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It had not, in fact, started innocently.
It started with Dubois bringing a contraband personal phone onto the Vat. Which was strictly forbidden by Stratt’s Rule 3 Subsection 11, which read No personal devices are allowed on board without pre-approval by Operations Director and pre-screening by Head of Technical Operations. The Operations Director in question being Stratt herself. No one really knew who the Head of Technical Operations was, because the tech department was more chaotic than even Biological Research and seemed far too multifaceted to have a single Head.
Every device that did come on the Vat ‘legally’ was scraped of any ability to film. Which was completely reasonable, given the need for access to the Internet and a simultaneous need to keep classified information — which was all information on the Vat — classified.
When Dubois inevitably showed the contraband phone to Shapiro, Shapiro inevitably told Ilyukhina.
Which was how it really started.
You see, Ilyukhina might have been Russian, but she was nothing like the stereotypes. She didn’t feel particularly nostalgic towards Soviet movies and wasn’t too keen on vodka — that was Stratt’s thing — or the cold. She was also not repressed. In any way, shape or form.
She said once, when questioned about it, that she was making up for all those years spent being the woman in a male-dominated field in a conservative and authoritarian country.
But Grace could not for the life of him imagine her be anything but this.
‘This’ stood for the woman currently filming a TikTok video with the enthusiasm of Ryland’s sixth grade students. Which was to say, there was a lot of enthusiasm.
“And this is Grace, he’s like Stratt’s little lapdog second in command. And scientist! Say hi, Grace!”
Ilyukhina was coming up to where he sat at his desk, and he found himself chuckling and waving at the camera.
“Come on, say something to the world!”
She was so enthusiastic about it. Ryland chuckled yet again, “Hi, world?”
She rolled her eyes, “Yeah, so chatty. Whatever happened to The Guy Who Won’t Shut Up?”
He looked straight into the camera, “And that, kids, is an example of a very very bad friend.”
And then Ilyukhina was punching him in the shoulder and he was playing at offense.
And then it was on the Internet.
A three-minute video of Olesya Ilyukhina, a Russian engineer whose name no one has ever heard before, talking about the Petrova Taskforce and joking with people she called scientists and engineers and astronauts.
At first, there wasn’t much attention. The video got a thousand views and a hundred likes within the first 24 hours.
To Ilyukhina, though, that was a success beyond imagination. A whole hundred people liked her video! So she made another. In this one, she was sitting in front of the camera in Dubois’s cabin, Dubois and Shapiro and Ryland in the back, because apparently they had adopted Ryland into their little close circle.
“So now, the Petrova Taskforce is basically Project Hail Mary but no one calls it either and everyone just says ‘the operation’ or ‘the Hail Mary’. Which is hilarious.”
Ryland leaned back, “Are we sure we should be telling people things about the operation online? Isn’t Stratt going to be mad?”
Ilyukhina lit up, “Yes! Stratt! She’s the Director of the Petrova Taskforce which also makes her the director of the Hail Mary and she’s this amazing force of nature person and I don’t think she knows that the definition of the word ‘sleep’ includes being in a bed or at least in a horizontal position and we call her Dictator Stratt because she’s basically the global dictator! But she gets everyone sweets on Thursdays,” she paused, “guys, we gotta show the world the Thursday Spreadsheets!”
That TikTok got 20,000 views, 5,000 likes and a few hundred comments. Which made Ilyukhina even more excited. Ryland, though, was starting to get a bad feeling. It was all fun and games until this made the news.
Ilyukhina was replying to comments.
With more videos.
About the research, filming Ryland and others in the lab, about the Vat, which was definitely classified, about anything and everything.
It blew up.
It had to, at some point, and where one night there was 2,000 followers on the account, the next morning there was a million.
And there were news stories.
“Russian Engineer alleges Petrova Taskforce operates out of stolen Chinese aircraft carrier”
“Viral TikTok videos reveal daily life of Petrova Taskforce”
“Astrophage research is done to Taylor Swift: What you need to know about the Olesya Ilyukhina Videos.”
