A thin, miniature woman sat sprawled across a public bench. Her head hung back over the top rail, arms outstretched behind it like limp rope, legs open as if tension had left her days ago. A few passersby gave her a glance, but the sight of exhausted bodies in business suits was hardly unusual, especially near the edge of Fourth Citadel.
Above her, the sky gleamed with its usual blue, strips of artificial clouds running across. The system had been slightly out of sync recently.
The light delay between the faux sun's trajectory and its shadows was growing more noticeable.
She exhaled loudly, chest barely rising. The suit she wore, black and gray, was pressed this morning, it didn't look that way anymore.
Her cobalt eyes stared vacantly upward, unblinking. 'I definitely look like a fired hobo.'
'Well, it's not far from wrong, I guess.'
Three months of dragging herself to a job that made her feel like she was dying slowly, one meeting at a time.
Some of her coworkers said things like "we're lucky to have work" or "better than being in a fringe zone" but she'd stopped replying to them after the second week. There wasn't anything they could say that would quell her newly festering hatred.
She'd rather die than work another, low-paying, soul draining, unfulfilling, and over demanding office job like that again!
So, she will.
Her hand drifted into the pocket of her trousers, digging for a second before stopping.
Her fingers wrapped around a smooth, rectangular device. It hummed slightly as she woke it from sleep mode. A few swipes, a few taps, a few moments staring at the blank composition field.
Then, slowly she typed.
[Hey, I'll probably be dead soon — in a month, give or take. When I am, give all my old stuff to Lahn and don't waste money on a funeral. Thanks.]
Her thumb hovered over the device for a second longer, then pressed the button to send the message. It pinged once. She dropped it back into her pocket and finally leaned forward, her spine complaining. Her shoulders cracked. Her inky bangs fell forward as she stood.
She crossed the street without checking for clearance. The streets at this time were empty anyway, save for a patrol cruiser slowing to a halt as it neared the intersection. Melisande didn't spare it a glance, the city's surveillance system would recognize her by face and registry.
In front of her loomed a government building, built like a wedge pressed into the city's foundations, its height deceptive from ground level. The outer walls were polished steel, patterned with thin black veins of cooling gel lines that faintly pulsed under the surface. Five banners hung over the entrance, one for each of the Extermination Divisions.
On that day, Melisande lowered her life expectancy to the level of a street rat in a baited alley and walked through the double-sealed doors.
Because if she would rather die than do that kind of work again, she might as well get paid for it.
***
"Ma'am, are you sure of this?"
The clerk's voice cracked halfway through the sentence, like he couldn't quite believe what he had just heard. He looked fresh, likely a greenhorn and he was young, but she was younger which was likely why he'd reacted in such a way.
"I am. Fully."
Her voice didn't rise or waver. No hysteria, no second thoughts, just another line in the queue of miserable decisions.
The man winced slightly, adjusting his seat behind the desk. "Okay… okay. I just — usually people… well." He cleared his throat and lowered his eyes to the screen embedded in the counter. "Identification, please."
Melisande reached into the inner pocket of her blazer and retrieved a small card. A second later, the embedded scanner hissed and confirmed her credentials. Her name lit up on the desk screen along with a flat photo of her from a year ago, one where her hair had been brushed and her expression was far less hollow.
The clerk typed something with one hand while glancing at her again, eyes darting across her features. No makeup, no accessories, hair barely even combed. Her shoulders were narrow, but her posture was loose and heavy. Her inky black hair was parted unevenly at the side, the cobalt of her eyes seemed too cold to belong to someone with a pulse.
His mouth tightened. Then, almost regretfully, he gave a nod and stood up from the desk, gesturing toward a door behind the counter.
"This way then, Miss Finch."
She followed without hesitation, they passed through a short corridor, the walls bare save for a single security node blinking green overhead.
The room at the end was small. The lighting was soft, yellowish, clearly meant to look less sterile than the rest of the facility, though it failed to be comforting.
There were two chairs on either side of a table, one empty, the other occupied.
The woman seated had a presence that filled the space, not because of her size — though she was large and tall even when sitting — but because of the sheer gravity that clung to her. Her blonde hair was cropped short, shoulders too wide for the chair, and exposed forearms littered with healed scars. Her eyes were sunken in, her expression was flat and unreadable, but not indifferent.
