ALEXiThymiA: Interlude II

Interlude II

“Where is my new consultant?” Rayne Johnston yelled at Bullford. She paused for a moment, then continued. “Weren’t you supposed to be telling her to check in daily? What time is she supposed to arrive here today?”

At that Bullford looked visibly flustered.

“You see. I wasn’t aware that we would be able to locate and identify so many more victims of Lykanthropy, so soon.” Bullford admitted.

“So you what? Cast her out, said don’t call us, we’ll call you?” Rayne asked, a flare of anger in her voice.

At the question, Bullford could only nod in agreement, as he confirmed the statement. “Yes.”

“That was it? Just go. No way to get in touch with us if you have any questions?”

“I might have been a bit hasty in my actions around her.”

At that, Rayne’s eyes glowed with malice.

“Just what in tarnation are you thinking in that thick skull of yours? She is different. Goodness, you know full and well she has problems. You corrected me on a number of clear miscommunications we were having. That is why I assigned her to you. Because you seemed to understand her. Because she seemed to be comfortable with you.”

“I thought the most prudent course of actions was to save resources at the time. She earned 50 augmentation crystals, nearly depleting our petty stash.”

“Save resources? Do you understand we have state funded and federal level grants waiting for us, if we can get her to replicate what she did Monday night?”

At that Bullford paused.

“Tell me we at least have a way to contact her school?”

“I submitted the paperwork right after she signed the dotted line, to avoid any ramifications from delaying a warning to authorities. I made sure a copy was delivered personally to both the school division and to the principal himself.” Bullford answered.

“So by covering for her, you made it so our one main source of grabbing her unnoticed went away?”

“She was given the week off.”

At that Rayne Johnston, standing a full eighteen inches shorter than the towering Progenitor stared up at the muscle-bound idiot and gave a, are you trying to piss in my cornflakes and call it flavoring look.

“Come now Captain, we don’t need to have such animosity. Surely, he has a number we can call the parents on. She is after all a minor consultant.” Fletcher, the vampyre reagent for the area declared.

“About that. I might have suggested that her parents could void her contract with us, if they didn’t want her working with us.”

Rayne was beyond livid at this point as the temperature in the room began to rise, a sign that she was losing control of her composure.

“Captain, do not fear. I have found the last known location that our beloved consultant.” Fletcher said, in a placating tone that got under Bullford’s skin.

“Where!” It might have been a question, but it was spoken as a commandment. Probably the second commandment, right after Rayne is your boss and you will not piss her off.

“It seems she made a few runs. First she went to a Tier I dungeon, the same trap dungeon that was recorded on Saturday. Then she went to a Tier II dungeon…” Fletcher trailed off as he tried to confirm everything.

“Which one.” Again, a commandment, right after though shalt not waste Rayne’s time.

“Bottomless Gorge.”

“When?” This time it was a question.

“Time stamp has it at 13:23 on Tuesday afternoon. This was right after she hit the supply store where she purchased seven days’ worth of dried rations, and multiple canteens that were filled with water.”

Rayne stared at Fletcher.

Finally after a few minutes of bearing the weight of the intense Captain’s stares, Fletcher broke first and asked the question. “What?”

“You said Tuesday, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Today is Wednesday. When did she leave?” Rayne asked Fletcher as if he was a particularly slow child.

“She, uh, hasn’t. At least not according to our records.”

Rayne let out a breath of air, one that had the faintest trail of smoke and ash behind it. Then as if seeing the smoke herself, Rayne took a deep calming breath in, then let it out.

“Okay. Let me get this straight.” Rayne paused, “we have a potential missing person. A pre-awakened minor. Let’s see if we can put out an emergency alert on her communications devices.”

“On it.” Fletcher said.

With Fletcher out of the Captain’s crosshairs for the moment, Rayne proceeded to direct her full attention back to Bullford.

“You. What can you tell me about the interviews that were conducted.”

“Interviews?” Bullford asked, his mind clearly losing track of the conversation topics that were coming up.

“Yes, we have five new humans who used to be werewolves. I HOPEthat you interviewed them by now. Since they were changed back on Monday, and it is now Wednesday.” That HOPE had the implication with it, that if he didn’t do these interviews, then he better have his next employment opportunity lined up, that kind of hope.

“Yes. I managed to piece together a timeline. They were all from North and went to a celebration party for beating Central in a Football sporting competition.”

“Where?”

“The party was at a Landry Thomas’ place. From everything we have found it seems that Landry Thomas is missing. Our working hypothesis now is that he was either also turned at the party, or was one of the meals the girls ate to confirm their transformation.” Bullford admitted.

