Chapter One
Karkat Vantas was running late. He checked his watch and cursed.
"Fifteen minutes," he muttered darkly. "Only fifteen minutes to catch a bus and make five stops." He tapped his foot impatiently. When the bus came, Karkat was completely sure that he would be late. The grim prospect of facing his boss loomed over him like a specter, waiting for the critical moment to pounce and snap his neck. He waited impatiently for all five stops, and wasted another five minutes waiting for the elevator.
Karkat caught a few glances and odd looks as he strode through the office space, but they bounced off as though striking titanium. He was a man on a mission. He stomped over to the humming bank of computer terminals he called a desk and sat down as loudly as possible, shooting a burning glare at a coworker who had been giggling into his hand.
"Chill out, KK!" laughed the coworker in question.
"I don't need your shit, Mr. Captor."
"Have it your way, crabcakes," Sollux Captor shot back. "The boss is gonna whip your sorry ass." Karkat bit his lip. Sollux was right. His boss was the kind of person who would, as Sollux had so eloquently put it, "whip your sorry ass" as soon as look at you.
"Mr. Vantas, the boss wants to see you," came a static-filled voice over the intercom. Karkat righted himself, flushing crimson and striding purposefully towards the office door into the hallway. He stiffly dragged his feet over the polished tiles and pushed open the austere office door.
"Come on in, Karkat," said a voice, and Karkat had no choice but to oblige. He stepped into the room, lit only by the erratic glow of the myriad computer monitors. His boss spun around in her chair.
"So," said Vriska Serket. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"I was late," snapped Karkat. Vriska casually reapplied her lipstick.
"As you know," she said coldly, "our aim is to gather information, to later be utilized by the government." Karkat nodded uneasily. What was she getting at? "Therefore," said Vriska, "Punctuality is key." She stood, her back to Karkat. "We are in the midst of a case like no other." Here she stopped, shooting Karkat a glance, as though daring him to guess what it was.
"What is it?" asked Karkat, finally giving in to curiosity.
"We've received reports of a sinister private organization calling itself 'Royale'. It is of utmost importance" -here she tapped a highly polished nail against the edge of a computer monitor- "that we uncover the identity of its members."
"Why do you care if I was late, then?"
"For obvious reasons, Mr. Vantas," Vriska said, rolling her eyes. "Did I not just inform you that this mission was urgent?"
Karkat was dismissed almost immediately afterwards. As he walked down the hall, glaring bitterly out the frequently distributed panoramic windows, a slight sound reached his ears. It sounded like a light, padded object hitting the floor.
"Hey," came a whisper from behind Karkat. "You dropped something."
"I'm pretty sure I didn't," he muttered to himself. "But I guess there's no harm in checking." He spun around, and came face to face with… no one. "That's odd," he thought. "I could have sworn…"
"I'm sorry, Karkat, do you need directions?" came a familiar infuriating voice. It was Sollux. "You look lost."
"Fuck off," growled Karkat. Sollux threw up his hands in surrender.
"God, KK, is this really necessary? Like every time I talk to you."
"I said-"
"-To fuck off, I know. Like you do every time." He pushed his glasses up his nose. "We have a deadline, idiot. You know that, don't you?" Karkat stormed past his colleague.
"I know," he grumbled, pushing open the office door with unnecessary force. He sat down at his computer terminal, but he couldn't stop thinking about what Vriska had said. Karkat decided to Google the Royale Group, in hopes that they might be more active than his own company suspected. All that came up were a motherload of dud search results and a single promising-looking site. He clicked on it, feeling a surge of excitement. The page loaded painfully slowly, blocks of text appearing in awkward, unreadable chunks. Finally, the hourglass icon that had been chasing Karkat's mouse was still. The page contained only one discernable word: gotcha.
Karkat had never felt so stupid in his life.