Chloe Oliphant-Escoffier sighed as she checked the time on her wrist-bound script. It would still be hours until this dumb family meeting was over and they could start packing to go home -- then she'd have to begin the process of catching up on schoolwork before she could so much as meet up with her friends again.
"Snack?" Scout Oliphant-Dawkins, sitting next to her on the couch, offered her a spicy chip. She sullenly accepted.
While all the adults and Rico had gone to the family meeting, Chloe had been told she'd have to stay here in her father's building until he got back. It was so stupid.
The building was a skyscraper, with a cover as a videograph production company, but the whole place was packed with guards and employees. Chloe was only allowed to move freely up here on the top floor, otherwise people started telling her what to do -- oh, it's not safe to move around without an escort, stay where we can see you -- like she was a five year old or something.
At least Scout was here, too, hanging out in the private theatre. He could be lame sometimes, but he was pretty cool at the same time. He was probably just here for the videograph, but still.
Apart from the couch they were sitting in, and the giant screen that the comedy videograph was being displayed on, the room was utterly void of furniture. Rows of panels built into the floor were capable of flipping over into chairs -- providing more seating if they had more guests -- but they were very rarely used.
"You see that chair?" Scout suddenly asked, breaking her out of her reverie.
He was pointing in the corner of the shot on the monitor, at a wooden chair sculpted to look like a twisted wolf. Chloe frowned: it looked kind of creepy, to be honest.
"Yeah," she muttered. "What about it?"
"We've got that in our house back home -- the actual prop. My dad saw it and thought it looked badass, so he tracked it down and bought it off the director."
"Your house? I thought you guys lived on a starship. 'Cause you move around all the time, right?"
"It's a house inside a starship," Scout said simply, as if that explained anything at all. Chloe decided not to pursue it further.
----------------------------------------
"Move out the way!" someone screamed, a medical team gathering around the figure on the ground. With professional, practiced efficiency, all the equipment required for restoring a life was brought into action.
The first shock had no effect.
----------------------------------------
"We should still have a day or so after the meeting," Scout said cheerfully, pulling his legs up onto the couch. "We should all hang out somewhere together, the three of us. Make some memories or something, right?"
Chloe shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Her eyes were looking at the pictures on the screen, but she wasn't watching it.
"I dunno…" she mumbled. "Things have been weird. It feels like Rico's one of them now, not one of us."
"What?" Scout furrowed his brow. "Because he's older? Everyone grows up."
Chloe was perfectly aware that she sounded petulant right now, so having it pointed out to her didn't do much to lighten her mood. "I know," she bit her lip. "But it feels like I'm being left behind, like… before long, it'll just be me. With Keiko gone, too, it just feels… it just feels bad. All of it."
Scout frowned, reaching over and squeezing her shoulder reassuringly. "I get what you mean, Chlo," he said, smiling sadly. "But that's just life, right? We won't leave you anywhere. We'll always be family. Things are gonna be okay. Right?"
----------------------------------------
The second shock was much the same, accomplishing nothing but posthumous indignity. A second doctor thrust a stimulant needle into the body's neck, a push of the plunger releasing it's payload. Even with that, though, there was no response.
The meeting room was full of the sounds of argument, the Oliphants shouting at each other and their employees, bodies rushing to and fro to secure the premises before whoever had done this could escape.
A third shock. Nothing.
----------------------------------------
"Right," Chloe nodded, smiling to herself as she turned back to the videograph monitor. This was one of her favourite features -- if she could just pay attention to it, she was sure she could cheer up just a little.
Right now, at least, everything really was okay.
And then Chloe's script began to ring.
----------------------------------------
Death was confirmed nearly five minutes after Jacques Oliphant-Escoffier collapsed to the ground. The crowd of medical personnel who had gathered around him had tried everything, but in the end they'd simply admitted defeat.
Up on the balcony, Dragan turned to look at Skipper, who was scanning the room below from his perch on the railing.
"Did you see what happened?" Skipper asked quietly, his eyes like those of a hawk as he observed the chaos.
Dragan shook his head. "No. Well, I guess I did… he just fell off his chair and started spasming. Poison, I guess -- only he was drinking for a while before it took effect. Something in the wine, designed to activate at a specific time?"
Bruno stepped up next to him, their little group an oasis of calm in the midst of the rush of movement. "There's stuff like that," he nodded, surely only knowing of such things for wholesome and legal reasons.
Ruth kept up the back, her claws already manifested to defend against any incoming attacks. Dragan doubted anyone would risk themselves by going after the bodyguards after poisoning a crime lord, but it was good to know his back was safe all the same.
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
"What do we do?" she called out over her shoulder.
Skipper's eyes scanned the room once again -- before settling in one spot and clicking his tongue. "Ah hell," he sighed. "Looks like our employment’s not so secure anymore, kids."
Dragan followed his gaze, and his eyes widened in shock.
What he saw was an impossibility.
There, being wrestled to the ground by two of Roy Oliphant-Dawkins' bodyguards, was Mr. Fix. As Dragan watched, mouth agape, the man who'd seemed like such an immovable fixture during his childhood was brought to heel. Firm restraints were forced onto Fix's hands and he was pulled up to his feet.
The expression on his face… even through Fix's stony visage, Dragan could see a spark of defiance.
"Makes sense, I guess," Bruno muttered. "He was chummy with Jacques, so he would've had an opportunity to slip him something."
Hot anger flooded through Dragan's hands, clutching the railing, with such ferocity that he thought his blood would burst out of his veins and escape. The metal bent in his frustrated grip.
"Bullshit," he hissed.
Bruno raised an eyebrow. "I thought you hated the guy. If they decide he did it, he won't be seeing the light of day again for sure."