That was the final straw, the one sin that was irredeemable. Or at least the one sin that should have been irredeemable, consuming of human flesh. Though technically it didn’t have to be human flesh, but rather the flesh of the species that made the transformation. The only problem was, no one aside from humans had ever been turned into a werewolf.

Not that the higher races, that is races outside of humans, would ever exist to such a condition. It was widely assumed that if anyone ever came down with the virus, the higher races would kill them outright. Humans were the only ones who rounded up those who were turned under the hope that they could ever be changed back.

“What of Landy’s parents?”

“Unconfirmed, but they are assumed to be missing at this point. We have not seen them, and they have not checked into work this week.”

Rayne paused as she mulled over the information. This gave Fletcher the moment he needed to add in his findings.

“We put out an emergency alert on her communicator. It appears she made one long message to her Mother, Father, and Brother. In the email the contents of a nature denoting how she would train until Sunday Evening in order to be prepared to enter Dawning Light. She mentioned that she was going into Bottomless Gorge and in fact planned to stay there for the remainder of her time.” Fletcher said.

“She was afraid of Dawning Light?” Rayne asked.

“Yes, apparently she does not respond well to bullying. She noted her only way to avoid hazing was to be the strongest.” Fletcher answered.

“She beat down five, no six fully changed werewolves with her bare hands and she is afraid of a few pre-awakened teens from Dawning Light?”

“Yes, her parents apparently told her stories about their time meeting there. I have them as transferring in as Seniors, which could explain some of the hazing they faced. Particularly during that time.” Fletcher noted.

Rayne nodded at that logical conclusion. Then her eyes began to gleam brightly. “Wait, you said there was a brother?”

“Yes, she has a dizygotic twin.” Bullford quickly added.

“A what now?”

“A fraternal twin. She has a fraternal twin who is the same age as her.” Fletcher said, a bit of exasperation filling his voice. He didn’t mind making Bullford look bad, but when he did it himself, he just made the whole thing too easy.

“Is he pre-awakened?” Rayne asked.

“No, not as far as we can tell.”

With that a devilish smile filled her lips. “Good. Get me the brother.”

“The un-awakened brother?” Bullford asked to clarify.

“Does she have any others?” Rayne snapped back.

“Well no, but what do you plan to do with him?”

“I plan to give him a psychic power crystal, then have him be our mole from inside the new school.”

“But why?” Bullford asked.

At that Rayne looked like she had just been slapped in the face with a fish. “What do you mean why? Isn’t it obvious. Because I can’t trust you to be her handler. So, I am outsourcing that job to one of her family members instead.”

“Wait, so you think she will be back?” Fletcher asked, his voice incredulous.

“Of course, I do. That girl fought toe to toe with fully changed werewolves and beat them so hard they lost their wolf to fight.”

“Don’t you mean their will to fight?” Fletcher asked.

“I know what I said.” Rayne said, this time her burning gaze was directed right at Fletcher.

At that Fletcher just held up his hands in surrender.

With that out of the way Rayne nodded to herself. “Well, I guess we only have one thing we can do in the meantime. Find more werewolves and ensure they survive until Sunday night.”

“You mean?” Fletcher asked, his lips salivating at the thought of being able to drink human blood before it was slaughtered for werewolf kibbles.

“No, you moron! I mean pig. They have already turned. We want them to stay turned, we want to change them back.”

Rayne was so annoyed at the level of incompetency around her that she wanted to scream. Normally they weren’t this bad. But you get one mass werewolf  changer and suddenly both act like they have never seen the working end of a loaded barrel.

“All right, final list. Fletcher, you get the boy and bring him here. Where we will swear him in, give him a power crystal, and send him as our spy to Dawning light.”

“I don’t think Ms. Alexa will like that much.”

“What we are now on first name familiarity with myconsultant now? The consultant you lost?”

Silence.

Fletcher began grinning broadly at the scolding that Bullford was taking. Seeing this Rayne turned around and faced Fletcher. “Though he is right. She was some kind of crystal junkie. I don’t know how, nor why. But she had a big thing for getting crystals. The oaf is right, you need to make sure the brother knows to say he got it from a dungeon run.”

Fletcher just paused. “But getting one on a Tier I run is astronomically low, less than one percent low.”

“Right, but out own consultant got three. So she can understand his getting one. Particularly if you say he got it on a run with that Johnny kid.” Rayne said, her southern twang coming out violently now.

Fletcher just nodded, before departing.

“And for me?” Bullford asked.

Rayne paused as she took in her wolf who had let her down so much over the past few days. “You have two jobs. First capture, subdue, and feed pig parts to any werewolves we come across.”

“And second?”

“Secondly, you need to take those cured women under your wing and provide guidance for them.”

“I should point out one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“They do seem to have an unhealthy bond to Ms. Alexa.”

“How so?”