Chapter Twelve

It took all of Natalia’s willpower not to blush as she walked into her war room. Her people were buzzing happily as she walked in, Shido and Allison both gave her a thumbs up. It had taken Saki less than five minutes to tell the rest of the team that their Major had “met someone.” And the news had now had twenty-four hours to work its way through the entire team.

“Alright guys I need reports.”

“Ooh.” Said Regin. “He is cute.” The Siren woman had a wicked grin on her face. Natalia rubbed her temple. Normally she didn’t mind the psychics picking up her surface thoughts, they couldn’t help it really, but at times she did need to remind them that she did know how to deal with their poking. She began mentally humming an annoying little jingle that had been on the holo-vid and that the whole team had found annoying, she smiled as the Sirens all winced.

“Yes, I met a male. Yes, we had dinner. No, nothing happened, so you can get those dirty thoughts out of your head Shido.” She looked around the table and realized they were all hanging on every word. She sat back, and shook her head as they all leaned forward. Natalia laughed. “Yes, I am going to see him again, we are going to have dinner on Thursday.”

The team cheered, and Saki gave her a one armed hug. “Guys it’s just…it’s a…” she paled as she realized what she had set in motion.

Shido pried Saki off her and gently rubbed at the tension building in her shoulders. “It’s a date.” His usually laughing eyes were more serious now. “I’m proud of you, sister.”

Natalia rested her hand on Shido’s he was the only member of her team that had gone through some of the advanced classes that she had been put through. Of all her siblings he was the only one who understood how terrified her impromptu decision made her. The Sirens knew, but seeing and experiencing were two different things.

“It’s not like she’s getting married guys.” Shido said in a warm voice. He leaned over and hugged her bathing the Kitsune woman in his comforting, familiar scent. “Aww! Our little Talia’s all grown up!”

Natalia’s face turned red as her team laughed, and she head butted the quick-mouthed prankster, grinning wickedly as he cursed in pain. “Alright people, let’s try and get some work done.” The team quickly took seats around the table.

“Now where are we with the nurse case?”

“The nurse has fallen completely off the grid.” Said Shido, “I’ve had Douglas running recognition software through every freaking video feed we can get our hands on and she hasn’t popped anywhere. I’m certain she ended up on those Ferals' table. Face it, none of the information we have on this girl points to her being anything but an Uppercity daisy. There is almost no way she’d survive in Undercity. Not this long.”

Natalia nodded then frowned as she realized the computer terminal next to Shido’s was empty. “Where is Douglas? This is supposed to be a team meeting.”

Shido took a deep breath. “I told him not to come… Major, Specialist Acern is a Xenophobe. He cannot work in a mixed species environment, and his assignment to this unit is either, a punishment for him, an attempt to sabotage this team, or the mistake of a grossly incompetent personnel employee. It is my feeling that he will work best for the team if segregated and allowed to work alone with supervision and monitoring.”

Irritation went over the faces of most of the team. “Understood.” said Natalia in a resigned voice. “We will proceed with your recommendations until we can transfer him to a unit he is better equipped to deal with. I am requiring that he go at least twice a week to see a therapist to deal with the Phobia. Please make sure that he gets on rotation with one of the head shrinkers.”

“Yes Major.”

“The nurse’s trail is cold, and I’m not willing to waste any more resources on her, unless someone can give me a compelling reason why I should.” She glanced around the table, getting only blank expressions and shaken heads in response. “That’s what I thought. We are going to continue working this case, however the Tower agrees with our assessment that the nurse has likely been the victim of some misadventure in Undercity, so it is being moved from a class red operation to a yellow.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Various members of the team nodded. It was disappointing to be unable to complete a mission, it meant a hit to the team’s reputation and bonus level, but they were professionals, and they recognized that this case was not going to be an easy one to solve. Especially not when the target they were supposed to deal with had been someone else’s dinner. Throw in that the only lead they had was the name Rei, basically the “John Smith” of the Kitsune community due to its multi-gender nature, and there was literally nothing to go on.