Everyone was somewhere between horrified and exhilarated when they watched channel after channel talk about them. This was the most famous any of them had ever been, and a part of every single one of them had always wanted recognition. They were getting it now.
They were in the cafeteria watching one of the TV reports on themselves when they saw Stratt. She walked in, phone between ear and shoulder, laptop in her hands as she held it with one and typed with the other. She walked up to the coffee counter, started a black coffee into a cup and finished whatever she was writing while it poured, simultaneously talking on the phone.
They only caught pieces of the conversation. It was enough.
“No, I’m not… I am perfectly capable… I know what this looks like… No, it won’t… I know… No, this isn’t…” there was a long pause and she picked her laptop back up, grabbed the coffee and started walking away. Then, they heard, “…want to me. You touch them, we have a problem.”
That was when they realized they were in deep shit.
Well, not them. If they knew one thing about Stratt, it was that she would scold them and look at them like they were the worst disappointment of her life — post-factum, when she had the time — but she would take all the serious backlash on herself.
And that was almost worse. No, not almost, Ryland thought. That was just flat out worse, because it was Olesya and him and Dubois and Shapiro that made the damn videos. Not Stratt. But now, Stratt was the one left to deal with the fallout, which was, apparently, not as fun and dandy as they’d thought.
The four of them were quiet now.
“Did we just ruin Stratt’s life?” Dubois asked quietly.
Ryland took a big breath, “Kinda. We gotta make it right.”
Everyone looked at him. No, not looked. Stared.
“And how do you propose we do that? She’s Stratt. If she can’t solve a problem, no one can,” Shapiro said, and both Dubois and Ilyukhina nodded.
Ryland rolled his eyes, “Of course she can solve it. But it’s our fault it’s a problem in the first place.”
So they decided to make a public statement. On the TikTok channel.
Too bad they never bothered to ask anyone what the issue was in the first place.
So the video addressed the fact that they were not allowed personal devices and they had broken the rule and they were sorry.
By next morning, everyone was talking about abusive restrictions for the leading minds of the world, imposed by a woman of no particular background. By lunchtime, they’d dug into Stratt’s background. By dinner, they were calling for her arrest for things up to Human Trafficking (which they explained with ‘she doesn’t let them have contact with the outside world, she keeps them on a ship in the middle of the ocean and she keeps them working at all kinds of hours, and they’re not getting paid.' Which were all somehow true.)
They internet was calling on the United States and Russia to pull out — those were the only countries they knew for sure were involved, thanks to the TikToks — of the project, to pull their people out too.
They hadn’t seen Stratt since she came to get coffee, and they were spending practically all their free time at the cafeteria together. They figured she was getting calls.
Which meant they had to clarify the matter.
“Hey, everyone, this is us, again,” Ilyukhina was saying to the camera, “I just want to make some things clear, because the Internet has gone a little crazy. And we just want to say that there’s no need to gang up on Stratt. She’s not the world’s nicest boss, but we are free to leave if we so please,” she turned a little to look at Ryland — he didn’t know why him — and asked, quieter, “We are, right?” He nodded, surely they were. Then he frowned. Were they? Ilyukhina saw his frown, but didn’t stop filming, “Yeah, we’re pretty sure we are. And, you know, Stratt has a lot to worry about as it is, you know, all the research we’re doing, all the funding we need, all the logistics of the Sahara thing. So, maybe don’t try to get her arrested, cause we need her, really.”
She handed the phone, per agreement, to Dubois. “Yeah, and you know, Stratt is nice. Sometimes. We get the best equipment and we even have Thursday Spreadsheets. So no need to worry, no exploitation going on here!”
And Ryland decided to chime in, because what could really make this worse? “And you know, if she’s not here, who’s going to make sure we have enough Astrophage to power the ship? So yeah, gotta keep Stratt safe!”
