> “I can tell by your shoes you were married, and by your wrists that you are no longer.”

>

> “My shoes.”

>

> ~Arabel and Vinnius Cicero

“Hooooly pubic feathers,” Vinnius said between clenched teeth. “What the fuck is wrong with these people?”

DiBattista shrugged. “Yeah, I dunno. I guess sometimes shit happens.”

Vinnius slammed his fist against the table, causing his 'caf to jump from the cup and splatter around the saucer. He ignored it. “The fuck am I supposed to tell Scip about this?”

“The truth?”

“The boss wants a genius superspy economist yesterday, and I’ve got a herd of whiny children throwing tantrums or something. How the fuck am I supposed to pick from this buncha assholes?”

“So pick Arabel and toss the rest.”

Vinnius stabbed a finger into the 'caf puddle. “That woman is going to fuck us one day.”

“Vinnius-“

“She is! She is going to fuck us. And not nicely after a bottle of wine and thirty minutes of foreplay. I’m talking raw. In the ass.”

He drew a few disgusted looks from nearby patrons. A glaring waitress mopped up his spilled 'caf, then slipped away as quickly as she could.

“Vinni, calm down.”

“Ano, that woman is a snake.”

“Vin.” DiBattista held up his hands. “Vinnius. It’s fine. Don’t pick Arabel. I’ll take another crack at her this afternoon. But look. We’ve been going about this in the singular. You were complaining that they’re all just saying what we wanna hear. This is a chance to see how much of that measures up.”

“What,” Vinnius grimaced, “are you talking about?”

“Hear me out.” DiBattista paused. “Group exercise.”

“Oh come on.”

“Listen. Hear me out.” DiBattista waited till Vinnius’ protests had died down. “Okay look. If we had Russo, he’d head up the investigation team. That’s what he does. We’re looking for replacement Russo. So,” he shrugged, “we let them take a crack at it. See how they work on a team.”

“I swear to god I am this close to throwing them in a room with one handgun and telling them to sort it out,” Vinnius hissed.

“That’s as good as picking Razer,” DiBattista mused. At Vinnius’ glare he shrugged. “What do you think? We’ve got a good problem for them to pick apart.”

Vinnius sighed. “Fine. I’m done pulling my hair out over this group.”

----------------------------------------

“Tell me something about yourself few people know,” DiBattista said.

Arabel sighed. She looked at the mafia man. Caporegime, they called them. Skillful grasp of the Sibelline language, though his alveolar consonants were off. That suggested foundational language classes rather than organic exposure – he’d clearly had plenty of both.

“No,” she sighed.

“No?” Interrogative. Puzzled tone with a hint of warbled offense. Not offense. Other word – resignation-uncertain-on-your-own-head-be-it. She’d just lost points for the candidateship. He didn’t particularly care. No – he was neutral. The tone suggested an attempt at impartiality. DiBattista had been primed to accept or reject her, and was attempting to throw off the priming and retain a neutral standpoint.

Someone else had wanted her in, or wanted her out. DiBattista was attempting to formulate his own opinion to add to a consensus. Probably, that consensus contained the deacon, the other capo, perhaps Salieri.

Or perhaps Salieri was uninterested in the minutia of the proceedings. Likely, he would be presented with the strongest candidate for token approval before the paperwork was signed.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“No,” Arabel told him flatly. “I tell other people’s secrets. Not mine.”

DiBattista gave her a long look from across the table. (Wood, she noticed. Older than three centuries by the construction style, M. magna by the ringing pattern, probably manufactured on Solomon). She looked him evenly in the eyes, glimpsing the true neutrality of apathy.

There was not a thing in the world that DiBattista truly cared about.

DiBattista was the first to look away. It wasn’t discomfort. He’d gotten bored of the staring contest. His attention couldn’t be gotten with dominance contests. It was very frustrating.

“So you don’t want to come back to the question,” DiBattista said, making marks on the notepad. By the wobble of the back of his quill, he was writing “cagey, ifulse w/nohosty”, which Arabel deciphered cautiously on her notepad. Something about honesty.

“I don’t see how that’s important to my candidacy. You know what I am capable of.”

