September 1

Interpol Headquarters

3:45 PM

Deirdre Brigit

After getting to Interpol, we started for the office of D. Luckily, Lily still had the map we had received the day before, so we could use that to find our way around. Even if it had only been yesterday, it felt like it was worlds away. The trial had likely caused that. It had been long and eventful, which seemed to be the recipe for making time feel strange.

When we finally got to D's office, I watched Lily double check the map in her hands. "This should be the right place," she said. "Who wants to knock?"

Yuri shrugged and took a step forward. She brushed her knuckles up against the door a few times before placing her hands behind her back. She rocked back and forth on her feet as we waited for an answer.

The door opened a few seconds later to show a woman standing on the other side. She was relatively tall, practically towering over me. She was pale and had black glasses framing her purple eyes. Her hair was a lengthy lavender shade. There was a braid on one side tied with a black ribbon. She had a dark purple jacket with a white blouse underneath it. She had a brown tie on as well. She had knee-high black boots and a purple skirt reaching her knees. Black gloves covered her hands. They loosely reminded me of the glove Mr. Morix had been hiding away in his pocket.

"Who might you be?" the woman asked, her eyes narrowing. I would be lying if I said she didn't frighten me a little. It was rare for me to be scared, but her gaze was one of the most piercing I had ever seen.

"My name is Deirdre Brigit. This is Lily Shield and Yuri Rinko. We're the lawyers on the case of M," I cut in, bowing my head slightly. "We were told you saw something the day of the crime. You are D, correct?"

The woman nodded. "I am," she answered. "Were you sent by D to question me?"

"He didn't specifically tell us to speak with you, but he said it would be a good idea," Lily explained. "If that makes any sense, that is..."

D hesitated before opening the door to her office wider. "Come in," she said under her breath, gesturing for us to follow her. I shared a brief glance with Lily and Yuri before following her.

D's office was easily the cleanest out of the three we had seen. Y's had been a mess, O's had been clean enough, and D's was so organized it was scary. Nothing was even an inch out of place. I had always been organized this way, so I was used to it, but Yuri seemed to be in awe. Lily was a bit shocked as well, but I had suspected this. D had seemed like the clean type to me from the moment I laid eyes upon her. The way she presented herself seemed to make it rather obvious.

D took her place behind her desk and gestured for us to sit on the perfectly clean couch sitting up against the wall. She began shifting through a few papers with an air of elegance as she spoke. "What is it you want to know?" she asked quietly. She picked up a pen and began to write a few things down on a free page of notebook paper.

"We heard in court today you were unable to attend the trial due to another mission," I began. "Is this true?"

D nodded. "Yes, you heard right," she said. "I was out in the field for a brief period today. It was under the request of M. He and N had me set to look into something today a few weeks ago. Chief Prosecutor Bespoke said it was alright if I missed the first segment of the trial so long as I gave him a statement. I'm available now and for tomorrow though, so if it's needed, I can always go testify in the next session of court."

"Speaking of court, did you hear about what took place in the trial?" Yuri asked.

D pulled another paper out from a drawer of her desk. She opened a book and continued to write. "I did. Q reported it to me soon after he had returned. O is Oracle and is currently being held hostage by a group of assassins. That's what you mean, yes?" she questioned.

"You got it," Lily nodded. "We were hoping to ask you about what you saw the day of the crime as well as anything you know about O. We're trying to learn as much as we can about both subjects. Even if we got a confession in court, we need a few more pieces to fully pull everything together."

D tapped her fingers mindlessly against her desk, shutting her eyes to think for a moment. When she was finished, she began to write again. "The day of the crime, I was out in the public working area. While everybody has their own office, we also have cubicles in a more public space so we can talk more easily. I was out there talking with Q about a few things for my case, the one I missed the trial for. Y walked by, but she was acting strangely. Q's report said it was because the killer was dressed up as her," D said.

"Exactly. She went upstairs to her office twice but never came down on any lower floor. One time, she went up for real. The other time, the killer was dressed up as her and went upstairs to ambush her in her office and steal her research," I explained. "We were wondering if you noticed anything particularly off about the second Y."

