The summons came not as a polite email or a formal letter, but as a frantic, encrypted text message that made my phone vibrate so violently it nearly skittered off my bedside table. 'VOLKOV. URGENT. SUMMIT OF NATIONS. CAR EN ROUTE. ETA 15 MINS. PACK FOR INDEFINITE STAY. FINCH.' It was 4:17 AM. My only conscious thought was that my emergency go-bag, meticulously prepared for just such a world-ending contingency, was missing my favorite anxiety-reducing lavender-scented hand soap. Twenty minutes later, I was in the back of a black sedan with tinted windows so dark they seemed to absorb the very concept of light. I, Alexei Volkov, a man whose greatest professional achievement to date was successfully interpreting a three-hour trade dispute about cheese tariffs, was on my way to the Summit of Nations. The real one. The one whispered about in intelligence circles, the one the media wasn't even allowed to speculate on. The one where they put the leaders of the world's most irritable superpowers in a room and hoped it didn't end with mushroom clouds. My handler, the perpetually frazzled Eleanor Finch, was waiting for me on the tarmac of a private airfield. She thrust a tablet into my hands before I’d even unbuckled. "The primary interpreter came down with a sudden case of 'acute geopolitical distress,'" she said, her voice a low, urgent buzz. "His doctor says it looks a lot like food poisoning, but we all know it's a tactical retreat. You're up." "Me?" I squeaked, my voice an octave higher than usual. "But my clearance is for agricultural and cultural exchanges. I'm rated for poetry, not policy!" Eleanor gave me a look that could curdle milk. "The world is on fire, Alexei. Nobody cares about your poetry rating. In this room, you have one job: be a perfect, invisible conduit. You are a ghost. A voice box. You do not exist. You translate what is said, precisely as it is said. No color, no nuance, no helpful little edits. Understood?" She paused, her eyes boring into mine. "But also, for the love of all that is holy, don't let President Sterling start a war. The paperwork is a nightmare." The contradictory nature of her order—be a literal machine, but also save the world—made a small, terrified bird begin flapping its wings against my ribs. We were now striding through the Grand Diplomatic Palace in Veridia. The city itself was a marvel of sterile neutrality, a place where even the flowers in the public gardens seemed to have signed a non-aggression pact. The Palace was its heart, a monstrosity of white marble, gleaming glass, and unsettlingly symmetrical topiaries. It smelled of floor polish and institutional dread. We didn't walk; we power-walked through corridors so long and featureless they felt like a rendering error. Guards in crisp, featureless uniforms stood at every corner, their gazes fixed on the middle distance. They looked less like men and more like very well-armed statues dedicated to the god of bureaucratic procedure. "The two principals are President Sterling and Premier Jian," Eleanor murmured, swiping through profiles on her tablet. "You know the files." I did. President Sterling: a real estate tycoon turned world leader, a man who treated diplomacy like a hostile takeover bid. His public persona was a mix of folksy charm and schoolyard bully. Premier Jian: a woman forged in the crucible of a fiercely competitive political system, a master of strategy who could convey a death threat with a slight tilt of her head. She played chess while Sterling played poker with a deck of unmarked cards. "Sterling's in a mood," Eleanor warned as we approached a set of massive, soundproofed oak doors. "He thought the complimentary welcome basket was too small. Claimed it was a slight against our nation's economic output. We had to source a larger basket. It delayed the start by twenty minutes." She took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. "Remember, Alexei. You are a pane of glass. A clear, silent, shatterproof pane of glass." Then she pushed the door open, and the suffocating silence of the room washed over us. It was a circular chamber, dominated by a vast, polished ring of dark wood. In the center, a holographic globe spun lazily, a silent reminder of the stakes. President Sterling, a man whose physical presence was somehow both imposing and restless, was slouched in his chair, tapping a gold pen against the table. He wore a tie that was a shade too bright, a flag pin the size of a small bird on his lapel. Across from him, Premier Jian sat perfectly erect, her hands folded neatly before her. She was a study in absolute stillness, her expression as placid and unreadable as a deep lake. She hadn't moved a muscle, yet she commanded more attention than Sterling's fidgeting ever could. The only other sound was the faint hum of the air filtration system, which I was convinced was actively sucking the courage out of my lungs. I took my seat in the small, unassuming interpreter's booth, a glass box set slightly behind and between the two leaders. My microphone felt cold and heavy. My palms were slick with sweat. Eleanor gave a stiff nod. The summit began. President Sterling leaned forward into his microphone, the movement abrupt and loud. "Alright, let's get this show on the road," he boomed, his voice filling the room. He didn't look at the Premier; he addressed the spinning globe in the center of the table as if it were a disobedient employee. My fingers flew over my console, my voice a low, steady murmur as I relayed the standard pleasantries in Premier Jian's native tongue. She gave no reaction. My heart hammered against my sternum. This was it. The cheese tariffs were a distant, beautiful memory. Sterling cleared his throat. "My esteemed colleague and I are here because the world has some problems. Big problems. And my nation, as you know, doesn't believe in nibbling around the edges of the pie. We're here to take our slice. And I'll tell you right now, it's a big slice. The biggest, in fact. Because that's what leaders do. They lead." I translated, keeping my voice neutral, turning his blunt pastry metaphor into its closest diplomatic equivalent. Jian's expression remained unchanged, but I thought I saw a flicker—just a flicker—of something in her eyes. Annoyance? Amusement? It was impossible to tell. Sterling warmed to his theme, abandoning his notes and leaning even further forward, his knuckles white on the table. "Some nations like to play the long game. They're like a… like a slow-moving glacier. Inch by inch. Taking centuries to get where they're going, carving things up so slowly you barely notice. It's very… methodical." He said the word 'methodical' like it was a terminal illness. "Well, we're not a glacier. We're a volcano. Things are about to get hot. We bring decisive action. We erupt with prosperity and innovation, and if you're standing too close and not on our team, you're going to get burned by the lava of progress! It's nothing personal. It's just geology." A profound, heavy silence fell over the room. Eleanor Finch looked like she was going to be physically ill. Even the holographic globe seemed to wobble on its axis. Sterling sat back, a smug, satisfied look on his face, as if he had just delivered a speech for the ages. He had. A speech that could, quite possibly, end them. Every eye in the room, including Premier Jian's, turned to me. Her gaze was not hostile. It was patient. Expectant. It was the gaze of a predator waiting for its prey to make a move. My professional duty, my training, Eleanor's explicit, contradictory instructions—it all swirled in my head. I was a pane of glass. But a volcano was about to hit that glass. And it was my job to describe the impact. My throat was dry. My collar felt like a noose. The microphone before me was not a tool; it was a detonator. I leaned forward, took a shallow, inadequate breath, and prepared to speak.