- AL -

“Good afternoon, Mr. Solomon,” the Capitoline receptionist greeted Abraham as he arrived into the Hall, returning from his lunch break.

“Good morning, Mrs. Williams. Any message from the President or Mr. Redspear?”

“No sir,” she answered after quickly verifying.

“Thank you.”

“Have a nice day, Mr. Solomon,” she flashed him an inviting smile, immediately blushing afterwards from her daringness.

“You too, Mrs. Williams,” Abraham answered, hiding his annoyance at her subtle intentions.

As he went to climb the main spiraling stairs, leading to the above stories and his office, his instincts warned him of a danger. Pretending to stop to verify the time on his watch, he took the opportunity to look around him. His keen eyes fell at last upon the guest waiting section of the hall, where two men were seated. Dark suits, their briefcases at their side, they could have passed for ordinary business men waiting for a meeting. But subtle ticks, such as their fleeting stares, constantly looking at the hall, the fact they were reading a magazine, yet never turned the pages, and their generally tense body, led Abraham to believe that they were more than just waiting for a meeting.

They finally turned their stare toward the stairs, toward him, and he quickly returned to pretend to look at his watch, and tap on it, as if it was broken (part of him noticed with annoyance that it was indeed still malfunctioning, showing 10:34 a.m. despite the hour being 14:58 p.m. on the Hall’s clock). Once he resumed climbing the stairs, he heard the men rise and start to walk toward the stairs. As soon he reached a level of the spiral where they couldn’t see him, he picked up the pace and started running up the stairs. With some surprise, he suddenly found himself at the story of his office. Part of him wondered how he got there that fast, while the most urgent part of him told him to think quickly about his next move against the oncoming attackers. Public Relations Advisor wasn’t a dangerous position, and unlike the President and the most important positions, Abraham didn’t owned bodyguards. And he doubted that the briefcases were empty.

“Bodyguard!” he suddenly thought.

He had a bodyguard. He walked briskly toward his office at the end of the corridor while taking out his cellphone and pressing a speed dial that Randall had programmed the evening before. Putting the volume to the utmost minimal, he pressed it hard against his ears to avoid the conversation being heard.

“Hello?” Ysadora’s voice finally answered, with a touch of defiance, as if the call had better to be important.

“Ysadora, it’s Abraham,” he whispered; before she could answer back, he continued quickly, still whispering as low as he could, as he wasn’t sure where the attackers were now: “I need your help; someone, I suspect a council member that got exposed, sent two big men to give me a knuckle sandwich. I can manage them for awhile, but they might have time to escape with no one knowing.”

With relief, he heard her say some instructions to someone beside her, something about sending her second assistant to greet some newcomers, and then started to run, her heels clicking harder and faster upon the marble floor. At least, she was too in the Capitoline.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Going to my office; they are climbing the stairs, and are most probably at the top.” He reached his office, and closed the door behind him.

“Can you get out of there?” she asked him, her breath finally catching up with her running speed.

“No, there is only one way, and they’ve covered it. It’s fine, I’ll keep them trapped in my office; I might succeed to get a confession recorded.”

“I won’t be long, I promise. Keep out of the door’s way,” upon this instruction, Ysadora hung up.

Abraham stopped the call; he quickly turned on the audio recording, muted the playback audio, found some office tape, and taped the phone under his desk. As he heard heavy steps approaching his door, he opened a file at random, and looked busy as the door slammed open.

“Come in,” he said sarcastically.

The two men closed the door behind them as Abraham rose from his chair, examining the situation; he noticed that once they had been alone, they had put on masks.

“You know, if you want to look incognito, you have to stop to be so damn obvious that you are about to do something outlawish. Fleeting gazes and not turning the pages of your magazine, especially when the page you are ‘reading’ is an impotence cure publicity picture, are big signs that you’re waiting for someone,” Abraham told the strangers, with a pleasant smile. “Tell me, you got sent in response of the leaks, didn’t you?”

The men said nothing, putting down their briefcases. They were blocking the exit, but Abraham didn’t mind. He intended on keeping them busy; and he knew exactly how to handle them. Bullies always reacted the same way; that much hadn’t changed since his youth.

“It’s their fault, really,” Abraham continued, going around his desk to stand in front of it. “The first key to a good business is to never soil it. If you do something illegal, you do it unrelated to your professional name and business. No linked banks accounts, no…”

