A Merciful Heart

The Merciful Heart Preparatory Academy would have been considered a thoroughly modern place in the early 21st century, and it shows in the architecture; it lacks the settled weight of long tradition.  The buildings are too open.  Too brightly lit.  There's too much glass.  Susan has been going here for a while now.  The atmosphere is soothing, though the occasional student having a screaming breakdown will dispel that feeling for a little while.  Most of the students are from unstable homes, or have otherwise traumatic histories.  It's been a good place.  On most days, it would continue to be a good place for Susan.

Today is not most days.  

Today, her thoughts still burning with the message Jamie sent her, Sigrún has come to retrieve the child.  

The office is almost disappointingly plain.  There's a long, angled main desk that looks like wood but isn't.  Cabinets on the wall behind it.  A motivational poster next to the cabinets shows a classroom full of students hard at work with the caption: Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world - Nelson Mandela.  There's a walkway that goes around the borders of the desk on the left to where a pair of doors can be seen above which are signs reading, 'Assistant Principal,' 'Principal,' above them, respectively.  There's a few smaller office desks behind the main one.  Work stations for secretaries.  To the right, a hallway goes off towards more office space for the various guidance counselors and administrative workers.  The door to the teacher's lounge is at the far end of the hallway.

A man is seated behind the main desk.  He's dressed in a tweed suit and his thick glasses - unusual, that: most people will just have corrective surgery these days - make his eyes seem bigger than they really are.  Add to that the shape of his face - especially his throat - and a head that seems ever so slightly too small for his body and the lack of a defined chin, and the man bears a distinct resemblance to a turtle.  But his eyes are kind, and when Sigrún walks in, he looks up and smiles.  The smile is transformative, taking an unremarkable face that is edging towards ugly and turning it into something lovely.  "May I help you?" he asks.

"Yes," Sigrún replies. "I'm here to pick up Susan Foreman.  I called earlier."

The man behind the desk nods, bringing up a holo-screen to double-check.  "Ah, yes.  I'll need your name and your index finger."  He gestures to a biometric scanner that sits next to the sign-out log a few feet down the main desk.  

Sigrún nods. "Alexandra Silverstaff," she says. "I'm her aunt." She signs the log, and presses her index finger to the scanner.  After a moment, it chimes pleasantly and shows a green light.  There's another signature just above hers.  She almost doesn't notice it.  Then her eyes gain focus, and that empty feeling in the pit of her stomach expands.  

Frankie Gianelli.

The log says he was signing out Susan Foreman.  An hour ago.

"Excuse me," Sigrún says, "Did a man come in earlier and try to sign Susan out?"

The man behind the desk checks his matrix-based records and nods again. "Ah yes.  Mr. Gianelli.  He came in earlier, said that he was sent by a Jamie Finnigan, but his biometrics didn't match the approved list.  He seemed very put out, but we will not release any student to any person who is not on the list no matter who they claim sent them."

Sigrún actually glanced at the man behind the desk's nametag, now.  Edward Johnson. "Do you have an image of the man?" she asked.

Edward nodded, producing an AR image taken from his commlink's video feed. "This is the man," he said, tossing the image to her.  Sigrún caught the virtual icon as she downloaded the image to her own commlink, and ther ehe was: 180 cm tall, slender, olive skin, pale green eyes, black hair.  Wearing a tailored black suit.  Small scar on his jaw.  

Frankie Gianelli

Sigrún ruthlessly squelched the panic that she felt rising in her chest.  No time for that.  Priority one: get Susan to safety.  Priority two: rescue Jamie.  She could deal with Mr. Gianelli afterwards.  And she would.  

He had tried to take her little girl.  That wasn't the sort of thing you let slide.