Olivia Duma

Several years ago ...

The sound of my mobile ringing rudely shatters my peaceful slumber and I find myself buried deep in my blankets, drooling all over my pillow. My hand shoots out instinctively towards the phone, groping about in the darkness of the room. It takes several seconds for muscle memory to guide my hand, but it eventually closes in on the buzzing phone.

"What?" I grumble in an annoyed voice, the cobwebs still clogging up every corner of my head.

"Lieutenant?" the voice squawks from the phone's speaker, "There's been an incident."

"Incident? What incident?" I cough out through my dry throat, tongue flicking with irritation about the inside of my mouth, "What time is it now anyway?"

"Uh, close to 2am?" the voice answers somewhat apologetically, "I'm really sorry for disturbing your sleep. This is the militia by the way."

I sigh, getting into a sitting position and flick on my bedside lamp, illuminating the immediate area around me. Both my eyes open and immediately shrink back in a squint thanks to the light temporarily blinding them.

"Why are you calling me?" I grumble, not bothering to hide my bad mood at this unwanted interruption to my sleep.

"We just got a report from Loveless." the voice on the line continues, "One of the Valkyrie patrons there is causing a scene. From the description, she's one of yours."

"Oh, sweet divines. Just who is causing trouble there?" I groan, cursing my mysterious tormentor with all my heart, "Just call up her commander and let me go back to sleep."

"The person of interest is off duty now Lieutenant." the militiaman fires back, calm as a cucumber, "Under the regulations, off duty offences need to be directed ... "

"I know, to the unit's Yellow Rose supervisor." I huff irritably, "Send some of your people to the scene to get things under control. I'll be there as soon as possible."

"Thanks Lieutenant." the voice responds gratefully, "A squad has already been sent. We'll be waiting for you."

"Great. I'll be taking a while though." I mutter in a low voice and hang up the phone.

There's days I really dislike being a Yellow Rose and the need to be on duty at short notice. This is one of those days. With luck, this should be a vanilla bar fight, drunk soldiers going at it. An open and shut case. I can get away with performing a perfunctory investigation and get back to my beauty sleep as soon as possible. The investigation report with my recommendations can be filed tomorrow back at the Garden. Unfortunately, there's a bad feeling building in the back of head about this unwanted case that has fallen on to my lap. Loveless is the local notorious den of vice. Tolerated but never welcome. Nothing ever good comes out from that place.

I rub my eyes and get up from bed to begin rummaging through my wardrobe for something suitable to wear. The new sets of tailored uniforms I ordered the other day had just been delivered and this is as good a time to break them out I suppose. With no further ado, I begin changing, feeling the fabric pleasantly hug my figure. As I finish the ensemble by tying the black silk ribbon around the blouse's collar and wearing a string of pearls over it, I pause for a moment to consider whether or not there's time for me to apply makeup.

Nah, there really isn't. I told the militia that I would be taking my time, but it wouldn't be professional to make them wait too long. Especially since mass transit would have been shut down for the night by now.Since I don't own a car, I would need to call a cab to bring me to Loveless. Making a mental note to file an expense claim back at the Garden tomorrow, I put on my deployment earring and stuff the provisional inspector's badge and diary into my jacket pocket.

Satisfied that everything is in order, I head out of the apartment while adjusting my hair, into the cold unwelcoming night.

Or would it be early morning?

....

The first thing that strikes me when the cab pulls up at Loveless is how quiet it is. No queue outside the door, just a lonely bouncer keeping an eye out. I pay the driver and disembark, walking straight towards the bouncer. I flash my inspector's badge at her and she immediately leads me inside to the club's deserted dance floor, still stinking of sweat, cigarette smoke and stale alcohol. Several tables lie haphazardly about, completely shattered into splinters. Large chunks of floor tiling had also been torn up from the ground, leaving behind gaping holes.

The party might have ended early, but it certainly left it marks.

Standing around the perimeter of the dance floor are several militia milling restlessly about, backed up by a number of Auxilia in fully deployed bulwark. The entire group keeps a wary eye on a solitary woman seated with her head lowered in a corner of the dance floor. One of the militiamen notices me approaching and approaches straight away.

