Day 1 - Evening
If there's a black cat that crosses the street in my path, I will turn around and walk 20 minutes out of my way to not cross it.
-Lauren Groff
"Where's Darwin?" I asked.
Mr. Jones looked at me with a gaze that withered a person's will to live.
I stopped in front of her office door. "We aren't going without Darwin." I had no idea I could sound like a petulant child. However, the truth was that I was getting a little irritated with his sudden habit of disappearing. If he had been investigating on his own, that would be understandable. But he was just wandering. It was disconcerting.
Mr. Jones turned to the junior guard. "Go find his cat."
"But-" he never got the next word out.
Surprise, shock and curiosity. These were the three reactions from the people around our resisting guard. I was curious as to how a place with this kind of security could hire a guard who questioned orders. The captain, silent and stalwart for the entire time I had seen him, was shocked at the question. At least that is what I read by the way his helmeted head snapped around to look at Mr. Inquisitive. Finally, Mr. Jones' surprise at the merest hint at hesitation in following her orders quickly turned to rage. The woman had a temper.
"NOW!"
"Yes, Ma'am," he stuttered, backing away. He turned and, I can only assume, glared at me through the black visor. Apparently we were all children here, except maybe the captain. He was the only one who seemed not be destined for a time-out.
Mr. Jones opened her door and stepped in. Without looking back she said, "If he isn't back in 5 minutes, get another trooper and we will get going."
The captain, apparently adequately trained, snapped to attention. "Yes, sir!"
No sooner had the first guard disappeared than Darwin crawled out of the cubicle jungle and slunk his way past me into the office.
"Where the hell have you been?" I asked.
Darwin chose to respond in the way that cats do when they do not wish to explain their actions. His tail held aloft, he passed by me with not even a glance, heading straight for his chair.
Mr. Jones watched him enter from behind her desk. "I would tell you to control your cat," she started "but it seems that control is something you are already fond of. Captain," she called out to the remaining guard who had stationed himself outside the office door, "come in, but leave the door open."
"Yes, sir." He spun smartly and repositioned himself facing her next to the open door.
Then she looked at me and smiled a wicked little smile. I braced myself.
"WHO THE HELL," she started yelling, ensuring that she was at a volume that would carry to the edges of the office, "do you think you are. Coming in here, impersonating MY supervisor, disrupting MY office and interrogating MY people? I hired YOU, you jumped up P.I., and don't forget it. Screw up like this again, and I will not only fire you, but I will have you drawn and quartered! Are we clear?"
I stood there, unbended. She was re-establishing her domination of the office, making up for lost face and prestige. She didn't want her people to like her, she wanted them to fear her. Her problem with me was that I did neither.
"GOOD! Now SIT DOWN, SHUT UP, and GET TO WORK!" I continued to stand, waiting for the next move.
"Captain," she said in a much quieter voice. "Slam the door closed."
I have been told by people who have lived in historical homes and palaces that there is nothing quite so satisfying as slamming a door to end an argument. Virtually all doors are automatic, so you really didn't have to close them. Or open them, unless they were locked. Doors pretty much took care of their own business, efficiently and quietly.
The captain silently stepped aside a little, revealing a large pad on the wall behind him. The area around the pad was scarred and scratched, evidence of the violence that it had been subjected to. I could see that the line of sight from the desk to the pad was clear. Mr. Jones likely expressed her displeasure by hurling various objects at the pad in order to create the door-slamming effect.
The silent captain, fulfilling his orders, reached out at touched it. Enhanced by some internal mechanism, the door to the office swung closed with a force that would have severed the limb of anyone not fully through. The bang it made as the door settled and sealed rattled the floor and desks in the vicinity. What kind of person has this kind of enhancement specifically installed?
"I meant it," she returned to a regular volume, without looking up from her terminal. "Sit."
I decided to accept her invitation and sat in the chair next to Darwin, who was completely unmoved by her display of temper. He was quietly cleaning his ears, though. Perhaps that meant something in 'cat'. On second thought, it probably just meant that he thought they needed cleaning. There is no point in trying to over-analyze why cat's do what they do. 'Just go with it' has been my motto.
"Bring me up to speed on your search. What have you discovered?" She didn't look up but continued to key.
Darwin extended his claws into the chair, causing even more destruction to the priceless antique. If we came out even from this job, I would be pleased. His action did, however, inform me that we were descending again, silently and without any perceptible sense of movement. I looked over my shoulder at the trooper stationed by the door, weapon at the ready. It would seem that we would be bringing only one guard with us, but the one we had was efficient enough.
"Over all," I replied, "most of your staff don't know anything about Leena or the work she did for you. Of those that did, her silence is noticeable, but not concerning. Imanda Selim, on the other hand, seemed very upset by something that was given to her four days ago. She has been missing ever since, and my sense is that she is dead. She is most likely implicated in the disappearance of Leena, though I am not sure if that is connected to her death. I am also not sure who is responsible for Leena's disappearance as of yet. It would depend on whether Leena escaped, was abducted, or defected."
Mr. Jones paused from her typing and looked up. "That information is confidential, Mr. Friedman."
"I am eventually going to need more details regarding your relationship with Leena if you expect me to Find her. You have given me precious little. I have yet to see an image, or a vid. Or perhaps another name? Rest assured that I pass no judgment. I just need the information."
"She is a..." and here Mr. Jones paused, "a research scientist in my facility." I was disappointed, but not surprised, that she had decided to continue to withhold information. "She has been working on a highly confidential project for me, one with far reaching implications to the future of this company. She is in the possession of volatile and unique information that we require to complete a critical stage."
"Ah yes. Would that be the shuttle program?" I interjected. I wanted to see if I could rattle a little more information from her. I needed to know more about Leena, and more about Mr. Jones and her part in all of this.
She paused a moment, looking at me curiously. Then turning to her terminal, she keyed a few things, then tapped to connect her comm panel.
"Yes, sir?" A nervous voice came out of the small speaker.
"Ah, Mr. Zhang. You are fired. Please don't resist the guards when they come to collect you. They have been instructed to use full force. The paperwork is tedious, and the stains almost never come out."
"But.. but my work! My family!"
"The former is mine, not yours. The latter was your responsibility. All on the streets, just like you. Really Mr. Zhang, it would be setting a bad example to make an exception. Besides, I do not have inclination."
From our location in this sealed office, slowly descending into the caverns of the building, we never heard the shot that Zhang took to end his shame. We didn't witness the shock and fear that followed the news of the suicide like a shockwave through the office.
All I heard was a soft pleasant chime as a call came through a few seconds later. Mr. Jones swiped it to her ear piece.
"I see, well that was inconsiderate. Try and get the stains out. What about them? Yes of course, you should proceed with the expulsion of the family. What about his sister? Well, that is unfortunate. We will have to find someone to fill her position as well. No, not her husband or children. Just her."
She hung up then turned and looked directly at me..
"Mr. Friedman, please understand this. There is not, nor has there ever been, a shuttle project. Any rumors you may have heard are the purest fantasy. Please disregard them, and stop wasting your time with it." All this was in a delivered in a no-nonsense tone that was a thinly veiled threat. "So tell me, what else did you discover?"
I said nothing.