Death's Handmaiden

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘I’m sleep deprived. I’m not feeling much like being nice.’

  ~~~

  ‘Currently,’ Courtney began, ‘Merle Shepherd is in a critical condition in the campus medical facility. He sustained a head injury after falling from the third storey of Melissa Connelly’s apartment block.’ It was evening and the student council was meeting to go over the latest events in the Crystal Mana saga. Courtney had just started giving her report, but they had already been presented with clear evidence of some discontent regarding what had happened.

  ‘After being pushed from the third storey!’ Darius more or less yelled. He was not a happy man.

  Courtney largely ignored him. ‘Evidence at the scene suggests that Merle Shepherd and Jesse Audley planned to plant evidence suggesting that Melissa Connelly was a Crystal Mana supplier.’

  ‘Entirely circumstantial evidence!’

  ‘I expect analysis to uncover that the drug they had with them is of the same batch as that found with Brynn Hermanson and Siegmar Tate.’

  ‘Circumstantial! I demand–’

  ‘Shut up, Darius.’ Mitsuko spoke relatively softly, but her tone suggested that she might start shouting very soon if Darius kept going. ‘We’ll discuss your demands later. In private.’

  ‘But, President, this entire situation is–’

  ‘Later, Darius. Captain, please continue.’

  ‘We do have evidence linking Jesse Audley to the drugs,’ Courtney said. ‘His fingerprints are on the carton. We also have clear evidence of his tampering with the apartment’s lock. I got Donovan Ilbert to return to Brynn Hermanson’s apartment and check the lock there. Sure enough, he found partial prints matching Jesse inside the lock. That connects him and Merle Shepherd to the death of Brynn Hermanson.’

  Darius opened his mouth, glanced at Mitsuko, and closed it again. ‘The problem,’ Mitsuko said, ‘is that Merle Shepherd is unconscious and may not survive. Is that correct?’

  Courtney nodded. ‘Without his testimony, I’m not sure we’ll get further up the ladder. We’re going over Merle’s and Jesse’s apartments, computers, and the rest, but so far we’ve got nothing actionable.’

  ‘What do you plan to do about Nava Ward?’ Darius asked.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She assaulted one man and killed a second on campus grounds.’

  ‘I’m satisfied that she acted in self-defence. Jesse Audley died of heart failure. She hit him, but his death appears to be entirely accidental.’

  Darius made a scoffing sort of laugh. ‘She’s a known killer! She executed–’

  ‘Enough!’ Mitsuko was on her feet and leaning forward toward her VP, eyes flashing. ‘I received a particularly damning video at lunchtime, Darius. I’ve debated sending it to the SSF all afternoon. Courtney, you’ll find you have a transfer request pending on your ketcom.’

  ‘President,’ Darius began, his tone shifting to something a little more reasonable, even if his anger was still in the back of it.

  ‘Threatening another member of this council in an attempt to get your clansman off the hook? Using your position as VP to threaten three students while simultaneously demonstrating that you don’t believe in my policies regarding student equality? Tell me, Darius, are you of the opinion that I’m easily manipulated?’

  ‘I’d never–’

  ‘Say that out loud? I suggest that you very carefully consider your position as vice president of this council. I’m going to be doing the same.’ Mitsuko fixed Darius with her gaze for a second, and then turned away, dismissing him. ‘Mel, is there any other business?’

  Darius sat back in his seat. Mel glanced at him before she checked her agenda, knowing there was nothing else to discuss. Darius might have been dismissed, but he was far from finished. ‘No,’ Melissa said, ‘that’s everything.’ Until, of course, it was not.

  235/4/9.

  The appearance of Courtney and Kyle at the door of the classroom caused a stir which rippled down the rows of seats like some sort of event propagation effect in the quintessential field. The teacher looked up from his console and then around at the door, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Courtney said. ‘I’m sorry for the disturbance, but this is official SSF business.’

  She had arrived just as period one was ending and period two beginning. The timing was deliberate, of course. It minimised class disturbance. ‘What is it you need, Captain Courtney Martell?’ the teacher asked.

  Courtney looked out across the room as she stepped over the threshold. ‘I need Leland Harlow Whitman to come with me,’ she said and a second wave passed over the room, this time one consisting of gasps. ‘Leland Harlow, consider yourself under arrest.’

  ‘On what charges?!’ Leland said, rising to his feet with a look of affront on his face.

  ‘I wasn’t going to mention them in front of your class, but since you ask… Distribution of a controlled substance and conspiracy to commit murder. Other charges may arise as the investigation continues. Merle talked. Don’t make this more difficult than it already is, Leland.’

  Leland’s jaw tightened. Then, barely visibly, his shoulders sagged and his eyes dropped away from Courtney’s. ‘Of course, Captain,’ he said. ‘I’ll cooperate with your investigation in any way I can.’ He stepped out from behind his desk and started toward Courtney and the door.

  Courtney nodded. He would cooperate alright. With what the SSF had on him, he would probably be singing his heart out within the hour.

