RVA: Shadow of Doubt, Damage Reports
May. 3rd, 2016 07:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalSalli spreads the word. Contains a revised version of Ali's Shame, courtesy of notes from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
siderea
* * *
Her call to Ali’s Aunt Razi was short. A medical tech herself, Razi took in the details calmly and asked a series of short, to the point questions about Ali’s condition, most of which Salli didn’t have the answers to. But even through her hand comp’s voice connection, Salli could hear how thin the veneer of clinical detachment was holding in the older vixen’s voice.
“You'll let me know if anything changes? You’ll let me know immediately, yes?” Razi demanded at the end of the conversation.
“My word as Lady Darktail,” Salli promised.
“Thank you.”
After that she found a vending machine that dispensed a terrible cup of tea, along with a sandwich that might have been sitting in there since the prior Solstice, both of which she consumed without actually tasting anything. Then she sat down on a plastic chair, a large plastic bag containing her blood stained dress beside her, and waited. What else was there to do?
The sun was starting to set outside the windows of the emergency room’s family waiting area, when Zaker walked in. She looked around a moment, before finally spotting Salli and striding over. “Milady,” she greeted, her expression uncharacteristically grim. “How’s Alinadar?”
“Alive, for the moment,” Salli told her. “They’ve moved her from emergency surgery to the ICU. Her condition is... not hopeful. Even if she wakes up on her own, she’s had massive damage to her heart, and there’s an even chance she might lose her arm.” She described, again, Coldwater’s diagnosis and supposition about the use of combat drugs.
“That fits,” Zaker agreed, sitting down beside her. “There was a blood chemistry monitor in the sink cabinet, plus the CPs found an injector on the floor, and a bottle of medication in the sink. Must have gotten knocked in there when she started convulsing. Anyway, the label on the bottle was for a common amphetamine substitute, used for recovering addicts. The quick analysis the forensics team did on the spot seemed to point towards it being actually filled with a household cleaner.”
“So someone substituted her medication,” Salli concluded.
Zaker nodded. “They’re doing a fur and fingerprints sweep of the bathroom now, but if the person who did this cleaned up after themselves the odds aren’t good on finding anything. But what really bothers me is that it looks like Alinadar was keeping her meds in a locked refrigeration box, like you’d use to keep cubs away from your prescriptions. It was open and unlocked, but the CPs didn’t see any sign it had been tampered with. So how did the person who did this get in there?”
“I suppose if we knew that we’d know who did it.”
“Yah,” Zaker agreed. After few moments of uncomfortable silence, she added, “I’ll drive you home.”
Salli shook her head. “I need to stay here. In case…” Her voice caught briefly in her throat, then she finished with, “In case I’m needed.”
“I’m sorry, milady, but I’m actually under orders to bring you home.” She shrugged in apology. “If anything changes, you can just invoke Noble privilege, take your air skimmer, and be back here in less than ten minutes.”
“I’m sure Clawstroke would be delighted to report that abuse of power for his news agency,” she noted bitterly. She wondered briefly whether Oceanic News had reported on the incident at the manor. Of course they did. Mother Goddess, she didn’t want to come within ten meters of a newsfeed right now. Salli could just imagine the lurid footage of she and Zaker trying desperately to give Ali first aid would be on an endless repeat for the next twenty-one hours, or however long it took for a new scandal to gain the newsnet’s attention.
“Guess I should have made him eat that monocle of his,” Zaker said, which at least managed to provoke a brief chuckle from Salli.
“Alright, take me home, Zaker,” she said resignedly. “I need to make one more call.”
* * *
Still wearing the borrowed hospital scrubs, Salli let Zaker drive her through town and back to Darktail Manor. When she got out, she miraculously managed to avoid encountering her mother. Or perhaps the countess had enough sense of self-preservation to avoid antagonizing her daughter. No matter, Salli was just grateful to avoid the confrontation.
Returning the residence floor, she found herself in a quandary. Her suite was still locked off as part of the original investigation into her bedroom’s vandalism, and now the room she’d been sharing with Ali was also barred to her, along with all of her spare clothes. I’m running out of places to sleep, she thought with bemusement.
