by Wren Weston
Thinly disguised breasts.
At least no one had put up pictures of that.
The same treatment had been given to the other three elevators. Surrendering to the inevitable, Lila stepped into the nearest car and slid her elevator key into the slot. She pushed the button for the twelfth floor, waving away strips of red silk and ribbon that dangled in her face from the ceiling. Luckily, very few people could access her office and apartment without the proper key. She’d not find any posters or dangly ribbons there.
As the car rose slowly through the building, everyone inside rushed the stair rails around the middle of the building, crowding in groups to watch her ride up in the glass-paneled elevator, all laughing as their handiwork floated past, some clapping, some hooting, some hollering. Many took pictures on their palm and patted one another on their backs for a job well done. She waved, playing the good sport until she finally passed into the private floors of the building. Then she sank against the wall and passed into welcome darkness.
She’d never noticed how slowly the elevator moved.
Once she hit the top, she entered her apartment, styled exactly the same as her room in the great house: gray and white walls, black furniture, little flares of Randolph crimson. She quickly changed into workout clothes before descending in the elevator again.
Luckily, few people noticed her descent.
She stalked out of the elevator into the basement training facility and grabbed a bottle of water from the front desk before walking toward the track. She often did her best thinking as she raced around the outer ring, hopping over foam-covered fire hydrants, racing up ramps, and scrambling over walls to jump to the next mock roof. She had her people change it up every week, to keep her fresh, to keep her people fresh too. Today, it was more challenging than usual, and she found herself falling and landing on the thick mats below more than once, pulling at her stitches as she hit the ground and slapped the padding.
Lila winced and pulled off one of her gloves, checking her hands for blood. Perhaps it wasn’t so challenging. Perhaps she was just off since she couldn’t grab at the terrain for balance. Or perhaps she just had a great deal on her mind. The botched assassination, Mr. Schulte’s death, Reaper, Reaper’s partner, Dixon, Oskar, the oracles, her father, Tristan, Alex, Pax, perhaps even Dubois.
She kicked a foam-covered streetlight and pulled herself off the mat, finally giving up. Instead, she ventured into the weight room, choosing to keep her feet on the floor.
Commander Sutton found her an hour later while she prepped for a last set of leg presses, entering the room with all the elegance of Chairwoman Masson. Lila said nothing as the commander pulled up a bench and sat down, her gray hair wrapped in a twist, her eyes dropping to Lila’s jaw. “You sweated half your concealer off.”
“How’d you know where I was?” Lila grunted as she straightened her legs and lifted the weight.
“Tim called me. Said you were falling so much you must be enjoying it. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” The shrewd, wrinkled commander stared at her knowingly.
Lila straightened her legs again. “There’s nothing to tell. By the way, thanks for taking the commanders’ meeting this morning.”
“That’s what I’m here for. One of these days you’ll realize that I make a good enough chief for you to retire early.”
“Anything come up that I should know about?”
“Nothing the other commanders and I couldn’t handle. It’s just another boring day on the Randolph compounds. If you don’t stir up something soon, I’ll have to go home to the Beast for dinner.”
Lila couldn’t help but chuckle at her old partner. She’d heard earful after earful about the Beast while they patrolled the compound over the years. “He’s your husband, commander. Shouldn’t you want to go home to him?”
“We work better when we don’t see one another. When we’re together, we’re like two alley cats thrown into the same dumpster.”
“Horny alley cats. How many kids do you have again?”
The woman locked the weight as soon as Lila straightened her legs.
“Hey, I’m not finished,” Lila yelped, her hand going to the locking bar.
“Yes, you are,” Sutton said, swatting Lila’s hand away. “You’re a woman. You’re not going to get any more muscle on your bones unless you resort to steroids.”
“I don’t lift to gain muscle.”
“Well, you already meet the militia’s strength requirements and then some. Let’s go have lunch. I’m hungry, and you’re making me look bad with all this running and jumping and lifting weights.”
“Maybe you should do so some—”
“If you finish that sentence, I will beat you. I brought you into this militia, and I can take you right out again. I don’t give a damn who your mother is.”
Lila snickered and followed Sutton from the room, wishing she could have a shower before facing her militia, but it wasn’t like they hadn’t seen her looking worse.
Plastered all across the elevators.
While Lila nibbled on a turkey sandwich and fries, Sutton filled her in on the commanders’ meeting and other matters she’d taken care of, or would take care of if Lila needed. She had worked with Lila long enough to know when she needed to pick up the slack.
It was a good thing Sutton didn’t know why Lila was so busy. Sutton was more or less a straight arrow, someone who only bent the rules so far. If she ever found out some of the things Lila had done recently…
“Hey, space case,” Sutton said, rapping her knuckle on the table.
“Hmmm?” Lila mumbled, looking up into the face of the militia’s chef and her team. The group chuckled, smug expressions pasted on their faces. Their little white caps tilted as each one laid tiny paper plates in front of her, each containing a cookie.
All shaped like breasts with chocolate chip nipples.
“All hail the conquering breast. I mean, hero.” Chef Sasha giggled, unable to keep a straight face.
