Compliance headquarters is one of the only inconspicuous buildings in the Capital. Not because it is drab, but because it is literally hard to see. Every square inch of the exterior is made of mirrored glass, allowing it to blend in with the city around it. As I approach the invisible double doors, I see myself and immediately feel self-conscious.
Dozens of strands of my short black hair flay out uncontrollably as if a ball of static had just flown above my head. My scuffed green jumpsuit is tight enough to my skin to reveal a conspicuous lack of muscle. At an inch over six feet tall, I wouldn’t be considered short, unless I was at the Academy, but standing in front of this massive structure that seemed to hold the entire city within its walls, I feel miniscule. I hope talking to Fitz manages to fix that.
I know they’ve already seen me approach, so I walk straight to the door which opens reluctantly to give the outside world the briefest glimpse of the pristine interior before I enter and the door closes behind me. Inside the mirrored fortress is a lobby which is being overseen by a short, haughty, wisp of a woman who is perched in a lofty chair that dominates the area as if it’s her personal fiefdom.
“May I help you, Mr. Jackson?” she asks. It took me a while to understand that the CA knew just about everything, including each and every citizen by name, but after being exposed to it for so many years it no longer bothers me.
“I’m here for Fitzgerald Talmage” I say.
“Ah yes” the haughty woman says, “He’s expecting you. Please take a seat.” She immediately pretends that I no longer exist, having fulfilled her obligation to me, and goes back to clacking away on a keyboard while periodically surveying the room for anything out of order.
I follow her instructions and take an empty seat, of which there are many. The workers in their green jumpsuits, all which appear just a little cleaner, brighter, and somehow more green than mine, hustle around to various rooms and elevators that are visible behind the main desk. The waiting room itself, however, is a ghost town. And it makes sense, who would want to go hang out in Compliance headquarters, a place that loves to invent violations for just about any citizen.
The only other soul sitting down is an old woman, hunched over her cane while she sits. She’s wearing civilian clothes and looks as though she’s sleeping. I’m scared she’ll snore and disrupt the perfect order that the woman in the chair has orchestrated. She strikes me as someone who is cold and ruthless when it comes to doling out punishment.
“Victor!” I look away from the woman and see Fitz walking towards me with a huge grin on his face.
“You just couldn’t stay away huh?” he says.
“I just thought I’d make sure to check in before you’re off and running the place” I reply.
“Let’s go grab a bite, I’m starving” he says then leads me back out into the noisy streets of the capital.
“So I hear you’re already stirring up trouble at the park?” he says in a teasing tone.
I knew it. “I figured you’d find out, that’s kind of why I came to see you” I say.
He flashes me a worried look. “Victor as much as I’d love to I can’t just bail you out of trouble whenever it strikes like I did in school. It doesn’t work like that anymore.”
I’m slightly annoyed that he assumes I’ve come to beg for his help. Although I kind of have, just not in that way.
“I’m not in trouble” I say. “The captain is pissed, but he’ll get over it. I need your help to figure out what happened.”
“Well lucky for you I’ve already been working on it”
We hop onto the moving walkway and ride it under the rain splattered roof that shields us from the depressingly consistent precipitation. We evidently arrive at our destination quickly as Fitz makes a move to exit and I frantically try keep up. I end up narrowly hanging on to the slippery exit railing, sliding far too fast and stumbling when I hit the ground. Fitz just laughs.
When I regain my composure I follow him towards a small, shabby, metallic looking building tucked into an alley and set back from the main street. I’m immediately disappointed. I was hoping he would pick someplace fancy and offer to buy me dinner on his significantly higher salary. Instead it feels like we’re about to enter a tiny prison.
Fitz opens the chipped and dented steel door adorned with cracked panes of glass and reveals a shockingly elegant interior. Gilded chandeliers with faux old-fashioned candle-light, blood red velvet carpets sprawling throughout, and intimate tables hosting clearly wealthy clientele.
I don’t have time to gather my thoughts because Fitz just keeps on walking. He heads directly to a table on the right, against one of the windows that appeared cracked from the outside, but allows a perfect unobstructed view down the alley and onto the street. Everyone around us seems extremely important. Confident demeanors, ambitious faces, they all exude a justified superiority that makes me want to shrink into my chair. I even recognize the head of the Compliance department, Cassius’s father Admiral Sulla, from one of our training videos sitting a few tables behind Fitz. I hope he doesn’t recognize me. Hell, I could walk up and introduce myself and he wouldn’t care know me.
My head is still reeling when Fitz starts up the conversation again.
“So, what do you want to know?” he asks.
I struggle to bring my thoughts back to the matter at hand, I just never really pictured Fitz in a place like this, so readily jumping into the ranks of all of these insanely powerful figures, but here we are.
“I guess...what even happened?” I ask.
“Well, we were able to go back and track the woman from her house, she walked to the park real early and just....waited. Soon as it opened up she walked around for a while, then went into the attraction near your station. Then...well you know the rest.”
“What did she steal from the Time Travel virtual reality room? No one ever goes in there.”
“She didn’t take anything” he said, then pauses to let a waiter bring over some water and hors d’oeuvres that we didn’t order. Fitz takes a bite of what looks like some kind of smoked fish on a dry cracker then keeps going.
“It looks like she might have tampered with one of the machines, but that’s it.”
“Well what was that thing she used with the big flash of light?”
I notice Fitz withdraw just a tiny amount as he thinks on a response.
“I...can’t really get into that. Sorry. But we’ve got some leads we’re working on.”
Damn, I hoped he’d be willing to share everything, but he’s always been a rule follower.
