Lesly's Tales (9—Last Part)

  Lesly slowly walked out of the building. Her hair was combed again, looking disciplined and neat, fixed and elegant, tied into a ponytail. Her head was a little low, and she carried her briefcase absent-minded. However, just as she stepped into open view, she lifted her head.

  Lesly’s breathtaking black eyes looked into the distance, but her sight was on the matter of her 'job' here. She huffed a sharp breath out, deeply breathed in and arranged her clothes, and then turned around to go back into the building. This time, she carried with her a notorious pace in her footsteps and moving legs.

  Lesly Rivera was on the game again, never out of it. As soon as she returned inside, she looked for a young woman, whom she found after just 2 minutes of walking and looking around without asking anyone. Her luck was with her, or maybe just her decisiveness bearing fruit.

  A young woman with pale moon skin, red hair, and green light eyes was spotted just about a dozen meters from Lesly. Her eyes widened, and she snaked through the crowd, this time calm and with a stable pace. She was tall, had a freckled face, and was from Túacan. The ‘land of redheads’.

  Step, step, step… Lesly arrived just behind her and pulled her sleeve a little. She wasn’t forceful but soft; wasn’t quick but slow. Yet, the young woman still felt her body almost pulled backwards. She looked back with wide eyes, only to find the vice president staring at her with a calm gaze.

  “Nayeli Saf?” Lesly smiled and tilted her head. Nayeli nodded, lifting her little hand after nodding, a bit dizzy. “Hi…”

  “Mind if we talk somewhere?” Lesly gestured her head towards an empty resting room. Nayeli looked at the room like she was discovering a new invention before returning her eyes to the vice president to slowly nod like a chicken pecking on rice.

  Lesly smiled before bringing themselves to the room. Once sitting down, she went right to the point, somewhat. Lesly commenced, “Nayeli, while many don’t put you in their eyes, or at least to the level of Lemyonova and similar, if the world had its eyes on you, they would see you as a person of importance for the matters of the country in the future. Not different to an Omar, most likely. But only if you were to show off and study more, right?”

  “I guess so, vice presi. But, why do you say so? What are you trying to say? If I may ask…” Nayeli smiled a little, but she wasn’t in this place just because she was a woman who looked pretty and knew how to talk. With a behaved attitude, she waited for Lesly’s reply.

  “I presume you know your ‘boss’ doesn’t grant you the best opportunities to conduct further studies? I heard you even have to speak about the books, records, and information you read to him, which are limited to some themes, and with certain authors banned, and even request him to let you read something else. Am I wrong?” Lesly finished with a blink from a raised eyebrow.

  “Oh, no! Vice presi, Mr. Feks doesn’t treat me bad, he’s being careful and surely wants to test my patience and dedication.” Nayeli lifted her hands, shaking them to defend Gracial Feks. Lesly smiled, understanding. She leaned over and held Nayeli’s hands, cupping them between hers.

  “Do you think I wasn’t tested for the same? I was taught many things that made my attitude enough to endure the president in his first term, with all those people you know are annoying whispering on his shoulders. But, Nayeli, and you can call me Lesly, the struggles and challenges I went through never included being told what to, and what not to want to understand.” Lesly tilted her head a little.

  “What kind of person, not just a woman, and even animal, can evolve with their eyes, mind, and hands limited? Don’t you want to read more things? Are you a person with ambition or at least aspirations, or a person’s worker?” Lesly spoke gently, like an older sister.

  “…” Nayeli looked at Lesly, falling silent and maybe recognizing the things she heard. Lesly’s voice attracted her attention just a few seconds later, “I’m not telling you to go ahead and leave your mentor. I know you respect him, but you are just like a little idiot in a toxic relationship. We are grownups. We don’t do that, do we? You don’t have to convince him. To deal with people like him…”

  Lesly paused for a moment, her expression was unreadable despite the apparent slight frustration. “You have to show them you’re one with a voice, not to be commended left and right even to ask if you can take a shit. That nobody’s words can change your image.”

  “Hehehe… vi- miss Lesly, please…” Nayeli giggled upon hearing Lesly’s crude words. Lesly smiled, feeling the connection linking their little minds. “You know, Nayeli, we are somewhat similar. I tell this to many other girls, so excuse me. But with you, well, you know I was adopted twice, right? I know your parents wanted you to have a great future in the political world even as you were a child, showing all those amazing results nobody, not even in Lymoca, talk about.”

  Nayeli blushed a bit, surprised and… a little proud. Lesly saw it but didn’t let it change her words, “Feks might have been your mentor for long, but it’s time you show you have learned, and now, you must leave your second nest.”

  “Miss Lesly…” Nayeli profusely blushed. To think someone would so easily see the importance she had in her heart for Gracial Feks; just like a father. Lesly smiled knowingly, “Yeah, I know that feeling too… about twice already, hehe.”

