Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOUR
Olline woke early the next morning. She blinked bleary eyes into the dim bedroom and murmured, “Good morning, lovely ladies.” Her orchids rustled softly in reply.
Since Olline began her indoor flora-cultivating hobby, she had gotten into the habit of talking to her plants. Some people said it helped them flourish; she believed it was all her earth magic, but talking to them couldn’t hurt. If nothing else, it made her feel less alone.
But on some days talking to her flowers was not enough.
Given the early hour, there was only one person she could talk to: her brother Lochan. He was a lab technician in the biomagitech and cybernetic research facility for the Hayashi Corporatocracy. The Hayashi Corp had dealings all over Audamar, and with the different time zones to account for, it meant her brother was an early riser.
Olline had enough time to pin the holo-video to show only her face when Lochan accepted the call. “Baby sister,” he said in his normal, chipper sing-song manner. “To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing your face so bright and early?” Lochan smiled at her from where he was, making breakfast for him and his husband. Though she couldn’t see her brother-in-law anywhere.
“Oh shit,” she whispered, “Are we going to wake Goswin? I can talk to you later if this is a bad time?”
Lochan lazily waved his spatula, dismissing her concern. “Please, that man sleeps like the dead.” Her brother winked a pale, lilac-colored eye at her, grinning good-naturedly.
The holo-projection shook as he readjusted his comm device to accommodate the twisting indigo horns protruding from the top of his head. Lochan’s horns were taller than Darrin’s, their oldest brother, and it was hard for Lochan to get the full length of them into any holo-call.
Olline had never met her brother's biological mother. Yet Lochan’s horns, lilac eyes, and the dusky blue-grey of his skin looked identical to the few images she had seen of the seersha. Often, Olline looked for the little bits in Lochan that belonged to their father. They both had similar chestnut brown tones to their hair, but that was the only obvious similarity, and even that was mild, given the purple undertones of her brother’s hair. Her and Lochan were both similar in temperament though, so she figured they both got that from Zachery Tavos.
“So,” he continued, “you okay, little sis? Or was your first day just so amazing, and Antal so wonderful, that you couldn’t wait to dish?” Lochan put a lid on the pan, and leaned on the counter, giving Olline his undivided attention.
Her stomach tightened, and she hesitated a moment. How was she supposed to tell Lochan about Casimir? Maybe she shouldn’t. But that’s why she had called him, right?
“I think,” she began slowly, “that maybe someone tried to kill me last night?”
Lochan blinked slowly, face slack as he processed her words. “You think? Hold on,” he sputtered. “What? You need to back up, Olline. What happened? Are you okay?”
Biting her lip, Olline wrestled her thoughts into submission and told Lochan what had happened when she left her office. Even as she recounted the surprise and initial fear, she couldn’t quite smother the blush that inflamed every one of her freckles as she recalled meeting Casimir.
“So, wait,” Lochan interrupted her. He massaged the base of his horns, mussing his short hair as if a headache were coming on. “Did you actually see a weapon? He didn’t draw blood?” A pause, then, “Are you positive he meant to kill you?”
“I felt something sharp pressed against my abdomen,” she explained. “And wait a second. Are you defending him? Even after I just told you he pinned me by the neck against the wall?”
“Hey, if you wanted a white knight to get on the next hypersonic plane and charge to Antal so he could beat this guy up, you should’ve called Darrin. That’s his schtick, not mine.” Lochan grinned at her, but the smile fell away as Olline pouted at him.
Lochan sighed. “I’m not defending him. But, sister,” he said with tired patience identical to their father’s, “government facilities do attract, purposefully, people like that. People who overreact first and apologize later. Antal may not be the corporatocracy Cyneburg is, but they operate the same when there are powerful entities with egos. They bring on people who’ll protect the companies’ assets at all costs. Think bodyguards, but specifically to protect against corporate espionage and to, sometimes violently, take new talent to help their employer’s interests. I’m not excusing what he did, but if he didn’t actually hurt you . . . I don’t know. Sounds pretty normal from my experience in places like that. It sucks, but maybe don’t take it so personally? And maybe carry more raw metal with you so you can use your magic on these guys?”
Olline huffed, annoyed that she could understand her brother’s argument, and went about her morning routine. Lochan couldn’t see her as she changed with the holo-call pinned to show only her face. “Speaking of which,” Lochan prompted, still leaning on his kitchen counter. “Did your magic react to him?”
