Her eyes again opened. The white concrete ceiling was pure white without a single stain. It was too lovely compared to the one in her department. She wasn’t in her home and wasn’t with Kitty. The pain was on the right edge of her head vertex, where Tireless knocked last night. A hand rubbing her head, she sat up with the early light of the sunrise. The light reflected on her face and her stripe patient shirt.

“Oh, you woke up! Your clothes are here,” the nurse that had the door ajar pointed at the clothes tree next to her bed, “ and General Kizac wants to talk with you. Call me when you’re ready. I’ll be just outside the door waiting.” The grinning nurse closed the door as she got herself outside the patient's cell.

Standing up, she could feel that her legs were still the same, agile legs. Putting up her gray featherless down, she could almost smell that green bastard again. The taste of the ground was still on her lip. She hesitated when it came to her mask. She stared at her mask as if she was scanning all the dirt on it. After a few seconds, she put it on. Clapping on her unwashed clothes, she walked out as dirt fell down. That nurse kept total silence but her phony smile and enthusiasm. Barnala looked around as they walked through the hallway. Stainless white walls, fancy light tubes, expensive wooden floor, the giant golden hollow hexagon on the wall of every corridor corner. A public hospital wouldn’t contain these. This building was at least half-military.

The meeting room was not far away. From the frosted glass, Barnala saw an obese black man in uniform sitting on an orange couch, facing the short refectory table and another couch in front of him.

The room was meanly in warm tones. It’s very different from the rest of the hospital with cold tones light tubes. The square LED on the ceiling illuminated the whole room. The man wearing a military uniform turned his head left, looking at the door that the nurse had just opened. He was originally lying on the sofa until the moment. He sat up with his right hand outstretched toward the opposite couch and made a welcome gesture. “Please, sit,” the man said with his virile muffled voice as Alpha Fox entered the room.

The table was located at about the center of the room but a few inches close to the left. Two rows of bookshelves lined up at the left and right walls. A giant curtain that covered the whole wall was opposite the glass door. There might be windows behind the curtain, but just might.

“Barnala Glorier, the bounty hunter in the Renarde Hound. Living in a small apartment with her sister Kitty Glorier…….”

“Hey!” the woman stopped the man brutally. Her visage was tensed in alert like an enraged fox.

The man closed the folder in his hand and put it in the corner of the table. He leaned forward with his elbows propping on his knees. Even so, his taller than her. “I’m General Kizac. You might have heard me before.”

“The highest general Bernando Kizac. Quite famous,” Alpha Fox readjusted her seat to the exact same spot as the man leaning forward.

Another skinny man with a briefcase in his hand pulled the door open and strode to the back of the general. “I’m here to offer you a deal,” Kizac said as the man opened the briefcase. The mask covered her upper face. Still, Barnala had her mouth scarcely agape.

Bernando made a softly firm strike on the table, “So, you really need that bounty, don’t you?” He glanced at the briefcase on the table and the things inside.

“What do you want from me?” Glorier stood up with her right leg narrowly bent. Her fists were already ready. She couldn’t believe what she saw came for free. There must be something dirty inside, and she would never think of trying it.

“Nothing, we just wish you success in arresting Tireless,” Bernando said while pushing the briefcase to her side of the table. He tried to get his voice higher so it wouldn’t sound so pressuring, but he was undoubtedly unsuccessful.

“Why?” Alpha Fox contemplated into the briefcase and looked up at the general again.

“Believe it or not, Tireless has always been a big problem to the council, and we need a capable guy,” Bernando glanced at Alpha Fox’s face for the last time to see her doubting face. He said, “We aren’t forcing you. It’s not like we will threaten you with Kitty or some…….”

“You!” Alpha Fox’s left hand clasped the man’s collar, and her right hand held next to her ear as she trampled her right foot on the wooden table.

Kizac’s chubby body was lifted into the air. His knees were half bent, and his whole body was in a very awkward posture. The skinny man behind Kizac had his hand on the saber at the side of his red and blue uniform. “You can punch me, but we know where your sister is, and there is no way you can run,” even in the threat of her anger, General Kizac was as calm as he had planned everything.

A moment of brief dread took over her eyes. Her frown brows loosened at the decisecond but scowled two deciseconds after. Her teeth were gnashing, and her hands grasped harder. Her right fist was so close that it was almost on Kizac’s face. But still, she unclasped his collar as she pushed him back to the couch. She had her head down and eyes fastened that she missed that hasty scare on Bernando’s face.

Her visage was again calmed. She shut the briefcase and left in a hurry, like escaping. Her fists were still clutching.

“General Kizac,” the skinny man called the general’s name after the door closed again. “Hm?” Bernando stood up and straightened his belt. “It’s illegal according to the law, sir,” the skinny man said without any expression but a criticizing tone. “It’s called protecting my country,” Bernando turned around and clapped on the man’s shoulder.