The entire cafeteria snickered, holding up their own breast cookies.
Sutton winked, picked up a cookie, and bit off the nipple. “Hey, look, there’s fudge inside.”
Chef Sasha bowed as Lila took a bite and gave an appreciative nod. Still chuckling, the group ambled away back to their stations.
“Traitor,” Lila said when the staff was out of earshot.
“Ah, give them a break. It’s rare they get a chance to razz you. They’re proud and celebrating. Their chief made the LeBeau militia and the prime minister’s security detail look like idiots.” Sutton eyed Lila’s face, and Lila knew the commander was about to do a bit of razzing of her own. “You usually have a much better sense of humor about this stuff. You need a vacation. You haven’t had a proper one in ages. Perhaps you could some time off for the beginning of the season, find a senator, and enjoy yourself for a few weeks.”
“Don’t go there.”
“Why not? I’m around you more often than my daughters. I’m too busy to bug them for grand—”
Lila stood up. She dumped the rest of her meal in the trash, then slid her tray in a slot in the back of the room for cleaning. She’d barely eaten and wasn’t hungry, anyway. She practically welcomed an excuse to get rid of her food without comment.
Regardless, she collected half a dozen breast cookies from the table before leaving, all for the show of it.
Sutton followed along behind her in the corridor. “I guess your father bugged you about children at breakfast?”
“You guys teaming up now?”
“Perhaps he can take weekends from now on, so we don’t overlap. It’s better than you flying into a snit and running away whenever I bring it up.”
Lila withdrew her elevator card from her pocket. “You could stop bringing it up.”
“Life finds a way.”
“Yeah, well
, life can find a way up someone else’s vagina.” Lila would not get pregnant without a small miracle. She’d had a CUT on her twenty-first birthday. The operation had dropped her chances of having children to almost zero, and had been worth every credit.
Her womb wasn’t open for business, and it would remain that way.
Chapter 8
After a quick shower in her private apartments, Lila changed into her officer’s uniform: black trousers, white blouse, crimson officer’s coat, all stretching with every movement to allow her to chase, to leap, to kick, to punch. She tucked her trouser legs into her boots, fixed her concealer, put on a fresh pair of gloves, pinned her four silver stars to her neck, and rammed her Colt and officer’s short sword into her holster, then added her leather blackcoat. Only Randolph sentries were allowed to skip the leather in the heat.
Riding down to the eleventh floor, she bustled past the receptionist and the empty waiting room, then turned into her office. Or, at least, her admin’s office. Sergeant Jenkins sat at his desk, typing, his long fingers dashing across the keyboard, his tanned skin contrasting nicely with his crisply laundered militia coat. Sunlight gleamed off the spokes of his wheelchair and the Colt at his hip.
“Good evening, chief.” He nodded, barely looking up. “You have good timing. I’ve almost finished the edits on yesterday’s reports.”
“I can’t have you sitting around with nothing to do.”
Jenkins smirked. “Captain McKinley wants to speak with you again. I could go down and get her right now.”
“Touché.”
“I’ll make a deal with you. Have Ms. Harris buy more of my special coffee, and the next time the captain comes, I’ll protect you to death. It’ll be quieter for us all.”
“We need her, and I can’t afford to lose you to a lengthy investigation. Please, try not to kill my officers.” It was lucky Jenkins only joked about protecting her to death. Though Lila might be one of the best shots in Saxony and a quick draw, Jenkins was faster. He could pull his Colt, aim, and fire accurately in less than a quarter of a second. Most people had a healthy fear of the man once they saw him on the shooting range.
“Do you have a class tonight?” she asked.
“Yes, another crop of idiots who can’t be bothered to practice throughout the year. Speaking of which, I haven’t seen you at the range for two weeks.”
“I’ll make time.”
“You’re going to get rusty. You already are. Only two out of three shots landed?”
“I was running.”
“Why? You were well within range,” he chided, turning back to his screen. “I taught you better than that.”
Lila opened the door to her office, then sighed at the stack of papers on her ebony desk. The stack would have been larger if Commander Sutton hadn’t taken care of what she could. Lila hadn’t been lying to Pax; her workload had increased after they’d taken over the Wilson estate. Luckily, she’d passed most of the work on to a capable officer, one she had designs on promoting soon. If the woman did well, she’d run the Wilson estate as its commander.
Lila took out her palm, pulled up her snoop programs, and walked around her office, ensuring it hadn’t been bugged overnight. She’d decorated the room exactly like her bedroom and private apartment: an ebony desk and shelves dominated one side, and a black leather couch and coffee table took up the other. A few pops of Randolph red completed the room.
Sitting down at her desk, she scanned the budgets of three militia commanders in charge of family compounds in other cities. She approved each with little fuss, for the figures hadn’t changed much from the year before. She chuckled at the next budget and scribbled a note for Sergeant Jenkins to send it back to the optimistic commander. Commander Ashen Randolph had just been promoted six months ago, and she still needed help learning her position.
She’d have to get it from the other commanders this time. Lila made a quick call to the commander in Beaulac, a woman used to streamlining her own budget. She promised to make time for Ashen the very next day.
