As most normal part-time secretaries would, she was having a good Friday up until the moment that she found out someone close to her client, close to her, was murdered.
In fact, she was sure that - to most normal people - catching onto the fact that someone may have been murdered was generally not a pleasant thing. The day that the now-seventeen years old Alejandra ‘Sandra’ Mosquera arrived at the client’s office complex and navigated up only to find one office sealed off with yellow tape, men in high-visibility jackets wheeling out bodies covered up by medical tarp, she knew something was amiss.
Sandra’s height of 5 '10 definitely gave her an advantage in catching a glance at the scene through the yellow tape and officers pretending to occupy themselves with investigation before she was escorted out, and it was certainly grisly. The lights in the room were off, and whoever was killed had been left slumped against the wall (at least, based on the chalk outline), a few stern-faced beat cops pondering the room, two spent shell casings – one a small shell most likely from a pistol and the other a larger shotgun round - among other landmarks in the room, like an upturned table. Most curiously, however, was a queer marking on the wall. Although it was marked in tape, she could make out various details due to the refraction of light. Marking each detail, Sandra saw that the tape looked like some kind of queer symbol or sigil.
Perhaps she’d been staring for too long. The beat cop who’d been standing guard at the door - a prettily austere, young brunette who was no older than 21 who went by the name Katja Wojciech - seemed to have caught Sandra's eyes wandering where they shouldn’t have. Hastily walking up to her, the officer’s brow furrowed as she said “Move along. There’s an investigation going on here.”
She feigned a gasp. “Sorry! I was just… I wasn’t thinking something like this would happen here…” Sandra’s voice was effeminate, but not bordering caricature. Maybe to trained ears, it’d sound a little unnatural, but she always had an alibi for those situations.
“That’s just Redcliff City for you.” said Katja, sighing. “You can never get a rest for this kind of stuff… Ten poor sops have got to stand guard at this place after hours, in case anybody tries to tamper with the evidence.”
“So… who got… you know…”
“Alfie Moldoff, the son of the guy you’re working for. Why are you asking?”
“I just… wanted to pay my respects to whoever their next of kin were…”
“Hm. Well, I’ll be sure to send the word out to your boss if he comes by. What happened to your stint with Mr. Giacchino?”
Sandra grimaced. “I, uh… quit. He was saying I was a little too vocal for his taste anyways.”
“Hm. What happened?”
“He wasn’t paying some of the girls in HR enough, so I told him to sod off. Then he told me to take off and leave if I didn’t want to work there. So I left.”
“Alright. Well, it’s been a nice chat, but - again - you should get going, kid.” said Katja, walking back to her post. She stopped to add “I hear money’s been tight for the Wards of State program, I don’t mean to jinx, but your pay might be getting cut in the next few months.”
Sandra smiled. “It’s been nice talking with you, ma’am.” Then she began to walk away. “I’ll be in Mr. Moldoff’s office if you need me! I’ve just got to take a bathroom break, though… I’ll only be a minute!”
Once she turned the corner, though, that smile on Sandra’s face instantly turned into a scowl. As she made her way to the bathroom, there was nobody in the halls of the office. Walking in, she glanced around. The bathroom was clinical, almost perfect, the hum-buzz of the light seeming to be the only sound in the room. However, she performed a particularly queer ritual. To some, it would have seemed as though there were three minute, consecutive orange glints in Sandra’s pupil as she stood there, looking about. After finishing this odd procedure, she entered a stall and locked it.
She put her index finger against her temple and tapped. Popping up in her vision, only visible to her, was a heads-up display, covering matters like heartrate, bone structure, brain activity and sound. Sandra tabbed through various windows and slides in this heads-up display, before a window with only one spot in a mostly empty list opened. The only occupied spot was listed under ‘Irina Golubeva’.
Irina Golubeva. Sandra’s only solace in this hostile world. She absolutely loved the dame. She didn’t know if it was that slight stutter she always spoke with, how she’d play with her glasses when she was anxious, or the small bite of her lips she’d accidentally do when Sandra got herself into a tense situation, or something else. She didn’t care, though. Sandra’s mind was absolutely full of Irina, and she wasn’t complaining about that. In fact, she relished the feeling, loved it.
