In a sunlit facility somewhere else on Regresis, a woman gives her not-quite-positive report to her boss. The light filters through a glassed-in ceiling, framing both women in their own respective glittering beams of soft light. The boss chews on the information for a moment, then speaks in a voice untouched by emotion.
“So you’re telling me it’s completely gone?”
Sevi winced and nodded at the back of her boss’ head. The great leader of Poet’s End was a busy woman, and she had a habit of reacting violently to bad news. Not to her employees, of course, but to the people who were the source of said bad news. Which led to media cover ups and a whole lot of lost money in operating costs, plus the bribes to keep the boss’ identity secret, and all the files that would need to be burned…
“Yes, ma’am. Not just offline, or unreachable, but gone in its entirety.” Sevi confirmed. She swiped across a report detailing how one specific connection had gone dark, and how it was so thoroughly dark that it almost made the person seem like they hadn’t existed in the first place. “Our techs are wonderin’ if we’d been dealing with an algorithm for all this time, but that don’t sit right with me. There was some showmanship and inconsistency behind the blank name and heavily modulated voice that don’t work with that theory.”
The boss swiveled around in her chair, revealing a woman with slim features and hair the colour of a freshly ripe pear. Piercing cherry-blossom pink eyes that spoke of a strength far beyond the woman’s lithe frame bore into Sevi, and lips painted to match her eyes curled into a small, sharp smile.
“Sevi, please close the curtains. I don’t want any peeping eyes for this one.”
A lump formed in Sevi’s throat that she tried to swallow around, but she nodded nonetheless. She activated all the security protocols and programs available to the room, then watched with a growing anticipation as they activated one by one. Until nothing would leave the room, no matter what was said. And no matter what happened to the people inside of it.
The boss nodded and gestured for Sevi to take a seat. “Be straight with me. Did one of ours rat this one out?”
Sevi shook her head without hesitation. “No. All of our attempts at gettin’ a name to the blank face ended in perfect failure, and we couldn’t even trace the shipments we purchased from them back to anyone. We don’t even know how many people were runnin’ that operation, nevermind outta where or how they got the stuff.”
“Which makes this all the more difficult for us.” The boss said pleasantly.
Sevi shuddered.
The boss waved off Sevi’s tension. “Oh, not like that. Not for now. From what little I feel I learned from our purchases, this person was cautious beyond cautious and skilled beyond skilled. Everything we looked into turned out to be a dummy or a false flag, and they were so well disguised that even our best didn’t find out until it was far too late.”
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Sevi waited patiently as the boss tented her fingers and lost herself in thought. For a woman with such an explosive temper, she was oddly calm about this situation. After a good few minutes of pure silence, the boss rose from her chair and walked towards a glass door that led to a massive indoor garden. A good chunk of which had been purchased from the contact who had just gone dark, which the boss had labeled ‘Seedbroker’.
“They found plants thought to be long dead, and were smart enough not to kill any of the seeds. Not even a few to make us think we were lucky to get anything at all.” The boss mused. “Either Seedbroker thought we would go after them if they ripped us off, or they valued their relationship with us more than their bottom line. If it’s the first option, then we have no reason to go after them. Fear is a horrible business partner.”
“And if they valued the connection?” Sevi asked, as it was obvious the boss had left that question unanswered for a reason.
The boss grimaced and clasped her perfectly manicured hands behind her back. “Then we just lost one of our best assets for a reason we can’t make sense of. It could be that one of our competitors snatched them up, or they got everything they’d been looking for and called it quits. But I’m confident that they’re not dead.”
Sevi raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t that be option three?”
“No.” The boss shook her head slightly and stared wistfully through the glass at her prized garden. “If they were dead, we would’ve known about it. I can’t tell you how, but I can assure you we would know. Look into all the big-time robberies that didn’t end with anyone dying in the last two months. See if anyone made away with a haul big enough that someone could live in excess for the rest of their immortal life if they sold all of it.”
“Yes, boss.” Sevi said as she jotted down the orders. “Is there anything I should keep out of the communications, or anything in particular I should put into them?”
“You don’t have to speak in assumptions. We’re perfectly alone here.” The boss gestured at the walls around them for emphasis. “Don’t give out any information that makes it seem like we’re looking for the person in particular. Disguise it as covering our tracks so we can plug any leaks that person might have ripped into our thick fabric of anonymity.”
She turned and smiled crookedly at Sevi. “If our enemies go after our lost contact, we want it to be for our secrets. Ones that we know our contact does not possess.”
Sevi nodded and scribbled down a few simple encoded lines of text as a note to herself. She tapped her finger against the screen, then frowned to herself. The boss leaned over and gently pulled Sevi’s chin up with one finger, then planted a quick kiss on her forehead.
“What was that for?” Sevi asked reluctantly. She’d never even heard of the boss doing anything like that before.
“You looked so adorable with that little frown. I just had to sneak in.” The boss said with something like affection, yet far more sinister. “You’ve been my most trusted aide for almost ten years, Sevi. Even through more than one redistribution of assets, which would have been prime material for betrayal of some sort. Even now, I haven’t heard a single whisper of any information that I gave you alone. Which is why I’m trusting you with this.”
Sevi’s heart beat once. Then twice. Not in time with her own heartbeat, though, which still continued on as normal. These extra beats roared through her Qi like waves on a still pond, stirring the cultivation she’d put on the backburner ever since she joined the Poets. She stared down at her hands and silently gawked at the change.
“What did you do to me?” She eventually managed to ask, though it was spoken through multiple layers of suspicion and possibilities. “I don’t even know what this feels like, but I know it's powerful.”
“Yes, it is. And it only comes with trust and love.” The boss said with stone-cold seriousness. “You’ll see exactly what it does in the months to come. But for now, you are going on a little trip to the city of Hangstone. After you set those orders I gave you in motion, of course.”
Sevi couldn’t help but smile at the sensations that coursed through her. “Yes, boss! I’ll do that right away!”
The boss laughed lightly as she bent down to pluck one singular flower from a stem that rose almost to her waist. It was the colour of a sunset on a smoky night, with petals curved like fish hooks around a core of crystallized nectar which smelled strongly of caramel. She fondly stroked the petals between her fingers as she walked up to Sevi, set it against her hair and laced the stem through one of her hairpins.
“My name is Raqla Vasroa. You are now Sevi Vasroa.” She said with a smile that carried violent threats and wondrous promises alike. “Welcome to the true family.”