“Lo,” she began, but he cut her off with a sarcastic eye roll.
“Yeah, I know. Your ‘magic doesn’t work like that’, as you love to tell me. But humor me. Did you get any weird vibes from this Casimir guy?”
Clothes on and hair in place, Olline busied herself with her coffee maker. She tried to think back to the elevator ride out of the building and everything Casimir did and said. Had she sensed something from him? Any sign at all that he was lying? She had a gut feeling that usually bubbled up as a type of curiosity, but that was as far as it went. And clearly, it wasn’t that trustworthy if she hadn’t seen what a dick Achan was from a mile away, let alone Casimir.
Lochan was patient, waiting for her to sort it out without interruption. The sad fact was, she didn’t. Nothing about what Casimir did after made her feel in danger. Maybe a little suspicious of why he’d offer to apologize with some grand gesture. But nothing . . . violent.
With a heavy sigh, she said, “The only feeling I got from the entire thing was my magic responding to the mystery around Casimir. That and curiosity over this politician he mentioned. Apparently, the same Under Senator was responsible for hiring me, too.”
Lochan snapped his fingers and pointed at his comm device, which made it look like his holo-projection was about to poke her in the nose. “There you go! You can verify all of this. Look him up! If this guy works for a politician it could explain, not excuse, everything. And,” he said, leaning closer, his horns now entirely cut off from view, “if it turns out he wasn’t lying? Then you can totally take him up on an offer to see more of Antal.”
“Lo!” Olline chastised, but a chuckle ruined it at the absurdity of his suggestion. Because it was absurd, wasn’t it?
“What? With the way he was so quick to apologize by offering to take you out? He sounds interesting . I say, if he really does mean to make up for being a prick and almost hurting you, then let him prove it by groveling. There’s nothing hotter than a man who grovels.” He wiggled his dark brows knowingly, making Olline giggle like she was a little girl again.
“You’re the worst,” she said, but his suggestion was a good one. The looking up these guys part, not the taking Casimir up on his offer part. The leaves of her vines and ferns tilted toward her as she moved into the living room where her holo-tablet was waiting.
Olline powered on the device and pulled it into her lap, sitting cross-legged on the plush, taupe couch in one fluid motion. She was glad Lochan couldn’t see more than her face; he would have teased her relentlessly about how many crates she still had to unpack. “All right, you want to hang around while I search? Or do you need to go feed Goswin?”
Lochan glanced over his shoulder, then shook his head. “I’ll stick around for this scavenger hunt. Start with the Under Senator. He’ll be the easiest to confirm Casimir’s story around.”
Under Senator Straub was easy to find.
“Well, shit,” Olline murmured. Before her brother could ask, she explained, “He’s exactly as Casimir said: the longest-sitting politician in Antal. The weird part is he doesn’t seem interested in running for Senator.”
“He’s been an Under Senator this whole time?” Lochan asked, a hint of confusion in his airy voice.
Olline nodded. “Yeah. And get this, his name’s attached to half a dozen different measures that benefit private infrastructure corporations. Sounds like your kind of thing, honestly. Maybe you should transfer from the Hayashi Corp to work for this guy, too. Then you can hang out with me all the time,” she teased, but there was a hint of hope in her voice.
Lochan rolled his eyes, thankfully not catching her tone. “No thanks. I don’t like being on the lobbyist side of things. Politicians,” he said with an exaggerated shudder, “disgusting.”
Now it was Olline’s turn to roll her eyes. “Even though this guy is on a bunch of committees pushing for deregulating certain types of biomagitech?” She didn’t wait for Lochan to respond. Reading ahead, she gave a low whistle. “This Etzel guy is really into pushing for some extensive cybernetic mods. The kind meant for body augmentation. It really sounds like your kind of thing, Lo.”
He narrowed his eyes, all seriousness now. “Pass. Goswin can’t leave Cyneburg. Seersha magic like his isn’t as fun as your humani magic. He’ll literally wither away if we leave the place where his magic was born. You, of all people, know that, Olline.”
What she was reading distracted Olline too much to feel the full reprimand of his words. “Well, this is weird,” she murmured.
When she didn’t immediately elaborate, Lochan sighed loudly. “You do know I can’t see what you see, right? Don’t be rude. Dish, sister!”
