Red Queen Fan Fiction - Red Huntress

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The journey to Trial took several days, more than a week. During this time, Diana was stuck in a number of vehicles, transports, farm machines and carriages where she often also had to sleep. She wasn't to talk to the drivers, nor to be seen. She found that a bit silly but she guessed she was only useful as an informal supporter of the Scarlet Guard if she wasn't known as one, not to be connected to any rebel who might get caught.

Her company was a woman about thirty, with short straight black hair and olive skin. Sometimes she drove their transport; the rest of the time she wanted Diana to prepare. Or rather "Tina". To make her memorize her role, the operative never used Diana's true name and neither introduced herself. Diana went along with that, eager to please, yet inwardly wondering how deep the operative had sunk into the game of changing identities. She instructed Diana in the duties of a Red civil servant, so strict and exact about the required meekness she could've been a maid servant herself. Or still was, like putting on a mask over her rebel self. As she also told Diana how to be a spy.

"You have only women as roommates on your floor," the operative said when they eventually arrived at the dorm in Trial. The dorm was higher than any house Diana had ever been in before, and still it was surrounded by buildings even higher, reaching into the grey sky.

Diana swallowed her nausea that rose from sudden uncertainty. Don't be such a bumpkin. To not let her rural origins show was precisely what the operative had reminded her about.

"Right", Diana agreed to whatever she'd said.

The operative sighed as they entered the building and went up the stairs. "All inhabitants of this dorm are some sort of servant or other. Mostly with municipal jobs, like you."

"Sure."

The operative stopped her at the door of the third-floor-room "Tina" was to live in. She turned to Diana, glaring. "Don't trust them."

Diana raised an eyebrow. "As people? Or as sources?"

For the first time in days, the operative's features softened, although one would hardly call it a smile. "I see you understand. As the former, of course. You aren't here to make friends. Now come," said she, and led Diana inside the room.

They dressed in uniforms of skirts and shirts, all in light blue shades apart from the scarlet neckties marking them as Reds, to undermine any chance at being mistaken.

Diana wasn't sure what to think of the face she saw in the mirror. With her straight, pinned-up hair and the crisp uniform, it wasn't the face she was used to, neither a strange woman of nineteen. She was not Diana Farley of Sieverling, but someone different, someone she'd have to get to know – and shape. Into the spy the Scarlet Guard wanted.

The operative nodded. "Let's go introduce you at the office."

Diana took a reassuring breath, glancing one last time at herself in the mirror. You can do this.

But it was winter, and she was glad the operative let her keep her coat from home, to cuddle in something familiar during their walk.

The work itself was dull. Sorting papers, carrying forms, copying them. She wasn't good or fast on the typewriter, unskilled compared to her co-workers, and she feared this lack of experience had to out her false identity. She tried to improve and to shift typing to other colleagues, but she realized that she failed the Guard in this regard: If she had been a quick typist, she could type documents for the Guard besides her official tasks. But they knew this when they hired you for this job.