"She was a bit taller than normal, now that I think on it. Her hair was also a few shades brighter in color. I didn't say anything about it at the time, thinking I was just mistaken. In the end, it was her murderer," D murmured. "It's as unexpected as it is tragic."

"I doubt you speaking up about the killer would have helped. This is a group of trained assassins. I would imagine they had a backup plan for if their mole was discovered. It seems out of character for them to not plan ahead that way," Yuri remarked with a shrug. "Don't feel bad about not saying anything. The death of Y isn't on your shoulders or anything."

D paused for a few seconds before erasing whatever she had written. "Is there anything else?" she asked. It didn't take a genius to see she didn't want to think about Y. Even if Yuri had told her not to blame herself, she probably felt bad for not reporting the small details that could have saved her life. She didn't know, so how could she have changed it?

However, I said none of this, instead merely answering her question. "What do you know about O?" I asked. "We're trying to learn as much about her as we can. Anything you might know about her motivations or actions will be helpful."

D closed her eyes and shook her head. "We didn't talk much. She preferred to be alone unless Y was involved. They were like two peas in a very strange pod. She was in her office when not talking with her partner. They stopped talking a few weeks ago, but O claimed she didn't get it. Y figured out who Oracle was and reported such to M at about the same time. I see now that those two things were involved."

"They most certainly were... Do you know anything else?" Lily asked.

"I chose to avoid her as she chose to avoid me. When we did speak, she would get anxious and try to leave the room early. I never questioned it. Some people have mentioned I can be a bit intimidating. I figured that was the case and brushed it off. Maybe she was scared I would figure her out and call her bluffed identity. I can't say for sure. I likely won't get the chance to ask her now anyways. She's going to either die or be arrested at this point," D remarked. "I didn't anticipate her sudden treachery. I knew about Oracle sending letters to M about corruption, but I didn't expect it to come from inside. She was one of the last people I would have doubted. She was always quiet and spacey. It was as if she couldn't focus."

"In truth, she's a mastermind behind all of this. She figured out who the traitors were, exposed them, and still managed to keep her own identity safe until Y put the pieces together on her own. In fact, she probably would still be safe if not for those agents revealing to Occisor Y had figured it out," Yuri said. "If Y was able to stay quiet about the truth for so long, I doubt she would have exposed the truth to the world."

"In other words, those assassins are bad news," I sighed. "I don't really know what we're going to do about O now though. So far, all we've really found out is that she's a spacey loner who prefers to stay in her office over interacting with others. I don't think that's going to help us much in talking with him."

I looked back over at D. She was messing with her papers still. Unlike Prosecutor Wood, she seemed to know what she was doing and have a method to her madness. She rolled her chair over to the computer sitting on her desk and began to type. "I don't know how much else I'll be able to tell you about the case. Aside from what I already mentioned, I don't know much about her. We never interacted much, as I'm sure you noticed. It would be a good idea to talk to somebody who she's a bit closer with," D told us.

"Who was she close with?" Lily asked. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to speak to them a little bit."

"I don't know. We never spoke much. Somebody around here must have an idea of who she interacted with on a regular basis though. I can't imagine she would be able to avoid everybody at all times. Since she infiltrated Interpol as a spy, she must have somebody working alongside her. If she doesn't, how would she have gotten in to begin with? Interpol is difficult to get into. I doubt she could have done it on her own," D said next. "Maybe you could ask Q to dig something up."

"He's the technology expert here, right?" Yuri questioned.

D nodded. "He has all the information you could ever want on any of our agents. I highly doubt he saw this coming, which puts him in the same category as the rest of us, but it wouldn't hurt to try, I suppose," she went on. "He came to work here due to his incredible skills with hacking, investigating, and gathering information. He has a file on every agent working here, I believe. He may not be willing to show you everything at first though... He's always been that way, I suppose. If you tell him I sent you, I'm sure he'll gladly open up a little more."

"Are you two close friends?" I asked.

D paused for a moment, shrugging. She returned to her typing a few seconds later. "You could say that. We've been working together for a long time. We've grown to be something like partners in crime. When I take on a case, he's always my backup, even if he isn't a field agent. I know he doesn't like talking to new people much, or any people, for that matter. He's fine with me, but he isn't fond of many others, I'm afraid."

"He came off as a bit of a nervous mess during court today, so that doesn't really surprise me," Yuri remarked. "Where do you think he would be now?"