Sandra tapped on her temple, which then led to a ringing for a few seconds, as though it were a telephone (although the sound was audible only to her), before Irina picked up.
“H- Hi, Sandra!” cooed Irina. “Are you going to be late back home tonight?”
“That’s right.” Sandra replied, smiling. This was her natural voice - somewhat lower, not exactly baritone, but still somewhat butch. “Do me a favour and keep dinner warm, will you?”
Irina groaned. “Alright…”
“What is it, babe?”
“N- Nothing…”
“C’mon, tell me.”
“Alright…” Irina said, “I wanted to watch a movie with you…”
“Well, I’d be down for that!” said Sandra, “It’s just that I’m going to have to be out a little longer. You can deal with that, right, Ira?”
“Yeah…”
“That’s good,” said Sandra. “Love you, babes!”
“Love you too!”
Sandra tapped her temple again, and the orange light in her eye flickered off, that heads-up display disappearing with it also. Exiting the bathroom stall, she took to the sink and began washing her hands, before making her way out of the room entirely, navigating back to Mr. Moldoff’s office. In the less populated halls, Sandra practised her winning smile before entering the filled sectors of the building, in which she flaunted this winning smile as she walked.
Usually, Moldoff’s office stank of cigarette ash. Its proprietor had an open-air balcony and he used this balcony as an area to smoke from as he looked upon the city skyline, but unfortunately - for whatever reason - the scent of the burnt tobacco would waft into the adjacent room - unfortunately, where she’d have to sit and organise data on Moldoff’s computer, its arrangement of files less than orderly and not too quick. A lot of the time, he wasn’t even in his office when Sandra was in the building.
That day, though, her boss wasn’t absent. Instead, he was smoking on his balcony, brooding over the skyline of Redcliff City.
“Good evening.” greeted Moldoff. “I trust that you know what’s happened to my son, Ms. Mosquera?”
“There was quite a fuss about it outside… My condolences about what happened to your son, by the way…”
“Don’t sweat it. There was nothing you could do about it.” said Moldoff. As Sandra approached the desk to take her post, though, Moldoff said “Don’t worry about working, Mosquera. All I want to do is talk. Don’t worry. I’ll still pay you - you’re a good girl.”
“Well… have you seen or heard anyone through here, sir?” asked Sandra, sitting herself down on a chair. “Anyone who could have… you know, killed him?”
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“Didn’t hear a thing.” said Moldoff. “I was out for the day when I got the call. I rushed here to officers scouring the building. Said my son was dead.”
“How long, sir?”
“Well, we already went through the identification, so I presume the inspectors are still at work figuring that out. Let me tell you, it was a grisly scene… My boy was executed, and his stomach was burnt open. Probably some kind of acid, I bet.”
“I… Alright. Do you need any work done, sir?”
“Just one favour, it’s nothing much.” said Moldoff, opening a drawer at his desk, taking out a sheet of paper, and setting it down on Sandra’s lap. “I need you to get this revised will scanned, and sent to my banker. Use my login. When you’re done, feel free to clock out.”
“Okie-dokie, sir!” said Sandra, taking the paper. She tapped twice on her temple before pressing down on the door handle. “I’ll have it done in a jiffy!”
And with that, she took to the scanner and set for the paper to scan to Moldoff’s account. She wouldn’t have to worry about the brunt of the work - the actual sending of the document - since she knew someone who could do it for her - Irina. She tapped in a message into her phone, sending Moldoff’s login details and the email of his banker, asking for Irina to email the document in her stead.
As she waited there for Irina’s response, leaning against the wall, Sandra heard footsteps approaching her. Their breathing was young, probably not older than 17, but fairly baritone. Oddly enough, there was a slight hesitancy before each exhale, as though he wished to stay incognito.
