Here I am once more, at the annual company medical achievement awards.
Once, I sat at that table by the stage with the high fliers, sporting a vibrant orange designer dress, head of the fledgling Research & Development team - pioneers of cybernetic organ replacement technology.
I had my very own gold gilted business cards with the bright orange KruveCorp logo. That seemed to mean something back then.
Today, I'm Jenny the waitress, serving tables with a smile. Nobody recognizes me, even with the orange ribbon tying back my hair. Why would they? I'm not the same confident woman of yesteryear. They would be shocked to know just how much I have aged in the last five years.
I remember when we spearheaded mutable organs that would adapt to adverse conditions in the body, trauma and pathogenic attack. It was a Eureka moment where I realized the whole world could be cheaply and easily treated for almost any major organ incident.
Within ten years, I thought to myself, the world would be a very different place.
There were departmental celebrations.
There was the demonstration, to men who I hadn't recognized from the venture partners I knew of.
Then there was two months of silence.
Following which, I found that all of the interesting projects were getting sidetracked to other teams. Then the redundancies came. And then mine.
That was four years and six months ago.
I was out of a job, and despite a flawless record, rejected from employment at any of the major competing companies.
I would apply, they would be enthused, then they would politely decline the interview before the day came, explaining the position had been filled.
I went from a flat overlooking Central Park to a cheap Jersey City apartment, shared with a girl who smelled perpetually of the burger joint she worked at.
She has a good heart, though.
She helped me find work in the stats department of the same burger joint chain. It's work. But...
What the hell happened? I should have been the new Marie Curie.
And then the letter came, slipped under the door of the apartment. Not an email.
Very 19th Century cloak & dagger.
Mr Joseph, he called himself. When I met him, he was totally conspicuous. He was an older man that wore purple.
He commented that purple clashes with orange. I kind of like the combination.
He had heart.
He explained to me how his wife had been denied use of the technology when her heart gave out, despite his being one of those early investors. It was a failure, he had been told, the project canned.
His wife died six weeks and three soul-destroying coronaries later.
And then came the reports of the soldiers with seemingly superhuman powers of recovery. And the politicians who just seemed to go on and on despite their previous ill health. That was when he knew. That was when he used his contacts to find me.
Together, we reverse engineered one of those mutable hearts, and realized how easy it would be to change their operating parameters.
We chose carefully how we could send an unambiguous message to KruveCorp and the corrupt parts of the government, that they simply could not ignore. And then went one step further.
Mr Joseph couldn't make it today, sadly.
A heart attack - he is looking to have a bypass sometime next week.
I don't miss the irony. I treat it as a warning.
My orange watch says it's nine o'clock, and it's time for the CEO of KruveCorp to make his speech. So profits are up 300% are they? Where did that come from, I wonder?
Not from the millions of people currently dying from assorted organ failures, for sure. But then, what use are they in the scheme of things?
9:30 - The rest of the executive committee come up on stage for the Q&A session. Let's wait until the end. There's a lot of questions this year, for sure.
"Can I have a top-up please, young lady?"
The man has kind eyes. I know I don't look young. How could I, knowing what I am going to do?
He shouldn't have to see this, I think with a heavy heart.
I smile, and take his glass, which has a subtle orange tinge from the reflected company logo projected onto the screen at the front of the auditorium.
"Sure. Just give me one minute."
It's time.
I put the glass down, and raise a hand.
"One final question," I say.
There is a look of bemusement. Waiting staff generally don't ask questions at these kinds of events.
But they await my question nonetheless. I am passed the microphone.
I take a breath, lick my lips, and look up to the stage. My heart is set.
"Whatever happened to the mutable organ program? Did anyone ever end up with organs - it seemed like such a promising area of research, it's hard to believe the company would simply give up on it."
I return the microphone to the bewildered intermediary. I don't need it anymore. The mutables can speak for themselves.
I know nobody in the room has heard of mutables. Or of KruveCorp's governmental involvement.
Other than every member of the board, and the table of military personnel, and the four security officers converging on my position with hands reaching into jackets.
"Oh yes," I murmur. "I know some people got organs - whether they needed them or not."
I press the button in my pocket, just as the four security officers grab hold of me.
The board members on the stage all stand up in unison now, their chairs flying backwards, the chaotic clatter echoing around the silent room.
From the stage, there comes a scratching sound from the direction of the frozen board members, like the pin on an old phonograph in the groove of vinyl.
And then, the mouths of the board members open one-by-one, and the sweet sound of my favorite song rolls from their lips, like a barber quartet times three:
"It's that old devil called love again..."
The crowd starts laughing, as I am led from the room - nobody is paying attention to me now.
This is obviously some kind of stunt, they think, and everyone is enjoying it.
"...Putting rain in my eyes, tears in my dreams,
And rocks in my heart..."
And at that moment, each and every board member stops, a look of panic in their eyes.
There is a dull rumble like thunder that gets gradually louder. The room seems to tremble slightly.
The laughter subsides into disquietened uncertainty.
Even the four men bundling me from the room pause momentarily.
It is quiet. A dozen still figures, a thousand expectant eyes.
"Guilty," I whisper.
And a dozen cybernetic hearts explode from a dozen chests, spraying the audience with a fine purple haze of blood and flesh and rib fragments. Drowning out the orange logo behind the stage.
I am dragged from the hall by those four men, to be questioned, tortured, who knows what. I really don't care.
I know already that the virus has been propagated to every one of the thirty thousand privileged hearts that belong to corrupt politicians, businessmen and military personnel who are now little better than weaponized but temporarily musical human missiles.
Keep that out of Social Media, you bastards with rocks for hearts.
I realize suddenly, my heart thumping in my chest, that I have become a terrorist.
I can live with that. I look good in orange.