Gus found they were in a office building lobby.
“Agent Gustavus Hellström, welcome. Deputy-Director Ehrich is in the main hall,” said a woman behind a desk off to one side. There was a distinct accent to her words, but Gus couldn’t place it.
Wearing a professional dress, jacket, and leggings, she looked like an office worker for a Fortune 50 company.
She held out a piece of paper across the desk to Gus.
Melody, Trish, and Vanessa all stood nearby with similar papers in their hands.
Gus gave the assistant a smile and a nod as he took it from her.
Glancing down at the paper, he saw it simply read as one dash one.
“Mine’s one dash one,” Gus said aloud, looking at the others.
“One dash two,” Melody said.
“I’m one dash three,” Vanessa said, holding up her paper.
“And I’m one dash four,” Trish said.
Gus turned to the woman at the desk, hoping maybe she’d elaborate further.
She only smiled at him for a second, then went back to her monitor and keyboard.
Right. Cause Mark is Mark.
She’s probably some horror creature that can make most Paras look like sheep, too.
Gus kept watching the assistant for several more seconds. Finally, the young woman looked back up to meet his eyes.
There wasn’t anything there. She wasn’t wearing a mask.
Nor did she feel like anything to him. As if she wasn’t even here.
Or real.
When he glanced down at her desk, he found nothing one would expect at a front desk inhabited by a person.
There was no hand sanitizer, no tissues, no water bottle, no mug. No small bits most people would clutter a workspace with either.
No stickers, lip balm, fingernail clippers, phone.
Nothing.
“Construct?” Gus asked, looking back at the woman’s eyes.
The assistant blinked, finally with an expression on her face.
Absolute surprise. There was just a tiny tendril of fear bleeding from her now as well.
“I… beg your pardon?” she asked.
“I was wondering if you’re a Constructed being. Are you material or spiritual? If spiritual… you’re… an amazing spirit,” Gus said, indicating her with a fingertip. Now that he’d looked at her, he found it almost hard to look away. She was dusky skinned with black hair and warm brown eyes. Her features were narrow and fit her face perfectly to give her almost a “sculpted” look. “If material, your form is spectacular. Did you craft it yourself? And what’s your name, by the way?”
Opening her mouth and then closing it, the assistant lifted her chin slightly.
“My name’s Indali. Indali Jaya. I’m a Material, if you must know. And… thank you, I did fashion this form.” A smile curled the ends of her lips upward.
Smiling back at the woman, Gus made a mental note of her name. If he was going to have to walk by her every day on his way into the building, he wanted to start off on the right foot.
Compliments and understanding were a great way to do it.
“If it’s not improper, Indali, I’d feel indebted if you let me look at your original material form at a later time,” Gus said. “I can only imagine at its composition. It must be very well made.”
Smiling wider now, the Construct lifted an eyebrow and then indicated the women Gus was with. “They’re waiting.”
“I don’t mind,” Melody immediately pitched in. “I’d like to see your body. Though your material form isn’t as interesting to me.”
Realizing that was his cue to let it lie before Melody got them hit with a sexual harassment charge, Gus nodded to the woman and left the lobby.
“What was that about?” Vanessa asked a little gruffly.
“Making friends,” Gus said simply. “If she’s going to be the woman who security checks me every day, better if she’s a friend. Right?”
“That’s… very true,” Trish said. “I was able to get a lot more done when I wanted to. I just made sure to be friends with the building people.”
“She wasn’t human?” Vanessa asked.
“No. Construct. She was an item first, it seems. She was possessed by something, or she became sentient through a lot of magic transfer. Or something similar,” Gus said. “They tend to be a little… higher minded?”
“Living things are meat bags to Constructs,” Melody said. “Or just… things to eat. She was a very lovely Construct though.”
“She was interested in Gus,” Trish said in a soft murmur. “Even before he started flirting.”
“Who isn’t? There’s a reason I had to have my beloved Indigo,” Melody said.
They all left the hall and entered a rather large open room. It was filled with chairs arranged throughout.
“I think… one-one puts us at the very front, in the first row, possibly in the first seat,” Vanessa muttered.
“Fucking Durh,” Gus groused.
“Indeed, fucking me,” Mark said, appearing behind them. He was dressed exactly as he’d been the last time Gus had seen him. “Have a seat; this’ll be fun and quick. Sit, sit.”
Not waiting for an answer and looking far too cheery, Mark scurried off.
Melody slipped her arm into the crook of Gus’s and dragged him off down the aisle toward where their seats would be.
“From PI being held at gunpoint, to PID, to a Fed. All within a few months,” she said, pushing Gus into the seat listed as one dash one. “My niece just laughs at me whenever I talk to her now.”
“Different niece, or same one you mentioned last time?” Gus asked.
“The same. Her name’s Irma. You’ll like her. She’s been busy with her business the last couple years. She runs a debt consolidation business with her husband,” Melody said as she took her own seat. “That and a private military company.”
“You mentioned that the other day,” Gus said, looking around. There were hundreds of seats here.
