The Boarding School

Interviews

Ally Ponde

7am. The office building was almost entirely empty. Ally sat in the chair of the cubicle outside Charles' office, her arms crossed, staring at the door's window intently but not seeing it. No, she saw passed the window, passed the buildings, through the walls, and into the alleys. She saw the hobos scurrying for the shadows and to the other side of town as the sun rays crept through the city streets. She saw platoons begin their patrol at the base of the Appalachian mountains. She saw Thomas pulling his blankets over his face and groaning at the morning bell. He'd be up in time for breakfast, though. She even saw Katelyn Stone demurely preparing her lecture for the morning. 

She could see all this, but continued to peer into the one dark place of her mind's world. The one place that she could not see into. Where was Mercy and what was he doing? Was he with a troop? Or was he on his own? Was he waking up for the day, had he been up for hours? Or was he just settling down to avoid observation in the daylight? Into this dark abyss she strained to see, searching her mind for any clue, anything at all, but coming up with nothing new.

"Good morning," Charles disrupted her thoughts, "Have you been here all night?"

She looked up suddenly, almost startled, but altogether indifferent. "I never received the reports," she replied, standing. She was about to run her fingers through her hair, but thought better of it. Unlike the people in her last office who humored her tireless pursuit of whatever she happened to be working on, here they might insist she go home for rest.

Charles unlocked his office door and motioned for her to enter. She did and took a seat, while he set down his briefcase and sat down behind his desk. He pulled out a stack of thin files and put them on the desk in front of her. "Here they are," he replied. Ally took the first on and opened it.

"A good half dozen of them were caught," Charles remarked, "And we have reports on the rest."

"Six?" Ally asked, unimpressed, "We caught six?"

"Yes," he replied, borderline defensively.

"I see," she continued to skim through the files, "Were any of them successful?"

"No."

"Well then," she placed a file on a second stack she created for one's she had looked at. She changed the subject, "I guess we'll be going through these." She lifted a file again for emphasis and turned to go.

"Well then what?" Charles asked.

"Well then what what?" Ally replied.

"You said 'well then' like you had a thought, but you didn't finish," he explained.

She smiled. She'd most certainly finished the thought, just not outloud. However, since he asked. "Well then, that leaves us with a few possibilities. One, we weren't able to reach out to him. Two, he rejected the offer. Three, he caught on and failed on purpose."

"Or it's possible he failed."

Ally heard him, but did not respond, causing Charles to wonder if she had in fact heard his suggestion. "So?" he prodded.

"We caught six," she replied, "Interrogate them. Find out everything you can to take down these insurgents. Then, execute them so they know that we aren't playing." This of course was what was already going to happen. "I'll read through all these files, interview each of the suspects caught before their execution - will you have that arranged? - and hopefully shed some light on this ghost of an assassin." Charles thanked and dismissed her.

He wasted no time in arranging for her interviews. Eleven o'clock that morning, Ally received a call that she had an interview with two of the captured would-be assassins, beginning at one. Tomorrow she'd have access to two more and the day after that, the last two. Ally was given no time limit and offered all the information she needed. This was curious, as generally investigators did not like outsiders talking to their suspects or involving themselves in their investigations whatsoever. But everyone was amenable to the former CI handler.