“Well, my joke didn’t have the impact I thought,” Saul said and cleared his throat with a cough. “We have information that she went out with someone last night. It wasn’t you, right? Where were you last night?”

“She didn’t go out with me. I was at my mother’s house, in the Latin ghettos.”

“Can your mother confirm that?” they asked.

“Of course.”

“What time did you leave your house this morning?” the officer asked.

“At 5 a.m. From my house, it takes two hours to get here, so to be here at 7 I had to leave very early. Besides, I ran into my friend Artemisa on the way.”

The officers just made faces seeing they didn’t get new information about the case:

“Do you have any idea who last saw Miss Schmidt? A boyfriend, a friend... Or if she was seeing someone recently?”

Lucas thought and managed to remember something useful. He gestured for the officer to give him his phone and, taking advantage of having Glimpse open, he checked one of his conversations with Aria, since she had posted a photo at a café where the person she was with had a spider tattoo on the back of their hand. Lucas had replied to that story because he was considering getting a hand tattoo due to his core’s power.

“This person with the tattoo is someone Aria saw more than once,” Lucas stated. “I don’t know his name or face, but it’s not the first time I’ve seen that tattoo.”

The officers showed interest in this specific detail Lucas provided.

“How do you know this is a man Aria saw often?” they asked.

“It’s not the first time I’ve seen that hand in her photos,” Lucas said.

Lucas showed three more photos of Aria, but the person with the spider tattoo was not someone she presented as a boyfriend; most thought he was just a friend with benefits. They even joked about it, and Aria said he was just a “friend” who took those pictures. The officers focused on the photo thumbnail, where the tattoo was clear, as well as Lucas’s joking question, “So now you like them with tattoos?” and Aria’s mischievous reply, “Maybe this is a sign for you to get a couple.”

“I see you’re a very detail-oriented person, Lucas, and judging by the number of chats you have, I also see you’re quite popular and could have any woman you want, right? Even Miss Schmidt if you set your mind to it. Aren’t you lying about how you feel about her?”

Lucas was showing his irritation more and more evidently because he didn’t like her. Even if she was almost perfect, he didn’t like her.

“Relax, bro. She’s gorgeous, intelligent... It’s not wrong to be attracted to an academy colleague. Friendship between men and women has never really existed. Or have you felt a lot of competition? It usually happens that we feel threatened when that woman has many men after her… Isn’t it that you think she should be only yours?”

This situation was already too annoying for him, but he kept calm because he had nothing to do with her: he had a reliable alibi and his schedules and locations didn’t match hers in any way, no matter how much they tried to involve him.

“She’s pretty, but I never saw her that way. If you want to know about people who are really interested in her, I can name a few,” he said for the last time.

The officers decided to stop pressing on that topic, so they accepted and wrote down at least 15 names of men Lucas knew were interested in Aria.

“Are you close enough to her to say she had no intention of leaving the organization?” asked the officer.

“Of course. She’s very committed to all the training and processes at the academy,” Lucas declared.

The officers started taking notes in a notebook of all the details they considered relevant, then looked at each other and said:

“How did you find out she disappeared?”

“When I arrived at the academy, everyone was already nervous because she hadn’t arrived yet, and her parents gave us the news to find out if she left with any of us,” Lucas answered. “If I remember correctly, they contacted Tori Labong, one of my friends, and then the rumor spread.”

“Do you know if she had any disagreements with anyone? Or someone who could harm her?”

“She had a boyfriend who’s in jail, I think for drugs, he was a common trafficker. As far as I know, nothing has been heard from him in years, I don’t think he’s relevant in this,” Lucas replied.

“Do you know anyone else in her circle who isn’t at the academy?”

“No.”

The officers began closing the notebook and handed him a contact card with his full name, profession, and phone number.

“Here, this is my number, but we’re going to make a request: we need you not to share any of the information you told us with anyone else. We need some confidentiality about what you remember to maintain the integrity of the investigation.”