“I did. If we needed a job, we could have picked up some stuff from her. She always has out-of-country work that needs doing at a good price.”
Gus chewed at the inside of his cheek.
He was somewhat uncomfortable with them being the only ones here.
A soft boom came from the other side of the hall, and a flood of people entered the room. It was as if a mob was coming to get him.
“Oh, Mark gave us personal seating. How thoughtful,” Melody said. “We should ask his wife and daughter to dinner sometime.”
Any response Gus wanted to give would have been impossible. The room was a riot of people walking and talking. It drowned everything out.
They were an orderly mob, though. Everyone filtered into their seating arrangements in no time at all.
“Hi!” Mark said loudly, getting up on the stage at the front of the hall. He walked over to the podium and tapped the microphone. “Hello everyone. I’m Mark Ehrich, or Deputy Director Ehrich if you prefer.
“I don’t stand on titles or formality, however. This is your orientation, and it’s going to suck. Because this is our first day as a section and the first day we’re in this building.”
First days always suck.
“First the easy answers,” Mark said, holding up his hands. “Yes, the Fed was nearly destroyed. You’ve all been hired on to help transition it back to a staffed and working department.
“Yes, the attack at the game was part of the bombing attack. The goal was to expose the entire populace to the Para world.
“Yes, it was stopped by Agents Gustavus Hellström, Melody Lark, Vanessa Flores, and Patricia Ash. All part of your new section.”
Mark pointed right at everyone he’d just named.
“And their first order of business is taking down the Saint Anthony coven,” Mark said. “The coven was a much bigger player some years ago, but somewhere along the way they got taken down a peg. We’re not really sure why, how, or who, but it definitely wasn’t a friendly
love tap.
“That was then, though. And this is now. Now, the coven is on the way back up since the Fed building bombings. They’re not the biggest game in town, but we have to start somewhere.”
Right.
Vampire coven.
Because working our way through a car theft isn’t going to be the norm anymore.
“…will be running it. For the rest of you, we’ll be working through your groupings to get you all your starting cases,” Mark said. “Though for some of you, it’ll simply be personnel recruitment. You’re our first wave of new agents. We need more.
“Now, let’s break this up and start moving to your new offices. I have a floor plan posted up all over the walls in here and at the elevator bay on every floor.
“So! Settle in, get comfortable, and get your new digs ready. Normal hours and workloads will start up this week. I’ll be assigning group leaders for multiple groups to work with you to get you fully operational.
“Any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.”
Mark slapped an open hand down on the podium. It was like a gun going off.
Everyone was off for the maps to figure out where they’d be sitting.
Probably took longer to set up the damn chairs than it took for his speech.
Only Durh would do that.
“You four, don’t bother to wander off,” Mark said, grinning at Gus and the others. “I’ll be leading you to your offices personally.”
Course you will.
Chapter 3 - Org Charts
Mark led them straight off from the assembly room where everyone had met up and down a hallway off to one side. That went into a secured lobby with an uninhabited secretary desk. Once they got through that very heavy door, which was clearly reinforced, Gus found a lobby, a general open area, a break room, and a multitude of rooms whose purpose he couldn’t even guess. There was even a garage in the back with a massive steel door in front of it that led outside. It had several SUVs, sedans, and an armored vehicle parked in the bays.
At the back of all of this had been another very heavy-looking door.
Looking through that open doorway, Gus wasn’t sure how to proceed. He saw a series of eight offices. Four on one side, four on the other.
“And this is where you’ll be sitting,” Mark said. “I made sure to put Gus in an office with one on each side of him and one directly across the way.”
“Thank you, Mark,” Melody said, moving into the hallway. “I appreciate your foresight.”
“Course. Gotta keep the talent happy,” Mark said.
“And what does that make me?” Gus asked.
“You’re what makes the talent happy,” Mark said, then tossed a set of keys to Gus, which he caught more out of reflex than will. “There’s all the keys. Including the only master key copy for your department. So be careful with it, yeah?
“Alright. I’ll check in with you later this week. Be sure to have your new hires ready for me. Contracts, titles, and pay scales are in one of your offices, can’t remember whose. See ya.”
Not waiting any longer, Mark turned around and left, leaving Gus, Trish, Vanessa, and Melody alone there.
“The hell is he doing?” Gus muttered.
Vanessa hadn’t been idle. She’d walked over to a utility closet nearby and opened it. She peered inside, apparently looking for something.
“Goodness. My own office and everything,” Trish said, peeking into the office she’d been assigned to. “And it’s right across from Gus.”
Course it is. She’s going to stare at me all day long, I bet. With those glowing eyes that are way too much for me.
Then again. Maybe that’s better than Melody being there.
Or Vanessa even. I might end up staring at her instead.
Thinking about it, Gus had to admit that maybe Mark had done it right.
“Found the utility panel. Building services always has a tendency to label things if they have the opportunity for it,” Vanessa said. “Apparently this is the ‘organized crime’ circuit box I’m looking at.”
“Organized crime? I suppose that makes sense,” Melody said, walking back toward where Gus was standing. “Especially when you add that he told us to go after a coven first.”
