Sasha and Roe: Saint Cheryl's Slums (Part 1?)

The file indicated the two were linked at the estimated age of thirteen; ages to date were estimated to be fifteen or sixteen. Sasha Olsen (A189639) and Romulus Falconsson (A189640). Young, but not unusually so. The girl wasn’t supposed to smile in her photo, but she still had a sort of rebellious tilt to her lip, wavy red hair in her face. The boy’s expression was blank, eyes fixated on a point above the camera. They each had the Falconry brand on their collarbone and personal ID scars. Ordinary enough, maybe, but what caught the Inspector General’s eye was the lack of history beforehand. Apparently, neither of the operatives had a place of birth (no listed village, province, ward or even something as a general as which dimension), parents or extended family and no known level of education. Certain assignments were under such heavy classification that even for her it would take weeks of digging to gain access. All very bizarre, especially since they were both Irregulars.

Huh.

The Inspector General was new at her job. The previous Inspector General had tragically died from an incurable medical condition (Heart attack? Renal failure? Freak aneurism? No one remembered.) while in office, leaving the way clear for his successor to be hired in similarly blurry circumstances. She had spent the last three months following a trail of bribes and forgeries (all pretty smoothly covered up, she had to admit. Only someone with her particular skill set would have noticed) and had become very much acquainted with the scum and weaknesses of this government. She had bought and betrayed loyalties; fired and hired and pursued relentlessly and this was where it had lead her. Another mysterious road block. It didn’t really faze the Inspector General. She was very close to finding out what Falconry was hiding from her employers. It would take quite a bit more persuasion to get her to leave the case alone.

Her attention slipped to the bottom of the page, reading the fine print.

The aforementioned persons are under watch for mental instability.

Oh, perfect. Maybe she could squeeze another bonus out of this.

-

Sasha shifted her grip slightly on the woman’s neck, allowing her hands to dig a little deeper into skin. She wasn’t actually choking the poppy addict, just scaring her a little. There had been a brief scuffle between the two a few seconds before. Not much of a competition. A neat right hook around a sharp corner caught the dope off guard and then Sasha was behind her, propping her up with one knee and hands around her neck.Okay, so yeah, it wasn’t a fair fight, but it still worked wonders for Sasha’s self-esteem. “Uh, hey!" How to say this? "This is gonna come out kinda awkward, but I really need you to do something for me.” She whispered into the woman’s ear. “Listen, I’m gonna let you go, but I need you to show me where to find the, uh, junk.”She added, “Poppy juice,” just to be specific. “But here’s the thing: if you run away, I will come after you and I will, well, I’ll kill you, because I'm super stressed and in a huge rush. Anyways, you get my point? Yeah? Cool. Lead the way, pops.”

Sasha was wearing a cotton worker’s outfit, which she’d… borrowed from an employee who wisely decided he could do without an extra. The disguise was to stop any too-keen eyes from thinking an outsider was worth reporting to crime bosses/nosy Officials/general weirdos and from what she and Roe had seen, cotton workers pretty commonly bought poppy juice, so it seemed like a legit disguise. She’d run a 10K that morning, and with the grime on her face and fluff in the folds of her clothes, she was pretty sure she smelled and looked the part. The dope, none the wiser, scurried off down an alley, Sasha on her heels.

The woman rounded a few corners, another few corners, and five minutes later Sasha realised she didn’t remember from which direction they had come. The maze of mud huts and metal lean-to’s all blended into one another. The slums of St. Cheryl's occupied three times more ground than the surrounded city; no, the slums were the city, and St. Cheryl just happened to be caught up in the middle of it. Finding a fire route was going to be hell if the situation complicated itself. Her hands began to prickle with heat. She forced an expression of eagerness on her face and made her gaze stick to the dope, instead of searching for Roe’s shadow.

This assignment had been a long time coming. It had been up on the East Ward Task List for ages; she and Roe had pushed and pushed to be the dispatch, but that bloody idiot Leon wouldn’t let anyone touch it. Or, probably, he was just letting his grudge get in the way of letting them do their jobs. But now that they were here, messing up would just give him another excuse to keep them apart. So until they could get a transfer to the West Ward, mistakes couldn’t happen.

The sky was darkening; pretty soon the real rulers of the city would surface. Body thieves, mud men, bored mercenaries and purposeful assassins (seriously, law enforcement had issues here). Her internal temperature began to rise. Aw crap no, please not now, not now. Try not to think about it. Think about something else. Like unicorns.

Trying it…

Nope. Not working. Unicorns are 1) boring and 2) completely irrelevant to this assignment. Just take deep breaths. Sasha inhaled, exhaled, inhaled. And breath by breath, the heat in her body ebbed back to a level where she could control it reasonably enough. Next problem: where was Roe? He was supposed to be tailing them, but he wasn’t signalling her and she couldn’t spot his shadow. She hoped he was just being cautious. And he better remember the way they came, useless bastard.