[Lauchenoiria]

The Zongongian Intelligence Agency was severely underfunded and understaffed. Their director, Helmi Byström, had been all but begging Parliament for additional funding, especially after Kerlian agents murdered a whole group of Zongongian postal workers. Indeed, the lack of funding meant ZIA could do almost nothing to counter the whole host of Kerlian spies who thought it was their Goddess-given right to wander all over Zongongia poking their noses into things.

Byström was not a fan of Zongongia’s policy of appeasement towards Kerlile.

“Director? Have you seen this?” one of the young analysts, Ebba Olsen, called to her. Byström walked over to peer at Olsen’s computer.

“What am I looking at?”

“This is a letter published in the Branchian Bugle some days ago. Someone threatening to reveal some nebulous government crimes. But that’s not the part that drew my attention. Andreas Holgersen. I recognised the name. He was a reporter for the Zongongian Gazette who supposedly died in Thousand Branches like, six years ago. Unless this letter is real, in which case…”

“You think he’s alive?” Byström asked.

“It’s possible, ma’am,” Olsen nodded. “We never had a body. Or a confirmation of death. He just disappeared. This makes more sense than him wandering off into the woods and getting eaten by a bear, or something.”

“In which case you think he’s in danger of being hunted by Thousand Branches? You wouldn’t have called me over if you didn’t think there was something else concerning here. He’s a Zongongian citizen, which makes his wellbeing our business.”

“If he is alive, he disappeared for a reason,” Olsen remarked. “And I doubt we’ll ever find out if we don’t find him before Thousand Branches does.”

“Great,” Byström remarked. “Just what we need. Something else to drain our money.”

*

Andreas Holgersen had always wanted to investigate something that matters. He had studied investigative journalism at university, and when he first took a job on the health beat at the Zongongian Gazette, he’d expected it to be a temporary measure to pay the bills while he looked for something more exciting.

That had turned into a whole decade of waiting.

So, when he was on assignment in Thousand Branches to write about new developments in cancer research, only to stumble upon something much, much bigger; he was eager to take up the opportunity. Now, though, he feared what was about to happen. He only had to hope that he might, possibly, survive. You never know.