| Episode: | Season 1, Episode 2 – Every Station A Menagerie |
| Location: | Allyson Bancroft’s Office |
| Written By: | Allyson Bancroft Rayne Martinez |
| Date: | 09/08/2026 |
| Word Count: | 1,093 |
It was that time of year yet again, Allyson sat in her office at corporate for Ascension Global trying to work out all the details for the upcoming event. Her daughter, not really into the arts, did look forward to this event. Allyson on the other hand didn’t find any interest in doing it, if people were going to apply to the corporation later in life, they’d make that decision later in life.
It was little more than a public relations stunt by the corporation she worked for. Allyson knew, of course, that she couldn’t say that to anyone. The sound of the door sliding open to her office alerted her to her secretary’s presence. “Yeah?” Allyson asked him.
“One of the public relations officers is here to see you ma’am,” Carter told her.
Allyson scrambled suddenly, “Oh shit…” She mumbled under her breath having forgotten about the meeting with Miss Martinez. “Send her in please and tell her I completely lost track of time.” Allyson watched him disappear.
Rayne walked into the office with a smile on her face, “Don’t worry about it Missus Bancroft,” She said while raising her hand up. “I actually lost track of time and realized I was late for the meeting I asked for in the first place.”
Allyson still felt rather embarrassed about the mistake, regardless she nodded her head with a warm smile on her face. “Please,” She said and indicated the chair across from her. Allyson slid all the way forward with her chair and pressed her hands down onto the surface of her desk.
“So, I understand you want to have our yearly conversation where you tell me about how much of a turnout we’re going to have with this school wide event?” Allyson asked.
Rayne nodded, “Yep, that one.” She answered. Rayne produced her data pad and began scrolling through it. “The numbers are really good, the advertisement campaign we started a month earlier than normal really seems to have made a difference this year. We have station wide support because last year’s event went so well.”
Rayne stopped scrolling through the information she had in front of her and looked back up at Allyson. The young public relations official saw this as her ticket every year. It was her idea to host the event in the first place, this thing was her baby after all. This was also only the second year they’d done it so there were still some growing pains.
“Ah,” Allyson said. She furrowed her brow, “Well I’m happy that your advertisement campaign went so well. But, I’m concerned that this year we may have some issues. This morning there was an escape in the docks.”
Rayne tilted her head, “An escape?”
Allyson laughed, “I’m sure it’s nothing.” She told the young woman and leaned back in her seat while resting her arms on either side of her chair. “One of the freighters was carrying exotic animal life to a zoo in our neighboring sector. It appears that there may have been a malfunction, which means they escaped.”
Rayne took her turn to furrow her brow as she sighed and looked away. How was she supposed to handle that sort of news? She began to wonder if they shouldn’t postpone the event, but it was still a couple days away anyway. “We could postpone?”
Allyson shook her head, “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Station security assures me that it should be cleaned up by the time we have the event. They’re still trying to determine the exact amount of wildlife that escaped though. The freighter manifest doesn’t seem to be in order.”
Allyson raised her arms and slid forward again, “It’s probably nothing to really worry about Rayne,” She shrugged. “I’m just letting you know there’s a potential problem and that we need to prepare for the worst case and for the best case.”
Rayne sighed and made several notes onto her data pad, “Well hopefully they have the mess cleaned up by the time we have the arts festival. If not, I’ll come up with a way to mitigate any issues moving forward. I must admit I’m surprised though.”
Allyson tilted her head slightly, “Surprised?”
Rayne nodded, “I just had a feeling that you didn’t like doing these events and so you would be more willing to argue that it should be at least postponed if not canceled outright.”
Allyson shook her head, “Ah no.” She continued, “You’re right that I’m not overly fond of this event or see a real point to it that’s true. However that being said, it’s a huge hit and I don’t think canceling it is a smart move. We’ve also put a lot of resources into it, so there’s that too.”
Rayne was rather surprised that Allyson admitted that so freely, but the second part of the admission made her feel a lot better. Was it a huge hit? She’d seen the numbers and it was a fun event that a lot of people attended across the station. Besides, Rayne was rather ambitious herself and she saw this as an opportunity to move forward.
“I hope I can change your mind about disliking it this year,” Rayne told Allyson softly. “I’m thankful that you didn’t want to cancel it over something like that. A few wild animals, exotic or not, running loose on the station though…” She shook her head, “Someone’s getting fired.”
“Possibly,” Allyson answered. “That’s assuming logistics or the station government decides to create a fall guy for it. Who knows, they may decide to do that or they may decide not to.” She shrugged and picked up a data pad that had nothing on it.
“If you don’t mind I’d like for you to transfer the details so I can personally go over them myself,” Allyson told her.
“Oh sure,” Rayne said and put the data pad she’d been working on and started the transfer process. “I’ll update you once I have some sort of plan in place to deal with any issues regarding the latest problem.” She added.
Allyson smiled as she watched the data transfer, “Thanks.” Once the data transfer was done Allyson was left alone once more. There was so little information to go on with this animal escape that Allyson didn’t know what their best response was. That’s why she didn’t want to postpone or cancel. Besides, if the animals that were now loose caused a bunch of mayhem it may be enough to cancel future events. And, that was something Allyson wanted.