"Still," growled Dragan, eyes fixed on Fix. "He wouldn't have done this. He doesn't have the guts."
A slow smirk spread across Skipper's face as he listened.
"Well, Mr. Hadrien," he said dramatically, stepping back from the railing. "It seems to me that we've got two paths before us right now. We could either leave, head somewhere else, and have a nice time…" His smirk spread into a grin. "Or we can go down there and get ourselves involved."
When it came to the choices you were most sure about, the decision-making process became irrelevant. Your body already knew what it would do the moment the choice was posed. You'd shoot someone in the back without even realising it.
Or, in this case...
With a crackle of blue Aether, Dragan jumped off the balcony -- smothering his momentum with a split-second Gemini World -- before landing in the middle of the meeting room.
Half-a-dozen guards and Oliphants, already on high alert, swung around to face him.
Above, Dragan heard Skipper's distant voice: "Uh… I thought maybe we'd be a little more subtle than that."
----------------------------------------
Carla bit her lip as she looked at the body on the slab.
Jacques had been a good-looking man in life, but in death he'd been utterly besmirched. His skin was gnarled and torn like sodden paper, with dark red flesh poking out from between the gaps. His bloodshot eyes had nearly spilled out from his head with the softening of his sockets. His jaw and throat had collapsed in on themselves as the poison had continued its ghastly work posthumously, leaving him with a frozen scream that stretched all the way down to his collarbone.
Just thirty minutes ago, he'd been walking and speaking as he'd done for thirty-eight years, and now he was like this. A prop in a morgue.
In this sort of situation, Carla believed it was appropriate to close the eyes of the deceased, but Jacques' eyelids had long since flaked away. All she could offer him was the dignity of a sheet -- as she pulled it up over his face, it was like she was locking him behind a firm white door.
Someone stepped into the morgue behind her. "Ma'am," said Avery, the family's elder butler, his voice quivering with age. "I've brought the young fellow who spoke for Asmodeus Fix. As you asked."
"I see," she replied quietly, turning away from Jacques' concealed form. "Thank you, Avery."
In the chaos following Jacques' death, she hadn't been able to get a good look at the person Fix had brought in, but now that she did she realized he was much younger than she'd assumed. A silver-haired Cogitant, his face red from stress, staring at her with an expression mingling between defiance and confusion.
"You have something you want to say to me?" Carla asked, wiping her hands off with a cloth.
The boy swallowed. "Fix didn't do it. He's innocent. He’s not the type."
"Why do you say that? It seems to me that everyone in our line of business is, as you say, 'the type'."
"Fix is a parasite. He's not stupid enough to cut off the hand that feeds him."
Carla sighed. "Unless a richer hand is ready to take its place."
That gave the young man pause, at least. His brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
In a single smooth motion, Carla flicked on her script and held it up, screen pointing towards the Cogitant. Rows of white text scrolled across a black background.
"What's this?" the boy asked, but his eyes were already scanning it with vigor.
"The personal accounts of Asmodeus Fix," she explained, tucking it back into her pocket after a moment. "Right after my brother was killed, this man received an anonymous payment of 500,000 stator. He certainly got a good deal out of his betrayal."
The hesitation the script had created lasted only a moment -- the boy soon shook his head with even more passion. "No way -- it's a frame-job. If he'd really been paid to do this, he wouldn't be stupid enough to receive the money on his personal account, he'd use a proxy or something. Plus, he'd have gotten out of here before anyone could take him in. He's not stupid enough to botch an assassination this badly."
Carla narrowed her eyes, just slightly, at the young man's passionate appeal. "What's your name, kid?"
"Dragan Hadrien."
"I'm Carla Oliphant. You wanna know why I'm here all alone, without any bodyguards or peons to do my dirty work?"
"Not really." Well, at least he was honest.
"It's because I'm this family's troubleshooter -- I find trouble, and I shoot it. I'm very good at my job. And Asmodeus Fix? He's trouble. I can tell just from looking at him."
"But --"
She interrupted, pushing through his words. "You're saying this is a frame-job, right? And I have to agree with you when you say it looks pretty sloppy. But there's every possibility that's a double-bluff. You're not gonna suspect the guy who's so obviously being framed, are you? But would someone framing someone like this be so sloppy? I doubt it."
Dragan Hadrien's balled fists fell to his sides. "That's just you speculating," he muttered, glaring down at the floor.
"Same with you saying he's innocent. Seems we're at an impasse here, aren't we?" A thought occurred, and the stern demeanor Carla Oliphant had adopted eased, just slightly. "Hear me out, though. I think there's a way we can both come out of this happy."
Dragan glanced back up at her. "How's that?"
"I'm sure you were listening to the meeting down there -- the Oliphant Clan can't afford to seem weak. We need to be seen taking in someone for this killing, if nothing else, and Fix is the only candidate available. Once our father arrives on the Cradle, he'll most likely order Fix's execution. It'll be excruciating."
The horrified look Carla had expected didn't quite appear on Hadrien's face. "Unless…?" he prodded.
"Unless we find a better candidate. If you're so confident you know who did this, Dragan Hadrien, you bring them to me. Do that, and Fix'll be free to go."
Dragan Hadrien took a deep breath, clearly tossing the proposal over in his head, and slowly nodded. Carla had to conceal the smirk that threatened to spread over her own face.
It was a shame. This kid seemed earnest, and he clearly cared about Asmodeus Fix on some level, but Carla honestly couldn't see him succeeding in the task he'd been presented with. He'd make a nuisance of himself poking around for clues and eventually be disappeared by one of her siblings, or one of their subordinates.
Still, a nuisance was a useful thing. The people Carla hated more than anything were slow to move, so anything that demanded action from them was a godsend.
Dragan Hadrien would be a useful spider to have crawling across the chessboard.