Octavia Girl

The order of the day was recruitment.

Excelyn came over to the Dahlia Palace every day for a week and together, she and Jenna did nothing but go over resumes and personal backgrounds. They started with personal assistants. There was still no news from Sardius’ prison, but more information about that prison became available to Jenna.

It turned out that his prison was in a different dimension. That was how he was able to keep in contact with her no matter where in the universe she went. From that dimension, they could do faster than light travel from tiny tears in the universe. Her earpiece held one of those tiny tears in space and time that allowed him to communicate with her anywhere. However, the tear could not be made large enough for a person to fit through. The hole was no bigger than the head of a pin. He could send his voice and other information through, but nothing physical.

It turned out that his prison was not the only prison in that dimension that allowed their prisoners to be outsourced as personal assistants. The women’s prison Favel contacted for further information about the riot also lent out their prisoners.

“Why put prisoners in a different dimension? And if it’s so convenient for space travel and communication, then why doesn’t everyone slip in and out of that dimension instead of traversing the stars?” Jenna asked grouchily.

“Radiation,” Excelyn answered without skipping a beat. As a scientist, she already knew about the other dimension, just not that prisons had been built there. “Spending time in the Xypher Zone is a sure way to cut fifty years off your life and provide a service to everyone else in the universe. One way is by acting as a PA to a diplomat. I wish you had more information about what kind of Adamis Sardius was… is,” she stuttered, tripping over her words like she wasn’t a doctor with a bedside manner using a single word to indicate that she thought Sardius was dead before correcting herself.

Jenna shrugged.

Excelyn was a doctor who treated Octavians. A bedside manner for an octopus was probably something else entirely from how humans wanted to be treated.

The doctor continued, “Some races of Adamis deal with that level of radiation better. The Crying Sun in the Xypher Zone is unholy. If I were placed there, I’d be dead in two years. For a lot of prisoners sent there, it’s a death sentence. The Adamis authorities make no secret of how dangerous it is to be there. I’ve just learned they have prisoners who are scientists who have been asked to help with studying the Crying Sun and report back on how it works in that different dimension. Other scientists are not allowed there.”

“I see,” Jenna reflected. “Sardius wasn’t a scientist, but he still wanted to do something important with the time he had left.” She felt an aching throb in her heart.

Excelyn put her hand on Jenna’s shoulder for exactly three seconds, as that was the extent she was able to comfort people. “Let’s get on with choosing, shall we?”

Jenna began by talking to the warden of the Xypher Zone Prison for Persons with Double X Chromosomes—the women’s prison.

The warden agreed to make an announcement at the prison that if anyone was interested in taking a position as a personal assistant to Octavian/Adamis diplomats, they should apply. Otherwise, Jenna said she hoped to get eight assistants trained regardless of whether or not they had an immediate diplomat to be assigned to.

The warden snorted over the communicator when Jenna told her that number. “You’re going to be lucky to get the two you need right now.”

“Can’t we offer some kind of incentive?” Jenna questioned.

“No. You can’t offer a reduced jail time and that is the only thing any of them want.”

“Really? Then why are you there? You’re not a prisoner.”

“I’m a Boneman.”

“There’s no need for that language,” Excelyn interjected hotly. “Jenna, don’t repeat what she just said. Calling a Calcumicas a Boneman is unbearably rude. Their skeletons are different from yours and mine. They’ve got more bone mass through their whole body and their bones are different from ours. The radiation doesn’t affect them as strongly. Actually, nothing affects them as strongly. They’re almost indestructible.”

The warden’s voice sounded like she enjoyed the compliment when she spoke next. “I’ll see if I can offer them an incentive for you, but it won’t be much of anything. It’ll probably get you three instead of two.”

“We appreciate that,” Jenna said.

“Same time tomorrow? You can conduct the interviews then.” The warden snorted again before signing off.

Jenna and Excelyn looked at each other. “I liked her,” Jenna said. “Good job complimenting her.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose. Her race is unique. Calcumicas look like they have beautiful muscle groupings when they don’t. Their bones are shaped like those muscles, so their bones cover their muscles with taut skin over the bones. It’s like how the bones in your face have shape, but they’re covered with skin. Their whole bodies are like that. It makes their muscle power a complete mystery to the casual observer. They might be a wuss or a hulk and you wouldn’t know the difference unless you poked the underside of their arm or inside their thigh.”

“That’s interesting.”

“There’s more, but there isn’t time for a biology lesson. Why didn’t Sardius hire a bodyguard for you?”

“He was going to. He just hadn’t found the right one yet.”

“I think we should hire one of those girls with poison in her fingers. What are they called? Oh yeah, Uklians. They scare everyone.”

“Want me to look for one?” Jenna offered when Vash entered the room.

He looked panicked and frightened. “Madam Diplomat. I need you to see something.”

