Superior

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Raiker

"Aisa Farrow has a diary." Fatima slammed the door shut and stomped over to me, dropping her handbag on the floor next to my desk.

"Damn, no greeting for me? Not even a hello? I'm hurt, Miss Ahmed." I swiveled my chair around to face her. She rolled her eyes, plopping down on to the bed.

"Could you be serious? This is big. Huge. Who knows what data might be in there? Military plans, political secrets, government inside information..."

"Or sad depictions of how depressed she is because she was born in the lap of luxury. Oh, how difficult it is to be pretty! "

"You're an idiot. I think we both know that Aisa is smarter than she lets on, and will have something of importance in there. We're just going to have to try and be smarter than her to find it and abuse it till it becomes a weapon. You should know that, you're the one who came up with the whole mission! Why do you think we have half of our people running around everywhere to look for information of importance?"

I sighed, standing up. "You're right. We're going to need all the information we can find if we want to pull the plan off."

"And we only have a few months until the Appointment Day." her brown eyes bored into me as I settled down next to her.

"Okay, okay. I'll be serious. Tell me everything."

She grinned, leaning back against the pillows. "Aisa has this little brown book she hides in her room. I saw it while I got her ready for the gala, before, you know, you blew up on Zander for some unfathomable reason..."

"Please keep that a secret."

"Yeah, okay. Anyway, then, I snuck back into her room a few days after she got mad at Zander, when the two of you were conveniently traipsing around in some green love field, and I found the diary again."

"I... what? When was this? By the way, I don't like her, Fatima."

"Day before yesterday, actually. I think you were doing some assignments or something together. I think the day that boy, Mark Belington was expelled? It was hidden in her jewelry safe, can you believe that? It took me forever to find the diary, let alone the combination. I flipped through the earlier pages, and turns out she's been writing in that book for the last three years! Somehow, she's never been caught writing in that thing. I didn't have enough time to read every detail carefully, but I think it contains a whole lot more than 'sad depictions of luxury', as you so nicely put it. I had to leave before she came in to change for dinner, so I put it right where I found it and ran the hell out of there."

"I left with her right after lunch, at two fifteen- she came back for dinner at eight-fifteen. You spent six hours there?!"

"Yeah! You spent six hours with her?! We're both so committed, aren't we?"

"You're getting a promotion as soon as we get back from this mission, Miss Ahmed."

"Why, thank you. This happened purely because you gave me the passcode to her room so generously when I asked you to."

I gave her the sweetest smile I could muster. "Why, of course, lovely. Anything for you!"

"Okay, enough of that."

"Fine. What's our plan to get our hands on the diary?"

"I don't know. That's your job. I'm just here to help out with its execution."

I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear my head. "Okay, so we need to take the diary without Aisa getting suspicious about its mysterious disappearance, don't we?"