“Oh, milady, you’re back!” she heard Nari call behind her. She managed to avoid flinching, turning to see the serving vixen coming up the hall towards her. Nari stopped near her, bowed briefly, and asked, “Are you alright, milady?”
“I’m not the one that was injured, Nari.” Salli blinked, rubbed the bridge of her muzzle briefly, and started again. “I’m sorry, I’m very tired right now. Where are my mother and father?”
“At CP headquarters, being interviewed about the… er, incident,” Nari said tentatively.
“Mother Goddess be praised for small favors,” Salli muttered.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked.
The one thing I want more than anything else in the universe is sitting in a hospital intensive care unit ten kilometers away, and might be in the Mother Goddess’ arms by this time tomorrow, she thought bleakly. She let out a tired sigh. Poor Nari just wanted something to do after all the disruption earlier, judging from the nervous twitching of her ears. “I need to figure out where to sleep, and I’ll need clothes for tomorrow. I can sleep in what I’m wearing tonight.” She rubbed her ears briefly, trying to gather her wooly thoughts. “Open up the north guest room for me, and see if I have any spare dresses in the attic. If not, have the house fabber put a basic town dress together for me, until I can visit the shops tomorrow. When you’ve gotten that together you can find me in the conference parlor.”
“Yes, milady!” Nari bowed briefly and scurried off.
Salli headed down to the conference parlor, where she’d sat down to be interviewed by the idiot Clawstroke only… had it been only eight hours ago? She sat down in a padded chair in the front of the parlor’s center table, and called out, “Com online!”
The conference table’s central projector came online, and a pleasant alto voice asked, Where would you like to place your call, Lady Sallivera?
“I”d like a direct interstellar link to Greenholme, Governor’s Mansion, attn Lord Rolas Darktail, real time audio and visual.” And damn the charges, she thought fiercely. Their House could afford it.
The comm chimed for a full fifteen seconds before the CONNECTION ESTABLISHED, AUDIO ONLY indicator came on. Which was followed shortly thereafter by Melanie answering grumpily, “Salli, do you have any idea what time it is on this planet?”
“I need to speak to you and Rolas immediately,” Salli told her.
“I’m sorry, Rolas is a bit tied up with something at the moment,” Melanie answered with false sweetness.
“Melanie, I honestly do not care what perverted bedroom games I just interrupted. Get Rolas to the com right now,” Salli stated, trying to rein her temper in.
There was a brief pause, then Melanie, possibly catching the stress in Salli’s voice, replied, “Give me a half-minute.”
To her credit it was actually less than that before the vid activated, to reveal Melanie very much dishabille in a loose red silk robe not quite hiding the black rubber bustier she was wearing, while beside her Rolas sat barechested and fur ruffled, rubbing his wrists discreetly below the level of the camera’s view. “Alright Salli, I’m here. What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Ali is in the hospital. Someone switched out her medication and she injected several cc’s of household cleanser into her veins,” Salli said flatly. She once again gave Dr. Coldsream’s evaluation of the damage, as both Melanie and Rolas’ ears turned back in shock, concluding with, “She’s on full life support now, I don’t know if she’s going to die in pain or live a cripple, and if our mother breathes one word about how this will oh so neatly fix the problem Ali represents to her House I will rip out her throat.” She closed her eyes briefly, composing herself. “So please tell me, Melanie. Did you know she was a drug addict?”
“Yes,” Melanie said flatly, while beside her Rolas let out a startled, “What?”
“And you didn’t see fit to tell me this?”
“Look, for starters Ali is not an addict, she’s in recovery from addiction, and second I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t your business.” She held a restraining paw as Salli opened her mouth to object. “Let me explain.”
Salli closed her jaw with a snap. “I’m listening.”
“Ali has spent her entire life since the age of six under the thumb of one mistress or another. First as Margo’s slave and soldier, then as my bodyguard and pet, and now you as prisoner and leigesworn both. She’s had no privacy at all. Save for this secret, which she begged me not to tell you.”
“I don’t understand. Why would she keep this a secret from me? I could have helped her.” Salli found herself pulling her own ears in frustration. “For the love of the Mother, she saw me taking my own medications every day. Why should hers be any different?”
