Chapter 6: Grieselda

Grieselda twisted the ends of her ponytail with familiar precision. Sleep in her med-pod had done wonders for her. She sat rejuvenated within Lieutenant Rafinya’s office, an office which was highly elevated, on the final floor, in the most spacious room and fitted with fancy furniture befitting the last boss of this branch.

Grieselda watched the tall lieutenant staring out the floor to ceiling windows, short blonde hair glinted in the sunlight as he regarded the central metropolis of the city.

“Open!” he commanded, stole a final look out the window and swirled to face the electronic door as it split open.

The captain appeared. His skull like face emotionless, with those skewed dark eyes observing.

‘Always observing.’

The captain shuffled in, stood at attention and performed a weak salute.

The lieutenant regarded him with grey eyes, deeply embedded into his eye sockets giving him a solemn look. This served him well when it came to intimidation but the captain was beyond being intimidated and they all knew it. Still didn’t stop the lieutenant from trying.

He could be dull like that.

“At ease,” the lieutenant said with a scowl on his face. Gestured to the free chair opposite his executive desk and took a seat himself in a much grander chair, one with a long back, patterned armrest and upholstered in linen fabrics.

The captain took a seat beside her.

“Grieselda.”

“Captain.”

The lieutenant kept his eyes trained on the captain. She regarded him out the corner of her eye.

‘Zero fear. Just his usual wariness.’

“What happened?” Rafinya asked without wasting time. “I want to know everything.”

“Hmm? You didn’t read my report?” The captain raised an eyebrow, feigned a look of absolute shock.

Grieselda studied the calmness of him, the ease in his shoulders, the lazy confidence in which he spoke.

‘But the inventory doesn’t lie.’

“I did,” Rafinya shot back. “I want to hear it from you”

“Why? The report is detailed enough,” the captain said. “I spent the whole ride back compiling that.”

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Grieselda snickered. ‘You made sure to glorify your role in it.’

Had there ever been a more shameless man than the captain?

The experienced lieutenant held back the urge to vocalize his unfiltered opinion. “Just do it, that’s an order.”

“Argh,” the captain groaned dramatically, quite unbefitting of a middle aged man and said. “Alright then. It’s like this…”

The captain proceeded to word for word recite the incident as was written in his mission report.

Grieselda grimaced.

She’d flunked interrogation tactics but even she knew to be suspicious of suspects who gave too rehearsed account of events. The captain should’ve been aware of this but he made no attempt to sound more natural.

‘Is he trying to draw suspicion to himself or worse he just doesn’t care how it looks, thinks his actions aren’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things.’

She couldn’t be sure but either way she didn’t like it.

“You’re not telling me everything,” the lieutenant said. “So spill it. I’ve already taken Selda’s account of events. I want to know every single detail from when you arrived at the waterworks.”

“Impossible, I can’t tell you every single thing step by step. You can check my body-cam for that.”

They couldn’t take the footage at face value because they couldn’t rule out the possibility it was tampered with. The captain excelled at program controls so it wasn’t an impossibility.

Moreover one of his combat droids had wrecked their camera during the fight and it wasn’t always in the captain's or her viewpoint especially after she was knocked out.

‘So he could’ve had his droid sneak off when I was knocked out.’

“There is a gap in the footage,” the lieutenant said. “Because your droids seem to have developed a tendency of accidentally damaging their surveillance feeds during fights.”

“It can’t be helped.” The captain shrugged. “They take a lot of punishment. If you’d give me more droids we wouldn’t have this problem so often.”

‘How can he remain calm in such a situation? Did he really have nothing to do with this?’

“Enough with all the droid requests,” the lieutenant snapped. “I told you to stop asking.”

“Fair enough,” the captain yawned. “Level with me Rafinya, what’s this all about then?”

‘And like that he’s taken control of the flow of the conversation.’

The lieutenant frowned. “They discovered missing items when they checked the vault?”

There was a drawn out silence as the captain rubbed his bagged eyes, contemplative.

Besides the agent they captured, Grieselda and the captain were the only unauthorized personnel to enter the hidden vault. She didn’t take anything.

‘So naturally the captain is the only suspect.’

The dark cloud of corruption loomed over him. Nothing had been ever proven but too many accusations had been thrust against him to give him the benefit of the doubt.