He must have noticed my disappointed expression because he tries to comfort me. “I really wouldn’t waste any energy on it, Vic. She seems like a worthless criminal. We’ll catch her, she’ll be punished, and that’ll be that.”
I have a brief and fleeting moment where I picture the girl being punished, and I find myself hoping she gets let off easy, or better yet somehow gets away. But then I remind myself that I need to catch her myself to save my reputation…and ask her a few questions.
“It’s really not a big deal” Fitz continues. “And if you’re saying the captain isn’t gonna make a fuss with you over it, then you have nothing to worry about”
I decide to accept that, nodding to acknowledge that he’s right, but inside it’s still nagging at me. Who is that girl? What is Fitz unable to tell me? And how did I see her in my....whatever that was?
Fitz drops the conversation there and we spend the rest of the time reminiscing on the Academy and trying to guess how the others from our class are doing. Fitz knows that Cassius is already excelling as a clerk to one of the senators but can’t remember their name. Apparently he began dating the girl who came to my aid temporarily during graduation. He says her name is Camilla, she’s a doctor somewhere in the Capital working with the general citizen population, “slumming it” as Fitz put it.
At the end of the meal I half-heartedly try to pay my half of the exorbitant bill, and am relieved when Fitz picks it up. “It was great catching up” he says, standing from the table. “You need to get some rest, relax, and forget about what happened. Try and enjoy your post. It’s what you’ve always wanted anyways, right?”
Stuffed with the best food I’ve ever eaten and ingratiated to Fitz for the meal I decide not to press any further, though I never even got around to asking who the girl even was.
“I’ll try and forget” I say. “I just hope I don’t see that girl in any more of my dreams.” I stand up and head to the door.
“Ha! You’re dreaming about her? Don’t tell me you caught feelings for a criminal.” he chides from behind me. I can hear him laughing at my expense.
“Ya as soon as I passed out” I open the door and head out of the quiet, delicate intimacy of the fancy prison and back to the din of the noisy city.
“I swear it was just like when I passed out at graduation. It’s the weirdest thing.”
“Wait, that’s what happened?” Fitz asks, no longer laughing, almost sounding alarmed. I turn to see him standing in the doorway, staring at me, deeply worried. When I meet his eyes, his gaze softens but his worry remains. I didn’t think he cared about my health that much. “We just assumed you were out of shape and passed out from the heat.”
“Ya it was the same feeling that came over me at graduation, heavy legs and dizziness then I blacked out. That’s why I didn’t catch her.”
“And you dreamt about her?” he asks again.
“Ya...at least I think it was a dream, but just like the first time everything seemed so real.” He stares at me for a moment, nodding as if processing what I just said.
“You should really get checked out by a doctor” he says finally, apparently still worried about my health.
“I’m not a fan of doctors” I reply. “I’d much rather just find out who that girl is.”
“I’m telling you, you gotta stop worrying about it, Vic. We haven’t even found her yet, there’s no way you’d be able to.”
“I know, I know. But when I saw her, I found a necklace she’d been wearing. It seemed so real Fitz, had a funny slogan on it and everything, I can’t get it out of my mind.”
“A necklace?” he asks, suddenly more intrigued. “What did the slogan say?”
“What is forgotten is not lost”
He looks at his feet and thinks for what feels like an eternity. Its like he’s figuring out the entire case, putting all of the pieces together in his head, and I find myself slightly jealous at his analytical mind. Then I remember what Cicero said about the Academy and I wonder why Fitz never told me.
“Well shit, I think you might’ve just solved the case.” Fitz says finally
“Really? You know who she is?” I ask eagerly.
“Not who, but I got a good guess as to where. I’ll tell you what, since you lost her in the first place, and I bet you’re dying to get revenge, I’ll let you take a shot at catching her. I wouldn’t be able to tell my boss how I got the information to solve it anyways without him asking a ton of questions that I don’t want to answer. I technically shouldn’t have even met with you. But she could be gone in a few days anyways, so it’s worth a shot if you think you can catch her.”
I’m still unsure how exactly the necklace and the slogan fit into the whole thing, but Fitz is very confident and I’m not going to risk ruining it by asking anymore questions.
“Send me that address” I say. “What should I do if I find her?”
“Bring her back to Clock Tower Park, put her in the holding cell and let your captain know, he’ll give us a call and you’ll get all the credit.”
This is fantastic. I can’t hide my excitement and imagine getting all the praise and recognition, hell maybe even a promotion and a pay raise. I can’t help but be somewhat surprised at myself for this little spurt of ambition. It’s not what I pictured when I got assigned to my post, but nor did I think I’d be chasing criminals that haunt me when I’m unconscious.
Fitz recognizes my excitement. He jots down the address and sends it to my holo-phone. “Don’t go until tomorrow night” he says. “It’s late, give yourself a day to plan it. Doesn’t help anyone running in there without a plan then screwing the whole thing up.”
“Fine.” Although I’ve never planned anything even close to this in my life. I got basic policing and enforcement training at the Academy, but I’m still only a security guard. However, it can’t be that difficult, I won’t underestimate her this time, and if I tell Fitz I’m uncertain he might tell me to scrap the whole idea, and I feel like I can’t risk losing this opportunity to salvage my reputation which is shockingly becoming so important to me.
“Well I’ve got to get back upstairs” Fitz says nodding at the practically invisible building in the distance. “Get some sleep and get her tomorrow” he says. I’ll be the first to recommend a pay raise for you if you do. With that he walks out of the alley and effortlessly hops on the walkway, disappearing into the Capitol’s controlled chaos. Leaving me standing alone again, trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to get that girl.