And then it was posted.
And then it had 10 million views.
And then a hundred million.
And then there was a call on Ryland’s — non-contraband, Operations Director approved — phone. Stratt. He picked up, because they’d done the right thing, they’d clarified and now everything would be okay!
“My office. All four of you. Now.”
And he nodded and muttered a ‘yes, ma’am’ and then looked at the rest of them, “She sounds mad. She wants us in her office. Now.”
And so they went. A pathetic parody of a funeral procession, really. All bowed heads and worried glances. Ryland wondered if maybe she’d not seen the last video yet. They’d fixed it!
When they entered Stratt’s office, the first thing they saw was the sheer amount of coffee cups. Ryland stopped counting at… seventeen?
The second thing they saw were the bags under Stratt’s eyes. That would be at the very least three days of sleep deprivation, going on four, if he knew anything about her, and he did know some things about her. Like how deep the bags under her eyes got after two, three, four and five days of sleep deprivation.
“Close the door,” Stratt said, and he saw the sheer exhaustion in her face. Shapiro closed the door. “Hand me the phone,” she extended her hand, and Ilyukhina guiltily handed the device over. Eva Stratt placed the phone on her desk, picked up some sort of metal sailor figurine that’d been on the desk longer than she’d had the ship, and they watched in horror as she used it to crack the phone into two. She hit it with the thing again and again, until she stopped, and then the fury was gone from her eyes and she was carefully sweeping the remains of the phone aside.
When she was done, she looked up at them, “Do you even understand what you’ve done?”
They, in fact, did not.
“Look, we’re sorry for the confusion, but we’ve cleared it up! They won’t come for you now!”
Stratt stared at Ryland as he said it. And then she laughed. No one had ever seen her laugh.
“You’ve cleared it up?” She asked, and from her it sounded like he’d just said the most ridiculous thing in the world. He didn’t know what the issue was. “Do you genuinely believe that?”
Everyone stared at her. A small, collective nod took place.
She stared back at them. Shook her head. Stared some more. Then, “I’m not wasting my time on this. Get out. And if I see any one of you post something on the Internet ever again, I will disregard any respect and admiration I might have for you and throw you in a cell.”
They believed her.
They trailed out of her office resembling, to Stratt’s satisfaction, kicked puppies. Stratt wasn’t cruel, Ryland knew, but she was sleep deprived and in charge of literally saving the entire world. And usually, an incredibly reasonable person. Whatever the reasoning was for this, Ryland had to believe it was serious enough for her to have literally crushed the phone.
They went back to the cafeteria. Sat around a table. And went online on their non-contraband phones.
“‘The Sahara thing’: What Do We Know About Petrova Taskforce’s Newest Post”
“The Olesya Ilyukhina Videos Spark Controversy On Petrova Taskforce Credibility”
“Are They Breeding The Sun Killer: Eva Stratt’s Quest For Power”
“Eva Stratt: What We Know, And What We Don’t”
“Petrova Taskforce: A Moneygrab Hoax?”
They stared at each other. And then Olesya clicked on one.
Eva Stratt: What We Know, And What We Don’t
By: Andrew Wheeler, Lyndsay Call
NYC, NY — 10:48AM
Ever since the beginning of the Olesya Ilyukhina Videos saga, many have been asking the question of who is the Stratt the so-called scientists are referring to.
We decided to look into this mysterious woman and try to compile an overall profile. We were immediately faced with the challenge of how little information about her was publicly available.
Here is what we managed — and didn’t manage — to find out.
1988-1992 — University of Amsterdam, Bachelor of History
Eva Stratt entered the University of Amsterdam in 1988, straight from what we Americans would call High School. She had, according to the University, an exemplary academic record. Do you wonder what a History major with her undergraduate degree as her only academic effort is doing heading the Petrova Taskforce? We are wondering that too.
