Miss Bree's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Miss Bree stepped off her ship in a red bikini and held up one ruined polyester sock. The threads had chewed her heel raw during the flight. She was here to prove a theory: someone had killed the comfy cotton sock on purpose. Zoolia once shipped soft socks across the whole galaxy. Now every store sold the same scratchy junk. Miss Bree chased every conspiracy she could find, and she liked to dance while she did it. This one had a beat. She drove past two factories that told the whole story. The old cotton mill sat rusted and dark. Its windows were broken. Its tall chimney had gone cold years ago. Right beside it stood a shiny new plant. Crisp siding. Bright loading doors in every color. Machines hummed behind tall glass. Cotton had died the same week polyester was born. That was no accident. Miss Bree slipped through a side door of the new plant. Workers fed white spools into loud machines. She grabbed a clipboard off a hook and walked like she owned the place. Nobody stopped a confident woman with a clipboard. She reached the shipping office and found the records she wanted. The files showed a contract. The new factory had paid the old cotton mill's owner to shut down. Then the same buyer signed a second deal with a name she knew from every rumor on the planet. The buyer was linked to the stone tower that loomed over the city, the place people called the Tower of Truth. Miss Bree snapped photos with her phone. She had her proof. Cotton was not gone. Cotton was bought and buried. A man in a gray suit filled the office doorway. He did not shout. He smiled the way a lock clicks shut. "You took a wrong turn, miss," he said. He held out one hand for her phone. "Records are private. So is the exit, now." Miss Bree smiled back and set the clipboard down slow. "Big factory. Weird contracts. And a tower full of secrets signing the checks." She tilted her head. "That's a party I want an invite to." He stepped forward. She threw the clipboard at his face and ran. Machines roared on both sides. She ducked under a spool rack and hit a bright loading door with her shoulder. It rolled up. She rolled out onto the pavement and kept running until her ship's ramp closed behind her. Her heart pounded. Her phone was still in her hand, full of proof. She had solved the cotton mystery. But the photos pointed at the tower, not the factory. Whoever ran that place now knew her face and her name. The socks were only the first thread. Miss Bree pulled it, and the whole conspiracy started to unravel toward the tower on the hill.