The Hawk, the Walrus, and the Student

The room seemed to have been set up to make her feel nervous. If so, she had no intention of complying with that desire. She sat with her back away from the back of the chair, posture straight but not stiff. It was not as easy as it usually was for her: the chair was slightly tipped forward, the front legs a little shorter than the back. 

Her blue eyes moved between the two people across the table from her. She was trying to be very deliberate with her eye movements: no flicking from one to the other; she looked at one long enough to hold their gaze, then looked at the other, again making sure she held their gaze. 

The woman with the dark blouse and the sharp, hawk-like face (her nose was particularly sharp) spoke first. "Why are you here today?"

"I was told that you might be interested in employing me," she said simply. She avoided adding anything about the nature of the employment.

"And who told you that?" The man had a walrus mustache, thick, bristly, dark, long. 

"My friend's father. Welvin." She wondered, for an instant, if she should've referred to him as "Mr. Welvin," but dropped the thought: too late now.

"And what did this Welvin"--Hawk-Nose said the name as if it were unfamiliar to her--"tell you about the nature of the employment?" Neither of them had given her their name; for now, they were "Hawk-Nose" and "Walrus."

"He told me it would be some small tasks, errands, for the Peltian national government." She thought, as she said it, that it sounded both trivial and somehow mysterious. She wished she'd said it in a way that didn't convey "mysterious." 

"I see," said Walrus. "And the nature of these errands, did Welton..."

"Welvin." Blue-Eyes corrected him without thinking.

"...Welvin say anything about the nature of these, what word did you use, errands?"

"No." 

The two--Hawk-Nose and Walrus--never looked at each other, she noticed. They looked intently at her, and at her only.

Walrus turned over a piece of paper, his eyes moving rapidly down the page. He began talking. "You were born in Bluff-by-Sea, and you've never lived anywhere else. For the last ten years, you've lived at..." He continued: her address, the school she went to. These were things any employer would want to know, she thought. He named her parents and her two brothers. This hadn't felt right to her, somehow. He named the professors she had in her first year of college, along with the subjects they taught. "You're taking on quite a lot of work with that list of classes," he said. She couldn't tell whether he thought that was good or not. "And you've got a work-study project with the Bluff-by-Sea," he paused to peer at the paper. "Good Gluff," he said under his breath. "The Department for Creating Excellence in All Service Departments. Can that be right?"

She nodded. "D-CEASD for short." She wasn't going to let on what she thought, which was that the name was childishly clunky and the acronym beyond ridiculous.

He had begun to name her friends; she started to feel increasingly uneasy. Hawk-Nose interrupted. "Quite enough of that for now," she said. "When you and Welvin talked about you coming here," she continued, "it was outside his shop. Well, behind his shop, actually. In the alley behind his shop."

Her unease mounted; how did they know this? She tried to keep her demeanor calm. She felt herself beginning to sweat under her heavy blouse and long skirt. She wondered how they had made the room so much warmer; there were no windows, and she saw no radiator that might account for the temperature change. She wanted to fan herself but kept her hands resolutely in her lap.

Hawk-Nose continued. "When you talked, did you notice anyone else around?"

She realized her legs were getting tired from holding herself still in the slanted chair. She was becoming thirsty; her mouth felt dry, and she feared her words would come out in a croak. She was about to say no, but remembered something odd. She swallowed and, speaking carefully, said, “There was a man, a very well-dressed man, who started to turn into the alley from the street." She tried to picture him. "He did it twice, actually, once as he walked east-to-west along the street, and again a few minutes later when he was walking west-to-east."

The two across the table looked at her with faces as blank as a fresh sheet of paper. She realized she wanted to fill the silence with something, but had no idea what they were really after. "He had on a suit, very dark grey, with a checked waistcoat. And a hat, also dark grey, with a black band around it. He was carrying..."

Walrus interrupted. "Surely others passed by the alley while you were talking to Welvin. Are you trying to tell us you remember details about all of them?"

She began to feel she wanted to leave. She had no real idea what was happening, who the two were, how they knew she'd spoken to Welvin in the alley behind his shop. Her legs were beginning to cramp. She took a deep breath to steady herself.

"This man was different from the others who passed," she said, trying to keep the distress and anger out of her voice. "Others who were passing were dressed as shopkeepers, or barmaids, or tradesmen. The man I remember was dressed much more finely, and he turned to walk down the alley, but then turned back again. Twice. He was carrying a paper, but it was all wrong, it was last week's paper," the words were spilling out now, almost tripping on each other. She took another breath. Stay in character, she thought. She just wanted to answer their questions then leave. 

