NOVPUB"Are you in now, Vi'ivando?"
Olivia was staring at a monitor in the office room they were borrowing and watching the two Baccigan engineers hastily typing away with their multiply arms.
At the same time, Havanan and Rorson were busy hooking up the necessary equipment to grant Vi'ivando and Grito access to the data drives that had copies of the city's transit systems on them.
"Ah, we've finally established remote access. Grito and I will get right to work." Vi'ivando replied.
With that done, Olivia turned to Havanna and Rorson and told them that they had done a good job.
"Now, let's get out of here. We've got more people and places to investigate. It's a long list, so don't expect any rest for a while."
Olivia wore the smile of a harsh taskmaster, but this was honestly nothing compared to when they were forced to be Iniquus' soldiers. Time after time their lives had been put on the line with almost no regard for their wellbeing. A couple days of mildly hard work might as well have been picknick.
So, while Grito and Vi'ivando were looking into the workings of the transit network's system, Olivia, and her two assistants headed off to investigate the other minor incidents that had occurred in the area.
…
Over the next few days, they chased down more dead ends and genuinely random accidents than the three of them wished to count.
It had become clear that someone was instigating some of the misfortunes going on, but they had not been able to track down any definitive answers yet.
"Are we really going to be interviewing kids out here in the middle of nowhere?" Havanna asked, an expression of discontent on her face as they drove into a small town called Jalleul.
With a population of only around one hundred thousand, it was one of the smaller settlements on the planet. Most of its residence focused on agricultural work, growing valuable fruits and vegetables that had been selectively bred and genetically modified over hundreds of years to be nutritious and delicious.
Still, this place was the origin of an insect outbreak that had contaminated an entire convoy of crops being shipped to another town.
When the incident was investigated, the perpetrators were found to be a group of young teenagers that had been playing a prank. All of them had been reprimanded and punished, but it was not like the law was going to come slamming down on some kids for something like this. They had all gotten off relatively easily compared to what would have happened to an adult.
"Yeah, well, since Grito and Vi'ivando are still working on the transit network, and we've exhausted all of our other leads, this is it." Olivia replied with a sigh.
Things had not been going as fruitfully as she had expected.
So many minor incidents that seemed to have no rhyme or reason were happening all over the region.
At first, Olivia thought that some sort of pattern might reveal itself, but there was simply too much going on and so much of it was completely inconsequential. If there was a vision in the chaos here, she was unable to see it.
Soon they reached the detention center where the kids that had infested the produce were being held.
Thanks to having called ahead and being the chancellor's special investigator, Olivia had set up an interview with the nine perpetrators.
At the front of the detention center, a pair of guards were out waiting and led them inside.
"We've separated each of them into different rooms like you asked. But why does that matter? Couldn't you just talk to them all at once, they've already admitted to what they did. Also, what does the chancellor care about this?" One of the guards inquired as he led Olivia, Havanna, and Rorson into the building."
As far as crimes went, the kids involved had already pleaded guilty and were receiving their punishment and rehabilitation within the center. The law should have been satisfied already.
"I'm just doing my job. They've been a lot of little incidents going on, and I've been tasked with looking into them. This is probably nothing. Just another box I need to check off."
Olivia's response seemed good enough for the curious guard, but truthfully she did have some hopes here. Kids could be unpredictable, and if they were even unwittingly involved in whatever plot the Odium Syndicate was cooking up, then it was possible that they knew something even if they did not realize its importance.
"Havanna, Rorson, I want each of you to interview three of the kids. I'll do the same. Let's see if any of them have different stories from each other."
An easy way to tell if a group was lying was to get each induvial alone and get them to reveal what had happened. Often times, at least one of them would get tripped up on the lie if there was one. Especially since they were kids that clearly lacked discipline.
"Wow! You're a lot hotter than the last pig I talked to. I wish they would have sent you earlier." The clearly self-absorbed fourteen-year-old Olivia was questioning first said when she entered the room.
"Thanks for the compliment. Now, let's get down to business. I have some questions for you."
Olivia then moved towards the table the kid was sitting at and sat across from him.
Yet as she did, he put his feet up on the table and said, "Made of some pretty tough stuff aren't you. Not going to let the ramblings of some kid bother you are you."
From the mischievous grin on the kid's face, Olivia knew that he was going to try to push her. He was not afraid of any punishment, since he knew that being a minor, the consequences were not going to be severe unless he did something really bad.
Except, he was not dealing with the usual authorities right now. Olivia was a mercenary first and foremost, and she was not going to take his sh*t.
With swift movements the kid only saw as a blur, Olivia knocked his feet off the table. The force from the blow was strong enough for the kid to fall out of the chair and right onto his ass.
He grabbed his left foot as he was assaulted by a sharp pain from the hit. While no bones had been broken, he was going to be left with a nasty bruise.
Before the kid could even regain his bearings, Olivia pulled him up by his shirt with one hand and forcefully slammed him back into his chair.
When he was about to start complaining and making threats due to his hurt pride, the boy locked eyes with Olivia.
Immediately the words he was about to say got caught in his throat, and he started to break out into a cold sweat.
Never before had he felt so terrified, but Olivia's glare was enough to make even grown men shiver in fear.
The kid did not know why he was so afraid. Yet on some level, he felt that Olivia was impossibly dangerous. Far more than any officer that had ever picked him up for the petty crimes he and his friends committed.
"Good, now you seem ready to cooperate. Go ahead and tell me about your little prank with the insects."
After that, Olivia got the story out of the kid, and it lined up perfectly with what the town's Athonites had gotten out of him.
When she moved onto the next kid, she said the exact same thing. And the third was no different.
"So, no inconsistencies with either of you as well." Olivia said with frown once she joined back up with Havanna and Rorson.
"Sorry, what each of them told me matched up. Not a single hole to poke in their stories." Rorson said, shrugging her shoulders.
"Yeah, each of them said the same thing. I guess the stupid kids really did think that it would be funny to infest that shipment with bugs."
As Havanna gave her assessment as well, it seemed that this case was closed.
However, something she said caught Rorson's attention, and it made him think very carefully about the tale that each of the kids had spun.
A moment later, his eyes went wide in realization. Something had clicked.
"Olivia, Havanna, can you repeat to me exactly what those kids said to you?"
Both of them looked confused by this request, but since Rorson seemed so excited and might have been on to something, they did as he asked.
It was only once they had finished that both of them also understood what he was getting at. The three of them were now on the same page.
"All nine of them told us the exact same story. Word for word, without any variation." Olivia said.
"Yeah, like it was a script that they've memorized."
For each of them to recount the same general events and have things mostly line up was one thing, but it was incredibly implausible, bordering on impossible that nine individuals would say identical stories without a single difference. Not unless they had prepared beforehand.
Olivia's lips twisted up into a sinister smile at this revelation. Those kids had thought they had pulled one over on them, but they were soon about to find out how wrong they were.
"Assemble all of them into one room. I'm getting the answers I've come here for." Olivia said to one of the two guards escorting and assisting them.
The guards protested a bit at first, but Olivia got them to comply by wielding Jasmine's mother's authority.
"Don't worry, I'll help set them straight while I'm at it. Hopefully you'll never need to deal with them again once I'm done."
