"Take your aim, V."
Against the wind, she adjusts the gun in her grip which feels foreign and faulty against the wind. Gooseflesh sprouts up Violet's arms beneath the sleeves of her black jacket. Wind whips at the long gray ribbon tying back her hair.
"My aim's never been perfect." She admits, and the cold night breeze almost whisks away her voice. "But it'll be even worse with you distracting me."
Olaf groans in annoyance behind her, taking one last moment to squeeze her shoulders beneath his hands and press the front of his body to her back before stepping away. Cold air hits her hard from where he had blocked it.
"I can't help it." Olaf says, and Violet can hear the frustration in his voice, can feel his eyes crawling up the back of her. "You look delectable standing before all these city lights. Rather romantic, don't you think, Violet?"
After its sudden destruction, the Rhetoric Building had been reconstructed as the tallest building in the city, much to the mixed feelings of one Lemony Snicket. He had lent her his key for this very night to test a new invention. Eager to rebuild their rapport within the organization, Violet had taken to creating inventions for VFD and taking them before a crowd of judges to accept into the curriculum or reject. So far, every invention had been accepted and she had been paid enough for every re-creation that her inventing room had grown cramped with materials and ideas.
So far she had invented a lighter that could burn different colors of smoke depending on emergency or amusing birthday guests. She had built a pin the shape of an eye that could record footage up to half an hour long, for documenting successful missions or hands-free collection of keepsake memories. The latest invention she had shared was a single match that could curl and loop to be worn like a ring, in the event that someone needed to cause a distraction or light a relaxing candle in a pinch.
What mattered, now, was her newest invention.
One more success and she would become employed as a full-time inventor for VFD.
"You're ridiculous." Violet mutters, but shifts her stance anyway. "A rooftop exploration, some twinkling city lights, and it's making you mushy. Identity check, please. Are you, in reality, Count Olaf?"
"You're stalling, Violet." Olaf says, and she feels suddenly like a child being reprimanded by an instructor. She resists the urge to snap at him, knowing he's right. "They'll be here soon if you've tracked them right. Now get ready."
She sighs long and low to calm her heart rate, and watches as Olaf crouches into the shadows atop the roof, attempting to blend in as much as possible. Nighttime has softened his figure around the edges. Violet is sure that if he tried, her husband could blend into the pitch black sky as easily as any crow or mobile hot air balloon home.
She checks the thin watch at her wrist, spun crooked to rest just atop her pulse point, and crouches to her knees, slinging the gun over the lip of the rooftop and bracing her shoulders.
It take a minute, maybe two, and then the night sky is flooded with hundreds of twittering little bodies, swooping like skybound schools of fish right past her. Their wings and the shine of their eyes reflect against the moon long enough that Violet can only guess where an individual might be.
Hoping for the best, she takes aim, pushes in a small button, and, hearing the whine of the tracker, pulls the trigger. The gun jerks, smacking dull against her shoulder, her boots scuffing against the rooftop. A long wire shoots from the barrel and whizzes through the night. A sharp snap cracks and echoes back against the building, then the sound of reeling. She feels the long wire stiffen and braces the gun in her arms as it retracts and, slowly, a small cage comes into view, cradling a small, bewildered bat.
"I've caught one-" She calls, and Olaf is at her side before she has time to set the gun against the rooftop. He clicks a flashlight and the night lights up, harsh and blue. She sets the cage softly atop her bag. The bat is calm, staring with eyes as dark as Olaf's, as if it had expected to be plucked from the sky.
"Here you go," Violet says, voice tender. The sound of a plastic bag splitting open causes the little bat to twitter. She flips a door at the top of the cage and drops a cube of watermelon inside, which is immediately attacked by the little thing.
"Do you see-?" Olaf starts, but Violet cuts him off, harsh with excitement.
"There!" She says, voice wobbly with relief. She points to a tiny red band at the bat's left ankle. It is marked with an eye, a small replica of the one her husband and countless other associates share.
"You've done it, Countess. You've made a way to track our bats." Olaf's voice is breathy with relief, almost as if he hadn't dared to hope. It had taken months of working with VFD's baticeers, tracking their colonies of bats, and learning their patterns. It was startlingly easy for a baticeer to lose bats once they were let loose if they hadn't been trained enough, and enemies intercepting bats had become such a problem, they were rarely used anymore.
This way, they could be tracked and returned to their baticeers.
This way, VFD could safely communicate.
"It works. It tracked the tag and caught it like it was supposed to." She says, voice high with delight. "We'll have to test it a few more times, but… it works."
"How do you feel, Countess?" Olaf asks, delighting in the happy flush of her cheeks when she says, "Happier than a pig eating bacon!"
The flash of a camera lights up the scene over the flashlight's glare. The little bat eats its watermelon contentedly as Violet aims the band for the camera. They collect photographs to present before the panel of judges, tucking them away safely against the night. The little bat is set free, swooping back, chattering, into the black sky. The couple lets the night burn low, taking turns handling Violet's newest invention, keeping score of how many bats they catch, their proud laughter echoing over the city.
I've always loved the idea of Violet growing up to invent for VFD, but had never explored it. Maybe I'll go into greater detail at a later date, but for now, this is her career just beginning.
The Rhetoric Building is mentioned in only in The Beatrice Letters as Lemony Snicket's office.
Like I said before, the chapters won't necessarily line up perfectly, but no need for panic- Dashiell Qwerty has not vanished and I will not ignore him.
Side note, it's fun to be able to type "_-er than a pig eating bacon!" again.
Please let me know what you think!
