I don't own Hetalia...but that's not really relevant right here because this particular chapter only features my OCs.
Dufa, dusk
"Alright, everyone, this meeting of the Dufa Taran Incorporated spy corps will come to order, me presiding," loudly declared the brightly garbed woman standing on a chair at the front of the room. She wasn't standing there because she was short, in fact, she was perfectly average sized, but because towering five feet over everyone else's heads was her favorite place to wield power. From up there, the entire meeting room was the UI of a computer program, the little units plodding (she should adjust their speed, she hadn't got all day!) towards embroidered cushions from which they would feed back their information and silently await the new task she would send them on with a flick of her fingers.
"Report, in the order of your assignment numbers." Yes, and now the first group of four was standing up – no, wait, they weren't. Only three were grimly shuffling to the first of the podium steps, not daring to go farther. They stopped, averting their eyes from the pink-tinted glow of the conversion lamp behind her. "What is the matter?" she demanded, losing grip on her fantasy. "Why are there only three of you? I set four on this assignment. Where is…that other one? The one…" Did he even have a name? She couldn't remember anything about him. "The one with the ugly nose," she managed finally.
The tallest agent, a woman named…arrgh, she couldn't remember that either. She hadn't bothered to learn any of their names, thinking it unnecessary, but now she realized she needed some way of distinguishing and recognizing the agents under her. She would go through their employee records after the meeting.
Anyway, the tallest agent appeared to be at least considering speech, fitting together words and sentences in her mouth that she then discarded and started over. This went on for long enough that Kehensha Ansaveil Taran, instead of progressing to panic, merely cooled down into apprehensive and impatient boredom.
"Well? Spit it out, spit it out, spit it out!" she yelled when her emotions finally got the best of her. Silly, she ought to be working on that. The agent looked hostile and offended for a moment, but then her countenance slid back into its usual professional calm.
"The missing agent, Myco Vender, was killed in his work by a fall from the roof of the Quri building…" Her already damaged fantasy shattered. She got down from the chair. It was no use anymore. "…Which it was our assignment to sabotage with a stink bomb, making it impossible for the board meeting to—"
"Yes, yes, I know your mission." Kehensha had taken special note of this one; depending on the wind, the stink could have reached a party she had been invited to. "He died? Right away?" What was this churning blackness in her gut? Was that foreboding? A certainty that something awful was coming?
"Yes, instantly. We have confirmed it was an accident."
"Well then…have the letters and confirmations been sent to his dependents? Has his body been turned over to them?" The feeling was getting worse…
"Normally, that would be already done, but he had no family. The company legally owns his body now – unfortunately, though, your office does not have a license for burial or possession of cadavers, and corporations aren't legally people, so they aren't covered as clients under mortuary licenses…" Pow, boom, smack. Kehensha had to remember to breathe while figuring these words out.
"Wait, we have to get rid of his corpse, but our only option is to do it illicitly?"
"Actually, there is another option. You can simply sign responsibilities over to yourself and make all the arrangements personally…"
Dufa Promenade, lunchtime, three weeks later
"And that is how I ended up spending nine hours a week at a stupid mortuary so I could bury a body!" Kehensha was on a lunch date with her older sister, Alsihi, at one of the beautiful, exclusive cafes on the most fashionable street in the city. Her sis had just spent a month away on a vacation/business trip in the Socialist Republic of Issyk-Kulistan, and Keha had grabbed the first opportunity she could to get back together and catch up. Sitting there, drinking iced coffee with condensed milk, pointing out and telling stories about people who passed by…it was just like old times. Times when they spent almost every day together, with no limits on what they could do or where they could go, when "family duty" and "work ethic" were only words spouted off by the heroes of silly foreign movies, and not walls that trapped them into work and separation, crushing their carefree life.
"Oh, you poor thing." Alsi had on a smile that suggested she found the whole mess a bit funny. She didn't mind. Keha supposed it was, as long as you weren't her. "At least something like this probably won't happen again, though."
"But the thing is, it will. When I went through the records that night, eighty percent of my employees had no marked family. Turns out agents are often dark loners with mysterious pasts, go figure! And my office has a death rate of 1-2 every four years, so this whole crapfest is going to repeat itself sooner than later."
"Oh." Keha could see she had reached her sister. "Well, at least some of that must be a records error. The agents simply didn't mark their family, or they have a family now."
"I have a feeling that doesn't account for most of the loners. Eighty percent, Alsi. Eighty-freaking percent. And trust me; I am not stamping rats in a foul-smelling room for two hours again."
"Well, maybe that had something to do with your choice of morticians," said Alsi, still trying to lighten the mood.
"I went to three different businesses before the guy I finally used. And he wore a necklace of fingernails. This city's funeral homes couldn't be any creepier if they were staffed by serial killers who took weekly classes on creepiness." It was a long time before Alsi thoughtfully sucked up the last of her coffee and answered.
"I don't suppose you'll consider a sensible solution, like better safety standards or only hiring people with plenty of loving relatives."
Keha grinned. "You know me only too well, sister. Besides that, I hate all parts of someone dying. There's endless paperwork, everyone's nervous or stony, an actual police officer stopped by and interviewed me because that kind of thing is apparently just routine when a corporate espionage agent dies, and, well, someone died. That's just not good." She stood up and struck a pose, pointing to the sky.
"What we need…are agents who won't ever die!"
I know what you're thinking..."What, a Hetalia fanfic without Hetalia characters? What is this?" *burn author at stake*
But, this exposition really is necessary for the story. I promise, next chapter will open right up with Estonia joking about the unproductivity of World Meetings. There will be plenty of Hetalia.