“Now, as I said we are not dropping this case, not until we have confirmation that the target is dead. However, we have two new cases. Shido, you, Miyako, Lucas, Noriko and I are going to be running the undercover security for a series of parties being held by the Grand Council, they are trying to raise more support for the frontier projects.”

“The rest of you are going to move on to a new drug case, there is a new chem, street name Genie. We are to track it down to the source and execute anybody with the formula.”

She paused, making sure she had the teams full attention. “This is a nasty, nasty new chem, and the formula includes Kitsune bone marrow. It is being used as a beauty enhancer, and sexual stimulant. Basically it makes you feel pretty and…in the mood. It also gives a false sense of invulnerability. We have already had several people step in front of maglev’s believing that they could stop the train with their body. Genie also leaves the mind extremely open to suggestion, there is a report in Melbourne stating that one murder suspect used it on his neighbor, had the drugged man torture the suspect’s wife to death, before ordering his victim to jump out a fortieth story window.

Natalia handed out copies of the files to her team, including handing an extra one to Shido to give Douglas. “Questions?”

No one spoke, “Dismissed.” Natalia stood and walked out of the war room and into her office. She noticed the reminder that she had not yet contacted MRD with her mate choice, and bit her lip unhappily as she typed a report to send to her superiors.

She was not surprised when Shido and Noriko came in her office and closed the door. They were the two of the three people she was closest to in their family, the only one missing was Takada.

“How are you doing?” asked Noriko as she walked around the desk to stand next to Natalia. The sweet Siren had used die to make her skin the color of coffee, with rich auburn hair. Noriko had a unique gift to link with a troubled mind and sooth it. MRD and mental health was constantly borrowing her to try to figure out how she did it and if it could be taught.

“I’m mostly alright.” Natalia leaned back in her chair. “I am stressed, but… there’s not much I can do about that.”

“Does your civilian know what you are?” asked Shido.

“No, I told him I was the daughter of a Perth official.”

Shido sat on the edge of Natalia’s desk rolling her purple pen across the cover of her book. “I know this may be a bit early but you need to be ready.”

“For what?”

“To tell him the truth, Natalia. You are going to the breeders in less than a month. If this thing works for you, and I pray to Gaia it does, you are going to need to talk to him about what is expected of you. It would be cruel to walk up to a man who cares about you and tell him you’re pregnant with another guy’s child.”

“But it may not be like that, it may not be romantic at all, we could just be friends.”

“Bullshit Talia, your releasing pheromones like a teenager with their first crush; you’re attracted to him and that’s wonderful!”

“Talia, I know your training in…personal relationships was very traumatic, but I don’t want you to throw away something that could make you happy. That’s all any of us want, to see you happy.” Noriko said in her sweet voice.

Natalia smiled at her best friends, “You two are not going to let me chicken out, are you?”

“Nope. You are going on that date if we have to deliver you there ourselves.”

Natalia sighed, and decided a change of topic was in order. “Oh, Shido, I know you are a bit overworked but you are going to need to run backgrounds on all the guests to the Council’s parties, and I don’t want Douglas working completely alone on the Genie case. I am authorizing you to go down to personnel and requisition a new comp-tech. We need another set of hands, and apparently they can’t find their ass with a map and GPS coordinates. If they give you too much flack send them back to me and I’ll chew on them for a bit.”

“Nice way to change the subject Talia.” Shido chuckled. “But I wouldn’t mind going a couple rounds with personnel. Kylee, Robert, and Luke are great, but Meredith and Douglass are total flakes; although Douglass is at least a daisy with skills.

Noriko shook her head, obviously amused by something going on in Shido’s mind. “I heard from another Siren that we got Douglass because of Meredith, she bribed somebody to make sure they sent someone even more inappropriate, because she was angry that we wouldn’t let her skate on her ‘cute human tushie’”

All three rolled their eyes, there were too many humans, even within InSec, who felt entitled to special treatment because of their genetics. It was annoying. “Her tushie wasn’t even that cute.” Shido felt the need to point out.

“Come on you two, I’ll spot you a drink down at the pub.” Natalia stood and closed her comp-pad. “It’s been a hell of a couple of days.”