A5 Introductions (Patreon)

Another Executioner's Gambit post:

I know some people were worried that I'd cut Holly completely. I've decided not to.

Also, sorry about that test post. My eyes are going bad, so I've got the brightness turned way up on the screen. But sadly, that means I couldn't find the white button on the nearly-white background. Ugh. It's very frustrating.

A3 New Lodging
A4 Argument

———

Tori’s ears perked to the chime on her mate’s strand. “Biiz?” she asked. After all, they didn’t know anyone else aboard the ship.

Druka shook his head when he looked at the display. With a tap, he brought up the message. “Looks like I won’t need Administrator U’ju to introduce me after all,” he said. “My new boss has found me and sent me a list of guidelines.”

“Ordinary stuff?” she asked as she strapped the strand holster to her upper arm.

“Looks like it,” said her mate as he scanned the email. “Number one, boots must be worn at all times. Number two, protective eyewear must be worn while operating any power tool. Must be checked out on all machines … yadda yadda…”

Druka’s ears lifted, and he yarped out loud. “Check out six and seven,” he said, turning his strand to face her. “Number six, employees are expected to bring pastries for everyone on their first day.”

“Does it really say that?” Tori asked, moving her face closer to the screen.

“Number seven,” he added, turning the strand back so he could read it verbatim, “and not those nasty jelly-filled ones neither. They’re gross.”

Tori rolled her eyes, and Druka stepped from the bedroom. “I better scram,” he said. “Gotta find a pastry shop that still has enough left to fill a box.”

“Okay, love you!” she called from her seat on the bed. “Message me. Let me know how it’s going.”

But when Druka opened the door, he jumped back half-a-step, startled. In the doorway stood a tall, skinny male with fist raised as if he had been just about to knock. “Uh, you must be Tori,” he said with a smile. He tapped his strand against the one on Druka’s shoulder to exchange contact information. “I’m Administrator Holly. I’m supposed to help you get an apartment and show you around.”

Druka stared at the administrator for a moment. He gestured at the apartment around him with two fingers. “Apartment, check,” he said. “And my boss just emailed me, so I’m probably good for introductions.”

“Oh,” said Holly, his ears falling.

“Also, I’m Tori’s mate, Druka,” he explained. “Tori’s almost finished getting ready and would love an introduction to her boss.”

Holly brightened immediately. “Oh, okay!”

Druka patted the skinny male’s chest with a sort of “I need to get past you” gesture, then squeezed by him when Holly didn’t move.

When Tori exited the bedroom, she found Administrator Holly blocking the doorway, turned about and waving goodbye to Druka. “Administrator … Holly?” she asked, having overheard the earlier conversation.

Holly spun about in a gangly, uncoordinated way, but when his eyes finally met hers, his ears fell.

Yeah, I get it, thought Tori, I don’t like how I look either.

“Um, hello, Tori,” he said, avoiding her eyes. He tapped his strand against the one on her shoulder. “I’m supposed to … introduce you … to your new boss.”

“Thank you, Holly,” she said, trying to keep the hurt off her ears. “I really appreciate that.”

When they left the apartment, Tori turned to make sure that she’d locked the door, but Holly took off with a walking speed that most would call a jog. Tori sighed. It didn’t, after all, really matter how fast the administrator walked. Her top speed was a shuffle.

Eventually, Holly noticed that he had left Tori behind, so he stopped and waited for her to catch up. When she had, he took off once more at a speed she couldn’t possibly match.

The rusty red geroo chuckled. “Looks like you’ve got only one speed, Administrator Holly,” she joked to herself.

The administrator had an attractive brindle coat with a white belly, and though it wasn’t unusual to find a geroo as tall as Holly, it was peculiar to meet one so skinny. The geroo tended to be very bottom-heavy people, and sporting a few extra kilos tended to make them look more attractive, not less—to other geroo, at least!

He wore a necklace of six blue beads. Single, thought Tori, or if not single, his mate just happens to wear beads that match his own.

After another minute of Holly getting ahead and then waiting for her to catch up, the crush of geroo trying to get to work on time grew thick, forcing the administrator to shuffle along at a speed that Tori could manage. “So,” she said to him, just above the low roar of the crowd around them, “I thought this ship didn’t have any administrators.”

He beamed a smile at her. “I got promoted this morning!” he said with raised ears. “I was just getting ready for work, and Ding! there was a message with my new assignment.”

He grinned even wider. “Escorting you is my first official act.”

She smiled back, hesitating, not sure what to say. Eventually, she managed, “Well, congratulations! I didn’t think anyone would be applying to be an administrator right now.”

“I actually applied six years ago,” he had admitted. “I never heard back and just kinda assumed I got rejected, but they must have kept my application on file.”

