“Let us vote like a true democracy,” Mantys exhaled and wiped a tear. “All those in favor of Pila?”
The room of adults raised their hands, and both of Pila’s arms shot into the air.
“Winner!” Mantys proclaimed. “By all the power invested in me as Sydces sect leader of the Dedrake Space Organization, I affirm without dispute that Ms. Pila Terry II will be the official flower girl for the future Mr. and Mrs. Avondale.”
Pila dipped her chin in victory and sat back down to eat her food now that her position in the wedding was settled.
“Actually, I’m not sure if I will take the name Avondale.” Talon announced to the group between bites.
She had obviously not meant for her statement, spoken quite casually, to spark such awkward silence. Levi was surprised and speechless himself. Talon was looking at him now, worry evident on her face that she had hurt her fiancé’s feelings. In actuality, she had. Why wouldn’t she want to take his last name? Just as he was attempting to find a way to squash the tension she inadvertently created, Mantys broke the silence.
“In Sydces culture, the man takes the woman’s last name and the man’s surname becomes both of their middle names.”
“I suppose that’s the least a man can do for the woman he’s big-banged into a lifetime of emotional turmoil.” This was said by the ever-so-classy Bockie, of course referring to The Sacred Union. She herself had been a victim of the worst-case scenario of this biological commandeering…although to Mantys’ credibility, he had not known Sydces could affect humans in the same manner. Levi looked fleetingly at Kierra in a moment of sharp guilt.
“Well,” Axella chippered with clasping hands, “it looks like everyone is pretty much done eating. Shall we open presents?”
The party made their way to the living room where presents were scattered in a colorful mound on the coffee table. Pila gave herself the job of picking the first present, a purple and cream-striped box fashioned with a curlicue ribbon.
“To Tal…on,” she read, her fingers tracing each syllable.
“And who is it from?” Axella coaxed.
“From…yo-er a-yont and un-clee,” she attempted.
“Great job! From your aunt and uncle,” Teddy corrected. “Go give it to Aunt Talon.”
Levi watched as his fiancé ripped the paper to reveal a little black case. Talon opened it and stared thoughtfully into the box’s belly.
“Well, what is it?” Fletch wondered.
“Hmm, I don’t know actually,” she confessed, reaching in and pulling out a thin, transparent material about the size of a dime. It was studded with brown spots.
Teddy and Bale sat quietly smiling, waiting to see if their niece could figure out what exactly it was.
“They are in this clear solution,” Talon contemplated out loud. The polymer bent easily as it rolled between her thumb and forefinger. “Contacts.”
“Precisely!” Bale confirmed. “Those are the best optic computers made from TechOc.”
“Wow! Thank you so much! I’ve heard of bionic contact lenses.” She held one up to her nose and examined the electrical circuits weaving their way through the material like capillaries. “Not like this before though. Where did you get them?”
Bale smiled. “They were Teddy’s. Would have given you mine but I have blue eyes.”
“I hope they serve you as well as they served me. You will be issued a pair in the division during booking and prep but just tell them you have mine already…and don’t tell anybody we got them for you early,” she added with a wink.
“These have a bunch of features,” Bale explained. “LED virtual displays, recording capabilities, network connection, lie detection—”
“Lie detection?” she asked enthusiastically.
“It’s not one-hundred percent accurate, but it will monitor pupil dilation, yes.”
“More importantly it’s equipped with biosensors that work in the background to monitor your vitals,” Bale expounded. “I had those added.”
Teddy laughed. “He was always so worried about me.”
“So, if she’s out on a mission and something is…wrong…the contacts will know?”
“They monitor temperature and heart rate. If these numbers go out of homeostatic range, the LED will display a warning in her vision and it will automatically alert her handlers at the agency.”
Levi could tell Talon was ecstatic to get her first real piece of spyware. It meant even more to her knowing they used to be Teddy’s. Both her aunt and uncle had retired from the agency after little Pila was born. Teddy taking a shot to the chest gave them a serious scare to say the least. The couple mutually decided that the kind of lifestyle they were living wasn’t what they wanted anymore. Pila was their world now, and they wanted to focus on her. In the year that followed her injury, Teddy become a high school teacher and Bale a contractor for an asteroid mining company.
“Thank you! I can’t wait to read the manual!”
“You’re welcome, Tal, and congratulations on graduating top of your class. We are so proud of you.” Her aunt gave a warm smile and clasped her hands together. “Now Pila, it looks as though we have a few more presents there. Would you like to pick out another?”
Pila ran to the pile and picked up another box, this one a shiny silver adorned with a miniature graduation cap. She opened the gift tag and started to read. “To m-ee Eeegleee…”
My Eagle? Levi was immediately confused. That was not the present he bought her.
“From your des-tiny.” Pila looked up with a hopeful smile that immediately melted when she was met with shocked expressions.
Talon stood up from the table and ran to her cousin’s side, reading the tag for herself. Levi knew from her expression that it was, in fact, from her father. Anger boiled inside his chest as he sat frozen in the chair. He watched, horrified, as she began opening the abomination with shaking fingers.