“Right, sorry,” she said, giving her head a little shake to refocus her thoughts. “For as much as he pushes for deregulating biomagitech in cybernetics,” she explained slowly, “he’s got no mods himself. At least, not from what I can tell.”
“He’s a full-blooded seersha, right?” Lochan asked. When she nodded, he shrugged. “Always hard to tell with some seersha if they have mods or not. Especially if the guy is old. Which, I’m assuming he is?”
Olline nodded again, reading him what she found. Etzel Straub was older than she would ever be—he was already three hundred and sixty-seven, though he didn’t look old. Since seersha could live up to five centuries, aging took on a new meaning. Humani only lived a fraction of that, usually only up to two centuries, possibly three if they had magic—like Olline.
Changing the image setting on her wrist communicator, she showed her brother the images she found of Etzel. Outside of a few streaks of grey, his hair was still black as oblivion. There were no wrinkles on his sunset bronze skin other than a few hard creases between his brows and the frown lines that framed his black goatee. She supposed his eyes could have been cybernetic or biomagitech devices—they were a type of yellow diamond that seemed to glow—but Lochan didn’t think so. Seersha’s eyes were never subtle and most took pride in the bright, unique colors and wouldn’t hide or change that with cybernetics, he explained. Etzel’s rich cedar-colored horns had no magitech additions either, that she could see, as they protruded through his hair and curved down around his long ears—ears even taller than Casimir’s sharp points.
Casimir.
Now that they had confirmed Etzel was who Casimir said, it was time to check if the mysterious seerani worked for the Under Senator as he claimed. Olline’s stomach twisted as she searched, both dreading and hoping to find a reason to discredit everything he had told her last night. Which wasn’t much, all things considered, but still. Lochan seemed practically giddy as she began combing through the digital feeds.
Olline found nothing, not even an image that would connect Casimir to Etzel. “But he has to work for Straub, right?” she said, hating that her voice took on a pleading quality. “He couldn’t get down to the sub-basements otherwise.”
Lochan gave her a sympathetic look. “Maybe he disabled the security?”
She shook her head, unsure why she was the one defending Casimir now. “He hadn’t been sneaking around after. He just casually . . . sauntered out of the building. Even if you disable some of the security, backup droids would’ve responded. He’d have had to book it out of there.”
Lochan nodded in agreement. “Keep searching then? Like I said, some CEOs like to have people off the books to prevent corporate espionage. Maybe your politician is the same when it comes to your mystery man?”
No matter where she searched, or the back channels she took through the Government Plaza servers, there was no mention of Casimir. Anywhere.
She found mentions of a Kullen Everhart though.
“A relative maybe?” Lochan suggested, trying to give her hope.
But outside of discovering that Kullen was a successful pleasure club entrepreneur, she couldn’t find any connection to Casimir. “I can’t even find a holo-projection of Kullen to see if they look alike,” Olline groaned. She found it odd that someone in the pleasure club business was a ghost on every digital and virtual server she visited. Lochan didn’t share her skepticism. He worked with enough business owners in Cyneburg to know that it was both common, and easy, to disappear digitally if you had the funds and knew the right people. A pleasure club owner like Kullen probably had both.
“Why do you even care about Casimir, sis?” Olline opened her mouth to remind him once more about how he accosted her, but Lochan rotated his hand flippantly, dismissing her. “Yes, he poked you and pinned you. But for as much as you remind me of that fact, it sounds more like you’re trying to convince yourself of something, not me.”
Olline came up short, her breath hitching in her chest. Was that what she was doing?
As she considered his words, she gently ran her fingers over her neck, where Casimir had pressed his forearm against her. It surprised her that there was not even the shadow of a bruise to be seen. More shocking was how crisply she could remember the feeling of his leather jacket, the warmth of his body beneath it, and the restrained power in his grip while he assessed her.
Her body was warming, her heart fluttering. Before she could embarrass herself in front of her brother, Olline made a disgusted noise deep in her throat. She jerked her hand away from her neck and glared at Lochan, glad once more that only her face was visible.
Lochan shrugged, laughing at her. “I just think, deep down, you know that while his methods are questionable, he wasn’t lying. At least about why he was there last night. And that he probably genuinely wants to make it up to you.” He paused, letting her digest his words, giving her a knowing look.
“Don’t bring up Achan,” she warned, gaze dropping. Her chest tightened at the remembered embarrassment of how convincingly Achan had lied to her.