Melanie’s expression turned mournful. “Because she was ashamed, Salli. She wanted you to respect her.”
“But I do!” Salli exclaimed. Her stomach knotted up. “How could she think I didn’t? Did she think I would abandon her?”
“You wouldn’t do that, Salli. That’s one the reasons I tried to hook you two together in the first place,” Melanie said. “But she was ashamed of her weakness.”
“Mother Goddess bless.” Salli rubbed her ears, still trying to comprehend it all. “But how did she even get started in the first place?”
“It started when she was eight years old.”
Rolas, who had been listening quietly, muttered, “Surely not. Why would they give an eight year-old cubling drugs?”
Melanie shook her head, turning to look at him. “Dear husband, despite my best efforts you’re a clean minded soul. Think it through; How do you get a child of eight or ten to kill other children? You start injecting them with drugs to get their adrenaline cranked up into a combat high. Then you do it again, and again, and again, until they’re hooked tight and the idea of getting their drug supply cut off is more horrible than the murders they’re asked to commit. That’s how Bloody Margo got little Ali-Kat to go into combat. That’s why she was taking the amphetamine antagonist. And taking it was a scar. Every time she put that needle into her arm it was another reminder that Margo still had control over her, even ten years after escaping her. She wanted to be strong for Salli, so her love would never doubt she could protect her.”
“I never saw her take it, and we were living in close quarters for weeks when I was on my Grand Tour,” Salli said.
“It’s a long acting drug. She only needs to take it every few days, sometimes as a little as every two weeks, depending on how stressed she was,” Melanie told her.
“She’d…. been under a lot of stress recently,” Salli said hollowly.
“Do you need us to come home?” Rolas asked.
Salli shook her head reluctantly. “Even if a ship was there to run you home, the average freighter would take a couple of weeks minimum. I need you both there to administer the colony. I’m going to have to take care of this myself.”
“I’ll let Ali’s brother Lu know about this immediately. Please keep us informed about any new developments, Salli,” Melanie asked. Her expression softened. “I know you have no love for me, but we both care for Ali, if in different ways. Watch out for her.”
“I will,” Salli said, and cut the com.
siderea* * *
Her call to Ali’s Aunt Razi was short. A medical tech herself, Razi took in the details calmly and asked a series of short, to the point questions about Ali’s condition, most of which Salli didn’t have the answers to. But even through her hand comp’s voice connection, Salli could hear how thin the veneer of clinical detachment was holding in the older vixen’s voice.
“You'll let me know if anything changes? You’ll let me know immediately, yes?” Razi demanded at the end of the conversation.
“My word as Lady Darktail,” Salli promised.
“Thank you.”
After that she found a vending machine that dispensed a terrible cup of tea, along with a sandwich that might have been sitting in there since the prior Solstice, both of which she consumed without actually tasting anything. Then she sat down on a plastic chair, a large plastic bag containing her blood stained dress beside her, and waited. What else was there to do?
The sun was starting to set outside the windows of the emergency room’s family waiting area, when Zaker walked in. She looked around a moment, before finally spotting Salli and striding over. “Milady,” she greeted, her expression uncharacteristically grim. “How’s Alinadar?”
“Alive, for the moment,” Salli told her. “They’ve moved her from emergency surgery to the ICU. Her condition is... not hopeful. Even if she wakes up on her own, she’s had massive damage to her heart, and there’s an even chance she might lose her arm.” She described, again, Coldwater’s diagnosis and supposition about the use of combat drugs.
“That fits,” Zaker agreed, sitting down beside her. “There was a blood chemistry monitor in the sink cabinet, plus the CPs found an injector on the floor, and a bottle of medication in the sink. Must have gotten knocked in there when she started convulsing. Anyway, the label on the bottle was for a common amphetamine substitute, used for recovering addicts. The quick analysis the forensics team did on the spot seemed to point towards it being actually filled with a household cleaner.”
“So someone substituted her medication,” Salli concluded.
