[Lauchenoiria]

Huitzitaca, Xiomera
Sunday 1st December

Nelichē was at a party when she got the message. She was with her friends, and was already fairly drunk when she received the email. She had just finished dancing and had settled down onto a chair to finish her drink. Her friend had gone off with some man, so she sat alone, checking her messages and recovering from the dancing for a second.

When she read the email she sobered up - or, at least, she thought she had. For all intents and purposes, it looked like spam. Anyone glancing at it would think it was spam. It was a very common scam: emails that were sent all over the world every day and were deleted by 99.9% of the people it was sent to. But to Nelichē’s eyes, it was a warning, and one that terrified her in her slightly addled state.

Suddenly, she was looking around the party much more nervously. The man who had lured away her friend - had he been trying to isolate her? What was the purpose of this party? She’d been invited by someone she knew from work, it was a birthday or something. She hadn’t really asked, she’d become sloppy. Those men in suits by the door, they didn’t seem very drunk. Were they watching her?

She stood up and tried to rush to the bathroom. She moved too quickly and felt dizzy, which only increased her paranoia. Had they drugged her? She grabbed ahold of the wall and began to pull herself along towards the corridor where she knew the bathrooms - and a side door - were.

“Nelichē? Are you okay?” someone asked, causing her to jump and spin around to face the newcomer. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I just had too much to drink,” she replied, trying to get past the woman she worked with who had invited her.

“Here, let me help you to the bathroom,” the woman said, taking her arm and leading her to the toilets. Uncertain what else to do, Nelichē smiled gratefully and allowed herself to be guided. Once inside, however, she locked the door and started thinking.

The window was small, but she could probably climb through it. The issue was it overlooked the front of the house, and there would probably be cameras. And if the place had been surrounded, she wouldn’t stand a chance, and it would have been very obvious she was trying to flee. No, she couldn’t get out that way. She would have to go back to the party. Perhaps she could cause a distraction and slip away.

She exited the bathroom. Her friend had wandered off, much to her relief (she was beginning to suspect that the woman who had invited her was actually an ASI agent). She made her way back to the main rooms of the party, and spotted the kitchen on the other side. She made a beeline towards it, making sure to stay out of sight of anyone she knew. She passed one man who tried to ask her to dance and flirted with her, but she turned him down with a sharp rejection - much sharper than she normally used.

Once in the kitchen, she looked around for the drunkest people she could see. It was a young couple, the woman sitting on the counter and practically holding up the man, kissing each other. Nelichē opened cupboards and fridges until she found something that could work, a packet of sausages.

“I’m really hungry,” she complained loudly, making sure the drunk couple were within hearing distance, and then ‘accidentally’ bumped into the man. They stopped kissing.

“I could do with some food too,” the woman said, her words slurring slightly, and she giggled.

“Well, I’ll make some food for you, sweetheart,” the man said, then glanced around him dizzily. His eyes fell on the packet of sausages. He picked them up and walked over to the cooker. Nelichē left the room, wandering back to the party.

She joined the dancing once more, picking a group of men near some patio doors and the back and batting her eyelashes at them. They seemed interested, so she danced with them for a couple of minutes until, suddenly a piercing alarm was heard over the sound of the music. Not long after, a chorus of shrieks echoed around the room as sprinklers came on and people surged towards the nearest exits.

Nelichē allowed herself to be carried out the back by the crowd, then slipped away into the bushes in the huge garden. She pulled herself further into the darkness and glanced around nervously. She slipped the knife she had acquired in the kitchen out of her pocket and made her way further from the house into the gardens, keeping to the thick line of trees which stretched along the side of the garden. She moved nervously, looking around. She found nobody.

By the time she reached the end of the garden, she was reasonably sure that the house had not been surrounded by ASI personnel, and that the distraction she had caused had done nothing but ruin the party. She groaned and sat down on the ground. She had chosen to assume the personality of a party girl because she thought it would make people more open around her. She regretted that choice now - alcohol clearly impaired her judgement, and she was fed up of men flirting with her.

Still… she couldn’t be entirely sure she wasn’t just paranoid. There was a chance, also, that her actions at the party itself would have raised suspicions. In an attempt to save herself, she may just have doomed her chances. She took out her phone and read through the ‘spam’ email again. This time, she ignored the warning and focused on the offer. If you believe you are in danger, she translated from the code, you may request extraction.

She left the party, walking home. Upon arrival, she went through the motions of getting ready for bed, and switched all her lights off. When she was in darkness, she reached below her bed and pulled a second phone which was attached to the bottom of the bed out. She dialled the number she had memorised long ago.