Interviewing the Alleged Alegari (Part 5)

Posted on Mon 20th May, 2019 @ 9:51pm by Elizabeth Anderson M.D. & Commander Jasmine Collins-Keller & Commander Paul Graves PsyD & Lieutenant Adam Keller & Lieutenant Damion Ildaran

1,522 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: A Diplomatic Affair
Location: Orchids and Jazz loft
Timeline: MD-2, 1230 hours

Previously ... Part 4

"Zelda?" Damion inquired, giving the woman with him a sidelong look. Sure enough, her entire expression and posture were different. This lady was not cozying up to him, and he shifted his posture accordingly, to one more formal.

"Hello, Reon," he said to the doorman and ignored Fisher after a momentary glance. "Could you get us a table for two, near the dance floor?" He described the table where Zelda had sat, the evening she had seen the Aenar.

"I'm so sorry, Sir, those tables are all taken, but how about a table overlooking the dance floor? There's a very nice rail-side table in the loft," Reon said apologetically.

Damion nodded but inwardly cursed--even though loft seating was actually better; it would put some distance between Zelda--or whoever she was at this moment--and the restaurant's other patrons. It just wasn't better for his purposes. He amended his plans.

"That will do nicely," the woman said, ignoring Ildaran's question about her name. "And deliver a piccolo of Bollinger Champagne with the menus, please."

"Yes, Ma'am, I'll have that sent right up," Reon promised. "Jenna will see you to your table."

Jenna had been observing the woman when the change in her occurred, but was discreet enough to ignore whatever was going on in the loft. Her job was simply to show people to a table and then see that they had everything they wanted. She smiled her professional smile and said, "Right this way, please."

No one but Jade heard the small gasp that escaped Elizabeth as she watched Damion walk by with a beautiful woman. The counselor immediately turned away to face Jade across the shiny wooden surface of the bar, her lunch suddenly unappealing.

Jade put her hand on Anderson's and said softly, "It isn't what you think."

Elizabeth nodded and struggled to get her bearings by switching into her logical computer mode. "Of course not," she answered. "He's working. I was taken by surprise, that's all." She gave a crooked smile. "Imagine that. Surprising me of all people." She never referred to herself as an AI, a hologram, or anything that gave away her non-biological nature.

Jade smiled back and said, "You're only human after all."

As Jenna approached the top of the steps, she remarked, "We don't actually have menus. There's an electronic device on the table that allows you to see everything that's available during the luncheon hours. As you look that over, I'll take care of the champagne and then be back to take your orders."

At a table half-way along the railing, she stopped and said, "I hope you enjoy your meal at Orchids & Jazz today."

"Haven't thrown one back yet," Damion told Jenna with a smile and returned his attention to his lunch companion.

The woman looked around the loft, her gaze narrowed, but saw only one person she recognized, and he was sitting several tables away, with a woman. Since he was focused on her and holding her hand, it didn't appear that he would be a problem. She would keep an eye on him, however. "This is quite adequate, thank you." She took the seat facing the back of the loft, but the front of the small stage below where a 3-piece combo was currently playing a moderately busy piece of music she couldn't identify.

This was not Zelda, either, Damion realized, feeling as if he were picking his way through a swamp on Turkana IV at night, blindfolded. He flicked his gaze downward to the menu screen for a moment so he could work out why he thought he was dealing with someone new. It swiftly came to him: Zelda was more willing to be led--not because of passivity, just that she did not appear to need to be assertive all the time. This woman did. Something has made her afraid, he thought.

"Have you ever been here before?" Damion asked, raising his gaze to his guest after the barest of glances at the electronic menu. He already knew what he wanted to eat. He glanced swiftly about the loft, spotting Adam Keller and his wife and a couple of other people from Intelligence who he knew. He raised his eyebrows for a moment at the oddly dressed woman with the long ears but otherwise ignored her and her companion. He noted the entrances and exits and built a mental map of the loft. Usually, when he came to eat at Orchids and Jazz, he ate on the ground floor with Elizabeth or at the bar.

"Of course not. When would I have had the chance?" she scoffed, looking down on the musicians. "You and your thugs kidnapped me almost the minute I set foot on the station. It's quite a nice place. Not at all what I'd expect to find in a dead-end sector of the galaxy," she commented, listening to the quieter beat of the new piece the band had segued into.

That was interesting, Damion thought. It told him that his guess about which personality had lived in the storage compartment had likely been wrong. Perhaps this was the woman who the security team had apprehended. Her statement that she'd never been to Orchids and Jazz before fitted with her ignorance of how O&J menus worked, Damion thought. So this wasn't the personality who had eaten here, either. From what Damion could figure, that might well have been the personality he privately thought of as Original Zelda. He might, however, be entirely wrong on that score. From what he remembered reading in his abnormal psychology classes, people with dissociative personality disorder could have upwards of a dozen personalities or more, depending on when the original trauma had happened and its severity.

"Tell me," she switched topics, "are you security or intelligence?" Hoping to glean some information that would be helpful to them, Tanith moved on him before he could move on her. Zelda had gotten nowhere, but at least Destiny had managed to get them out where there might be more possibilities.

"Station security apprehended you. I work in the intelligence department," Damion said. "I'm Lt. Ildaran, Miss Alegari. Do you have any idea at all why we needed to speak with you?"

This may be easier than we thought. Or harder. Throwing out her identity now could send these people chasing their tails for quite a while, Tanith knew. They would find nothing on her, or on the Alegari identity. It was as well that Zelda, at least, had no idea of who she was. She would probably give the game away. Destiny never would. She was too ... self-interested.

"Obviously a case of mistaken identity if you're addressing me as 'Miss Alegari'," she said with a mocking smile. "My name is Tanith Endrade, and I have no idea why you'd want to speak with me, nor why you've held me for so long with no outside contact."

"I think you have--sisters, I'll say--at least one of whom knows why I need to speak with you, Miss Endrade," Damion said, "and I think one of you knows how much danger you're all in and has sense enough to be cautious. Perhaps that sister is you; perhaps it's someone else. And I don't mean danger from me. I think I and my department can help you somewhat--but we can't do a damned thing if you or your sisters don't talk to us. I appreciate that there are some things that some of you can't know--but one of you does know everything." Damion lowered his voice and kept his gaze on her. "Please let us help you. You are in deep, deep waters."

Before Tanith could reply, Jenna returned to their table accompanied by Daneel, who bore on a tray the smallest bottle of champagne Damion had ever seen--not that he had seen many--along with two champagne flutes.

"Is that what a piccolo is?" he said to Tanith with a nod at the small Bollinger champagne bottle. "I was wracking my brain earlier, trying to figure out how you planned to get champagne from a musical instrument."

The woman sniffed at his ignorance, but said nothing beyond, "It's just enough for two flutes, a celebration, not an inebriation." She took the glass Jenna filled 2/3 full and sniffed it. "Mine celebrates a moment of freedom. What are you celebrating?"

Damion thought a moment. "The fact that I've had the pleasure of meeting three surprising women today--one of whom seems to like plants as much as I do." He placed his palm over the second champagne flute when Daneel made as if to pour the remainder of the wine into it. "I'm on duty; just pour this for her," he said and glanced at Jenna. "Would you bring me the ham and swiss on multigrain and a glass of iced tea? Miss Endrade, what would you like for lunch?"

"I'd like the smoked Salmon, but skip the rye. Just the fish and the hearts of lettuce, please," she ordered.

 

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