She shuffled along in silence for a bit. “You’re not worried?” she asked. Really, she shouldn’t have pried, but so long as she was working on the case, she felt it would help to understand the motivations of those around her. “Not afraid you’ll become one of The Executioner’s targets?”

“Are you?” he shot back, without hesitation.

Her ears fell, and she stopped walking. The crowd began to shuffle around them, like a stream avoiding a stone. Holly pulled the strand from his shoulder. With a tap, he turned it toward her. The screen showed his to-do list topped by an item that read, “Tori just transferred to the ship. Help find an apartment. Introduce to new boss: Security Chief Tipohee.”

Tori swallowed hard and gave the skinny geroo a small nod. “A little, yeah,” she admitted.

“I’m a little nervous too,” he said before they began walking once more, “but if there’s anything I’ve ever been good at, it’s following directions—especially when those directions are clear.”

Tori frowned as she shuffled along. “Oh yeah? And what directions is The Executioner making so clear?”

Administrator Holly stopped in front of a sturdy metal door with “security” stenciled across it in bold geroo glyphs. “That’s easy,” he said. Then, he moved in closer, as if he were confiding a secret. “Don’t be evil.” With a nod, he turned and knocked twice on the door.

The door slid open a half-meter, and a muscular female with tan fur and black ears peered out. Holly’s eyes went wide.

“Uh, er, uh…” he sputtered.

She cocked her head and studied him with golden eyes. “Whacha need?”

“Uh, I’m Administrator Holly,” he finally managed. “I brought your new transfer, Tori.”

She shrugged and slid the door open the rest of the way. “New transfer, Chief,” she said before returning to her desk.

“Transfer? What transfer?” grumped the only other geroo in the office, an older male with greying pelt. He pushed back from his desk at the rear of the station and stomped to the door. “You?” he sneered, pointing at Holly. “You don’t look like you could break up a fistfight in the nursery.”

“Oh, no. Not me, sir,” said Holly, lowering his ears. Though roughly the same height as the security chief, the older geroo probably weighed double what the administrator did and was clearly much more assertive. Holly stepped out of the way and pointed at Tori.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be joking! Why wasn’t I informed about a transfer?” he shouted before stomping back to a monitor screen on the wall. With a few taps, he pulled up the transfer list and then tapped on Tori’s photo. “Murder investigator? I didn’t request help on The Executioner investigation!”

Tori felt a strange mix of unexpected emotions. In one paw, the chief dismissed her usefulness without even looking at her qualifications. She hated that. But in the other paw, her appearance didn’t even make him hesitate. She suspected that he’d have been just as rude to horrific scars didn’t cover her pelt.

“Lucky for you, then,” Tori shot back, “free help.”

At that, the muscular gal at the front of the office failed to completely stifle a laugh, earning her a glare from her boss.

Tori shuffled into the office and tapped her strand against the one on Tipohee’s shoulder to share her contact info.

“No! No! No!” he shouted. “I didn’t ask for help. Don’t need it. Don’t want it. You can’t come barging in here and try to take over my operation.”

“Fine by me,” said Tori as she shuffled back toward the door. “I’ll run my own investigation and stay out of your way.”

This time, the gal at the front covered her muzzle with both paws. She squeezed her eyes shut as if to keep them from popping out, and the insides of her ears turned bright red. The security chief pointed a finger of warning at her and glared with a look that could melt tungsten.

“For now,” Tori said casually, “all I need are a copy of your investigation files and full access to the ship’s records.”

“F-full access? Are you insane?” he stuttered. “I don’t know what sort of totalitarian ship you transferred from, but our crew has an expectation of privacy. If you uncover evidence that warrants further investigation, bring it to me or show it to a judge. Then, we’ll grant you access to that one geroo’s files. You’re not getting blanket access to everyone’s personal records.”

“That’s not a very helpful attitude, Chief Tipohee.”

“I don’t need a crippled investigator’s help. Go transfer back—”

“I plan to,” Tori sighed. “Trust me, I never wanted to come here. I’d much rather be back at home, surrounded by family while I heal, but obviously, someone in power thought it was important that I help out, so here I am. I’ll put in for a transfer back as soon as I’m done.”

She put her paws on her hips. “And as for needing my help… I’ll admit that I don’t have a long history of catching killers—I doubt any living geroo does—but as this is the first serial killer aboard the Sailor’s Gambit I, I dare say that you’ve caught precisely zero. I don’t need your appreciation, but you’ve got my help, so don’t be foolish and squander it.”

On her way out, Tori paused and touched the female officer’s shoulder. “Nice meeting you,” she said quietly.

The officer’s ears grinned wide, clearly amused at the exchange with her boss. She pulled her strand from its holster and with a long arm, tapped it lightly against Tori’s. “Sese,” she said. “Nice meeting you too, Investigator Tori.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RyF3px6nPWr-UN0kWBD4eod2H-TeL_Vqg5nF54F2_7I/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?