  ~~~

  Another afterschool council meeting, this time with a slight alteration to the usual attendees. Leland was, of course, missing. Naomi Himura sat in his place as the acting chair of the Extracurricular Activities Committee. He had been Leland’s vice chairman and would remain in that position until it was confirmed that Leland would not be returning. He was… unhappy but not angry about the circumstances of his temporary promotion.

  ‘I find it difficult to believe that Leland is responsible for this,’ Naomi said.

  ‘Well,’ Courtney responded, ‘he is. Considering what we could prove thanks to Merle Shepherd’s testimony, it was fairly easy to persuade Leland that he’d probably be treated better by the courts if he gave us everything we needed to close down his ring.’

  ‘But… Why?’

  ‘It’s not obvious? He is, or was, the head guy for extracurricular activities in this school. The school puts a degree of pressure on the EAC to give a good showing at various high-profile competitions through the year. Beyond that, Leland’s personal reputation benefits from the school’s students doing well. Crystal Mana improves the power of its users and it can be used to increase their ability to wield magic if you’re careful not to get caught at any competitive events. What he was doing was finding young magicians who could be competitive with a little help and educating them in how to beat the system. He was actually giving away Crystal Mana to the right students to improve the school’s performance. He’s been doing it since last spring, seeking out first years he could get involved. He did the same this year while keeping up the supply for the second years he hooked last year. He had a couple of older students involved and was planning to start bringing in more this year. Thankfully, he hadn’t got to that part of the project yet.’

  ‘What about Siegmar Tate?’ Mitsuko asked.

  ‘He was not part of the programme. Brynn Hermanson was actually Leland’s distributor in the MagiTag Club. She handled a few other clubs too, but she was there scouting MagiTag players and then handling their supply as needed. She saw an opportunity to make some money on the side when Siegmar came sniffing around for Crystal Mana. Leland liked his users to be sensible enough to be discreet and, as demonstrated by what happened, Siegmar was far from subtle. Brynn was killed to keep us off the scent and to send a message to the other distributors.’

  ‘“Don’t cross me or you’re dead.”’

  ‘Precisely. The only thing we can’t get out of Leland at the moment is his supplier. I don’t
think we’re going to get any names there, to be honest. He seems more scared of them than he is of anything the SSF, school, or ASF can do to him.’

  ‘There is another thing,’ Marie said. Courtney almost jumped; the treasurer did not speak often at meetings. She was almost quieter than Melissa. She was a relatively slight woman, pretty but a little too long in the nose to be called beautiful. She wore her light-brown hair in a bob, but generally kept the left side tucked behind her ear. Moderately large, brown eyes gave her a doe-like look, but she was uncommonly smart and was likely to end up on the academic track in her final two years. ‘Where did Leland get the money to finance this operation? His clan is a strong one, but he is here on the standard sort of allowance for a student of his status. It seems relatively unlikely that he could personally get the cash together to purchase Crystal Mana in bulk.’

  Courtney frowned. ‘That’s an interesting point. He hasn’t mentioned anything financial… I’ll look into it.’