Zaker nodded. “They’re doing a fur and fingerprints sweep of the bathroom now, but if the person who did this cleaned up after themselves the odds aren’t good on finding anything. But what really bothers me is that it looks like Alinadar was keeping her meds in a locked refrigeration box, like you’d use to keep cubs away from your prescriptions. It was open and unlocked, but the CPs didn’t see any sign it had been tampered with. So how did the person who did this get in there?”
“I suppose if we knew that we’d know who did it.”
“Yah,” Zaker agreed. After few moments of uncomfortable silence, she added, “I’ll drive you home.”
Salli shook her head. “I need to stay here. In case…” Her voice caught briefly in her throat, then she finished with, “In case I’m needed.”
“I’m sorry, milady, but I’m actually under orders to bring you home.” She shrugged in apology. “If anything changes, you can just invoke Noble privilege, take your air skimmer, and be back here in less than ten minutes.”
“I’m sure Clawstroke would be delighted to report that abuse of power for his news agency,” she noted bitterly. She wondered briefly whether Oceanic News had reported on the incident at the manor. Of course they did. Mother Goddess, she didn’t want to come within ten meters of a newsfeed right now. Salli could just imagine the lurid footage of she and Zaker trying desperately to give Ali first aid would be on an endless repeat for the next twenty-one hours, or however long it took for a new scandal to gain the newsnet’s attention.
“Guess I should have made him eat that monocle of his,” Zaker said, which at least managed to provoke a brief chuckle from Salli.
“Alright, take me home, Zaker,” she said resignedly. “I need to make one more call.”
* * *
Still wearing the borrowed hospital scrubs, Salli let Zaker drive her through town and back to Darktail Manor. When she got out, she miraculously managed to avoid encountering her mother. Or perhaps the countess had enough sense of self-preservation to avoid antagonizing her daughter. No matter, Salli was just grateful to avoid the confrontation.
Returning the residence floor, she found herself in a quandary. Her suite was still locked off as part of the original investigation into her bedroom’s vandalism, and now the room she’d been sharing with Ali was also barred to her, along with all of her spare clothes. I’m running out of places to sleep, she thought with bemusement.
“Oh, milady, you’re back!” she heard Nari call behind her. She managed to avoid flinching, turning to see the serving vixen coming up the hall towards her. Nari stopped near her, bowed briefly, and asked, “Are you alright, milady?”
“I’m not the one that was injured, Nari.” Salli blinked, rubbed the bridge of her muzzle briefly, and started again. “I’m sorry, I’m very tired right now. Where are my mother and father?”
“At CP headquarters, being interviewed about the… er, incident,” Nari said tentatively.
“Mother Goddess be praised for small favors,” Salli muttered.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked.
The one thing I want more than anything else in the universe is sitting in a hospital intensive care unit ten kilometers away, and might be in the Mother Goddess’ arms by this time tomorrow, she thought bleakly. She let out a tired sigh. Poor Nari just wanted something to do after all the disruption earlier, judging from the nervous twitching of her ears. “I need to figure out where to sleep, and I’ll need clothes for tomorrow. I can sleep in what I’m wearing tonight.” She rubbed her ears briefly, trying to gather her wooly thoughts. “Open up the north guest room for me, and see if I have any spare dresses in the attic. If not, have the house fabber put a basic town dress together for me, until I can visit the shops tomorrow. When you’ve gotten that together you can find me in the conference parlor.”
“Yes, milady!” Nari bowed briefly and scurried off.
Salli headed down to the conference parlor, where she’d sat down to be interviewed by the idiot Clawstroke only… had it been only eight hours ago? She sat down in a padded chair in the front of the parlor’s center table, and called out, “Com online!”
The conference table’s central projector came online, and a pleasant alto voice asked, Where would you like to place your call, Lady Sallivera?
“I”d like a direct interstellar link to Greenholme, Governor’s Mansion, attn Lord Rolas Darktail, real time audio and visual.” And damn the charges, she thought fiercely. Their House could afford it.
The comm chimed for a full fifteen seconds before the CONNECTION ESTABLISHED, AUDIO ONLY indicator came on. Which was followed shortly thereafter by Melanie answering grumpily, “Salli, do you have any idea what time it is on this planet?”
“I need to speak to you and Rolas immediately,” Salli told her.