"Probably in his office. He runs the technology branch, so he'll be on the designated floor for technology workers. If I recall correctly, that's floor seven," D answered. "He's probably there with X. I heard X was going to be investigating with him today."

"X?" I echoed.

"He's another technology agent working under Q. Unlike most of his employees however, he did not turn traitor, instead sticking loyally with the company. He's a bit strange, often keeping to himself and doing most of his investigating alone. He seems overly obsessed with assassins and serial killers, even if he's a technology agent and technically wouldn't need to think about them much," D explained. "I heard he was working on tracking where the TV came from to figure out where O is being hidden with the other hostages."

"We'll be sure to talk to him after we're finished up with Q," Lily said. "I'm sure he'll have something to tell us if he's trying to figure out where O is."

"Thank you for talking to us, D," I smiled with a slight bow of my head. "If it's alright with you, we're going to go talk to Q now."

D nodded. "Alright. Remember to tell him I sent you," she told us. She didn't even look up from her computer, reminding me of how little eye contact we had made with her since first meeting her.

"We will," Yuri grinned, heading for the door. "We'll see you tomorrow. Well, maybe. Assuming we need your testimony, we'll see you tomorrow. If not... I guess you should have a nice life."

D didn't say or do anything in response to that. She continued to type silently as we walked out of the room. I shut the door behind us before turning to look at my companions.

"Are all Interpol agents like that? Loners, I mean," Yuri frowned. "Think about it. M seems like a loner. D doesn't like talking to anybody. Q sounds like he downright hates people. O hid in her office to pretend she wasn't a spy sneaking in to find huge secrets. N seems to be the only exception with how clingy he is around M, but he's still a nervous wreck in his own right."

"This is a job where you can't really trust anyone, I suppose," Lily shrugged. "I guess everybody is a little on edge now. Between the technology agents being exposed as traitors and O being Oracle, I can imagine they would be a bit dark and unhappy around newcomers."

"O... Oracle... Gosh, that seems so obvious now!" Yuri groaned. "I don't know if Interpol agents get to choose their letters, but if they do, that was so obvious!"

"If it was so obvious, why didn't anybody figure it out?" Lily asked teasingly.

Yuri rolled her eyes. "You get what I mean though."

"We can talk about this later if we want. For now, let's go and find Q. I hope he's willing to talk to us when we tell him D sent us," I cut in. "She said he would be on the seventh floor. We can talk to him before seeing about this X character. If he's the one looking into where O is being kept, we should ask him about it. He'll know more about it than anybody else at Interpol, so we should gather as much information from him as we can."

"Okay. In that case, let's make for the elevator," Lily agreed. She pulled out the map once again and searched the paper for the elevator mapped out on the floor. When she finally found it, she led us to the elevator and up to the seventh floor.

When we got there, we were met with a narrow hallway. At the end of the hallway, there was a singular bland door. Lily tucked away the map as she spoke. "This should be the place," she said. "Apparently, the other side of the door is where the technology agents work. It's structured like the public working space D mentioned before with open cubicles from what I can tell on the map. There's a large desk marked as Q's off in the corner. I suppose we can head over there since that's probably where he's most likely to be."

Yuri dashed up to the door and opened it a few seconds later. Once the door had been opened, we were instantly met with darkness and flashing lights. I glanced around, my eyes growing wider. I hadn't ever seen so many computers in one place at once. Not even a computer store could compare, which was saying a lot.

There were windows in the room, but none of them were open. I couldn't even count the number of cubicles, each one with a computer. Most of them had people inside silently typing away at their keyboards. A few were noticeably empty, and I assumed that was because of the agents who had turned traitor. I couldn't see anyone of particular note in the cubicles, but the desk at the back of the room was a different story.

Sitting in front of a large projector screen was Q. His desk was much larger than the others due to his position as branch leader. He was also working away at his computer silently. I saw him push up his glasses twice in the time it took me, Yuri, and Lily to cross the room and arrive at his side. He was so focused on his work that it took Lily gently tapping him on the shoulder to get him to notice us. "Excuse me?" she asked softly.

Q jumped up in shock at seeing her. "H-Hello," he said after regaining his composure. "You're the lawyers from today, yes?" He began to type again, his gaze darting between the screen and our little group.