“Fine. But you know what I’m getting at, Olline. Wasn’t one perk of taking this job the fresh start you’d get from it? So, start fresh!” Lochan looked like he was about to say more when something caught his attention off-screen.
“Got to go, baby sister,” he said cheerily. “The husband is awake at last. Have a good second day, and,” he said, tone becoming serious, “maybe this guy is just jumpy. You don’t have to look so hard for an ulterior motive all the time, you know. You are worth getting to know outside the office. It is possible that this man wants to know you. The real you. Shitty first impressions aside. If nothing else, it’d be nice for you to make a connection out there. It doesn’t have to be this man, but someone. As much as I love our early morning chats, I want you to have others to talk to, too. You deserve that, Olline.”
Olline’s thoughts drifted all day.
Through sheer force of will, she didn’t dig deeper into the encrypted file, and thankfully she encountered no others like it as she went about transferring the old evidence files. It was boring work and, outside of one brief check-in from Karter once again in drone form, nothing remarkable happened. Well, except that Karter seemed surprised to see her, weirdly. But that may have been because he had heard what happened and assumed she would take the day off.
No one else had stopped by to introduce themselves yet again. Which gave far too much time for her traitorous thoughts to drift back to last night, and her conversation with Lochan. She was so frustrated by it, she took an actual lunch break. Though, she didn’t venture out to make a “real connection” as her brother suggested.
She called her father instead.
Zachery Tavos answered his holo-wrist communicator before the loading screen fully actualized. “Olline, my girl, how are you? Is everything all right?”
There was a pleading quality to his voice, one that Olline knew meant he hoped things were going just poorly enough that she would want to move back home. She suppressed a huff and said, “Yeah, everything’s great, Dad. Just taking a lunch break and wanted to . . . check in?” She cringed and wished the holo-projector had been turned off so her father couldn’t see the expression.
He frowned, his blue-grey eyes narrowing in that knowing way of his. “You’re bored, aren’t you? Lonely too, I suspect. You always did work too much. Two days on the job and already on the path to burning out.”
“Dad,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose, “please, don’t start—”
“Have you explored at all, Olline? Gone out to eat? Looked for botanist emporiums so you could share your hobby with others?” Olline didn’t respond and her father plowed ahead. “Let me guess, outside of your home and work, you haven’t been around Antal at all.”
Again, she said nothing and her father let loose a heavy sigh that had his shoulders sagging like a balloon slowly deflating. “What was the point of going so far away, accepting such a huge bonus if you weren’t going to enjoy it?”
Olline was starting to regret not leaving her office and knocking on office doors until someone answered. “Dad, I’ve literally been here less than a week. I’ve been busy. Besides, the city isn’t going anywhere, there’s no rush in exploring.”
Zachery’s frown deepened. “You know your mother would say that’s you making excuses.” Olline sucked in a sharp breath, her heart hitching like it always did when he brought her mother up in this way. He gave her an apologetic smile, waving the remark away. “I just don’t want you to work yourself to death, Olline. I’m allowed to worry about you, you know.”
“I know, Dad,” she replied, her voice meeker than she intended. He continued to look at her with his judgmental gaze. With a deep sigh, she said, “I won’t spend every moment working. Don’t worry. I’ll,” she swallowed and took a deep breath before continuing, “go out and see what there’s to do here.”
His bushy ochre-colored brows shot up, his face brightening. “Promise?” He looked so hopeful that it nearly broke her heart.
“I promise.”
“That’s my girl,” he said, nodding in approval. “I’ll let you get back to your lunch break, sweetheart. Go use the time to meet the people on your floor!” Zachery suggested, eyes twinkling. “Stay safe, and I look forward to hearing all about the fun things you find.”
Olline fought the urge to roll her eyes and, through gritted teeth, said, “Will do. Love you, Dad. Bye.” She disconnected the line before he could comment on how tight her voice was and before she could make a snide comment about how he didn’t even ask if she liked her new job.
She had called her dad hoping to take her mind off the mysterious Casimir, but all it had done was bring him to the forefront once again.
Maybe Lochan and her father had a point?
Casimir’s offer to show her around fluttered through her mind, tickling her ribcage and making her heart slam against its confines. She had no way of finding him again, which made the whole thing too wild of a hope that he would return. It relied too much on coincidence, which she knew was pointless.
And yet, she hoped all the same.