IDENTIFICO

LAURA

Laura rubbed her forehead. Today was not going well. After the screamer attack, she had chosen to simply skip her classes in order to get more time for working with Clarke, but they weren't making much progress. The others were in a nearby room, mostly in case she needed help restraining a sleeper, but also so that Derek could yell at Ling. She had given them all a scare, disappearing like that.

Robyn handed Laura a coffee, and she thanked her with a nod. She really didn't have time to think about Derek and Ling's relationship. Everyone was alive, that was all that was important. Now on to the matter at hand.

The sleeper who had started the whole mess, Horace Warfield, was dead. They had a few other prisoners, but they weren't much more helpful than the corpse, since none of them remembered anything.

Laura glanced around and frowned. “Where did your dad go?”

Robyn shrugged. “He said he had an idea for the heart and ran off. I don't think he'll be much more use on this project today.”

Laura sighed. Honestly, it was a miracle he had stayed this long. That man had the attention span of a goldfish.

At least he had left her one of his assistants. “Henry, tell them to bring in the next sleeper.” The tech nodded and walked out of the lab, past the room with Derek and the rest.

“Didn't they find a way to identify sleeper agents before?” Robyn asked, sipping her coffee. “When Malcanthet's started popping up, I mean.”

“Already tried something like that,” Laura said with a grumble. “However these are being controlled, it's not through any drugs we can detect. That's how she always did it, so it's easier to test.” Laura could run some tests for a few masking agents just in case, but she wasn't sure it was worth the effort. Maybe later.

If Robyn had another idea, Laura never heard it, because they were interrupted by Jasmine Hannesdottir barging into the room.

Jasmine was the can ambassador, and one of the only can anthros in the city. Maybe the only one. There weren't very many cans in general, since people didn't really care about crabs all that much, so Jasmine was leader in all but name.

She was covered in an orange shell, thick and spiked, that hugged her body like a second skin. Her right hand was just covered in a thin shell, like she was wearing a gauntlet, but her left was replaced with a massive claw. Her lips were obscured by a collection of small mandibles, and two extra eyes on stalks slowly scanned the room.

“I'm sorry, madam dames,” Henry said, wringing his hands in guilt. “I couldn't stop her.” No doubt. He was completely baseline, and Hannesdottir was known for using that claw to snap people's heads off.

“Where is Butler?” she demanded in a surprisingly human voice, supporting Laura's theory that she still had her normal lips hidden under all the crab parts. “I need to speak with him immediately.”

“Calm down,” Laura said. “He's resting. Can I help you with anything?”

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She looked Laura up and down in obvious disdain. Her main eyes were still normal, and thus easy to read. She tried to shove her aside in disdain with her mostly-human hand.

Laura ground her teeth, resisting the urge to scream. She was not good with physical contact, creepy toys notwithstanding. “What do you need?”

Hannesdottir realized she needed to actually pay attention. “And who are you supposed to be?”

“I'm Laura,” she said with all the patience she could muster. “One of the Paladins.”

Hannesdottir seemed to calm a little. “You'll do. I am here to speak about my father.”

“Knight Michael Johnsson has been sent back to his clan for a funeral,” Laura said, thankful that she had been forced to personally sign away his body after all. It had been an annoyance, but at least now she knew for sure what had happened. “I'm sure you can make any necessary arrangements with them.”

She spat on the ground and cursed in Icelandic. “No, I want to know who killed him.”

“Also dead.”

Hannesdottir narrowed her eyes. “Convenient.”

Laura chuckled. “Far from it. He had information we needed.” She shrugged. “But there was an air strike. A lot of people are dead.”

Hannesdottir pounded on a table with her claw. It split in half under the impact, dumping lab papers and glassware to the ground. That was going to be a bitch to clean up. “Stop mocking me! I want retribution! Who killed my father? I'll—”

“You'll what?” Laura asked. “Kill his family? His clan? His culture?” She stepped closer. “That's exactly what the Composer wants, you know. He chose the perfect moment to start a civil war.”

Her mandibles clicked, and she stepped forward angrily. “Don't patronize me, little girl.”

Laura held her ground. “You're not much older than me. And clearly less intelligent. You're a diplomat, you know this is a bad idea.”

Hannesdottir snapped her claw dangerously close to Laura's face. She ignored it. It was grandstanding, nothing more. Like a captured monster that knew it was caught. “Life for life, baseline!”

“And that code has been satisfied,” Laura pointed out. “The man who killed your father is dead. Now you get to carry on their legacy.”

Hannesdottir backed up, her mandibles waving slowly. A gesture of confusion. “Wait... their legacy?”

“The legacy your father and his murderer shared,” Laura said gently. “They both wanted peace and cooperation between the cultures.”

She roared forward. “THEN WHY DID HE KILL HIM!?”

Exactly the response Laura was hoping for. She didn't flinch. “He was hypnotized.”

Hannesdottir blinked. “What?”

“The Composer has some power to control people. To program them, like sleeper agents. During the battle five percent—exactly five percent—turned on their allies at the exact same moment.”

Hannesdottir stepped back again. “That means—”

“It could mean many things. Right now, it means we lost a battle. But we haven't lost the war.”

She looked around, swallowed any complaints, and nodded. “What do you need me to do?”

“If you have any scientists in your entourage, send them over,” Laura said. “Other than that, just let us work.”

Hannesdottir nodded very slowly and headed back the way she came without another word. Henry and Robyn stared at her as she left, then turned to Laura, mouths agape.

She sat down heavily in a stool, since her shaking legs wouldn't support her. “Henry, tell them to bring in the next sleeper.”