1992-1994
We actually have no idea what Ms. Stratt was doing in those two years. She dropped off the grid right after getting her degree. Some sources say she might have been working for a diplomatic mission, though it would be highly irregular…
Ryland closed the article, taking the phone from Olesya. “It’s kinda parasocial. I don’t want to know things about her that she didn’t tell us.”
Everyone nodded. It was weird. People were talking about Stratt like she was a curious phenomenon they might just want to throw into a prison.
“We gotta do something, right? We can’t just leave it at that.” Dubois said, and everyone collectively gave him a look.
“Haven’t we done enough?” Ryland asked. “I mean, before we started trying to defend Stratt, they were threatening to arrest her for human trafficking. Now they’re talking to her university professors.”
“How did we even get here?” Dubois mused.
Shapiro looked at them. As the one to have been the least involved she, Ryland thought, had the best view of the situation. “Are you serious? We literally went on the Internet and told the world all about our highly classified workplace.”
Ilyukhina rolled her eyes, “Easy for you to say, you’re fucking Romeo here,” she said pointing at Dubois, “I haven’t gotten any since Kiera got that virus thing and had to leave. I’m bored as shit,” she looked at Ryland, “Surely you can relate, Lover Boy. Doubt Stratt has been giving you any.”
Ryland’s jaw was practically on the floor. “Wh.. What?”
Ilyukhina raised an eyebrow, “Oh come on, Lap Dog, we all know. No need to play coy.”
Ryland’s jaw seemed to break the floor and reach the basement, “Know.. what?”
“That you and Stratt are.. a thing?” Dubois supplied.
Ryland looked at him, his eyes wide, “But we’re… not? Like, at all?”
It was their turn to stare at him. He looked just terrified enough at the notion for them to believe him.
“Really? Not even a little kissin’?” Ilyukhina asked, and it sounded like the lack of a sexual relationship between the most powerful woman on Earth and her employee/man-she-kidnapped was the most insulting thing she’d ever heard.
Ryland shook his head so enthusiastically his neck hurt, “No, no kissing, no touching, no nothing, absolutely no nothing! I mean, she’s cool and all and has that ‘I could have you assassinated’ look, but no, we are not in any kind of relationship!”
There was a smile now on Ilyukhina’s face, a well-fed cat grinning at more fish, “Ohhhh. You like her.”
Ryland’s cheeks went red, “No, absolutely not, I do not like my boss who is also the most terrifying woman I’ve ever met. And the most competent. And the most..,” he paused, his face falling. Ilyukhina’s grin got wider. “Okay,” another pause, a breath. “Okay, maybe I do like… some things about her. But it could never be anything. And if you tell her I will ask her to have you assassinated.”
Ilyukhina’s green would have broken a normal person’s skin. Good thing none of them were anything close to normal. “Oh and she so would. Anything for her little science lap dog. I bet she would take a bullet for you.”
Ryland stared. He was finding himself doing that far too often for his liking.
Shapiro laughed, “Yeah, she would,” and then she turned to Ryland, her hand landing on his shoulder dramatically, “Oh, Grace, you are so tragic.”
Ryland laughed.
It was a little hysterical. No. It was very hysterical. Very, very hysterical. Until he was bent over the table, bracing on its edge. Until there was something like tears in his eyes.
When he straightened, he looked at his friends.
“Am I in love with the Dictator of the world?” He asked, and his voice shook.
There was something resembling sympathy but tinged with mockery in Ilyukhina’s eyes, “Oh, yes, honey, you so are.”
Ryland flinched, an unwilling smile on his lips, “Never call me that again.”
She laughed, “What, don’t want an article online named ‘Dictator and her Honey?”
Dubois and Shapiro were practically under the table with laughter. Ryland was red. And then Stratt came into the cafeteria and saw and heard them and there was something on her face. A tightening of her lips, of her eyebrows. She turned away quickly, not making eye contact. Ryland froze. So did everyone else.
“Shit,” Ryland muttered.
