"Could I have his name Ma'am?"
"What do you want his name for, can't you keep tabs on your own reporters?"
"Ma'am, his name please?"
"Ugh! For the last time, his name is Frictor Swayth. How many operators am I going to go through before I can get some damned answers?"
"Ma'am, you'll have to lower your tone if you want me to deal with you."
"Lower my tone? Lower my tone!!? My fiancé has been missing for over three days, and you want me to lower my fu*king tone? @#%$ you!" Tess slammed down the receiver of the holo-phone down hard onto its base, rocking the rickety wooden table that it sat on, jarring her wrist in the process.
"Damn it!" She said, wincing.
She stood up from her arm chair in her tiny apartment, and strode to the small tin sink under the window. Rinsing her shaken wrist under the cold water, she glanced up at the sad reflection that she cast in the kitchen window and began to whimper.
Suddenly, like a violent awakening, the holo-phone buzzed out its twangy cheap ring, causing Tess to jump slightly before making a mad scramble for the phone.
"Hello?" She said, her breath heaving under her voice.
"Miss Belaar?"
"Yes?"
"My name is Golin Joar, I'm a agent from the Kuat constabulary bearau, I believe you called us earlier today?"
"Y. . .yes," Tess feared to press on with the conversation, the undertones of the agent's words filled her with a sense of dread that made her flesh creep. She continued, not before she had taken a hefty gulp in her throat, "yes, I did."
"Well," the agent sighed, indicating a weighty sentence to follow, "we may have found your fiancé's body, we need you to come down to the morgue to make an official identification."
No answer.
"Miss Belaar?"
Not a sound was returned.
"Miss?"
"W . . .what do you mean, may have?" This time, there was no answer for her and her chest heaved faster, and a loud breathy panting clouded over the phone line.
"We . . .can't tell."
"What? Can't tell what?"
"If it's your fiancé. Please, I'll explain more when you come down here. I don't mean to alarm you, it may very well turn out to be someone else entirely."
"Alright. . . I'll gather my things and come down right away."
"Alright, good bye then miss."
Her hand, limp with shock replaced the handset back down onto the receiver, and she fell back into the tattered chair in a total state of bewilderment.
What if it was her fiancé down in that icy morgue . . .then again, what if it wasn't?
She needed to know, she had to, her journalistic curiosity took over and had to be satisfied. A small part of her wanted it to be Frictor, for if it wasn't, her search remained, a search that's area seemed to grow exponentially by the day.