“There were badge readers on every door,” Trish said. “The kind that require a thumbprint at the same time. I hated those when I was cleaning. Always made me feel weird and paranoid going into those places. Like… what were they hiding that the cleaning lady had to have a thumbprint scanned?”
Pressing a hand to his temple, Gus could only nod his head and then shake it.
“Yeah. He’s setting one of us to become the head of the department,” Gus said. “Probably Melody if I don’t miss my guess.”
“What? Why me?” Melody asked, taking the keys from Gus’s hand. Her fingers lingered in his own for several seconds before she went back down the hall.
“Because I wouldn’t want it, and you’re the better candidate anyways,” Gus said. “I’d never be able to stop myself from peeking into people’s heads. Especially for end-of-year reviews or work performance stuff.”
“Makes sense,” Vanessa said, coming back over his way. “Does that mean we need to start hiring people like he said? I thought he was just being… Mark.”
“No, there’s contracts here,” Trish said, having gone into her office. “And the pay scales… and titles. Just like he said.”
Grumbling, Gus went down the hallway and into Trish’s office.
The interior was immaculate.
It had a large L-shaped desk in the corner, a stand with three monitors on it, and a keyboard and mouse laid out on it already. Perched on the side against the wall was a large, brand-new desk phone.
There was a file cabinet on one wall, a white board on another, and a television set on the last wall.
Everything looked expensive.
From the desk to the chair behind it to the round table near the corner of the room with eight chairs seated at it.
Looking at the packets of papers Trish kept pulling out of her desk, Gus didn’t fail to notice the sticky note on the top packet had two words on it.
A name, in fact.
“Patricia Ash,” was written in clear text.
Mark hadn’t randomly put the paperwork in here as he’d implied with his demeanor.
“Guess you’re our accountant,” Gus said, moving into Trish’s office and leaning up against the wall.
“I… am?” Trish asked, pulling even more paperwork out.
“Kinda my guess as well,” Vanessa said as she entered Trish’s office. Then she pulled out a seat at the round table and sat down. “Any good with numbers?”
“I mean, I think so? Maybe?” Trish sounded unsure. “I’ve had to budget every dollar of my salary for… well, a very long time. Down to the pennies. I’ve been living hand to mouth for so long I can’t remember not.”
Mark had someone look into Trish. Which means he also looked into Vanessa.
“Any surprises in your office?” Gus asked, turning to Vanessa.
Vanessa’s mouth thinned out, and she folded her arms across her chest.
“Confidential informant papers. Lots of them. Along with several briefcases filled with what I’m willing to bet is confidant money.”
“I just found an accounting book, a bank account statement, and a ledger,” Trish said, pulling said items out of a cabinet drawer.
“Durh’s been busy,” Gus said.
“And speaking of busy,” Melody said as she walked into Trish’s office. Stopping at the entry, she put her hands on her hips and looked rather authoritative. “Let’s get busy ourselves. We’ve got a coven to crack. I’m… really excited, to be honest, by the way.”
Melody went over with a little hop to Trish’s round table and took a seat herself.
“If Gus is right and I’m made a section leader for the Fed, that means I get to read all sorts of secrets!” she said with an ecstatic giggle. “Secrets, answers, and
all sorts of things. I love secrets. I love having puzzle pieces to work with. Life is a billion-piece puzzle, and I want as many pieces as I can find.”
With a grunt, Gus sat down in a chair that had an empty spot on either side of it.
“Guess we should start figuring out what to do,” he said simply. “I know some about the coven. Any of you know anything?”
“No,” Vanessa said with a shrug. “Still the rookie. I just keep getting promoted faster and faster. Not sure if I’ll ever not be the rookie.”
“Champagne problems, dear, champagne problems,” Melody said with a wave of her hand. “I know nothing myself. I’m not a native, you’ll remember.”
“I tried not to get involved,” Trish said. “Especially with Vampires. They can be pushy.”
“Guess it’s all me then,” Gus said. “Should probably give Dave a call and see if he’d be willing to part with anything on them.”
“He’s in the middle of his move right now. Probably will be out of contact for at least another week or two,” Melody said. “He’s convinced it isn’t the end of what happened with the bombings, and he doesn’t want to be around for the next attack.”
“I mean, I don’t think it’s over either,” Gus said. “Just not much to go on right now. But since we’re organized crime… I’d say that was an organized crime, wouldn’t you? Let’s put that one on our back burner and keep an eye out for it.
“Anyways, Saint Anthony coven. They deal mostly with clubs, bars, prostitution, blood running, and some Vampire designer drugs. They really are rather white-collar stuff. Tight enough of a criminal unit that you can’t really pry much out of anyone. Not stupid enough to do anything to get caught either. They’re just called the SA on the street. Those who aren’t enamored with them call them sack, as in SAC, instead.”
“I’m guessing that’s changed, otherwise Mark wouldn’t have put us on it and talked about it the way he did, right?” Melody asked.
“Suppose so,” Gus muttered. “I guess our first order of business is gathering intelligence.”
Swing Shift: Book 2 Page 3