Jenna glanced at Excelyn. She hadn’t exactly been keeping secrets from her. What had Vash seen that he felt ought to be kept secret? She had no idea.

Jenna stood up. “I’ll be back.”

She joined Vash as they walked the distance across the courtyard and to her bedroom.

Once inside, Jenna asked, “What’s going on?”

Vash showed Jenna a pile of bricks. They were the ones the majors had broken out of her wall. Jenna had seen the broken wall and didn’t understand what Vash was trying to show her. She’d seen broken white bricks before, so she didn’t know why Vash was staring at the bricks so intently.

“Yes,” she finally said. “We are looking at bricks.”

Vash looked at her like she was stupid, bent down, picked up a brick, and showed it to her up close.

Each brick had eight hollowed-out tubes inside. Jenna had seen bricks like that on Earth. Then, she stopped. Vash was showing her something inside each of the cylindrical hollows. Jenna put her finger in and drew out a piece of plastic that had been rolled up and stuffed inside. When she unrolled it, everything written on it was unfamiliar to her, but it could only be one thing—money.

“What the?” Jenna put her fingers in more holes and brought out more money.

Soon she and Vash were on their hands and knees getting caked in brick dust as they pulled money out of every brick.

“How did the AAMC guys miss this?” Jenna gasped in wonder.

“I guess they were only looking for the crowns and they weren’t thinking that your wall was full of money.”

“How did you notice?”

“I picked one up wondering how I could dispose of it. We’re very fussy about how we dispose of things on Octavia Prime. Everything has to be biodegradable, but the bricks are closer to rocks, which don’t change. I was doing a sensor check on the composition of the brick so I could figure out where it could be properly disposed of and the sensor picked up on the plastic. I saw a glint and found it.”

“How much have we got?”

“Some of these are fifty notes. Some are hundreds. Lots are doubled up. At a glance, I’d say we’re looking at several thousand.”

“What can you buy with that much money? I don’t know much about your currency.”

“These are Liri. At the least, we’re looking at enough money to completely repair this room.”

Jenna looked at the wall. “Is it worth more to us to rip the wall down entirely to see if there’s more money in it, or to leave the wall as it is?”

“Rip it down,” Vash said without hesitation.

“Wait,” Jenna said, getting up and walking around the room. “This was Arvantis’ palace before it was mine, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That means that Vinia lived here. Sardius said something about how interesting she was. Was she stashing money everywhere? Not just in the walls, but everywhere?”

Vash looked like he didn’t know the answer, but he was also curious. Experimentally, he pulled a vase off a floating shelf. The vase had real flowers in it. It was a white and pink flower that resembled an orchid but was growing like bamboo, in glass beads with water surrounding it. Vash shook the roots loose and then dumped the beads out into a glass bowl that sat on a table as a decoration. A plastic bag was discovered inside. He opened it and quickly counted the money.”

“It’s two thousand Liri.”

Jenna looked at Vash, who looked at her, before they both reached to shut the bedroom door.

“She probably hid money everywhere,” Vash said in excitement. “What should we do? Should we tell everyone what we found?”

“It’s a bigger worry where it came from. Vinia hid it,” Jenna explained.

“But where did she get it from? As Arvantis’ third wife, she wasn’t entitled to huge stashes of money. If any of this was legal, she would have taken it with her. The fact that she left it behind is worrisome,” Vash said hesitantly.

“I agree. I can only see one solution here.”

“What?” Vash asked nervously.

“You and I are going to need to learn how to lay bricks.”

“You want to put the money back into hiding?”

“No,” Jenna snapped in a hushed whisper. “We need to find all of it and put it somewhere that makes sense to us and if anyone comes looking for it, then we need to be able to return it to them without any fuss.”

“Why? Where are you thinking it came from?”

“I’m not sure,” Jenna admitted. “Perhaps it would be helpful to talk to Vinia and get her perspective on all this. Start taking the wall down. I have to get back to Excelyn. Until I say so, no one can know about this. I’ll cut surveillance of this room from the control panel.”

Vash nodded, and for once he didn’t seem concerned about doing a task that wasn’t in his job description.

Jenna stepped out and closed the door behind her.

The control panel was her new best friend since Sardius… disappeared. She couldn’t wrap her mind around everything that had happened. She couldn’t believe Sardius was dead, but nor could she believe that things would ever be the way they had been if he hadn’t even been in the same universe as her.

She went back to Excelyn. She and the doctor had chosen a reporter to come to Octavia Prime. They were still haggling over the details. It was particularly taxing because if Sardius had been given the job, the whole thing would have been done without Jenna being involved. He would have managed everything and somehow made her feel like she had been the one to haggle the deal.

It was all bullshit as far as Jenna was concerned. She didn’t even want to be a diplomat without Sardius.

She wanted to go back to Earth.