rr (ON HOLD)

SEQUEL: Prologue

It had been three months since the incident had occured. Three months since Agent Hitch had died at the hands of the Australian, Marnie Novak.

Ruby was in her room, chewing a pencil. She was on her 634th notebook. So far, nothing of remote interest had happened - Sabina had lost her earring yet again, but that was something which happened at least once a year.

Ruby was trying to write down what had happened three months ago. As she wrote, she felt better; she could finally think properly.
Lorelei von Leyden: arrested
Count von Viscount: disappeared, no one knows where he is now
Marnie Novak (the Australian woman): disappeared, presumably with the Count. Location is also unknown

At least one of them had been arrested, Ruby thought. One less psycho trying to kill me.

And now the Count had the Mars Mushrooms' location. He couldn't read code - which was one thing Ruby had pondered on; this man could create a very clever, difficult code and yet could read basic code but nothing too difficult? Odd. But Ruby had no doubts he'd find a way to get the location. She remembered what he had said, about there being two types of Mars Mushrooms. Was this true? How come she'd never known about it?

She shook her head. That didn't matter. What mattered now was stopping the Count from getting the mushrooms.
But Ruby, said a little voice inside her head, what if it's an elaborate scheme to lead you to him so he can use you to get the real Mars Mushrooms? Because what if there's only one type? What if this is all one massive plan?

Shut up, Redfort, she thought angrily, cutting off that thought process. She was paranoid, and a paranoid agent made a dead agent. If only Hitch was here.

She thought about LB. The woman didn't show it, but she was clearly upset at Hitch's death. They'd known each other since they were kids. Thinking about LB led Ruby to thinking about Kaina, and Ruby didn't want to particularly think about Kaina. Ruby Redfort's feelings were mixed about her - on the one hand, she felt sorry and kind of guilty for the kid. If she had listened to Kaina, everything could have been solved by now. On the other hand, though, she couldn't help but blame Kaina for Hitch's death - it was ridiculous, Ruby knew, and she kept telling herself that, but it was the grief-stricken part of her who blamed Kaina.

And at the moment that grief-stricken part was the strongest part of Ruby - she still had not managed to completely get over Hitch's death. He was always on her mind; she couldn't possibly explain how much she missed him. He had been like family to the Redfort household.

Plus, there had been no further cases for Ruby, not since a month ago, and Ruby barely counted that; it was a small, minor robbery committed by a gang of amateurs. She was bored, very bored; the normal life of a schoolgirl was nothing compared to fighting criminals almost daily. Ruby lived for the thrill.

She knew Spectrum 8 were all hands on deck, everyone looking for something which could lead them to the Count, but as far as Ruby knew, and she had a good ear for gossip, nobody was anywhere closer to finding the madman.

Now, Ruby wasn't exactly what you'd call a "cocky kid", in fact she was far from it, but even so she couldn't shake off this feeling that Spectrum weren't doing their job 100% - surely there must've been one trace, one clue, no matter how miniscule? And what about LB? Sure, she'd called a debriefing explaining the situation (leaving out her relation with Kaina, of course) but even so the briefing had been very quick and very short, as if LB wanted it over as soon as possible. Ruby realised that her boss had probably found it uncomfortable, but LB was a woman known for putting mind over matter, job before sentiment.

Sometimes a little maggot of doubt would wriggle itself into Ruby's mind: is LB covering for the Count? but everytime it did so, Ruby would swiftly shake it off. Ruby Redfort had learnt her lesson about doubting LB; she was good through and through.

Wasn't she?

Ruby subconsciously chewed on the pencil harder. There was one thing she needed to know. One question. It wasn't a very pleasant question, but it was a question that needed answering:
Why the hell did LB have a kid with the Count?