A slender, artistic finger traced its way along the road map of SubEsthar District 17. Bathed in the lurid red light that filtered through the Skyway up above, the girl shivered in the morning air.

"Take Ba-17 street to Ein-17 street, take Ein-17 Street to Ze-17 street...."

The Districts of SubEsthar were much more orderly than the sprawl of Esthar Proper hundreds of meters above, but navigating them was still nightmarish. Even with the neat grid pattern, the lack of any real landmarks annoyed most people to no end.

"...and go through Ze-Ein-SubDistrict-Street 1-Lat until you find apartment complex Einze-SD-st1Lat-47-RES." She thought about that for a moment. "Whatever Esthar beurocrat made up these names needs to be shot in the foot."

Rolling the map back up, she tried to go over it in her head. It wasn't easy.

"Take Ba-17 to Du-17... or was that Cua-17? Um.. take Ba-17 to get to Ve-17 by way of Ein-17... or was that... oh, dammitall!"

Throwing the map down onto the pavement, she readjusted the sheath on her back and wrapped the scarf around her so as to keep her nose warm and obscure her face. She would find the place by finding a guide and asking directions, if that was what she needed to do.

Murder was never a perfect business, anyway.

~


"She's a murderer?"

The one called Rach was whining again. One wondered why anyone sane would want him on a recruiting drive.

"Our mission is to find her and bring her to justice," Squall said flatly. "She's already killed two of Esthar's low-ranking officials, and a number of civilians. Her motives are unknown, but she's considered to be one of the Empire Nation's biggest threats ever. We've been warned not to put anything past her."

"Why can't the Esthar police handle this?" Irvine asked.

"She's believed to have killed the entire task force they sent after her," Squall answered. "They disappeared, and Esthar doesn't want to sacrifice any more. They state their full confidence in our abilities."

"I don't fight girls," Rach protested.

"How'd you get into SeeD?" Selphie asked incredulously.

"We'll fight her, or we'll be assigned to Esthar permanently," Squall said. Rach rolled his eyes.

"So how are we supposed to find this... criminal?" Irvine asked.

Squall cued up a map on the transport's holoscreen. "She's been sighted moving back and forth from Lake Ock to SubEsthar. We're to--"

Squall was cut off by the sound of Selphie bursting into laughter. "Lake Ock? They actually named it that?"

"Yes. Now--"

"What's SubEsthar?"

Squall stared at Irvine. "Esthar is divided into two sections, Esthar Proper and SubEsthar. Esthar Proper is a raised city--we saw it when we visited the Presidential Palace and Dr. Odine's lab--and SubEsthar is built on the ground below it. We can intercept our target between Lake Ock--"

--Selphie doubled up on the floor, consumed by mirth--

"--and SubEsthar. SeeD Tilmitt?"

Selphie shook her head. "Don't--" (laughter) "--call me that."

"So we just find her and kill her, right?" Rach asked.

"Essentially--"

"But what if she's really that big of a deal? If she took out an EPD task force, then...."

"The Estharan Police Department isn't used to handling things like paramagic. If--"

"But don't you have to have a GF to use paramagic? Does that mean she has a GF?"

Squall looked back at Irvine. "No..." he said. "Galbadia doesn't use GFs in their army, and they--"

"They don't?"

Squall was getting rather irritated at not being able to finish a sentence, and decided to not answer.

"Man, are you clueless," Rach complained to Irvine. "I mean, you could be dressed up as a clue and sitting in the middle of a clue field drenched in clue pheremones in the middle of clue mating season and still not get a clue."

"What?" The full insult was lost on Irvine, but not the fact that it was an insult. "Hey!"

"SeeD Nives," Squall snapped. Rach ignored him.

"Man, I thought you grew up in Galbadia. And you didn't know that?"

"That's not very nice," Selphie said, pulling herself up onto the bench again.

Squall surveyed the room. "......."

"I knew that, and I'm from Winhill. I mean, that's like the backwater of the backwater. What's your excuse?"

Squall gave up. Turning, he withdrew into the cabin area and locked the door. Accessing the paramagic bank that stored his GFs for the time being, he was both surprised and relieved to find a bank of Sleep spells--just as Xu had promised.

He counted them. Thirty-six.

He doubted it would be enough.