“I’m sorry, Rolas is a bit tied up with something at the moment,” Melanie answered with false sweetness.
“Melanie, I honestly do not care what perverted bedroom games I just interrupted. Get Rolas to the com right now,” Salli stated, trying to rein her temper in.
There was a brief pause, then Melanie, possibly catching the stress in Salli’s voice, replied, “Give me a half-minute.”
To her credit it was actually less than that before the vid activated, to reveal Melanie very much dishabille in a loose red silk robe not quite hiding the black rubber bustier she was wearing, while beside her Rolas sat barechested and fur ruffled, rubbing his wrists discreetly below the level of the camera’s view. “Alright Salli, I’m here. What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Ali is in the hospital. Someone switched out her medication and she injected several cc’s of household cleanser into her veins,” Salli said flatly. She once again gave Dr. Coldsream’s evaluation of the damage, as both Melanie and Rolas’ ears turned back in shock, concluding with, “She’s on full life support now, I don’t know if she’s going to die in pain or live a cripple, and if our mother breathes one word about how this will oh so neatly fix the problem Ali represents to her House I will rip out her throat.” She closed her eyes briefly, composing herself. “So please tell me, Melanie. Did you know she was a drug addict?”
“Yes,” Melanie said flatly, while beside her Rolas let out a startled, “What?”
“And you didn’t see fit to tell me this?”
“Look, for starters Ali is not an addict, she’s in recovery from addiction, and second I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t your business.” She held a restraining paw as Salli opened her mouth to object. “Let me explain.”
Salli closed her jaw with a snap. “I’m listening.”
“Ali has spent her entire life since the age of six under the thumb of one mistress or another. First as Margo’s slave and soldier, then as my bodyguard and pet, and now you as prisoner and leigesworn both. She’s had no privacy at all. Save for this secret, which she begged me not to tell you.”
“I don’t understand. Why would she keep this a secret from me? I could have helped her.” Salli found herself pulling her own ears in frustration. “For the love of the Mother, she saw me taking my own medications every day. Why should hers be any different?”
Melanie’s expression turned mournful. “Because she was ashamed, Salli. She wanted you to respect her.”
“But I do!” Salli exclaimed. Her stomach knotted up. “How could she think I didn’t? Did she think I would abandon her?”
“You wouldn’t do that, Salli. That’s one the reasons I tried to hook you two together in the first place,” Melanie said. “But she was ashamed of her weakness.”
“Mother Goddess bless.” Salli rubbed her ears, still trying to comprehend it all. “But how did she even get started in the first place?”
“It started when she was eight years old.”
Rolas, who had been listening quietly, muttered, “Surely not. Why would they give an eight year-old cubling drugs?”
Melanie shook her head, turning to look at him. “Dear husband, despite my best efforts you’re a clean minded soul. Think it through; How do you get a child of eight or ten to kill other children? You start injecting them with drugs to get their adrenaline cranked up into a combat high. Then you do it again, and again, and again, until they’re hooked tight and the idea of getting their drug supply cut off is more horrible than the murders they’re asked to commit. That’s how Bloody Margo got little Ali-Kat to go into combat. That’s why she was taking the amphetamine antagonist. And taking it was a scar. Every time she put that needle into her arm it was another reminder that Margo still had control over her, even ten years after escaping her. She wanted to be strong for Salli, so her love would never doubt she could protect her.”
“I never saw her take it, and we were living in close quarters for weeks when I was on my Grand Tour,” Salli said.
“It’s a long acting drug. She only needs to take it every few days, sometimes as a little as every two weeks, depending on how stressed she was,” Melanie told her.
“She’d…. been under a lot of stress recently,” Salli said hollowly.
“Do you need us to come home?” Rolas asked.
Salli shook her head reluctantly. “Even if a ship was there to run you home, the average freighter would take a couple of weeks minimum. I need you both there to administer the colony. I’m going to have to take care of this myself.”
“I’ll let Ali’s brother Lu know about this immediately. Please keep us informed about any new developments, Salli,” Melanie asked. Her expression softened. “I know you have no love for me, but we both care for Ali, if in different ways. Watch out for her.”
“I will,” Salli said, and cut the com.