He feigned mild surprise. Everyone went for the slightly tilted eyebrow, it was more of a signal “this is the point in the conversation where I’m surprised”, than actual surprise. “Do I?”

“This is all because Vinnius Cicero doesn’t like what I know about this ship, this operation, about him. It’s not my fault nobody else has done their homework.”

“And you, you do your homework.”

“I know things.”

DiBattista looked at his notepad. “What did you know about Vinnius?”

A test of her ability to keep secrets. The glance at the notebook implied a question prepared beforehand. Another check in her candidacy. Cicero feared what she knew; for her to stay on the ship, he would need to not fear what she would say. “Ask him.”

Slight disappointment – personal curiosity, then, had motivated the question. Arabel was surprised. She had read that wrong. It didn’t happen frequently.

“What about Salieri?”

“The man or the organization?” It was her private little joke. They both knew she was going to answer both questions.

“Whatever you prefer.”

“There are five main families in the Malfi underworld, alliances shifting over the last few hundred years. Currently, the Salieri-Cavalieri power bloc has an incomplete dominance, cemented by political marriage. Scipio Salieri inherited a ship and a warrant and has spent the last two years in the uncharted expanse working with what was probably the Inquisition.”

DiBattista was writing something on his pad, from the movements of the back of the quill it was a summary what she’d stated. “Hm. How did you do that?”

“I already knew the name Salieri because I keep tabs on major players in the local underworld. I did a little extra research before coming here. The Warrant is registered at Solomon in their Hall of Records. And the Inquisition was a guess – but there were signs. News of alien activity always accompanies government operation in the uncharted territories. Edited stock footage made every major news channel just at the same time the Salieri head of household vanishes for a few years, and dies down just as he returns. But powerful merchant captains often are brought into government naval operations, and they tout this for all it is worth. Salieri did no such thing, despite that it would have helped his position among the Families and his interstellar reputation. And besides, this is not a stealth ship, nor is it a powerful battlecruiser. The Navy has many escorts. There has been no propaganda of his exploits as there would be if it had been a non-covert military operation. Therefore, I guess Inquisition.”

DiBattista finished dotting an I, or crossing a t. Hard to tell at this distance. His eyes moved across the notepad; not rereading what he’d written, the positioning was wrong for that. She was about to be asked another pre-prepared question.

“Tell me what you know about the other candidates. Strengths, skills, aliases, anything”

Arabel brought the appropriate information to mind, flicking through the enormous file system that was her brain. “Hortensia Hora and the man calling himself Reeve are both social experts; Hortensia specializes in information gather, Reeve in managing the behavior of his targets. Antoniette Violette is the most assumed name I’ve ever come across, worse even than Reeve, and she achieves results through hardware manipulation and computation. Both she and Razer are freelance criminals of a sort found uniquely in the Sibelline underworld. DeMoss is an amateur mathematician but otherwise a generalist.”

“Tell me about Reeve.”

“His real name is Claudius Glycon Jr, a professional actor of minor repute. Notable filmography includes The Emperor’s Wrath as Clovis, The Wytch of Blaire as Odysseus, and the cult classic Reaver as the Reaver himself. Has connections to organized crime through fulfilment of his excessive vices. Gambling, drinking, noted addiction to spook, and he likes to participate in the bloodsport nobles call ‘hunting for rats’.” She looked at DiBattista. “I would consider him an unreliable Seneschal.”

“So he’s a man with enemies.”

Something about this brought Arabel up short. She had emphasized many elements that would have led to questions about Glycon’s habits or his reliability. This was not the natural question to ask.

“Yes,” she said cautiously. “Probably.”

“Do you know anything about those enemies?”

“There are several underworld gangs. Rival actors. Former actors who feel themselves more deserving of any particular role. People who do not appreciate his personality; I hear there are many.”

Arabel felt her ears going red, as they frequently did when the world didn’t match up to her predictions. Enemies of Glycon. Had they contacted Salieri’s Shadow? Was Salieri himself one of the enemies? None of it made sense. She felt a stupid question bubbling up her throat.

DiBattista saved her. He made a few notes; she was far too flustered to try to read the movements of his quill.

Then he looked up. “Do you know why, four hours ago, Reeve was killed in cargo bay 6?”