08 | liaisons and leadership

For Ramon, the next couple of days settled into a comforting routine. Wake up, attempt to eat whatever slop the older Greanleefe child had put together, then dig through everything they had on Annifrid Larsson, sometimes with the help of Danica, Zafir, Damien, and Aza, sometimes not. Evenings, drink with Kalyani, as the Greanleefes kept a prodigious liquor stash. Repeat. Lately, his assistants had their eyes on another prize, the famed Rakhsasi, as they called Kalyani.

The name was an utter embarrassment to her, and she refused to tell him what it meant. A Google search had told him it was the Sanskrit name for “demoness,” which didn’t sound like a good thing, but turned out to be a compliment of the highest degree. Apparently, she had become something of an Olympia academy legend.

That didn’t surprise Ramon. No one else, to his knowledge, had ever pulled a perfect score on the Standard Field Exam. His own exam marks were barely above average, a poor combat score balanced by a good tactical strategy one. It was natural that the trainees saw her as a goddess.

After a few days, however, she had intimidated them all out of enthusiasm, and they had begun to stop begging for lessons, even Damien, who as a trainee needed them. Well, all except one. Danica, after a rough start, had really taken to Kalyani in a way the others hadn’t. It was possible she had found someone as neurotically obsessed with perfection as herself. Ramon and the others were treated to hours of crashing and pained grunts. Occasionally, Danica would emerge, sporting a black eye or a twisted limb, but cheerful.

“I hit her,” she told Ramon excitedly, over morning coffee. “In the last few seconds of match. It wasn’t for very long or very hard, but I hit her. You could tell she felt it. I think I’m getting better.”

Ramon smiled. “That’s very good.” Kalyani had told him she was going easy on her, but her version of “easy” was probably a far cry away from most people’s definition of the word.

“So, did you find anything yet? About the you-know-what?” Her voice dropped an octave as she saw Oceania Greanleefe enter.

“Not yet.” She really had to work on this whole being-subtle thing.

“I’m fucking starving,” announced Oceania. “Where’s the food? It better not be any of that oatmeal shit or I’m going on a hunger strike, I swear to God.”

Ramon bit his tongue to prevent himself from responding. Llenwi Greanleefe was pleasant enough, but Oceania was a constant source of profanity, griping, and arguments. Her fights with Isolde were carried out at a decibel that was probably unsafe for human eardrums and ranged from subjects as diverse as who would take out the trash to going to school, which apparently, she was dead set against. “I have PROBLEMS!” she had screamed one memorable time. “I’m clinically depressed!” Apparently, she had been kicked out of her fancy boarding school for trying to kill someone, but he doubted it. She seemed like just another spoiled rich kid.

“There’s stuff in the fridge.” said Danica, keeping her face studiously blank. If Oceania could deduce how you really felt about her from your expression, she would tell you off, even if you were a good ten years older than her. It was kind of amusing unless you were the target.

After some crashing, Oceania emerged, clutching a jar of peanut butter. “Later, fuckers!” she screeched, then barreled up the stairs.

As soon as she was far enough away, Ramon allowed himself to smile. “She’s definitely a character.”

“In need of a kick in the teeth, more like. She told Zafir to suck her dick because he passed her on the stairs.” said Aza darkly, emerging from the kitchen with a cup of black coffee. She snickered. “Not really sure how that would work, but-”

Ramon whistled. “She did? I should talk to Isolde about keeping her away from our agents. We have work to do, and I don’t care how important she is, she needs to control her kid.”

“Can we do that?” Danica asked. “They are royalty, even though they don’t act like it.”

“I could care less. We’re providing them a service, so they should treat us with respect.” he told them. “Now, come on. I think it’s time we reviewed the facts.”

“I thought you’d never ask.” Danica whipped out her laptop.

“Wait for Zafir and Damien.” Aza admonished, shooting her a dirty look. “We realize you’re the fastest person to ever use a computer-you don’t need to show off.”

Danica blushed angrily. “Excuse me for trying to do my job. I didn’t realize that was a federal offense.”

Aza began to respond, but Ramon cut her off. “Enough! We are here to work, not to pick fights. If this a personal issue, you two can always resolve it with an incident report filed with the Board-”

Neither of them took him up on this. “Good.”

The men arrived, with Kalyani in tow. “Well, should we get started?” she asked.

“Uh, sure.” Ramon said, making an effort to avert his eyes from her taut frame, still glistening with sweat from this morning’s workout. Focus. She can never be yours, you idiot, don’t you see? “So, what do we know about Annifrid Larsson?”

“She was a twelve-year old student at Valorian Hill Academy.” Aza reported. “Height a bit above average, weight a bit under average. Blonde hair, blue eyes, freckles. Her social media indicates she was fairly popular.”

“Which social media?” Damien interrupted.

“Uh, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. She was a pretty active Snapchatter, too. See-” Danica turned her laptop so they all could look. A spread of photographs greeted them. Annifrid Larsson throwing her arms around a girl. Annifrid Larsson in a formal dress. Always with the same brilliant smile.

“She’s pretty,” remarked Aza.

“Yeah. What else do we know about her?”

