Christy had been a very bad person. In the interests of retaining (and attracting more) customers she had purchased a shipment of tea smuggled out of Kusari to replenish her depleted stocks. This may have gone un-noticed as Bretonian’s prefer to drink black tea; there was however one person within New Scotland Yard who was rather fond of a modern (as far as tea blends go) concoction known as Chai Masala. This brew has the base of green tea with subtle blends of almonds, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and sometimes saffron.
This would have gone unnoticed also if the green tea hadn’t been laced by advanced compound known as Faze, A substance that had been developed by the chemical genius of Commander Silsbury’s mother, Amanda. Project Faze was put into the green tea supply that was often shipped to the Kusari Navy bases. The effect was drowsiness, severe headaches and loss of concentration which grew steadily worse upon repeated exposure to the compound. The reasoning behind this was to damage the effectiveness of Kusari combatants in space and it worked quite effectively, for close to half a year in fact, until the high command cottoned on and clamped down upon ration shipments to their troops.
Pilots having absorbed a lot of the toxin would have to wait a similar time before the substance worked its way out of their system allowing them to fly again; so the project was not a complete failure.
Commander Silsbury suffered identical symptoms, her cold and slightly angry personality was exacerbated, she found it hard to concentrate and was plagued by splitting headaches rendering her almost useless in a combat situation. She realized that something must have been causing it; her suspicions were aroused even further when it became apparent she was being monitored by some outside force.
Eventually she reached a point where she lost it amongst a large group of well to do people, her mysterious shadow materialized and was about to remove her from the scene when Silsbury’s companion Sergeant Sykes appeared and turned the tables.
They took the offending person back to The Hub which, interestingly enough, was the work place of said person.
Inspector Morgan, after originally being deemed nothing but a rather creepy individual by the Police Commander, soon began to arouse suspicions. Little things at first but nothing concrete enough to name him as the person who had placed audio receivers in her apartment or accessed her medical report illegally.
After some interrogation, cross checking and the legally required ‘phone call’ it was revealed that Inspector Morgan was in fact an MI5 agent who had been tasked to track the spiked tea back to its source. The source was soon discovered but upon realization that Silsbury was the only person who drank that specific tea it was decided to let the effect run its course to see the effect.
Morgan was there to make sure that it didn’t end up affecting anyone else and to detain the Commander if the symptoms grew to the stage where she was a danger to the public and herself. The plan was then to do an advanced medical check to see if the toxin was doing its job correctly (MI6, the commissioners of the regime, had not tested it before its release due to time constraints).
Faze does not leave ones system immediately. Its bonds will gradually break down and slowly fade away. This does take a very long time, over which the effects are still felt. There is one way to remove all traces within 16 hours however, a very painful and risky process developed but not refined by Amanda Silsbury (she also hoped to market a much diluted version of the formula as a health product after the war).
This process was known as Purge.
Lucy chose this option.
The Purge worked, it left her emotionally and physically exhausted and she took a month of sick leave on planet Curacao .
Project Faze was a partial success but no more formula was made or distributed in that war. Inspector Morgan was released and is probably working on another assignment now.
Christy is even more scared of the Commander and Lucy is back to her usual self.
Unfortunately she had to inhibit her usual self at this moment, she had been explicitly warned by ex-commissioner Douglass that she couldn’t be seen loosing it at another noble. Being challenging and cleverly insulting was part of her job however and she intended to exercise her cutting and eloquent vocabulary to the fullest extent.
She arrived at the counter and looked Christy in the eye. The patron looked down almost immediately, she was very lucky the Police Commander hadn’t arrested or fined her for purchasing smuggled goods, especially as those black market goods had caused the consumer huge amounts of pain and inconvenience.
Silsbury was angry at the woman behind the counter but she had decided after her initial confrontation Christy was sufficiently sorry to warrant the Commander giving her nothing but a very serious warning.
“Christy, I’ll have two cinnamon swirls and a large hot chocolate – extra strong.” Lucy said flatly. “Yes Ma’am!” Came the reply and Christy busied herself with the order.
Silsbury strode over to the Superintendants table and sat herself down.
Upon enquiry from Mr. Calvert about the recruitment program a small conversation began discussing new training routines for the bolstered Special Response Division.
Their tea and pastry’s came and the talk continued until it became apparent that once again Lafiel Tarrant was going to make a scene.
Silsbury’s lip curled slightly in disgust when Christy offered free tea and pastry to the noble, she would have to be informed that such acts were in fact breaches of the fair trade agreement (even if it was perfectly acceptable, the less nobles in Christy’s the better).
As predicted the conversation between her Royal Highness Tarrant and the youth turned ugly and while Calvert watched with his hand on his holster Silsbury leaned her head into her hand in embarrassment.
Why? Why here? Doesn’t she have anywhere else to go? the Commander asked herself in her head. She absently swirled her beverage with a tea spoon staring unfocused at the tendrils of foam swirling like the blades of an ancient cooling fan.
It’s always the same, no matter where she is she somehow manages to make any situation dangerous... The thoughts wafted through her head, Nobles... If Goodmen ever said one useful thing in his life, it was the plain and simple sentence ‘I Hate Nobles’.”
Silsbury was sick of this ridiculous girl traipsing around like she was someone important. In her opinion people were only important if they did something important, being the daughter of someone with land did not constitute the right for her to swan around Bretonia like she owned the place!
A gun was drawn by her ridiculous manservant and pointed at the youth, Calvert looked towards her concerned. Silsbury tried very, very hard to control herself. She succeeded which was a measure of her significant progress since joining the BPA. Had that happened three months ago she would have twisted the gun out of the offenders hand and probably smacked him with it before ordering a few off duty officers to escort him to a holding cell. Now she heeded the advice of the ex-Commissioner and ignored it. That singular effort would have been too much for many people.
Eventually, after a harrying time in which another member of the incapable and insufferable family arrived, the youth left, which seemed to quieten things down a bit. In the time this had taken Lucy had begun breathing noisily out of her nose in frustration and had bent the spoon in her free hand so it met tip to tail, Calvert was watching this his expression a little surprised.
Silsbury ignored the nobles.
They were still there.
Silsbury continued to ignore them.
They were still there.
It was beginning to become obvious that the ‘ignore what you don’t like and it will go away’ technique was not as effective as she had been told.
She decided to begin afresh her conversation with the Superintendant.
“Mr Calvert, I need to talk to you about some rather delicate matters, please take a seat in the booth and I’ll be with you shortly.”
The Commander stood up and made her way over to the table where Lafiel and her sister sat with the gun wielding man.
She motioned to a nearby Sergeant who was pondering over the biscuit cabinet.
“Miss Tarrant and Miss Tarrant,” Silsbury said unemotionally, “This officer is going to take a statement from each of you detailing why the hell your manservant here deemed it necessary to pull a gun on a civilian, and they better be good excuses...” she said coldly, her unnerving eyes, locked, unblinking.
The Sergeant, one Miss Wentworth, took out a data pad and stylus, looking proud that the member of the BPA that most of the women employee’s looked up to had given her a job.
Silsbury Nodded to the Sergeant slightly and walked off in the direction of the booth.
![[Image: LucySilsbury32.jpg]](http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq145/Incindre/LucySilsbury32.jpg)