaos. I observed as much as possible; mostly speaking when I was spoken to. I noticed that despite the high energy, a sense of nervousness and ambition was masked by off-the-rack suits that ever so slightly didn’t fit. For the last few months, I had been assembling a wardrobe of tailored wool blazers and skirts, along with silk blouses which I would be putting to work all summer. Only the most astute of observers would notice how well-dressed I was, which Thorne assured me made all the difference.

  Following lunch in the EEOB common area, staff assistants from various departments arrived to collect their interns. We were grouped according to our stations; a large number were destined for the Presidential Correspondence Office, while some were grouped for the Press Office or for the Budget Office. Ever so slowly I noticed that the room was thinning out as they were all herded to their respective offices, and it seemed there was no group for me.

  As I milled about with a group of the other unsorted interns, a Chinese man in his thirties waded through the crowd and approached me. Unlike the other staffers, he had no clipboard and seemed to be given deference by most of the employees in the room.

  “Maya Peterson?” he asked as he approached my circle. “My name’s Chris Lu, and I’m a Senior Staff Assistant from the Office of the Chief of Staff. You’ve been assigned to us. Please come with me.”

  I nodded, and I heard a few whispers and muffled gasps from the interns behind me. As Lu led me through the crowd, I saw dozens of interns being briefed on answering mail or crunching budget numbers in a basement somewhere. It occurred to me that there was a reason I hadn’t been assigned to a group. We briefly went upstairs into the busy satellite office of the Chief of Staff, where I was shown the bullpen and my desk.

  “You’ll be assigned a desk here in the mornings; you’ll be going over your binders and administrative tasks, and whatever meetings you will be assigned to. You’re here for paperwork, but the Chief of Staff expects you across the street for the afternoon briefings."

  With that, we exited the building and crossed the street directly into the ground level entrance of the West Wing. Lu flashed his badge at the door and we were let inside. I followed Lu down the narrow, beige-carpeted hallway of the West Wing’s ground floor. We passed the mess hall, the air thick with the smell of expensive coffee and the low murmur of staffers who looked like they hadn't slept since the inauguration.

  We took the stairs up to the first floor. To my left was the Roosevelt Room; straight ahead, the door to the Oval Office sat like a silent sentry. Lu didn't stop to let me gawk at the history. He turned right, leading me into the Chief of Staff’s suite.

  It was a hive of activity. Assistants were juggling three phones at once, and the rhythmic clatter of keyboards provided a constant back-beat to the urgent whispers of policy wonks. Lu led me past the desks and stopped in front of the heavy oak door to the inner office. He knocked once, didn't wait for an answer, and pushed it open.

  Ron Klain was standing behind a desk nearly buried under a mountain of paper. He was mid-sentence, dictating something to a junior aide who was scribbling furiously. When he saw me, he held up a finger, finished his thought, and waved the aide out.

  "Thank you, Chris," Klain said, dismissing Lu with a nod. Lu lingered for a fraction of a second before closing the door behind him.

  “It’s good to see you again, Maya,” he said, gesturing for us to sit on the sofas in the middle of the room. “Did you enjoy the section with the orientation on the Hatch Act?”

  “Definitely,” I replied, keeping my voice steady. “Apparently the photocopiers are not for personal use.”

  Klain laughed. “Good. Keep that sense of humor.” He straightened up, suddenly becoming more clinical. “Let’s be clear about why you’re here. Chris is going to give you enough busywork in the mornings to satisfy the auditors. You’ll clip papers, you’ll organize binders, and you’ll look like every other intern in the building."

  He leaned closer. “We both know full well that you don’t need this paycheck. What I want from you is your perspective, which I feel is invaluable. And I think that you want to see how the system works, something you can only gain from being inside of it. You’ll forgive me if I want to keep you close, Ms. Peterson.”

  I nodded. “Yes sir, Mr. Klain.”

  “The afternoons is where your duties really lie. You’ll be sitting in on meetings; not taking minutes, but observing. I want your high-risk perspective, as well as the resources we both know you’ve been cultivating since last year. Think of it as an unofficial advisory role. I can promise you, Ms. Peterson, that the sort of soft power I’m offering you will benefit us both, as well as the administration.”

  "That is my hope as well, Mr. Klain."

  Klain leaned back, at ease with the parameters of our relationship. “Glad to hear it. I’m happy to have you on board, Ms. Peterson.”