She didn't look up when they entered, instead she was already scribbling something onto an aluminum clipboard with a synthetic wood pencil.
"Lady Reres," the clerk said stiffly, gesturing toward the woman before turning to Melisande. "This is Melisande Finch, here for Extermination registration. Melisande, this is Lady Reres, she's conducting evaluations today."
Melisande gave the woman a glance, then the chair. The clerk motioned toward it.
She took the seat without speaking, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back slightly.
"Thank you, Miss Finch. I'll... be stepping out now."
He bowed quickly, then left the room, the door hissing shut behind him.
Melisande looked across the table, Lady Reres hadn't stopped writing. There was a slight movement of her eyes, a barely perceptible glance upward, then back down.
Neither of them spoke.
The faint scratching of the pencil against the clipboard filled the room. Melisande didn't move. She didn't fidget, her hands rested in her lap, fingers lightly interlocked, her shoulders relaxed, and her mouth in a half-frown that had become her natural resting state recently.
Lady Reres eventually stopped writing, set the pencil down on the clipboard, and looked at her properly. Her gaze was heavy, like she'd seen everything Melisande had done before even asking, maybe she had. Clearance could be odd in these facilities.
"Why?" Lady Reres asked finally. Her voice was low and slightly hoarse.
Melisande blinked once.
"I quit my job."
"That's not an answer."
"It is for me."
There wasn't defiance in the response, just honesty. Like she wasn't even sure herself, but didn't care enough to dig deeper. Lady Reres tilted her head slightly, then leaned back, setting the clipboard down.
"You know what we do here?"
"Yup."
"You've seen the death rates?"
"Yup."
"You don't have any experience? Combat, tacticals, suppression — none of it?"
"Yup."
"And yet?"
Melisande's head tilted just slightly to the side. Her voice lowered, but never lost its tired steadiness.
"I'm fine dying. But if I live, I get paid."
Lady Reres looked at her a moment longer, then let out something between a sigh and a grunt.
"That's the worst kind of reason."
"It's the most honest one."
"Fine, but I still have to ask the rest."
Lady Reres picked the clipboard back up and flipped the page without breaking eye contact. The scarring on her knuckles stretched with the motion. She adjusted her posture slightly, arms folded across her chest now. "How's your mobility?"
"No issues."
"Flexibility?"
"Good enough. I can reach my toes."
"Endurance?"
"Average."
Lady Reres didn't react. She kept checking boxes with quick, efficient movements.
"Eyesight?"
"Twenty-twenty."
"Muscle?"
"Below average."
"Grip strength?"
"Normal."
"Chronic pain? Numbness? Old injuries?"
"Nope, none."
Lady Reres marked the final box and then turned the clipboard around. She stared at it for a long few seconds, the air filtration system had turned on behind them. She twirled the pencil twice, tapped it on the table once, then finally set both items down and clasped her hands together.
"You'll enter probationary training starting tomorrow morning if all goes well. Compensation begins immediately, but it'll be low."
Melisande nodded once, she was already shifting forward to stand.
Before she could fully rise, Lady Reres reached out and caught her wrist, though it wasn't forceful as much as it was firm.
"A couple more things."
Melisande paused.
"If you're flagged as ineligible during training, that's it. We don't send you back to civilian placement. You're out, no appeal."
She nodded again.
"You won't just be killing cacodemons. They don't walk around in their true self, most incarnate in humans. Host bodies, partial fusion, full integration, sometimes you can't tell the difference. That means you'll be killing people too."
Melisande didn't flinch. Lady Reres studied her face again, but her voice softened slightly, without becoming gentler.
"This isn't the kind of job where you survive alone. You want to stay breathing long enough to hate it here, you'll need people. You'll have to work with them. Most of them will die. Some of them might keep you alive. Either way, you don't get to shut yourself off. Not here."
Melisande looked down at the hand still gripping her wrist.
"I'll think about it."
"You won't have time to."
There was a pause.
Then Lady Reres let go. Melisande straightened her blazer, stepped back from the chair, and walked toward the exit without another word.
Lady Reres didn't look up until the door sealed behind her.
She exhaled hard through her nose and rubbed her temple with the heel of her hand.
"I was right," she muttered under her breath. "She was trembling. Poor girl's a better actress than she knows. Damn shame."
She stared at the door a second longer, then leaned back, cracked her neck, and reached for the next form.