  ‘It seems that we have this almost wrapped up,’ Mitsuko said. ‘All we have to do now is deal with the fallout. Courtney has made a number of arrests today. There are students who may or may not be expelled, but certainly need help in overcoming a serious addiction. Some of them may suffer power loss as a result of giving up the drug. And, somehow or other, we have to hold the EAC together through this. Naomi, I need you to begin the process of electing a new chair for your committee. Leland will not be returning, and I think you should just get it over with. Whether you take the chair until the next elections and you bring in a new vice chairperson, or you hold full elections now, I don’t really care. But it should be done, and without delay.’

  Naomi nodded. ‘This is a terrible day for the EAC. It will take strong leadership to bring things back from the edge.’

  ‘The EAC will have the support of the student council.’ Mitsuko looked at the empty chair beside her where Darius should have been sitting. ‘Whatever form the council takes, you’ll have our support.’

  235/4/10.

  Nava watched Mitsuko emerging from the bathroom with her usual taciturn expression. Mitsuko was rubbing at her hair with a towel and all she was wearing was her red robe. ‘You should put some clothes on,’ Nava said.

  ‘And I thought you liked this robe.’

  ‘I do. And when Chess arrives at some point in the next few minutes, I’m sure he’ll also enjoy it. However, I refuse to clean up the ocean of blood that’s sure to fountain from his nose and I’m not going to catch him when he faints.’

  Mitsuko paused in her rubbing for a brief second and then turned, heading for the bedroom. ‘You make a valid point.’

  Nava returned to reading a document on quintessence particle theory on her ketcom, only to be interrupted after a couple of seconds. ‘You know, I could’ve lent you some casual clothes to wear or got you some sent over.’ It was called out through the partially open door, but it was quite audible.

  ‘I’m not a charity case, Suki.’

  ‘I know that, but you’re still in uniform and this is a party.’

  ‘Bet you Courtney turns up in uniform.’

  ‘Huh. You might be right.’

  ‘Anyway, the only “party dress” I have is that black one you bought me. If I wore that, we’d have the same issue with Chess. Hey, you’re not wearing–’

  ‘No, I have a different outfit for tonight. More casual.’

  Nava was just wondering what could possibly be more casual than a barely existing, transparent dress you had to wear pasties under when Mitsuko emerged from the bedroom. More casual apparently meant a pink camisole top with the kanji characters for her family name in red on the front, a pair of pink shorts which were closer to panties and tight enough to show a clear impression of her labia, and strappy sandals which were mostly transparent plastic to add to her height.

  ‘I’m going to find a mop and bucket,’ Nava said.

  ~~~

  As it turned out, Rochester had double the reason to collapse in a dead faint; Melissa turned up in an off-the-shoulder, long-sleeved top which left her belly bare, shorts which deserved the name more than Mitsuko’s but were still brief, and high-heeled pumps with a slight platform. The top was a rose pink with ‘LOVE’ in white stretched across her chest. The shorts were blue fading to white as they went down. She looked great, and Rochester did not know where to put his eyes.

  Nava was actually wondering how Rochester had managed to walk to Mitsuko’s building. He had, all gentlemanlike, escorted Melissa from her apartment. That meant he had been in danger of his knees giving out for a good fifteen minutes before arriving. Then he had got there and… Well, the mop and bucket had not been needed, but Melissa had steered him into a seat before he fell over.

  Rochester had casual clothes, which almost surprised Nava. He was in a T-shirt and pristine denim jeans. Running shoes adorned his feet. His T-shirt had an equation printed on it, sort of. It was a superposition expression representing the half-dead, half-alive state of the cat in Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment. A quantum physics joke. It suited him down to the ground and, truth be told, he looked quite handsome out of uniform.

  Then Courtney and Kyle arrived, both of them in uniform, though Kyle had loosened his tunic to make it a little less formal. As far as Nava was concerned, the female uniform was not exactly formal anyway. Anything that revealed that much cleavage could not be viewed as formal.

  ‘I’m still not sure what the point of this is,’ Courtney said as she came in.

  ‘The point,’ Mitsuko reminded her, ‘is for you to see Nava in an environment where there’s no trouble you can find to blame her for.’

  ‘But if things get boring,’ Nava said, ‘I’ll nuke the bathroom to give you something interesting to do.’

  Courtney stared at Nava for a second and then looked toward Mitsuko. ‘Have you figured out how to tell when she’s being sarcastic yet?’

  ‘No,’ Mitsuko replied. ‘I generally assume she is if the subject is ludicrous enough. There’s no way she’d actually use her Magic Burst on the bathroom just to liven up a party.’

  ‘You just keep thinking that,’ Nava said. ‘Courtney, Kyle, what would you like to drink?’ She turned, starting for the kitchen.

  ‘I’ll come help,’ Kyle said, setting off after her.

  ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t,’ Mitsuko said, referring to the bathroom nuking.

  Courtney regarded her with a raised eyebrow. ‘You just keep thinking that.’