“She had transferred to Valorian Hill that year. She was a classical dancer. Decent grades, activities, a social life-she doesn’t quite fit the suicidal teenager model.” Zafir observed.

“Did she have drug problems?” Kalyani asked.

Ramon could feel the mood shifting. She always has to ask the uncomfortable questions. Which is fine with me-I don’t want to do it. “Sort of. The friends of hers the police interviewed said they’d seen her intoxicated on multiple occasions.”

“So young?” Damien asked skeptically.

“She was dating an older boy. Zaren Daves. According to the friends, he was able to get her into some of the older kids’ parties.”

“So party girl.” Kalyani said.

“Sure. What we do know is this. Her parents planned to remove her from Valorian Hill and transfer her to Arcadia Village School.”

Damien whistled. Arcadia Village was notoriously difficult to get into. You had to be smart or rich-preferably both-to even be considered for entry. And even then, there were few accepted.

“They sent her to the Rayquan Woods summer camp that year, hoping she would meet some Arcadia students there-it was a very exclusive spot. But then one night she went missing. Two weeks later, her head was found in the river. A police search found the rest of her body scattered throughout the Valorian capital.”

“Ugh. What did her parents do?” Danica asked. “Clearly, they had a lot of money.”

“They were security experts working with the Rublex military defense command. Very wealthy, well-respected.”

“Wait-the Rublex? Wasn’t that the galaxy that got taken?”

“Yeah. We’d ask them about it, but they committed suicide-for real-when they heard of their daughter’s death. Overdosed on pills.”

“Clever.” mused Zafir. “So her death may have been just a dramatic method of frightening her parents.”

“It almost certainly was. There’s no other motive for it. Kid like that wouldn’t make enemies.”

The click of stiletto heels signaled the arrival of Eliza. Instantly, they scrambled to attention, trying to look innocent. She had that effect.

“Good morning.” Eliza said smoothly, a cup of coffee in her hand. “We have a visitor.”

“Oh?” Ramon asked, instantly on the defensive.

“He’s our new director of operations-Olympia wide.”

“Since when were we getting a new director of operations?” he wondered. Directors rarely retired, the money being what it was.

“Since today. His name is Oliver Branch-” Eric, who Ramon had not noticed until then, slipped a manila folder onto the table. “and he was a big deal at the academy.”

Kalyani picked it up, leafed through it. Then she looked up. “Wait-he’s fourteen? How is that possible?”

“I’ve no idea.” Eliza says acridly. “but he’s coming today and he’s very big on the no-commitments policy, so I expect you two to keep this little liaison under wraps.”

“Who, me?” said Kalyani, nonplussed. “I’m not having any liaison.”

“Don’t try to deny it. You and Agent Solis-I’m not stupid, you know.”

“It’s hard to tell.” Ramon snapped. He was tired of this game, this stupid little game that every supervisor still thought they could play. Rubbing salt in a wound. Every time. He had been professional, he thought. And yes, they spoke to each other often enough, but they were friends, old friends, for Christ’s sakes! What were they supposed to do? Lane had done this; even though he and Kalyani actually were having a liaison, he had taken pains to separate them, playing jealous lover without cause. And to hear this from Eliza, whose liaisons were numerous, was ridiculous. A sham. “I’m not having a liaison with her. We’re partners. We’ve worked together for years. It’s normal that we talk to each other. And coming from you-isn’t that a little-”

Eliza reddened. “I’m not the one carrying out a liaison around a supervisor! You know the rules!”

“But I’m not, and you know it.” Ramon protested. “This is another ploy to make me look untrustworthy in front of the new director, and it’s not very subtle. Try harder.”

“I am your supervisor. Don’t you see? I’m only trying to help. You might have been able to get away with this when Lane was running the show, but we aren’t dealing with Lane anymore, Ramon. Best get used to it.” So finished, she sashayed away.

Kalyani flinched at the mention of Lane, turning away. He wished he could say something, but came up mute. It was better this way. She didn’t want to hear it from him, and it would be insincere anyway. He hated Lane.

••

The Director is a diffident young man, really more of a boy. He is not particularly attractive, with his greasy dirty blonde hair and sallow skin, but his eyes, two chips of blue-grey ice, are sharp and judging. He looks as if he was born to wear a black suit and his coterie of other, young agents are similarly dressed. “Agent Servai. A pleasure. And you as well, Agent Solis. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Only good things, I hope.” Ramon quipped, smiling.

The Director did not smile. Ramon could tell he thought himself too important for such petty emotions. “What work have you done? On the Larsson case, I mean.”

“The case? Em…we just got here. We haven’t really done much work on it. I mean, yet. Training-”

The Director cut him off. “Then we have no time to waste. The Centauriians are in a terrible crisis and require our intervention immediately. While training is all well and good, our agents need to learn how to handle such concerns, and the best method for that is to begin now.”

He weighed his options. On the one hand, he had never liked being lectured at, but on the other, it was better to remain calm. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” said the Director, and Ramon realized, with an odd shock, that the boy had Lane’s eyes. “We have much work to be done…especially in light of what happened to the Duchess Seonid…”