Then when Sandra turned around, the boy let out a short, hushed gasp before composing himself. The boy wore a blue jumpsuit with a black long-sleeved shirt underneath, his brown hair long (a white tuft in the middle, above his brow) and white bandages covering his left arm. On his breast was a nametag - Kenna. His right hand was in his pocket. He was clearly a well-built young man, his body lean, but still clearly muscular. It wasn’t anything Sandra hadn’t seen before, though.
“You need something, Kenna?” she asked.
“Yeah, I was just- I prefer Jonas- Anyways…” stammered the boy, taking his hand from his pocket, “I was looking for, uh, a friend of mine, Alfie. He works down at the body shop I’m working for and he usually stops by here to check up on his dad.”
Sandra grimaced. “Well, Jonas… you’re certainly late. Your buddy, Alfie… He was murdered.”
Jonas’ eyes widened. “Dear God…” he muttered. “How’d little Al go out? Did he go out fighting?”
“You didn’t get this from me,” began Sandra, leaning in to whisper, “but I heard from my boss that he was executed. For what? I don’t know. But that’s what I was told.”
As Sandra pulled back, Jonas muttered “That’s terrible… Could you… do me a favour and send Mr. Moldoff my regards?”
While she pondered Jonas’ request, Irina sent her a message. Taking out her phone and reading it, she saw that Irina sent the email to Mr. Moldoff’s banker, meaning that Sandra was able to clock out of her shift. Holding her bag close, she held her phone out to Jonas, taking the document out of the scanner and saying “I’ll have to do it tomorrow, and Heaven knows I can be pretty forgetful. Text me in the morning, I won’t forget then.”
Jonas typed his number into Sandra’s phone before handing it back. “It’s been great talking with you, Ms…”
“Mosquera. Alejandra Mosquera.” she said, smiling. “Do yourself a favour and cut it down to Sandra.”
After that, Sandra walked off. After returning the banking document back to Mr. Moldoff’s office, she stopped in front of the office where Alfie Moldoff’s body had been, and pondered the room. After that, Sandra made her way to an elevator and pressed the button to take her to the ground floor. She was about sixty floors up. This would naturally take a while. However, it would prove the perfect time to start planning. She glanced at the security camera above the door before taking out her phone, opening her messages app and beginning to text Irina about five simple, yet very odd requests to one who would be viewing out of context: a blueprint of the office tower, a heavy-duty circular glass cutter, a ‘Spinneret’, and two different gloves - a ‘Devil’s Whisper’ glove and a ‘Spider’ glove, with matching ‘Spider’ boots.
Once at the ground floor, Sandra left the building and onto the city street. The first thing that would come to mind was that Redcliff City was loud. Whether it be the honks courtesy of irritated drivers in the particularly inefficient traffic or the ambient thumping of a nearby nightclub’s bass, there was definitely no doubt that Redcliff City was a loud place. Sandra didn’t mind, though. She’d heard worse.
Eventually, she managed to catch the attention of a cab driver, who’d pulled over for her. Sandra didn’t bother checking the driver’s face, but it was clear they were a woman with her hair cut short, recovering from a full shaving of the head with minimal luck. Sandra opened the door, clambered into the seat and asked “Take me to Bloque Rodríguez.”
“Any specific place in mind? I hear a whole lot of businesses over there are getting shut down.” said the driver. She spoke with a ghostly, soughing voice.
“I’m fine. I’ll walk to where I need to be.”
“Don’t be a stranger, then. Where are you headed?”
Sandra pondered this before making her response. “Home. I’m headed home. It cuts through an alleyway, anyways, I don’t imagine you’d want to drive through one.”
“Got it.” said the driver.
Sandra glanced out the window as the cab picked up speed, joining up with the slow, barely moving traffic lines. Redcliff City was absolutely not an eco-city, barely even considerable as a walkable city. It was designed for cars in mind, and cars alone. The ordeal disgusted Sandra, but she knew there wasn’t much about it she could do. Her eyes fell upon a pair of children, smiling and laughing, as they skipped along one of the few pedestrian walkways. Their smiles were infectious, and - before long - Sandra found herself smirking at these children’s antics, as the occasional adult looked down at them running along. These children were having the times of their lives. In a way, Sandra was jealous of the normalcy they had.