  ***

  The first few weeks of my internship were as high octane as I thought they would be. The EEOB was a fury of activity, with policy makers, staffers, as well as us humble interns using every moment to hustle and vie for power in the administration. Unlike most of the other interns, I had a rather light schedule; I wasn’t tied to a specific schedule in the morning and mostly reviewed documents with some light administrative work at my desk in the Chief of Staff’s satellite office.

  There were several “Strivers” – interns from Georgetown, Stanford, Harvard, and any other Ivy League university you could think of – that I found myself socializing with on a daily basis. Word had gotten around that I reported directly to Mr. Lu, who in turn reported directly to the Chief of Staff, so every intern was keen to network with me. Not unlike being the popular cheerleader in high school all over again. I usually ate lunch with them in the commons; after all, it would have been strange for me not to interact with my fellow interns. There would always be inquiries about where my duties were, but my answer was variations of the same:

  “Just a lot of data entry for the policy huddles. It's mostly just sitting in the back of the room."

  The rooms in question, of course, contained figures like Larry Sanders and Gene Sperling, who were titans of policy. Occasionally Klain would also be in attendance, and very rarely President Gore would sit in. Most of the meetings I attended involved economics and energy policies, since I was not given any sort of classified clearance, so unfortunately I was never able to interact with law enforcement officials. Ostensibly, I took notes in a corner of the room, which I would review with Klain several times a week, typically at the end of the day.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Klain would request my takes on their discussions, which I correlated with my private investigative team that I coordinated in my off hours. I was very careful not to extend beyond what he asked of me, and I was doubly cautious about unveiling any future knowledge that I held in my skull. Usually our after-hours meetings were brief, and occasionally they were in depth. They were always private and in his office.

  “Enron is the big name of the week, as usual,” Klain sighed as he leaned back in his chair during one of our in-depth sessions. "The Vice President is meeting with Ken Lay next week to finalize the carbon credit exchange. The Treasury guys are treating it like the Second Coming. What are your thoughts, Maya?"

  I didn't hesitate. "It’s a scam, Mr. Klain. It’s a systemic fraud."

  Klain’s expression shifted into a hard, skeptical mask. He leaned forward, his hands lacing together on the desk. "Maya, I wasn’t aware that your thoughts were so contrarian. The stock is holding at fifty dollars. Every analyst from Goldman to Morgan Stanley has a 'Buy' rating. You’re telling me the most innovative company for half a decade is all wrong?"

  I pulled out the report that I had my team send to me the night before. "Innovative isn’t the word I’d use. I’ve had my team at Butterfly Capital running the numbers. They’re using mark-to-market accounting to book twenty-year hypothetical profits as current cash. They aren’t an energy company; they’re a hedge fund built on accounting fiction. And my report has evidence they were leveraging the energy blackouts that California had last year.”

  Klain stared at me for a long beat, his eyes searching for a crack in my confidence. "You’re telling me that Ken Lay – who I remind you was on the cover of Fortune this year – is a con man?"

  "I’ve shorted their position months before you tapped me for the summer, Mr. Klain," I countered. "Every point of data on this report informs my position. This is nearly identical to the behavior of every tech company I watched bloat themselves in the last few years, and every time I was proven correct. The administration cannot afford to be tied to Enron. Deregulation of energy will unravel all of the administration’s plans if the President is tied to Lay."

  He exhaled a long, slow whistle, the skepticism not quite gone, but the political math now weighing on him. "I’ll read your team’s report. If what you’re suggesting rings true, I'll have Lu run a back-channel audit. If there's even a shadow of what you're talking about in their debt load, we’ll pivot."

  He stroked his chin as he examined the binder in front of him, as if to dismiss me wordlessly. It was late, after all, and I had been invited by the Strivers to a bar in Logan Circle tonight. However, I felt as if I had an opportunity to finally unveil the report that had been weighing more heavily than a bunch of charlatans like Enron.

  "Mr. Klain,” I said quietly, as I pulled out the second report in my briefcase, “I have another report, which I feel is more pressing than Enron.”

  Klain looked up from the Enron folder, then at me, his brow furrowed. "More than Enron? What is it? Something with the Trade Commission?"

  "No. It involves something that my investigator discovered in Florida last year and has been following up on ever since. It’s potentially a national security risk.”