“Talon, what if it’s a bomb?” he found himself saying. In reality, he knew it wasn’t. Her terrorist father was sick and twisted, but he wouldn’t hurt Talon…yet. Kravis spurted ludicrous babble about her fulfilling her destiny in some warped game of his devising and Levi doubted it was the crazy guy’s plan to blow his daughter up into smithereens. Still, Levi hated that this man toyed with his fiancé’s emotions – and his.
“It’s not a bomb, Levi. Don’t worry,” she tried to soothe, although her shaky fingers could not hide the fact she was terrified of what she might find. She continued to unwrap it and pulled the cardboard lid off of the unspectacular box. Again, she stared into its darkness, her head tilting as she tried to guess what it was she was looking at.
Was it a snake? A sick reminder of the meaning of his name? Perhaps the villain put a bloody finger of some poor tortured midaki government official in there? Mantys stood up, his concern evident, not just for his future granddaughter-in-law, but for the security of the galaxy. The room of people held their breath as Talon reached into the box and pulled out…a hat?
3 THE BROWN FLOOR
Her committee had called Talon in to work a day earlier than scheduled. She couldn’t have been more thrilled. Over the past week her condo felt like a cage with walls that seemed to be collapsing in on her like a torturous funhouse. Everything was so screwed up.
She subconsciously reached into the nylon satchel thrown over her shoulder, and felt through the contents now floating wildly as the bypass approached the center of the asteroid. When she found the cause of all the recent drama, she crushed the fabric in a fist, not daring to let it escape her talons. She squeezed it as tightly as a python with its prey, the black fabric bulging out between her fingers.
She had held it up the evening of their engagement party, staring at the all-too-familiar embroidery. The golden thread was sewn into an eagle, its wings spread across the width of the small beanie. The bird’s talons were poised and sharp in attack mode. Kravis’ gift was a real-life version of the virtual hat Talon obsessively used in her test simulations.<
br />
As she stood in the living room, her mind had been rattling paranoiac ideas that still had her crazed. How had he known about it? How could he have gained access to her virtual trainings? Talon squeezed the hat in anger and frustration. She was not her father’s puppet on strings, fulfilling some destiny he had dreamt up in his delusional mind. She chose her career path. She earned her class rank.
Nobody had seen the hat before but Levi. He should have understood why the seemingly harmless present was such a big deal. After everyone left, they had argued. Her chest became heavy along with the rest of her body as she descended to the ground. Levi was upset she had tunnel vision for the most wanted man in the galaxy, but he didn’t understand it was out of necessity. The hat was a simple reminder that he was still there, watching and waiting for an opportune moment to…to do what she did not know.
It chilled her to the bones knowing this exiled man could infiltrate a secured government simulation so seamlessly, and she knew with no uncertainty, her family was an easier target. Talon couldn’t stand the thought of anyone she loved being hurt by her crazed father…especially Levi.
Of course, under the circumstances, Talon had changed her mind about giving herself to him the night of their engagement. Rationale had taken precedent over any romanticized whims. She couldn’t be distracted until she finished what Kravis had started. She needed to stay sharp and focused. Once she took care of him, she had promised, she and Levi could get married and live out the rest of their lives as a normal couple.
“When?!” Levi had become enraged when she postponed the wedding until then.
Her fiancé wanted to know when they were going to get married, have children, buy a big house, and be stressed over a little crullen jumping from their shoulders. After the notorious hat, after their arguments, Talon could see they were on two different wavelengths. Unfortunately, Levi had left for his tour before they could work it out.
Talon had spent hours researching anything and everything she knew about Kravis, but found nothing she hadn’t already read a hundred times before. Without access to the department’s archives, there wasn’t much she could do to prepare any more than she already had, and she had worked her ass off for this day.
Like many secondary education programs on Ohmani, Talon did not need to attend University via the traditional route – she was grandfathered into working for the Department of Law and Order, nicknamed the DOLO, upon completion of their accredited program. Which floor she would end up on, however, was determined from inside based on her performance. As top of the class, she would get to choose her division – the International Reconnaissance and Intelligence Division, or IRID. Talon had her placement meeting at ten with her committee, where she would sign the paperwork that officially made her an intelligence operative. Talon filled her lungs with new purpose as she paid the driver and planted her feet on the street outside the DOLO.
Talon noticed a couple of reporters snapping pictures outside the building. Their presence wasn’t surprising, as any big court case would draw them like flies. Since media could legally step no closer to the building than the foot of the stairs, everyone inside called them OD’s, or Orbital Debris. She wondered if their presence had anything to do with her being called in early. There must be something brewing…
“Talon, hello,” greeted Kelsey, the program’s main administrative assistant. “Congratulations!”
“Thank you, Kelsey.”
“You’re here for your placement meeting, yes? Just take a seat, they are finishing up with another student.”
Fifteen minutes had passed before Talon could see someone open up the conference door down the hall. That person was Brody. For the first time in a while he was looking quite chipper, even as he approached her.