But her brooding was interrupted. The cab driver had said something, which snapped Sandra out of her daze. She pondered what the driver could have said, not wanting to seem impolite, but she simply couldn’t identify it. So, out of options, she stammered “I’m sorry, I was in the middle of… thinking. Could you repeat that?”
“I’m sorry to bother you about it,” said the cab driver, “but I swear I’ve seen your face around when you were, I dunno, six years old…”
Sandra paused. “Excuse me?”
“You know, me…” said the driver. “It’s me, that cab driver’s daughter, the one who he’d pick up from school sometimes while you were in the back… A- Again, I’m sorry if you have the wrong person…”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe you’ve got the wrong girl?”
“No, no, I’ve definitely seen you before. Your name… I think it was Alexandra… Matraga?”
“It’s Alejandra Mosquera, but I prefer Sandra. Come to think of it, though… I’m beginning to remember your voice… What’s your name?”
“Mina Bickle…” said the cab driver.
Then memories flooded into Sandra’s mind. Old Man Quincey drove her around before - for whatever reason - he disappeared when she was seven years old. All of the memories she had past 9 years old had simply disappeared. But Quincey Bickle, the old cab driver whose car smelled like cigarette ash, remained. She remembered that the man made passing mention of a daughter in high school.
“Yeah! Yeah, I think I do remember you… He did mention having a daughter…” said Sandra. “How’s the old man, by the way?”
“He… He died in a gang firefight in 2070…”
“Oh… My condolences.”
“Don’t worry… he was a pretty bad dad for those 2 years anyways.”
Sandra then began to look back out of the window, and the rest of the drive was silent after that. She glanced around, and saw a silver badge on the dashboard, before turning back to look out of the window. The cab was passing through Chinatown.
“So, are you seeing anyone?” asked Sandra.
Mina sighed. “No. So many people right now are just so cold and distant that it’s impossible to really get close to them - men especially. They’re like a union. What about you?”
What a queer lady.
“So, there’s this girl I’m dating, and we cohabit because of… you know, how cash has been right now, and- she’s just… I love her so much, you know? If anything would have happened to her, well… I don’t know what I’d do…”
“Good on you.” said Mina. “We’ve reached your stop, by the way.”
“Ah.”
Leaving the cab, Sandra looked around. It was clear that - even from cursory glances - that Bloque Rodríguez wasn’t the most financially stable region. Not a lot had been invested in infrastructure, and even less was put into cleaning up the neighbourhood. Sandra, however, knew these streets. Vaulting a fence, Sandra began to wander the back alleys of the block, before stopping at a small door, adorned with various old sofas, washing machines, bins and other trinkets. There were double cream fire doors, ‘IRA AND SANDRA’ scrawled across it in black paint. Sandra pushed down on the handlebars, and entered.
“Ira, I’m home!” shouted Sandra. She sniffed the air. There was the scent of fried tinned pork, among other scents. “What’d you make while I was out?”
“S- SPAM and toast!” Irina shouted from inside.
“Really? We always have SPAM…”
“I know… Sorry-”
Sandra walked into the kitchenette, and saw Irina over the stove. Round-framed glasses sat upon her nose, she wore her frizzy, messy hair shoulder-length, and as was usual for her, she wore baggy pyjamas.
Hugging Irina from behind, Sandra said “Don’t worry about it. Helps me bulk up, anyways. Can’t miss out on protein.”
In response to this, Irina let out a squeal, flinching at the sudden hug. “S- Sandra! Don’t just do that!” A pout and a blush on her face, Sandra played with Irina’s hair, pushing it out of her glasses.
“You know me, Irina. Sorry~”
With Irina grumbling about this, the two young ladies laughed and began to exchange small talk between each other. With Irina plating the food, they then ate, before Sandra rushed back to her room.
She had work to prepare for.