  “Look, I would like to chat more with you these following days. And don’t think wrongly of me. There’s a reason I went to look for Clara and Sebastián first. After all, which older sister wouldn’t visit her little sister first? And with a wooer nonetheless.” Lesly stood up from her seat, looking at Nayeli with a caring pair of eyes. “Just give it a thought. You don’t have to report to me. Be daring and read something, anything you’d like. Just remember who is the government.”

  Lesly winked. Then, she walked away after Nayeli stood up, shaking hands with her. When Lesly was leaving, Nayeli stepped out of the resting room, seeing her leaving back before looking in the opposite direction, where a wild Clara Metelti seemed to chase someone quick and flustered.

  … Lesly walked for another 5 minutes before finding Nayeli Saf’s partner under Feks’s tutelage, so to speak. Aaron Mades.

  Aaron Mades was a brown man, with really short hair and thick eyebrows, and short. He is a man of honor, with amazing intellectual, even though he was asocial, and he had a herculean body, so to speak. Quite the sight anywhere he went, and not unpopular with the ladies.

  “Aaron?” Lesly walked to stop on his side, briefly tapping his right shoulder. Aaron turned to her, not even showing surprise in his expression or eyes, clearly expecting this. Lesly went to the point, taking a thick pile of documents from her briefcase. Extending them to him, she spoke with narrowed eyes, “Take these, read them, then see what you think.”

  With that, Lesly turned around and walked away, not bothering with anything else. Aaron shouted, holding the documents after giving them a brief glance, “Should I keep them to myself!?”

  “I told you to read them, so read them!” Lesly shouted back. Aaron looked at the vice president, a little lost. It was usually him who sought to shorten the conversations as much as possible, and enjoyed whenever a chat was brief and concise. While he felt thankful the vice president had ‘insight’, he also felt weird. Nevertheless, he turned to his office to check those things.

  “Leeeeslyyy!” Just as Lesly was heading to the exit, intending to strike while her momentum was still building up, and go to the SCJ building, she heard a sweet voice call out to her, delicate and girly. Turning around, she saw a sweaty but not sweaty Clara Metelti trotting towards her.

  Lesly smiled, realizing those trainings as a self-defense practitioner did well to this delicate weakling once upon a time. At the same time, with her hand on her hip, Lesly thought of something that made her blush, too. Scheduling a meeting with her driver in her mind, to start training her stamina and endurance over all, Lesly smiled at her ‘little sister’.

  “What is it? You could have called me. I have a WID and a phone, are you dumb now? Big baby thing?” Lesly thinly smiled from ear to ear. Clara stopped before her, slightly out of breath. With upturned eyes and a lowered chin, she spoke with a pout, “I’ve been chasing you since a few blocks away since I saw your car. I let Sebas keep mine for me to run… Okay, yes, I think I’m dumb.”

  Clara brought her palm to her forehead, slamming it there for a few seconds before continuing, “Anyway. I wanted to talk to you about… well, what you’ve been proposing. I know your NF, president, or you aren’t looking for subordinates. Since you want more support, and we are included, so important for you to come looking for us, I was thinking about hearing you more.”

  “Be more clear,” Lesly smilingly said, her backhand on her hip. “Do you want to start deliberating? Negotiations? All of the former? Hm?”

  “I, ah… yes.” Clara blushed more than when she was running. Lesly looked at his little sister, pensive and taking her time. “Tell me something first, okay? Are you on this path because you want to? Or is it a family thing? Your parents are your parents, and I also had a fortuitous path in politics. You’re the one working to break her ass here, just like your parents did. But is that what you wanted?”

  “Maybe I was revengeful at you at first for leaving and wanted to surpass you and those… silly things. But with some mentoring after nights of frustration, short sleep, and you know, the usual stuff… I want this.” Clara thought, bringing her eyes upturned to the corners of her eyes before looking at her, feeling decisive. “I could do anything else, and I’m sure I’ll exceed. As long as it is something I like, but… I want this.”

  “Okay, I was just getting out, so tell Sebas to meet us at this… restaurant.” Lesly wrote something on a paper after nodding at Clara’s elaboration, satisfied and convinced, although it was supposed to be her convincing them. “Right, I forgot. I’ll call him now.”

  “Hehehe,” Clara Metelti giggled, watching her ‘older sister’ call Sebastián Lara. A few minutes later, she went into Lesly’s car, in which Lesly ‘notified’ of a new training schedule to her driver. The driver was startled, but he still shrugged before turning the car on. This left Clara wondering what kind of driver her ‘older sister’ had.

  … A few minutes more, later on, the trio were in a restaurant, in a booth with some walls covering them. The only exit only showed a wall from the hallway. This time, the driver stood outside their booth to watch that nobody placed a microphone or recording device near them. The car was guarded by other special agents, even Sebastián’s.

  Lesly showed them a few documents of what was known overall, but the media concealed. Not just with other information, or contradicting, false notes, but also paying so that the web shows anything else except those other news. Somewhat like buying the search tools in browsers, but since that was impossible because of the IWS, they could only conceal it by impulsing others up.