“Hi, Brody,” Talon offered, knowing full well she wouldn’t be met with such curtesy.
“See you soon,” he said, sweeping by her and out the door.
Oh God, she hoped not. Even if they worked in the same division it was unlikely that two freshly graduated students would ever work the same case together.
“Talon,” she heard a male voice beckoning her down the hall. She could tell by the tone that it was Eon Waverley, her primary advisor on the committee and one of the Project Managers for IRID.
She entered the conference room, and her committee nodded their greeting and congratulated her on valedictorian status.
“Sit down,” Eon said. One could easily be intimidated by the staccato, sometimes rude way he chose to speak. From his mannerisms to his orders, he was the most efficient person Talon knew and she appreciated that.
“How was your short break?” It was Delaney Fugart, a systems analyst, who asked.
“Couldn’t have come soon enough.” A couple of committee members glanced at each other in a way that made Talon internally reassess her answer. “I did get engaged. Thank you for allowing Levi into the simulation,” Talon coughed uncomfortably. She never engaged in frothy conversation with her committee, and for some reason love and fiancés seemed to fall into that category.
They all smiled or nodded. “Your final was very impressive indeed,” another committee member said.
“Thank you.”
“We’ve known you for many years, Talon. We know your aunt and uncle, and you’ve made it very clear from day one in which direction you would like to go after the completion of the program.”
“Yes.”
Eon sighed and looked down at the papers sitting in front of him, which were more than likely her files from the entire program. “And you would make an excellent intelligence officer, but we don’t feel as if that is going to be possible for you.”
Talon’s jaw dropped open. She must not have heard correctly. “Excuse me?”
“Talon, we cannot approve your first choice. We are here to discuss other options with you.”
Talon was shocked. “I don’t understand, I’m top of my class.”
One of the committee members slid a magazine across the table. Talon picked it up and stared at the glossy cover.
Levi Officially Off the Market: Meet the lucky lady who will protect his heart and our country. Turn to page 14 to read more. Talon flipped to page 14 and saw it was plastered with pictures of her and Levi. One captured her jumping into his arms yesterday in the lobby. Another showed him sliding the engagement ring onto her finger. She scanned the paragraphs catching words that made her blood boil – it was entirely too personal…and public.
“But…but what does this have to do with my career?”
“Talon, we know you didn’t ask for this, but intelligence work requires serious discretion. Your face is too recognizable for you to engage in covert missions.”
Talon already knew as soon as she saw the magazine how this conversation was going to go. Her heart rate picked up and her whole body filled with a cauldron of emotions – disappointment, anger, shock, disbelief, regret, devastation – that swirled cruelly inside of her. She took a deep breath to try and stay calm. “So I can’t become an intelligence officer because of some tabloid nobody reads?”
“We’ve had media calling the building asking about you.”
“The OD’s downstairs…they’re for me?” She knew by their silence the answer was yes. “But this isn’t going to last! I’ve worked so hard for this!” So much for trying to stay calm…
“And we’re open to reassessing your situation again down the road, but for right now, your fiancé’s fame just isn’t compatible with your desire to join our intelligence department as a field officer.”
“So what am I supposed to do between now and then? A desk job?” She crossed her arms in defeat.
“We were thinking about investigative work.”
“Like a cop?”
“The highest level cop…an Ohmani State Security Investigator. You would still be working cases in the field…dangerous ones, but it would be in an overt capacity.
She stayed silent as a way to indicate her interest. Anything was bet
ter than a desk job.
“There’s an opportunity for you to join an investigation upstairs, but you have to decide today so that you can be briefed and on a flight tonight.”
Flight? “I thought a state investigator was a homebound job? What is the investigation? Where will I be going?”
“All classified, but I can tell you it’s a high-stakes case that needs a bright young mind like yours. We are not trying to punish you, Talon. The department is lucky to have you as one of the highest earning students to have ever come out of the program. That being said, we have to protect our State, and your personal life is a liability. This is the next best option for you.”
“I’ll do it.”
She was escorted by Eon to file the paperwork that would grant her security clearance to the Ohmani State Security Division. The process took several hours, and afterwards she found herself in the bathroom, adjusting the badge on the breast of her shirt. She looked at her reflection and couldn’t help but feel a sting of resentment, but directed at whom, she did not know. Perhaps if she wholly impressed on this first case, her committee would reconsider. It was a hope that got her feet moving at least.
Talon took the elevator to OSSD and walked down the long employee biometric passageway into the heart of the division. She watched as the scanner followed her, taking multiple readings from simple metal detection and badge scanning, to more sophisticated measurements like 3D body identification. If her information had not been properly uploaded into its system yet, she would become entrapped in the narrow walkway by steel gates.
“Talon!” Wilgra Fron called from the other side.
“Hi, Wilga,” Talon greeted, relieved to see a familiar face.
“Here for the meeting?”
“I do have a meeting this afternoon, actually.”
Wilga looked at Talon’s badge and gave her a confused look. “Are you working here?”
An Eagle's Revenge (Across the Infinite Void Book 2) Page 4