"Sir, I was wondering if I might have a moment of your time?"

"What is it, Jarvis. I'm occupied."

"Well, I've noticed something odd about the tablets, and I was wondering if you could express your opinion on it, so I can put the matter to rest and-"

"Oh, fine, just get on with it."

Senior researcher Olvan lowers a stack of papers, which Jarvis recognizes as the latest set of financial tables from Drek'thelamagne.

"Yes sir. It regards the translation of a certain word in the mythological record. It must appear in twelve or more tablets. The other researchers have been identifying it as the name of the ninth century hierophant-king Nixne-chaltan."

"Jarvis, if all of the other academics think one thing, and you think another, which do you think is most likely to be wrong?"

"Me of course sir, but if you look at the characterization of the name-"

"I know the one you're talking about. There's nothing unclear in the phonetic reading. It is Nixne-chaltan."

"That's just the thing sir. That would be how it was read in the standard alphabet, but in every single case the word is written in the exultant form. Properly pronounced, I believe the name would be read as–"

Nix-nix-chittalias-ahhhh

Jarv's eyes flickered open, sweat beading on his forehead.

He rose and dressed, the last wisps of disturbed sleep evaporating as he went about his morning routine. When he was ready, he left the building in search of the closest facilitator of breakfast.

o o o

"Good morning imperial agents!" Jarv shouted as he burst through the doors of the basement facility office twenty minutes later. He carried a bag in one hand and a paper cup in the other.

Indrie ran a hand through her hair.

"Has anyone told you you're a lot to deal with."

"Most of my former associates were mindless. It took a lot to get a rise out of them."

He reached out and dropped the paper bag onto an empty desk. After a second he realized it was probably his desk, the largest of the four in the room, set on its own near the back. He sank into the chair behind it, delighting that the seat could spin around independent of its base.

"Saints, I can just imagine you yelling enthusiastic cliches at a bunch of mindless automatons."

"It was mostly skeletons and starbegotten," Jarv said. "Automatons are expensive, and I'm bad with machines. Where's Eind?"

"I think he's interrogating Paumi's remnant."

Indrie turned away from her work, spinning her chair to face Jarv.

"You know, there was a lot of bad blood between them. I don't think it's the best thing for Eind, for him to be put in that position of power over Paumi right now. I don't like thinking of what it'll do to his personality."

"I'll check on him in a minute."

Jarv kicked the floor and spun around twice, before steadying himself on the desk.

"And another thing," Indrie went on. "I don't agree with what you did to Paumi at all. The draurcraft was beyond the pale. And the murder! Whatever, I've seen colleagues executed for insubordination before, but you were capricious about it."

Jarv slowly stood and sauntered towards Paumi's desk.

Indrie's eyes followed him, confused.

"How dare you," Jarv barked suddenly, addressing the empty chair.

Indrie's expression twisted into a frown.

Jarv pitched his voice artificially deep as he continued to talk at the empty seat.

"This is rank insubordination. You've failed me for the last time."

He extended a hand and began throttling the empty air, making strangled noises out of the corner of his mouth.

He turned to look at Indrie. "You'd like something like that better?"

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Indrie didn't look impressed. "The way you handled it last night made me feel like I could be next."

"Not my intention. Sorry," Jarv said. He returned to the desk and pulled a powder donut from the paper bag, biting a small piece off it.

"I'm writing a letter of complaint," she went on, looking at Jarv with a steely expression. "I'll include details of what happened to Paumi, and what happened after."

Jarv almost choked on the donut. He coughed, then swallowed, then looked up.

"Can't you leave out the, uh-"

"The illegal soul manipulation?"

"Yes."

"No."

"Oh."

Indrie turned back around on her chair, putting her back to him. She picked up her pen and leaned over a sheet of paper, continuing to write below the existing block of text.

Jarv turned away, spinning a third time on his chair.