The reports of recent online attacks from Captain McKinley’s tech department took longer to wade through, but her people were on the right track in solving them. If they didn’t figure out the culprits in a few days, she’d have to get involved, but the attacks had already been thwarted. It was just a matter of ferreting out the perpetrators, and she’d leave them to it.
Lila shuffled through various other slips of paper, skimmed the reports from the commander-in-waiting at the Wilson estate, called and threatened a few highborn who’d dared yell at her militia over trifles, approved the promotion of a senior officer at the La Porte compound, and reviewed a few arrest reports that would be sent to Bullstow in the coming week: a disgruntled servant caught pocketing cash from her master in full view of cameras, a slave who punched a servant over a card game, and a spy from another family. He’d fallen over the wall after a tranq turret had knocked him out.
He’d pissed himself, too.
Could a spy that inept really be called a spy?
Lila grabbed her pen and signed off on the arrest reports. The investigations had been complete, diligent, and thorough, just as she’d come to expect.
The last thing in her inbox was the updated crime statistics for the compounds. She noted that domestic abuse calls among the poorer workborn had gone up for the sixth month in a row. Noting the pattern, she sent the report to her mother with a recommendation to increase the servants’ minimum wage as well as the slaves’ stipend.
At last, the entire stack of papers had finally migrated to her outbox. As much as she loved being chief of security, her father’s jobs had always appealed to her more. She’d wanted to be in charge of the family’s compounds to make them safe, and she had. The Randolphs were safer than they’d ever been.
But the reams and reams of paperwork, as well as the tedious flow of reports and messages on her palm, made life much more boring. She longed for the thrill of breaking into another compound, trying to figure out puzzles like the oracles, like Oskar, like Reaper’s partner—so long as she caught him before he wreaked havoc on her life. If her father and Tristan ever stopped wanting her help, she wasn’t sure what she would do with herself. Perhaps that was why she broke into her own compounds so often.
Security checks, she’d always called them.
“Security checks, my ass. Your chief of security is bored, my darling militia. Deal with it.”
Bored and busy at the same time.
She checked the time. It was already half past three, and she’d done nothing to help Oskar, to find Reaper’s partner, or to investigate the oracles.
She grabbed her palm and cycled through her messages. Her spies had not found any information about where the Holguíns had taken Oskar. She might have to get involved herself, and she didn’t have the time for it. Of course, there was always Max Earlwell. An expense for sure, but she could trust him to get the job done.
Lila scrolled to the next message. Tests came back negative. Nothing wrong that I could find, and there’s nothing left to run at this point. It was the last in a long line of messages from Dr. Booth and Dr. Adams at Bullstow. They’d run a barrage of medical tests on Patrick, for Lila could scarcely believe the man had been so altered from how she knew him as a child. Unfortunately, it had happened without an identifiable medical cause. She had no way to sway the council from his pending execution and no way to excuse his actions. Patrick didn’t suffer from a brain tumor or an infection or a concussion or…
Or anything medical.
Dr. Adams had not found a psychological cause either, not some small excuse for his personality change. “Manipulative” was how the psychologist had characterized him. Manipulative, completely self-interested, and completely unaware of his own intellectual defects.
Like not realizing he shouldn’t allow a random hacker to dictate his criminal activities.
> In an effort to answer the question for herself, she’d hacked into Patrick’s life, including his time at university. Since he’d never been that bright and had a great many brothers and male cousins, his matron had allowed him to study whatever he wanted, likely assuming he’d marry into an elite lowborn family.
He’d chosen to study philosophy. Skepticism and Self-interest had been the title of his senior thesis. In it, he’d deduced that nothing actually existed in the world except for the self. He’d examined common ethical problems through that lens, a lens dirtied by four years of grasping, misused, and misapplied logic, granting himself carte blanche for the worst sorts of selfish behavior.
His instructor had given him a C-minus for his effort, probably because she worried for her safety. One section had mentioned that criminal activity, including murder, was moral if the crime benefitted the self. It was merely in one’s best interests not to get caught. His professor had sent his work to the university’s psychologist, but Patrick had graduated before the woman had received the first page.
Dr. Adams had called it a window into his internal logic. “It explains how he thinks. It doesn’t excuse it,” he’d said. “It doesn’t make him crazy, either. He doesn’t function as if he actually believes that nothing exists in the world but his own mind.”
Lila sent Dr. Booth a message, thanking him for his diligence.
She then turned on her desktop and searched for information on the oracles. As an agnostic highborn from a long line of agnostics, she’d never bothered to learn about them before, not even after her dreams the week before. All she knew was that the oracles’ clairvoyant gene traveled along family lines. Nicknamed “oracles’ disease” by the researcher who’d found it, it had turned out to be a specific type of epilepsy passed from female carrier to female offspring.
Lila believed the scientific facts. She didn’t doubt the women had seizures, but she didn’t believe in their so-called visions. There was the vision paradox for one thing. Though there were fewer oracles in the modern era, the number of visions for each one had gone up.