Chapter #24Nighttime, Deytime by: imaj   Two weeks later
Another night at a heaving nightclub.
You slip through the crowd, waving off any attempts to talk to you or use some lame pickup line. The disappointed men don’t hold your interest. You’ve got a very specific target in mind this evening.
The barman looks up from rinsing glasses as you push through to the bar. He smiles the smile many men reserve for when a beautiful woman walks up to them. You smile back, feigning a lack of recognition. You’ve been here every night this week - thought with a different face each time. This guy is the easiest to manipulate.
“Let me into the superstar suite,” you ask hopefully, arching your back to thrust your breasts out. They strain against your tight canary yellow dress. “I’d be ever so grateful.”
“Sure thing babe,” he answers with a shit eating grin. He pulls out a plastic token from under the bar and tosses it onto counter. “See you around?”
“Yeah,” you murmur non-committedly as you grab the token. You’d think he would know better than to ask after the last three nights. You walk away from the bar, slipping through the throng of dancers without looking back.
The bouncer at the door to the private section waves you through when you brandish the plastic token at him. Beyond him, the room is a series of sumptuous corners and cubbyholes. You gaze at each of the luxuriously appointed booths as you swat past. At the fourth one, you recognise your quarry.
Julian Day lounges on a soft couch, a little older and a little wider than his file photo. In fact, he looks like a man close to forty: skin starting to sag, hair turning grey and slowly receding backwards across his scalp. Yet he seems unwilling to let his youthful prime go, judging by the fashionable suit and the two young women hanging on his arm.
Both are attractive. Too attractive, you think in fact, for Dey. And you doubt he has the kind of money, kind of charisma or kind of power to net these kinds of women. Yet they both fawn over him, running fingers down his shirt and laughing at whatever he mutters.
Game on, you think.
You adjust your stance, settling into your most come hither pose and saunter over to Dey’s booth. There you stand with your clingy yellow dress outlining your ample curves. Then you hold out your hand for him to kiss.
The two other women look at you sourly, clearly unhappy at your interruption. You can see them weighing you up, evaluating you and deciding you aren’t beautiful enough to be a threat to them. Their consternation turns to surprise as Dey kisses your hand though. His pale skin contrasts starkly with the dark flesh of your hand. He waves away one of the women, a blonde, and beckons you to sit next to him. “I’m Julian,” he slurs, evidently drunk.
You purr wordlessly in reply as you sit next to him and slide an arm round his back.
True, the other women might be more attractive than you, but they can’t push Dey’s emotions around with Eldibria.
*****
You stalk through the Project Diana offices, Julian Dey’s imago wrapped around you. The irony brings a little smile to your face - walking through the headquarters of Fane’s tattooed me, disguised as their manager.
The poky little break room is empty, but the row of pictures pinned to the wall catches your attention. You recognise the Stellae - a surveillance photo of Rick, a cover shot of Malaika, blown up passport photos of Joe and Rosalie amongst others. Each photo is covered in little tiny pricks from where it’s been used as an impromptu dartboard. Several have nicknames scrawled on them in marker pen - seemingly Joe is ‘Cupcake’. That brings a smirk to your lips.
“So who won the tournament,” you hear someone speak behind you, just outside the break room.
“That’s the thing, neither of them,” a second voice answers. “Some other woman showed up and rolled up the whole game.”
“You gonna return the stake or do they get to play again,” the original voice asks. You turn round just in time to see Chernov and Liu, two of the top ranking Diana agents walk in. Both look embarrassed as they spot you. “Uh, hi boss?”
You narrow your eyes and stare at the pair. Dey’s instincts tell you they are up to something, but don’t provide any insight to what. “Carry on,” you say through gritted teeth before leaving by the door they came in.
Dey’s office is just a short walk down a twisty, windowless passageway. A large window dominates one wall of the antechamber, but it only looks out onto the walls of a neighbouring building. Dey’s assistant Lucille sits at her desk, looking up from her computer as you enter. She removes her smart glasses and brushes a greying hair behind one ear with a free hand.
“Hullo Mr Dey,” she welcomes you with a crooked smile. There was a time she and Dey were an item, but these days her job security is tied to the secrets in her head and the difficulty of training any replacement. Dey’s memory tells you that he’s toyed with fitting her up with a more youthful tattoo, though she herself is reluctant.
In any case, Dey seems to have no problems attracting the attention of younger women. Or, his memories tell you, bullying some of the junior agents into a game of pretend.
“Any appointments today Lucillle,” you ask.
“None,” she answers briskly. “But you have reports from Carerro and Lamb waiting and Neiro have called twice already this morning about some operation they want us to do.”
“Give them the run around if they call again,” you order her. “And get on the horn to Huangdi and see if you can set up a meeting with Jamie. Tell him we’ve made some progress on his Leónisation project.” She shoots you a reproachful look, unhappy with your lie. “Just tell him Lucille.”
*****
Professor Jamieson Hyde-White’s suite at Project Huangdi in Belgravia is a massive step up from the poky Diana offices across the city. The high ceilinged room is filled with antique furniture, the most prominent piece of which is a large leather topped writing desk. The professor - his thinning silver hair slicked back and looking very debonair in an elegant tailored suit - sits on the opposite side of the desk from you. He steeples his fingers and stares at you with rheumy eyes.
“Julian,” he smiles, the expression completely devoid of any warth. “Pray tell me what I owe the pleasure of your company to.”
“The Leónisation project,” you say, leaning forward and resting your arms on the desk.
Hyde White leans back, lifting his elbows off the desk. He’s just out of reach. “Oh,” he says archly. He makes a small gesture with his hand for you to continue.
“We’ve made a breakthrough,” you lie, invoking Virtrilbia to make the falsehood more palatable to the professor's ears.
His eyes bore straight through you. “No,” he says after a moment. “No, I don’t think so at all.”
You feel a sudden sharp stabbing at your neck and the room starts swimming. Your head feels impossibly heavy as you turn to see the source of the pain. Besides you, the professor’s secretary grimaces. The petite brunette has an empty syringe in her hand. It clatters to the floor and shatters as she steps back from you.
“You remember Mr White, don’t you,” says Hyde White, gesturing at his secretary. “No, I suppose you don’t. But the real Julian Dey wouldn’t either. Diana is a little too fond of memory repression techniques in their long term cover operations.” He shows you an ugly little smile. “Makes it rather too easy to turn their operatives I’m afraid. So now this ersatz Miriam Barnard feeds me Diana’s secrets rather than the other way round.”
You try to reply, try to move anything, but all you succeed in doing is tumbling out of your chair to the floor. Hyde white rises from his chair and walks round the desk to get a better look at you.
“Now, I must confess,” he continues, towering over your prone body. “I’m not quite sure what to call you. ‘Miriam’ informs me that the operatives at Diana use the appellation ‘Ghost’, but that seems dreadfully over dramatic.”
He pauses a second to savour the moment.
“So shall I call you Siobhan Connor or Will Prescott?”
To stop reminiscing, attend to Fi's reports in "A Short Hop" 
 You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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