  Klain said nothing at first, simply meeting my eyes. “Maya, you’re an economic analyst, not the NSC.”

  “I am aware of this, sir, but my investigator has a background in federal law enforcement, and what he has found is troubling. I gave him wide discretion and resources to track this, and he has spent a year tracking suspicious visa surges and foreign nationals in Florida flight schools who want to fly planes, but aren't interested in learning how to land. What he has discovered is chilling and, quite frankly, beyond my scope. But I trust the information."

  I pushed the folder toward him, but he didn't reach for it. He looked insulted. "Maya, If there was a credible threat of this magnitude –"

  "According to what he uncovered, these men plan to use our own commercial infrastructure against us. Enron will just cost you an election, Ron. This? This will cost us lives. I’m not asking you to take it to the President. I’m asking you to read it. Just read it. If it’s half as thorough as my Enron take, give it to Richard Clarke. If not, send me back to Chicago."

  He reached out, placing a hand on the O’Toole folder. He didn’t smile. The office, usually filled with the buzzing of West Wing policy work, was as silent as a tomb.

  “Go home, Maya. I’ll read it tonight.”

  I nodded, standing up and smoothing my skirt. I walked out of the West Wing, the evening humidity of D.C. hitting me like a physical weight. I had done it. The report was on the most powerful desk in the world. Now, I just had to see if the world would listen.

  ***

  Business in the White House continued at its usual, hectic rate. It had been over a week since I passed along the reports to Klain, and I hadn’t been called in for any end-of-day briefings with Klain since. I was worried that I had crossed a line; I went beyond the scope of analysis that I had been expected to, and what’s more I had been doing it for months. If I was fired for impertinence, it was nothing compared to failing to prevent 9/11 from occurring two months from now. I merely attended the West Wing meetings and ran admin as requested.

  It was mid-July, and I was clipping newspaper articles for what was called the “daily narrative.” Before digital media became the norm, it was the duty of lowly interns like myself to scan the newspapers, cut out and paste articles mentioning various subjects, and present them to upper level staffers. It was a tedious job, but at least it was quiet.

  As I was scanning the financial times for mentions of the President, a particular article caught my eye. Trump had just announced his purchase of the Sun Times building in Chicago and plans to bulldoze it and build “the tallest building in the world.” I smiled; he was right on time. There was nothing to do at the moment; I knew that Trump had barely secured the seventy-plus million to purchase the land, but I had to let it play out for now. The environmental report I had ordered was still in my possession, and it would be a while before I could drop it on City Hall for maximum effect.

  In the meantime, I had confirmed with Vance that the law firm I had empowered had gathered claimants being bled dry litigating against Trump in New York. I had expected them to find about at least ten; the firm had found nearly forty clients in various stages of court actions. There were electricians, goldsmiths, painters, plumbers – even bartenders who were trying to get him to pay back wages on the contracts he signed. The law firm was in the process of sharpening its talons and there would soon be dozens of cases fully funded and ready to keep him tied up in court as he began his ambitious Chicago project.

  As I smirked, there was a bustle of activity across the hall in Klain’s suite. Out of his door stormed a gray-haired man from Klain’s office, a furious look on his face and O’Toole’s folder under his arm. I recognized him as Richard Clarke, a member of the National Security Council, and I immediately surmised what had happened. He was infamous for rejecting private investigations on counter-terrorism, and Klain appeared to be forcing him to read the report that O’Toole had assembled.

  I had a moment of elation; if Klain passed the report to Clarke, it had to mean that it was being taken seriously. My name was nowhere on the report; at face value it was written by a former official with federal ties who had stumbled upon something insidious. There was no way to be certain; I was a mere intern with no security clearance and at this point I had to hope and pray that the wheels were in motion.

  The next few weeks proved that something was happening. During our Logan Circle outings, the other interns would speculate about the atmospheric shift in the offices. They reported that black suited CIA operatives were suddenly in every department in the offices, but as to their purpose the other interns could only guess. If pressed, I simply offered to buy the next round of drinks and changed the subject.

  In addition to operatives appearing, the energy department had taken a turn. It was no longer optimistic about the surplus it inherited from the previous administration; staffers were working later in the evening, and Ken Lay’s name was stricken from the dockets. The administration was pivoting hard from their previous policies, and a series of audits and investigations were rumored to be in the works. It was no surprise that Enron’s price point on the market had slipped from the mid-fifties to thirty-five dollars a share, something I hadn’t expected until later in the year.