  ~~~

  ‘I think at least part of the problem is that I hate mysteries.’

  ‘Huh?’ Mitsuko gave Courtney a perplexed frown since her assertion seemed a bit odd. They had been discussing various things for the past hour, none of them directly related to Nava, but now they had turned to Courtney’s problem with her underclassman. A hatred of mysteries did not seem to fit the topic.

  ‘It’s true,’ Kyle said. ‘She really dislikes puzzles she can’t solve. It’s why she wants to go into the policing side of the ASF. So she can solve mysteries with real meaning.’

  ‘I think you’re underplaying the number of mysteries the ASF doesn’t solve,’ Mitsuko replied, ‘but I don’t get what that has to do with Nava.’

  ‘You don’t?’ Courtney asked. ‘Seriously?’

  Mitsuko turned her head to look at Nava, sitting beside her. As always, Nava’s expression was neutral. She possibly looked a little more relaxed than usual. ‘Well…’

  ‘When the situation with Devin Girard was developing, I opened up Nava’s records.’

  ‘And not Devin’s?’

  ‘I didn’t need to look up Devin Girard. I knew all about him from previous incidents. Nava was someone new and I knew nothing about her. And after I’d read all I could find, I still knew nothing about her. Okay, I found out that she’s on a military scholarship. The ASF is funding her education. She was recorded as arriving on Shinden in June of two thirty-four. Her age then was listed as fourteen standard years. I got basic biometrics and
a picture. She hasn’t changed much in the past eleven months. Or at all, actually. Aside from that, I couldn’t access a single document about her.’

  ‘I’d like to illuminate you,’ Nava said, ‘but as your search will have indicated, the ASF has classified just about everything about my history. Where and how they found me, my circumstances when they found me, everything is hidden behind the Alliance Information Security Act. I can tell you why it’s classified, if you like.’

  ‘That would be something,’ Courtney said.

  ‘The operation they were conducting is also classified. Revealing anything about me would compromise the security of that operation. When I arrived on this world, last year, I was put through an education programme designed to bring me up to speed on Clan Worlds society with the intention of sending me to SAS-squared when I was old enough.’

  ‘Which implies that you weren’t found in Clan Worlds space.’

  Nava simply stared back at Courtney, her expression unreadable.

  ‘You don’t exhibit any signs of emotion. Your attitude to killing is… outside the normal parameters of Clan Worlds society.’

  ‘She has emotions,’ Melissa said.

  ‘I’m not actually claiming she doesn’t, but she doesn’t demonstrate them.’

  ‘I actually think Nava is more restrained about killing than most of the rest of us,’ Mitsuko said. ‘I believe her attitude to duelling is far more mature than most of her peers and a large proportion of adults.’

  ‘I’m not actually going to argue that last point,’ Courtney said. ‘My upbringing says one thing and my common sense says another. Frivolous duels are more common in school than they should be. It is used as a bullying tool, in young adults and adults alike. But two people have died as a result of her actions in just a couple of months. Most people don’t have that kind of record unless they’re active in the ASF. Even then…’

  ‘You said yourself that Jesse Audley appeared to have died of shock.’

  ‘I did…’ That Courtney was unconvinced was obvious. ‘The point is that Nava’s a mystery I can’t solve and that makes me… nervous.’