Lucas nodded and agreed to that confidentiality, then was escorted out by the officer named Logan while the other stayed alone in the room. They walked down the wide hallway until, surprisingly, he finally heard a couple of voices in the distance along with hurried footsteps at an intersection of that same corridor.

Those people had been talking for a while, so Lucas caught:

“...what both of you did is still unacceptable,” said a voice similar to that of Deputy Director Goryashko.

Lucas immediately recognized that voice, so he looked in the direction of the voice and visually found again the same woman director of the investigations faction, apparently accompanied by another man, who was leaning against a wall, making it impossible to see him fully hidden. Neither of them had seen them.

“Ah, Vikta,” said the man very lightly. “Tell me, what exactly could you expect from us?”

This man was undoubtedly the same one Lucas had seen in the auditorium; his eyes were not common enough to go unnoticed or not draw attention. Both were so engrossed in their conversation that they didn’t realize the police were nearby or that Lucas was looking at him with such intensity again. This person wore no uniform; on the contrary, he looked like just another civilian with a black sweater and black jeans.

“I expected you to have a little decorum, maybe?” The deputy director frowned, there was no annoyed tone, but you could notice anger in her.

As they walked away, Lucas unintentionally improved his hearing while they headed toward the cafeteria. Suddenly, he remembered that, of course, he had seen those yellow eyes before: in his dream this week, last week, and other times when he dreamed about that young soldier. Although it always had a tragic ending, being finally able to construct that face — which sometimes made him wake up crying or with chest tightness from seeing him die in his arms — was quite strange.

“Damian should’ve warned you that we’re not exactly the agents with the most ‘decorum’ in the ACE. I preferred the old name. Besides, you can’t ask us for that crap right now,” said the blond-haired man.

On the other hand, his voice was deep but playful at the same time, accompanied by a strong Russian accent that Lucas found very magnetic. Just as Lucas was about to reach the cafeteria, he heard a lighter flick, which was ironic. According to Lucas’ memory, the wall where that man was leaning had a no-smoking sign, if he remembered correctly. This man also said:

“Look on the bright side, Vikta. Don’t you think it’s much more convenient to have us here after all? You owe us a thank you, we’re working overtime without a contract and out of goodwill. There’s nothing more convenient than that. Don’t you think we’re the best assets?” The blond man’s voice gradually lowered in volume.

The director, with obvious annoyance, said:

“Should I thank you for having two agents without IDs, dressed as civilians, who caused a scene on national television? This situation is way too convenient,” she commented ironically and in a low voice. She was so furious that even Lucas could hear it.

Just as Lucas was about to cross the door, he heard:

“Well, the ID thing is more Human Resources’ fault than ours, and they never focused on our faces on camera either. Do you think the news cares about seeing two fools who don’t want to be interviewed by a camera after the disappearance or defection of that young Schmidt? In the middle of the national broadcast?”

Lucas couldn’t hear more of that conversation because he was already too far away, yet he was left with too many unanswered questions: agents without IDs and ‘dressed as civilians’? Why would someone do that if it’s not an undercover mission? And in headquarters, no less? Assuming it was irresponsibility on those agents’ part, wouldn’t that be ‘too risky’? Lucas wasn’t someone obsessed with conspiracies at this point in his life, but it was too complex not to think that everything happening under the surface in such a stressful situation was more than it seemed.

Lucas offered to guide them to another of his colleagues so they could continue the interrogation, but they told him, ‘It’s already our shift change, we have to go home.’ Leaving him pale and in the same spot, he pretended to understand the blatant situation. As soon as he put a safe distance between them, he felt bad because a thought fluttered through his mind: ‘They’re people too, your colleagues, even they should rest in this stressful situation.’ But then he overheard their conversation with his super-hearing that killed whatever empathy he had left for them:

“There are too many Latino graduates, I’m not going to tolerate one of them being one of my bosses in a few years.”

“I don’t hate them, but Latinos shouldn’t work in justice-related jobs, they’re lawless people.”

Lucas subtly turned around, looking out of the corner of his eye at those men who then continued back to that office. Leaving the young man clenching his fist and searching for a reason not to use their faces to wipe the floor after that disgusting speech.