This was going to complicate things. Slightly. It depended on who was reading the correspondence up there at Thunder Bay, and who that person was passing information on to. It could lead to anything from his enemies coming out into the open to take organizational pot-shots at him, to midnight assassination by an all-powerful political player.

Breaking imperial law wasn't the absolute taboo here it might have been in Drek'thelamagne. They weren't in the Empire after all, and agents in enemy territory, which they technically were, had a lot of leeway. It would still be ammunition for anyone interested to pick up and stash away for later.

Jarv pulled an untouched donut from the bag and tossed it at Indrie.

The donut landed on her desk with a muted thump. She flinched back with a blood-curdling scream, then took a second to look at and recognize the donut, before returning to her work.

"They're good," Jarv said to her back.

He took a drink from his paper cup –coffee– and left the room. He followed the sounds of screaming echoing down the corridor, to the ritual room, apparently temporarily repurposed as an interrogation chamber. He took another long draw from his cup.

Coffee was interesting. Bitterness softened by milk. It reminded him of grayava, a fermented bean drink of the Elem'legni mountains, though grayava had more of a kick to it. Coffee had a less startling taste, but anyone who liked one would probably enjoy the other.

He pushed through into the ritual room, opening the door onto a scene of Eind crouching in the far corner of the room with his hands raised protectively, and Paumi ranting and throwing office supplies at him. It didn't seem like Eind was in danger of letting the power go to his head.

"You slime! You worm! Crawl to me on your belly!" The rabbit doll picked up an inkpen and hurled it at Eind, who flinched and deflected it away from his face. "You have one chance to escape what my family will do to you. Get me out of here. Put me in a new body. I may put in a good word for you."

The rabbit doll that Paumi was guesting in had changed during the night. Gone was its soft, fluffy exterior. The fur had turned crisp and matted in the absence of the doll's softness token.

"Get anything from him yet?" Jarv called to Eind.

Eind dared the onslaught to lower his hands and look over at Jarv.

"His grandfather's working with an independent businessman," he said, then ducked to avoid a thrown notebook. "He doesn't remember the name, but it's someone with several interests in the capital. I don't understand why he told me. He's just been screaming it out."

"Keep up the good work," Jarv said, closing the door.

He began walking back down the corridor, towards the sleeping area.

A businessman trying to get in on the infiltration project wasn't the worst possible scenario. Someone with a financial interest might be bargained with, and someone with a head for currency might be willing to cut their losses, as opposed to launching an expensive and ultimately pointless campaign of revenge over their lost asset.

Jarv felt like he could put this pot on a low fire for a while, while he addressed his other problems.

He paused in the bunk room and sat on the corner of a bed, reaching under his pillow to pull out his journal. An inkpen slipped out of the pages as he opened it, and he wrote out a quick agenda.

Find new cultural liason.

Find way to dispose of bodies.

Dispose of body of previous cultural liason.

He tapped the pen against the page, thinking. There was something he'd forgotten.

Oh right.

Find cultural liason replacement.

Find way to dispose of bodies.

Dispose of body of previous cultural liason. Begin construction of Ogrigg gate.

The plan for the new Ogrigg gate was the whole reason he was in Chicago to begin with. Still, he probably had some leeway with that. He'd only just arrived after all. They couldn't expect him to start immediately. He had to get oriented first.

He moved the pen up to the top of a list and added a new item, above all of the others.

Get oriented.

Then, remembering the problems with security, wrote Improve security in squashed letters between the first and second items.

He put the journal down and donned his suit jacket from the previous day, packing the journal into his bag, checking that his pockets were loaded with the local paper currency and his pen, and that his dagger was sitting in its hidden sheath in his jacket.

He dipped into the base's small kitchen to wash the paper cup, pulling the lever at the sink that triggered the flow of water from the fountain head. He swirled out the leftover coffee and wiped the waxed interior, before placing the cup to dry in one of the high cupboards.

The front door locked itself behind him as he left, and began walking deeper into the city.