‘His nonchalant attitude doesn’t help either.’

Furthermore, the fact that most his cases had a tendency to get solved quickly was proof in itself really.

‘The captain doesn’t mind going around procedure to close a case.’

The captain eventually broke the silence. “Did you ever stop to consider maybe the AoF took the missing items? We marked one agent which was weird considering how team orientated the AoF is. Maybe there was another agent in hiding who smuggled those items out when we unlocked the facility.”

‘Plausible but too convenient to be believable.’

The lieutenant stared hard at him. As if trying to peer through his soul, see through the façade.

The lieutenant slumped back into his grand chair, exhaled audibly and she noted the defeated look in his grey eyes.

“I see,” Rafinya said. “I guess it’s possible.”

In any case they lacked proof and the captain knew it. Had there been proof he would’ve been in an interrogation room and not an office.

‘Was still worth a try. Seems he doesn’t crack easily underpressure.’

The lieutenant assumed a more relaxed tone.

“In future be more careful there is also a small chance the missing items were wrecked in your battle.” He shifted his gaze to Grieselda. “Restrain yourself a bit more depending on where you’re fighting.”

Grieselda smiled wryly, replied with a stiff nod all and secretly cursed the captain who subtly had blamed her for all the property damage in his report.

“Also there’s a new case and it requires the utmost discretion.”

Grieselda jerked her head, eyeballed the lieutenant for a long while. He'd accused the captain of theft less than five minutes ago yet he was giving him another important case.

‘Despite your suspicions he is still your best sword and you intend to use him.’

The lieutenant slipped a pale hand into his drawer. Retrieved a hardcover file filled with paper documents. Paper was rarely used in this digital age but remained the sole unhackable form of data storage.

He tossed the file to Grieselda. She opened it to a picture of a mature man. He had soft green eyes, a double chin and a smile capable of brightening any room. Looked like someone trustworthy.

“He’s a traitor,” the lieutenant said. “I’ve set up a task force on the 177th floor. Take the rest of the day off and report there tomorrow.”

Grieselda perused the file before passing it to the captain. There wasn’t much to look at. Most of the information was redacted.

The captain whistled. Stretched the file wide open and motioned the heavily redacted pages toward her. “That’s how you know a case is important, when the council won’t tell you anything about the target.”

Grieselda threw him back a wry smile. She could sympathize with his frustrations.

‘But the council has their reasons.’

The captain tossed the file across the executive desk as if it wasn’t worth his time. “What about the agents they’ve been ramping up their actions. I need to follow up on them. You still haven’t told me what items were taken from the waterworks. Why it was taken and what they plan to use it for. They’ve always been a step ahead of us. This is no time to take our eyes of them.”

Corrupt as he was the captain remained the foremost leading investigator on the Agents of Fate. He’d foretold of their danger long before anyone thought much of them. The main reason Lieutenant Rafinya let him handle anything agent related.

“I know,” the lieutenant said, ignoring the flipping of the file. “This is AoF related. A mark of fate medallion was left at the scene of this treachery and we can’t locate his chip, further proof he’s an agent.”

“Hmm.” The captain perked up.

“What did he do?” Grieselda asked.

“Stole from the city armoury,” the lieutenant said.

“Is that why the city is on lockdown?” The captain asked.

The lieutenant nodded.

“What did he steal?” She asked.

“That must remain undisclosed for now,” the lieutenant said.

The captain chuckled as if he’d expected as much.

“As for the Rhodesia waterworks,” the lieutenant said. “The missing item is also a relic, an inoperable field disruptor stripped from an old android.”

“Didn’t they destroy them all?” The captain asked.

The lieutenant shook his head solemnly. “As you saw the council kept a few of the empire relics in case they ever needed them against the other free cities. You never know what new enemies will arise in the future.”

Grieselda had not the faintest knowledge on field disruptors or their operation. All she knew.

‘It was a mistake not to obliterate the whole lot of those empire relics.’

If it was up to her she’d burn down the entirety of the Rhodesia waterworks.

The captain whistled again and said. “They can use it to breach the lockdown and escape the city.”

“We’ve deployed troops all over the border and restricted any high altitude flight. Even with the disruptor we still out gun them, they won’t escape.”

“They better not,” the captain said. “Otherwise they might return with an army of barbarians and our glass field will do little to stop them.”