"We are," I confirmed. "We have a few questions to ask you, if that's alright."

Q paused, looking at us, before shaking his head. "Didn't I answer everything you wanted during the trial earlier?" he questioned.

"We have a few questions about O and the reveal of her identity," Lily told him. "Would you be okay with talking to us for a little while?"

"I'm afraid I'm horribly busy right now. Could you come back tomorrow?" Q asked.

"We need your answers now, I'm afraid," I said. "D sent us to talk to you, actually. She told us to tell you that."

Q's typing paused. He looked up and leaned back in his chair, making it creak a little bit. "Alright. I'll answer whatever questions you have," he grumbled. I knew he wasn't happy about it, but I was still glad he had agreed to it at all.

"He sure does like D, huh?" Yuri whispered with a shake of her head. "Anyways, what do you know about O? D said you have files on all the agents working here, so would it be too much to ask if we wanted to see O's file?"

Q continued typing away. I noticed his typing was much louder and more authoritative than D's had been. "Yeah, I have a file on O. I don't know how much use it will be though. It's just basic stuff like her name, age, and the cases she's been on. I'm sure you already have those valuable pieces of information anyways. I bet they were in the court file or something."

"You really don't have anything else?" Yuri asked in shock. "I would have expected you to have at least a little something we didn't know. Of course, I doubt this will help us much anyways. Finding out anything new about O at this point may or may not be very effective towards our case. She's in a bit of a rough spot right now, so rough that she might not even get out of it alive... As dark of a thought as it is, it's true."

"I suppose I could show you when she joined the company," Q murmured. "It was two years ago in December. She immediately took on the Oracle case a month later alongside Y when it was assigned to them. That happened a week after the public conference where Oracle was revealed to exist. She's taken on a few side cases since then, but the Oracle case has been her main focus for years."

"I remember looking at the case for the GC-9 incident during the murder case on the lake," Lily commented. "If she joined in December, that would be after the murder Occisor mentioned a few months back. It would align with the supposed motive they proposed."

"In other words, there were facts pointing to O's real identity all along, but nobody caught onto it," Yuri said with a shake of her head. "It's so obvious looking back on it! How did we not see it?"

"It's not like it matters much at this point. She won't be allowed to join Interpol again after this, assuming she even lives through it. Her presence would be too great a risk. Anybody inside the building with her could die if somebody wanted her dead. We'd all become collateral damage. I don't want that. M doesn't want that either. It'll cause more harm than good. Besides, I doubt she would want to stick around anyways. It would be too risky for her. She could be found out and killed. It's too dangerous for everyone involved, so I doubt anybody would even want to bother," Q told us. "I think that's about it for O though. What else could you possibly want to know?"

I paused for a moment before shrugging. "I guess not much... I do have one other question for you though. I heard an agent underneath you by the name of X was trying to figure out where she is currently being held hostage. Would you be able to point us to him?" I asked.

Q paused for a moment before looking around. "I don't know... Hm... Ah, there he is," he said. He pointed to a cubicle on the other side of the room. A blonde boy was sitting inside of it. A girl with long brown hair was standing at his side.

"Why did he decide to search for her?" Yuri questioned.

"I don't know. When he came in for work after the trial today, he seemed pretty intent on finding the truth. He also managed to get that friend of his inside. Not many people who want to visit Interpol can actually get in, much less the day they want to look around. As weird as it is though, I don't want to ask any questions. She's been helping him track down O ever since getting here. They haven't spoken to anyone on the matter. I guess it's just personal business between the two of them and O," Q answered.

"Wait... That girl... Do you know her name?" Lily asked with a small frown.

"No, but I can find out," Q said. He typed away at his computer for a few seconds before a flash of recognition appeared on his face. "Her name is Neptune Mercure apparently. She's a private investigator who's been living with X for the past few months. Don't ask me why. X and I don't talk much, so I wouldn't know."

"Why would Neptune be here?" Yuri murmured. "I would have expected her to be off doing something else. She's never shown any hints of having connections to Interpol before..."

"When we saw her at the courthouse, she was with a young man, come to think of it," I recalled. "I can't tell from this distance, but maybe the boy she was with was X. I can't remember if she referred to him as such or not, but it's a possibility."