He paused as the men opened the briefcases, then a secret compartment, and took out matraques. Abraham laid nonchalantly back against his desk, his hands firmly flattened upon the varnished wood. He smiled mischievously at the attackers, and waited for the leader to attack first. His heart began to pound with the adrenaline flushing through his veins, and he tensed as the leader finally made his move, raising his matraque, the other man moving sideways to cut an escape route. As the first leader approached close enough, and the matraque fell down toward Abraham, the latter pivoted himself toward the back, his arms supporting his weight. His feet left the ground, and in the same movement, he slammed his legs against the leader’s chest. The leader’s matraque hit the air, and he retreated a feet or two back under Abraham’s leg hit at his lungs; Abraham returned back on his feet as it was the second man’s turn to attack. Abraham pivoted to his left to avoid the first matraque blow, which fell heavily upon the desk; the first leader came back with a second blow, one that Abraham countered with his arm. With his other arm, he threw a glass ashtray to the face of the second hitman, who dropped his matraque and flew his hands to his face in a failed attempt of dampening the hit. The first man tried to hit once more, but Abraham ducked and in the same movement, lunged forward; he administered an uppercut to the leader’s jaw, who dropped the matraque in pain. As the leader retreated a few steps back, dazed by the pain in his jaw, Abraham took the opportunity to give a kick to the man’s right knee, making the hitman fall, and temporarily paralysing him. The second man snuck behind, took Abraham by the neck, slammed him flat against the desk, and attempted to choke him. Abraham struggled to get his legs free, and once they were, he pushed with all his might against the hitman, attempting to weaken the hold on his throat; but the man was as motivated than him to accomplish his mission, and the grip stayed tight, and Abraham began to gasp.

Suddenly, the hitman let out a surprised gasp, and he was yanked backward, Abraham almost following him due to the man still trying to hold on to his throat. As Abraham clumsily stumbled upon his feet, and the hitman fell to the floor, he saw Ysadora standing in the room, finishing a spin upon herself, holding a strange chain-like metallic weapon. She was holding its sword-like handle, and Abraham noticed a triangular tip wrapped around the ankle of the hitman that was strangling him, linked to the handle through a long link.

“Don’t come close or touch either my weapon or the man; if you have any cuts or wounds, it will kill you,” she warned him, retracting her weapon back to her side.

Abraham saw the leader, the one he had broken the knee, lying on the floor, immobile. Soon, despite his attempt to crawl out of the office (and Ysadora bringing him back and closing the door), the second hitman convulsed for a few second, then also laid immobile. Signaling Abraham to stay where he was, Ysadora knelt beside both victims, and took their pulse; with a satisfied expression, she rose, and retracted her weapon. This time, the entire length of the chain retracted, the triangular tip joined the handle, and Abraham saw that fully joined, it looked exactly like a segmented sword. The blade folded up into a roll, and Ysadora placed the now small weapon back on a strap unto her left thigh under her skirt.

“They’re dead,” she announced coolly, before talking to the empty air: “Daniel, I need the cleaning team up in Mr. Solomon’s office. Tell them to be discreet, we don’t want anyone to see anything.”

She applied some cream on her hands, then turned to Abraham, whom was examining the victims with an equally cool face.

“Are you alright?”

“Of course, just a few minus bruises. I don’t even feel anything,” Abraham answered honestly. He realized that he indeed didn’t felt any pain, which was a surprise considering the matraque hit on his arm, the impact of his back against the desk, and the strangling.

“I meant mentally. Are you alright? Seeing death for the first time can be traumatizing.” The way she said it made it seem like she considered such a reaction below her.

Abraham looked at her in surprise, and snorted.

“What, seeing my attackers dead? It was me or them. You forget that I have studied Nature’s law. Death is a constant.”

He realized it sounded terribly patronizing for such an innocent question from her part; at least, she was caring, unlike his youth years, when he was left alone to deal with bullies, even by his own parents. His tone softened, and he gave her a grateful smile.

“I mean, I’m okay, really. I’m glad you got them quicker, though. What happened?”

She smiled proudly, and Abraham couldn’t help but appreciate how her turquoise eyes shone when she did.

“A form of poison. My weapon is laced with it. Quick and nasty, especially with these big guys, with all their heart pounding fast. Carries the poison faster. That’s why I told you to stay clear.”

She walked to the window, and checked outside.

“Seems to be no one else.”

“No, they were alone. It was obvious by how they were fighting.”

She walked back to him,

“Right, well, you and I should go downstairs to let my guys clean up your office. In an hour, all will be back to normal.”

She paused, and looked at him with confusion.

“What?” he asked.

“You changed your tie?” she wondered with surprise.

“What? No, it’s the same one from this morning,” Abraham replied, confused.

Ysadora raised an eyebrow.

“Your tie was stripped black and white when we ate breakfast together; it’s now pokedot black and white,” she told him.

Abraham checked his tie; it was indeed pokedot black and white. His own eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Okay... Well, apparently, I did…”

Ysadora shrugged.

“It happens; beside, your new tie suits you,” she finished with a playful smile.

Abraham smiled too at the compliment, and he opened his office door to let her out first. He was starting to really enjoy working here; but most of all, to know someone had finally his back. He realized with a certain shock that he was actually starting to trust someone else; a beautiful someone at that…

Abraham shook vividly his head; it was really not the time to be thinking about that. Much more important things laid ahead of him, and for that, he needed all his focus. Randall wasn’t someone he wanted to disappoint.