Ilyukhina, for once, nodded, “Yeah, shit. We ruined the woman’s week and here we are, laughing our asses off.”
They packed up fast, heading to Dubois’s room. It felt like a little less of a violation, and yet still somehow shitty. Stratt wasn’t an asshole. She was, in fact, probably taking an insane amount of blowback for their mess. And it’s not like she’d never spoken to them outside of work either. Well, it was an incredibly rare occasion, and it was mostly Grace, but she did kind of feel like a quasi-part-of-the-group even though she wasn’t, not really. But it felt like it. And the look of something close to envy that she had given them in the cafeteria wasn’t helping.
“So, what are we going to do,” Dubois asked.
Everyone turned on him immediately, “Nothing,” they said simultaneously.
There was a brief silence, until Ilyukhina spoke eventually, “Well, there is something we can do. Something that won’t make anything worse, at least.”
“Yeah?” Ryland asked, because god did they need to start doing things that didn’t make everything worse.
“We can read what they’re writing. So, you know, we’re prepared and all..” She said, and he knew immediately.
“You just want to know what they’re saying about you,” he mock-accused, “Stratt is suffering there on zero sleep, probably on a Zoom with TikTok or something. And we’re gonna read gossip?”
Ilyukhina threw her hands in the air, “Well, what else can we do? At least this is fun and doesn’t ruin anyone else’s life. Call it threat assessment if you want to.”
And that was how they ended up back on the Internet.
Although this time, the publications seemed even less sane. Which, at first glance, was practically impossible considering the contents of the things they’d read before.
Eva Stratt Is Stealing Your Sun
We have all heard, by now, of the mysterious Petrova Taskforce and its even more mysterious self-proclaimed Dictator Eva Stratt. The woman with no clear background aside from a few years of admin work for the ESA.
What we do know about Eva Stratt is, mostly, what we know from the Ilyukhina videos. Which is that she is ‘making enough Astrophage to power the ship.’ So, are they admitting to creating this no less mysterious Astrophage?
They are.
What do you think ‘the Sahara thing’ is?
Exactly that. A breeding farm for Astrophage.
They are creating the very crisis they’re pretending to solve, because being, and I’m quoting here, ‘the world dictator’ is much more fun than being in prison. And that is certainly what that lady deserves.
There’s rumors of an immunity agreement between her an the UN for the duration of the project. So of course she’s milking it as much as she can, it’s literally her get-out-of prison-free card.
So the next time you see something about Eva Stratt or the Petrova Taskforce on the news, know that they are the ones stealing your Sun.
The four of them stared at each other in complete inability to comprehend. What the fuck was that?
“Did I just read that correctly? We are stealing the Sun? Are they crazy?” Dubois asked. Everyone shared the sentiment.
And yet they dug deeper.
Dangers of Ultimate Power: The Eva Stratt Case Study
When approaching the topic of a person given the ultimate power to accomplish a goal, we must understand two concepts: humanity, and possibility.
Humanity is, in its essence, a set of triggers and behaviors that respond to said triggers. When we are tickled we laugh, when we are attacked we freeze. And when we get the smallest amount of power over other people, we make every feasible effort to keep said power, for as our power increases, so do, one, our demands and, two, the power of the people surrounding us, which means that in order to survive comfortably, we must maintain and further our power.
Possibility is a set of mathematical solutions that find whether or not an action will return a certain, generally favorable, result.
In the case of Eva Stratt, the power is not matched by anything else, and the probability of success is almost equal to zero..
They stopped reading that one there.
It felt just the tiniest bit insane.
First of all, their probability of success was not almost equal to zero. It was 6%. That was a lot. Considering.
Second, Eva Stratt was not some power hungry asshole. Or at least, she didn't behave like one.
Not that anyone seemed to care about that.
"So, Lover Boy," Ilyukhina looked at Ryland, "When do we think they are gonna start writing fanfics about you trying to stop her from destroying the sun?"