"You can go over and talk to him if you want. He'll be able to tell you a lot more about the situation than I ever could. I have a few last-minute reports to finish from D's outing this morning. It'll take me a while to get those finished, so I can't spend my time trying to track down an agent who may as well be as good as dead," Q told us.

"How is it that he can even track her down though? I would have expected it to be nearly impossible," I remarked with a frown.

"The video coming from Occisor was not recorded ahead of time. In other words, it was live feed. Live video content has to come from somewhere. Thanks to the technological developments of Interpol, it's possible to figure out where in the world the feed is coming from. X has always been good at things like that, so he's working on it. I don't think anyone aside from his friend is helping him out, and I doubt she'll even be of much help since she doesn't know the way the technology works," Q explained. "It won't be easy either. Occisor likely wasn't stupid enough to just let the feed come through without some sort of potential protection. I don't know how they would have managed that without a technology expert though."

"From what I can tell, they definitely have one though. I mean, they were able to hack into the power system the day of the crime to put the entire building in the dark," Yuri piped in. "But that could present a problem... Think about it like this. If a technology agent from Interpol sold information regarding how to hack the power system, who's to say information on how to keep live feed from being trackable also wasn't sold? If X is really going to try and figure out where O is and that information was sold, he really has his work cut out for him."

"It's hard enough to figure out as it is, but if the enemy did get their hands on that information, it could prove to be even more problematic than before," Q agreed. "I don't know how he's planning on pulling it off, but he's never been the type to give up. His determination can even turn into a bane instead of a boon at times."

"I do wonder though... Why aren't any other agents from Interpol trying to figure out where O is? Why is it just X working towards finding her?" Lily asked.

"It's company policy, I'm afraid. The company itself won't try and pursue any agents in dangerous situations if it could bring harm to the majority of our employees. If anybody else wants to try and learn the truth on their own time though, that's up to them. The rest of us can simply go about our business on our own," Q replied.

"But there are other hostages being held with O," Yuri reminded him.

"The local police are the ones in charge of getting the hostages back. It has nothing to do with Interpol at the end of the day, so we don't need to snoop. In fact, I'm sure M would prefer it if we held back at this point, not that any of us can hear that for sure. M is out of commission at the detention center. Normally, N would take over for him, but he's with M and is also away from the office. It's a miracle we aren't all running around like headless chickens at this point," Q muttered. "The point is that it doesn't impact us, so we don't need to get involved."

"As harsh as that sounds, I guess I wouldn't have expected anything else," Yuri admitted with a sigh. "Anyways, thanks for talking to us, Q."

"I have one more question before we go off and talk to X. I remember that Occisor mentioned during the trial that one of O's other names was Sakura Rai. Do you know the relevance of that name?" Lily questioned.

"I usually wouldn't be bringing this up, but I guess it doesn't matter now that she's been exposed anyways. Sakura Rai is what we assumed was O's real name. Of course, that was just an alias to keep us from learning the truth. Out of curiosity, I did a little bit of digging on her. She has no known relatives, which would make sense given the nature of an alias. If the identity was fake, not having any relatives would make sense. There aren't any other government files elsewhere about her either. The information about her just popped into existence around two years ago," Q replied.

"That was the same situation from earlier this year," I heard Lily mutter. Q didn't seem to notice (either that or he simply didn't care), which was probably for the best. I didn't want to have to explain our deductions about Shayla Willows to him.

"With that, I think we'll be on our way," I said. "Thanks again for talking to us, Q."

He grunted in response and continued to type as I began to walk away, Yuri and Lily at my heels. I looked over my shoulder at them with a frown. "It seems as if we've learned a lot about O just from that one conversation. Even if Q said he didn't know much, that conversation helped a lot," I told them.

"Maybe X will be able to tell us even more," Yuri commented. "I hope so. Anything else we can learn will probably help convince Mr. Morix to open up to us. I get the feeling we're on the cusp of learning the full truth behind his relation to Oracle."

"In that case, let's not waste any more time and go see him," Lily suggested. We shared a curt nod in response and began our journey across the room to speak with X.

I hope you're ready for a spam with a plot twist at the end bc I forgot to post here last week

-Digital