"Everything's under control." the militiaman grunts, clearly expecting my presence.

"Drunk Valkyrie decided to party in her bulwark?" I ask, stifling a yawn, "You guys disarmed her already?"

"She surrendered when we arrived in force." the militiaman shrugs and hands me a deployment earring, most likely confiscated from the offending Valkyrie, "Good thing too. If she decided to get nasty, I don't think we could have contained her without casualties."

"Should have scrambled a squadron of Valkyries yourselves." I remark, accepting the confiscated earring.

"Militia can't order Valks about." the militiaman eyes me critically, "This is all we had on short notice."

"Well, whatever." I say, taking out my diary and a pen, "Got a preliminary rundown of the case for me?" Its not like I can do anything about that not so subtle complaint anyway.

"Our Valkyrie flipped out and started wrecking the place, obviously." the militiaman snorts as he hands me the Valkyrie's service ID, "But its slightly more complicated than that. Some kind of love triangle is behind it, at least that's what I heard."

"What you heard?" I ask while scrutinizing the ID in my hand. Sara Nock. Class A Valkyrie. I didn't know her personally, but she's in one of the units I had been assigned to supervise. But the militia is correct about them being lucky tonight. If Nock wasn't feeling so cooperative, people would have died before the Auxilia succeeded in overwhelming her.

"We got a witness." the militiaman answers, "The boss of this place. Knows some of the history apparently."

"That's lucky." I nod agreeably. Getting lucky twice in a single night is a rare thing. Maybe the bad feeling I had back at the apartment came down to just being grumpy at the time.

"Yeah. Insists on being called 'Madam'." the militiaman says as he twists his waist with an audible pop, "Weird shit. She's waiting to talk with you."

"Wonderful." I comment, gesturing at the militiaman to guide me to the manager. As a Yellow Rose, I'm well aware of what Madam does and why she's been allowed to get away with it. People like to complain that Loveless's presence is a sign of how corrupt the Citadel has gotten, but that's really missing the woods from the trees. Corruption is part of why Loveless has been allowed to keep operating, but not the major reason. Using Madam as one of our informants is also not the main ground for indulging her, surprisingly enough.

The Garden is well aware that there's only so much the militia and the Yellow Roses can do. With the limited number of hours a day and personnel available, there's a hard cap on the number of people that can be either policed or supervised. Things slipping through the gaps is all but guaranteed. That cap could be eased by simply recruiting more heavily, but internal security is something like cleaning a toilet. You generally want it to be done and it makes life more pleasant overall, however its not something that's strictly necessary. You can use an absolutely filthy toilet if you really had to, its just not anyone's first choice.

And that makes hiring more Yellow Roses and militia a hard sell for the people on top. Those prospective workers could be doing something more productive, instead of watching over the shoulder of the people actually doing productive things. Discipline can only get you so far as well. The Red Roses can't be everywhere terrorizing potential deviants or dissidents into obedience. So what to do?

Manage the defiance of course. Allow deviants and dissidents places to indulge themselves, but also where the Yellow Roses can easily keep an eye on them. Collaborate with criminals like Madam, guaranteeing their monopoly over the vice business in return for unquestioned obedience. The Garden does more than cultivate Roses within its walls. Managing weeds is part of every gardener's job. And delivering a dose of herbicide if need be.

The militiaman leads me to the bar, where a neatly dressed woman is idly sipping a drink. She looks up from her glass and composes herself, shooing away the bartender. I dismiss the militiaman and prepare to draw my inspector's badge, but the woman is one step ahead of me.

"Ah." Madam greets, "I was wondering when the Garden would be sending someone."

"How did you know?" I ask, pocketing the badge now that there's not much use for it.

"You're Valkyrie." Madam points to my deployment earring, "And my esteemed client sitting in the corner surrounded by militia clearly does not recognize you. So you can't be from her unit."

"She's a statistic I'm responsible for." I admit rather indifferently. Its tough to be excited by anything when you badly want to go back home and sleep.

"If you say so." the woman's smile remains unwavering on her face, her eyes burning holes into me.

"So, how may Madam assist you?"