  My briefings with Klain had resumed weeks previous, and while I attempted to inquire about what was happening, it was met with near silence.

  “Those topics are not for your ears, Maya,” Klain would reply with the determination of a stone. “Trust the process.”

  I didn’t dare ask again.

  By mid-August there were innocuous stories in the newspapers about immigration sweeps in Florida and Maryland. Nineteen men had been apprehended due to irregularities in their visa forms, as well as stories featuring Federal authorities increasing scrutiny on flight schools. The names were stricken from the stories, meaning that the Feds wanted to keep this under wraps. There was very little interest from reporters of the day; they were far more interested in the Chandra Levy disappearance, the biggest story of the day.

  Klain said nothing during our briefings, but there was a tonal shift to the way he spoke to me. It wasn’t as a peer to a peer; more like an acknowledgement of a valued member of his staff. If I was asked my position on a particular issue, he listened intently, even if he disagreed with me. It just meant that I pushed my private team that much harder to collect the intelligence that was requested of my position.

  September arrived, and Catherine was scheduled to return to Chicago to begin her Fall semester at DePaul. Her training program had been rigorous this summer; she was as collected as Karen was in her duties, and there was a significant increase in her confidence. She was the one contact I had in Washington who wasn’t involved in government and I was sad to see her leave, especially since the 11th was slowly approaching and an empty apartment would only increase the growing sense of anxiety I had. I relied more on the noise of the Washington night life to drown out my fears.

  It was in that mindset that I sluggishly awoke on the morning of the eleventh. The severe blue sky shone in the window as the mugginess of the Washington summer air permeated my bedroom. Through a mild hangover I recalled the night before at a lounge in Logan Circle. I had met a junior clerk from the Justice Department, who was quietly snoozing on my left as naked as I was. Upon further inspection, I noted our bartender on my right with his goatee buried in my pillow.

  I guess I really needed a distraction last night.

  Without disturbing the boys, I reached out to the TV remote and noticed the time: 8:40 AM. Hugging the blanket to my chest, I sat up and I flipped on the television. I turned to The Today Show on NBC, where Matt Lauer was interviewing someone from their New York studio. Fixated, with my heart pounding out of my chest, I braced myself for the news of a fire and an attack. A broadcast Matthew vividly remembered in his timeline, as he sat in a cafeteria watching before his class that morning.

  The interview was conducted with a practiced smile from Lauer…and simply went to a commercial break. I turned to CNN, and their broadcast of the standard news segment greeted me.

  I glanced past the sleeping bartender to the clock: 8:56 AM.

  The CNN ticker said nothing. No other channels reported anything of note. Michael Jordan’s comeback to the Wizards. The Gary Condit investigation. 8:59 AM.

  A hand from behind me absently stroked my back. “Mfgh. You awake?” a muffled voice spoke behind me.

  “Yes,” I responded curtly. “Go back to sleep,” I snapped, returning to the screen.

  A story about a shark bite victim. Fears of a recession. Speculation about the 53rd Emmys. 9:02 AM.

  I was biting my knuckle as I scrolled through channels. The boys both shifted at my sides, blissfully asleep.

  9:08 AM. Nothing happened. Just another slow news day.

  It didn’t happen at once, but tears began to form in my eyes. My lips quivered, and my breath was ragged. I gripped the blanket with my hands until they were white.

  It worked, I thought to myself. Oh my god, it isn’t going to happen!

  9:17 AM. I switched off the television, collapsing back to my pillow with the tears still streaming.

  It was done. It wasn’t happening. 9/11 came and went with no significance. I was the only human on Earth who experienced the Twin Towers attack, and I always would be. I stared at the ceiling, my chest heaving up and down as I considered the variables. No War on Terror. No Middle East Invasions. No Patriot Act. No culture of fear and surveillance. No national trauma.

  And no one would ever know.

  I felt an arm move across my stomach; the bartender was still peacefully slumbering, and was now curled up against me, his warm body against mine. He wouldn’t wake up to a panic, to a lockdown and a primal fear. I absently caressed his forearm, my other hand snaking its way to my other sleeping companion whose body responded to my touch. He let out an appreciative sigh.

  It was a mundane Tuesday in September, I decided in my head. Perfectly good day to call in sick.