Free Icons by Margaret Stohl

(DPRMT)
    CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET
    Assembled by Dr. O. Brad Huxley-Clarke, VPHD
    Note: Media Transcript conducted at the private request of Amb. Amare
    Santa Catalina Examination Facility #9B
    EMBASSY CITY CHRONICLE
, the Lower Californias
    Urban Crime Desk

GRASSGIRL FOUND DEAD, BELIEVED SUICIDE
    Santa Catalina
    Local authorities were stymied upon discovering the body of a youthful Grass female floating in the waters off Santa Catalina Island. The Embassy headquarters, home to high-ranking officials, as well as the Ambassador, expressed ignorance regarding the circumstances of the female’s death.
    The deceased, whose name has not been released to the media for security considerations, lived on the island and attended the Santa Catalina Institute.
    “We’re as in the dark as you are,” noted Dr. Brad Huxley-Clarke, who oversaw the autopsy. He declined further comment.
    “She seemed adequately happy,” said Colonel Catallus, the deceased’s instructor. “From her behavior, you wouldn’t have surmised anything was wrong.” When pressed for further details, he noted she “apparently loved animals” and was a “tolerably good person.”

9
THE AMBASSADOR
    “Going somewhere?” Lucas shakes his head, almost imperceptibly, as soon as he says it. He never moves his eyes from mine and I understand immediately.
Not here as a friend.
    “Who, me?” My eyes linger on the weapons strapped flat against the soldiers’ hips. I curse myself for not hiding my chestpack beneath my sweater, like usual. “Just thought I heard something out here. Which I guess I did.”
    My heart is pounding. I can’t run. I can’t get free. As for Lucas—
Trust me, he said.
I look at him again.
Who is he kidding?
    His nose is purple and blue—no matter how otherwise perfectly sculpted it may be. There are purplish crescent moon bruises under each of his green-gray eyes. Ro’shandiwork from yesterday—that much I remember.
    “Can you give us a minute,” he says to the soldiers. They oblige, moving not ten feet down the hall. The moment they’re out of earshot, Lucas lowers his voice. “Did you think there wouldn’t be guards outside your door? I’ve been circling all morning. They’ve been glued to you since you got here.”
    Of course they have.
“Then what do I do?”
    “Do?” He whispers, but I can hear the frustration in his voice. Then he looks back at the guards and smiles, holding up an apple. A real apple, red and round and shining like he’s just now picked it off a tree. “Hungry?” He raises his voice, letting it echo down the corridor toward the soldiers.
    My stomach growls.
    He turns back to me, his words falling rapidly and quietly once again. “There’s nothing to do. You don’t understand.”
    “Oh, I understand,” I say, under my breath. “I understand perfectly.” He told us to trust him, and now we are trapped.
    “Look, even if you think you’re taking off—and I wish you the best of luck, trying to get past the guards and the walls and the gates and Porthole Bay—there’s no stopping them. They get what they want, no matter what. Believe me.”
    “She,” I say. I can’t help it.
    “What?”
    “She. The Ambassador. Your mother gets what she wants.”
    Our voices are growing louder. His hand tightens as I say the words, and I pretend not to notice the apple shaking. He’s as frightened as I am.
    He wraps my hand around the apple. “Take it.” The surge of warmth from Lucas’s touch seeps into me, and I feel myself relaxing, in spite of everything. I pocket the apple.
    Lucas sighs, trying again. “Look, I know how you Grass feel.”
    “You do? Because I find that hard to imagine.”
    “Let me finish. I know how you Grass feel, but not everything the Embassy does is evil. We are keeping people safe. You have to give things a chance, whether you want to or not.”
    “No. I don’t. It’s not your fault that you can’t see things the way they are. Your mother is the Ambassador. But I