"He got close enough once that I could see part of the headline, and it was "Town Head Fires." The rest was under his arm, but that's the headline from last week, when the Town Head fired the Manager of the Department for Building, Fixing, and Anything Else to Do With Roads." She searched for other memories. She wanted this to be over. "He wasn't tall, but not short. He wore a long coat over his suit. His shoes looked new. He had a..." She stopped, suddenly very afraid. "He had a," she repeated, "bushy dark mustache." Her breathing wasn't right. She felt she couldn't get enough air. "Like a walrus."

She tried to form words and failed. It felt to her as if many minutes passed in complete silence. Something unexpected happened then: she thought she saw a change to Walrus's face. This can't be, she thought. Is he smiling?

"Very good, very good indeed," said Walrus. "Most impressive, in fact."

"You've a head for detail, Miss Snick," said Hawk-Nose. "Let's move to somewhere more comfortable."

Her legs shook as she stood from the chair. In the flurry of the last few minutes, she hadn't realized just how fatigued she was. Walrus led the way out, she followed, and Hawk-Nose closed the door behind them. They walked only a few feet, to the room just next to where they'd been. 

Dennet Welvin sat at the table in the room. She felt a fresh wave of confusion and fear but steadied herself and sat down opposite Welvin.

The lighting in this room was softer—she hadn't realized how glaringly bright the first room was until she left it—and sunlight filtered in through a large window. The chair they directed her to was cushioned, and, most importantly, not slanted so as to throw her forward. There was a large pitcher of water on the table and several glasses. Walrus poured one full and handed it to her, rather gently, she thought. She fought the urge to drain the glass in one long draught and satisfied herself with large sips.

"So sorry for all that," said Welvin. "I'm sure it was unpleasant. There are reasons, though, and now is when you learn them."

"Somebody needs to tell me what in Gluff's name is going on," she said, her voice louder than she intended, "or I'm walking out."

"For now, let's start with introductions," said Walrus. "I'm Marlus Brokney. And this," he gestured to Hawk-Nose, "is Villen Fulver." He stood and shook her hand; Villen reached across the table for a handshake as well. "You already know Dennet Welvin," another handshake. "And you, as we know, are Lottille Snick. May we call you Lottille?" 

She hadn't quite regained her composure. "Lotti is fine," she said. "Lotti."

"Well, Lotti, you see, we've had to look into who you are very carefully before we invited you here," said Fulver. Lotti's mouth started to open. "I know it was Welvin who steered you here, but it was at our request. We believe you're someone we can work with. It would sound so crude to say 'we think you could be of use,' but that's certainly part of it." She sipped her water. "And we know Welvin told you more than you let on to us. In fact, we know everything he told you." Welvin smiled and shrugged a bit sheepishly. The room darkened slightly as a cloud moved across the sun.

Brokney said, "We work for the Peltian Threat Neutralization Service. You've heard of it?"

Lotti's mouth wanted to drop open of its own accord. "Yes. I expect everyone has." She took a deep breath, then took a chance. "So you're spies."

"Well, yes, and no." Fulver leaned forward as she spoke. Lotti read it as an action driven by Fulver's serious commitment to her job; there was a new intensity in her manner. "We prefer the term "agents", but that's no matter. We do surveillance and gather information on individuals and groups run by foreign governments who might wish to harm the citizens or various government agencies of Peltia."

A gentle rain began to fall. A far-off lightning stroke produced a subdued thunderclap.

"You see, we don't, in the PTNS, generally travel abroad, or peek into what foreign governments are doing," said Brokney. "Except to the extent that their agents are trying to peek into our affairs. Does that make sense?" Snick nodded. "I don't expect it will surprise you now to hear Welvin has been working with us for some time," he continued. "He's helped us in a variety of ways over the years. He helped us, for instance, by telling us a bit about you. And he helped by telling you we'd like to talk to you. Not that he told you, of course, who "we" are." Another sheepish shrug from Welvin.

The rain was falling harder. Another thunderclap, so loud it shook the window slightly. 

"You want me to work for you," she said, as flatly as she could. She thought she saw shoulders, six of them, relax slightly.

"Indeed, yes," said Fulver.

"So what, if I may ask, would I be doing, exactly?"

"For starters," said Brokney, "you'll undergo some training. It'll be rather a drain on your free time, I'm afraid. Evenings and parts of your days off. Your specific assignments will depend on some assessments that will be part of that training. But, to be clear, you would keep studying for your degree, and you would keep your work-study position in that...that," he paused and waved his hands dismissively, "that unfortunately named town department."

Snick folded her hands on the table and looked at each of the other three in turn. 

"When do I start?"