CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Career

PART TWO…Adapt …

Vash awoke, heart beating a little faster than it had in past years. He brushed Meryl's crisp, white hair from her face softly and stared to see her breathe. Sighing a soft sound of relief, he arose to clean up for the day.

Stepping out onto the busy urban street, he felt the device in his pocket. Tessla invented this over forty years ago, after Meryl's first major fainting spell. It worked as a remote monitor, with various sounds to alert Vash of any abrupt changes in Meryl's condition. She was unaware of the sensor Tessla had hidden into a pendant Meryl wore at all times.

Tessla invented a great many things for this Earth, selling designs to engineers for hefty credit sums, sufficient to pay for her way through life, as well as Vash and Meryl's. And with Meryl's medical costs rising, Tessla was busier than usual wracking her brain for ideas.

Vash himself hadn't had a paying job since Meryl became sick. He'd been volunteering part-time at social services offices wherever they happened to relocate to, usually moving to a new location on the planet every two or three decades. The population here spoke mainly Chinese and Russian, but languages were no trouble for the 250-year-old plant.

Social services was perfect. He got all the human interaction his heart could handle, and was able to improve lives on a regular basis. Teaching morals was his specialty, since all of the practice he had arguing morals to his brother gave him an edge on morality logic.

Scantily clad and professionally dressed women alike cast a glance at the naturally good-looking young man as he strolled down the sidewalk and into his office. He grinned goofily at those he noticed, but with no afterthought.

"Vash, thank God, the workload today…here's the first five files of the morning," Sharva chirped in Russian, a tall thin woman with red hair. "First up is a single mother with advanced anorexia with two delinquent kids. Suspicion of long-term child abuse, plus the mother doesn't have long…"

Sniffling slightly, Vash let a few tears roll down his nose as he stared at the floor, listening to the case. His coworkers never understood how he could cry every time he heard a case aloud. After all, he'd been at that office for two years – you'd think he'd be used to it by now…

OXO

In the little pink debriefing room, a gray-haired Captain of Intelligence stood across a table from a short, bearded man. The shorter man was patted down a fourth time and passed with sensors before being allowed to sit. All the while, the Captain spoke, repeating in monotone the memorized instructions. "Do not ask questions. Answer as simply as possible, as honest as possible. Lies will result in rejection of the proposal…"

The short man wiped sweat from his balding brow with a kerchief and listened intently, knowing that it all depended on him now. As the man found himself alone in this odd room, he continued to sweat under the bright lights and became a little nauseous from the pink walls. Of all colors…

He jumped as the door behind him shuttered open. Heavy military boots clomped into the room. A tall woman slowly walked to the opposite side of the table and seated herself. She had a young, firm body, thin with long blonde hair. Her black outfit was more daring than professional, with a skirt halfway above the knee and a sleeveless, low-cut top. Nearly every inch of exposed flesh was riddled with scarring and her ears were pointed and long. Her right eye was a deep turquoise color and the other a milky hue, dilated. With skin nearly white and scars – the color pink that was echoed in the painted walls - she caused the man's jaw to go numb.

"Mr. Johannahs," she stated in a low voice. "You have asked that Agent Peace take your case and come to the aid of the Canadian Rebel Faction. Yes?"

"Yes," he choked out.

Her eyes narrowed a bit and she stared into his face carefully. "So then, in your area of the Eastern Canadian coastline, the oppression of the people by the Canadian government is such that Agent Peace is needed to remedy the situation?"

"Yes, well, they-"

"And you personally witnessed three men taken down by Canadian peace officials in a secret assassination attempt…These men were not attempting to place a bomb nearby a government office within the city of Clarks, as the media claimed. They were unfairly taken down. Is this true, that they were not in the act of bombing the building?"

"Yes, it was an assassination attempt. They weren't bombing anything."

The scarred young woman nodded. "Do you deny that they were found with forty kilograms of concentrated explosive?"

"Those officials planted it on them."

She smirked for a moment and stood. "I will take your request to Agent Peace, you'll receive your answer from Captain Rosquez in the lobby within the hour. If you'll excuse me."

His eyes were glued upon her and he turned full in his chair as she slipped from sight through the shuttered door. It was such a brief interview, and he found himself baffled - distracted not only by attraction to her body but also curiosity and a bit of repulsion at her scarring.

Rosquez met her in the hallway, a olive-complected man with deep lines around his jaw and salt and pepper hair. He crossed his arms.

"Drop the case, begin investigations on his knowledge of explosives," she stated simply, straightening the hem of her skirt as she spoke. "Just another terrorist faction. Not particularly well thought-out, either."

"Yes ma'am. I'll have a report sent out to Agent Peace immediately."

Walking to another interrogation room, Vanessa shook her head. They really had no clue; thinking that a century ago some human man became the secretive Agent Peace. Believing that the position had been carried through generations of men, armed with a weapon that no one has duplicated in all this time…

They not only got the species wrong, they guessed wrong on gender as well.

Silly humans.