  All this information wasn’t confidential, at least for public servants. For the public, it might be different. Furthermore, these covered the details of projects that were cancelled: how, the procedures that it could have had, like the employees, hiring requirements, and payment. It was all there.

  But there were also information of debated projects and works that were not approved yet, and those the president and his cabinet were considering. But even with a balanced congress, it would take time to achieve its agreement. It was obvious what Lesly wanted to show them. They might be neutral, but neutrality is boring, besides cowardly. Anyone grows bored, and inspired.

  … After their elongated 3-hour meeting, eating to their fill and a bit more, with some alcohol, the trio bid farewell. Lesly went to her car, bidding the 2 idiots a knowing, thin smile. Sebastián gave Clara his jacket, even though it wasn’t even cold, and she had hers.

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  But all Clara did was smile and not say no to him. Then, remembering the ‘subtle’ advices Lesley gave them, and the experiences she shared with them from her almost-relationship with Luis, he brought Clara to his car and prepared to go for a little date in sightseeing somewhere.

  … The next day, Lesly walked into the SCJ building, directly into the evil den of snakes and hyenas. She walked without stop, through all, and by. When walking past Jennifer Paws’s office, she briefly greeted Jenny and Sona, still not stopping.

  At last, she arrived at the SCJ’s assembly, where they congregate to either talk, debate, or just spend lunchtime, or all time in there. Their congress atrium. It was filled with a small, empty circle in the middle, with booths ever 1.5 meters beside each other on each step surrounding the center, each resembling more a cubicle.

  The steps were about 20 cm tall and 5 meters wide, with more than a dozen in the congress atrium. This was enough for about 150 people to fit in, most in the cubicles, and others at the topmost step, where there are no cubicles but a desktop expanding over the entire circular room.

  The people in the cubicles could communicate with others using similar devices shown in the trial against Fox’s ‘inhumane’ crimes, and in their ‘Supreme’ hall. The others had to use the desktop’s electronics to do so, and the person in the middle would be equipped with an ear bion that brings their voice to every cubicle and the back, topmost of the room.

  “Huh? Isn’t that the vice president?” - “You’re right. What could she be doing now? Jennifer isn’t here, almost never.” - “Think she’s going for another? Which of us fit her ‘criteria’?” - “Hahaha…”

  Lesly ignored the words of a few who were distracted enough, outside cubicles, and eating their fill, which wasn’t supposed to happen. There were cleaning tools in the cubicles, but they were meant only for the small pace in each one, not for outdoors.

  Lesly walked to a particular cubicle, one owned by one of the 12 Supreme Court Ministers: Javier Laran.

  Javier only noticed when she was 3 meters away, walking around another cubicle, and heading to his. He was just taking a big lonche out of one of his bags, not expecting anyone to bother him, at least until he finished. Seeing the vice president, and not being dumb or petty, he unlocked his booth’s entrance but didn’t store back his food.

  “Thank you,” Lesly said, stepping into his cubicle before pulling a chair from under a desk. Lesly sat before him, smiling as she placed her briefcase on her lap. “It’s good to finally meet someone like you outside of working hours, in a working environment. Don’t mind me and keep eating, I will just give you a few things and see how you react. Just like a psyche test. They used to do these to the judicial branch nearly 300 years ago. Crazy, right?”

  “Ah, uhm…” Javier lifted his lonche, feeling a bit awkward. The feeling slightly went away after the first bite, followed by a few more as Lesly took some documents, half-open folders, and photos from her briefcase with a notorious set of movements. She was letting anyone outside notice, letting them think whatever they wanted.

  “See this? These are the works of your Supreme Justice Minister. Quite the genius,” Lesly lifted her eyebrows. Her face progressively changed as she showed the next few documents, after Vanessa Valyer’s academy records. “But why is it that her focus and aspirations changed overnight? As soon as she entered the judicial branch, she… went for money.”

  Lesly showed the focus of Vanessa during her first 3 years in the judicial branch. Then, her finger trailed unto more recent years, with her lips moving in unison. “Why is there such a blatant change in her ethos after a few months since she became the Supreme Judicial Minister? It was already bad in the first term of the President, where he was too bossed around to have any thought form in that muddled head of his. But in this term, it has been you who have been all out against the executive branch. It’s a lot, don’t you think?”

  Javier frowned, his mouth full and unable to reply to either defend Vanessa or the judicial branch, because the more Lesly spoke, the less he found coverage to say something that made sense.

  “I have a small guess, and I also have something to say.” Lesly showed a pile of photos enlarged to page-size in her right hand, and a thin pile of documents in her left hand. With a smile, she continued, “First, let’s check what the thousands of words in one sole motion can explain.”

  Lesly showed the pictures first, showing Vanessa at random times of the day outside the SCJ building. Lunching, walking, taking a break; all of her leisure time was spent outside the building, unlike most people here.

  Then, a few images showed just when Vanessa looked strangely at the sides, or with her mouth clearly in movement, but the direction she was looking was obstructed by something, always. A streetlight, a passing row of vehicles, a few people with unusually thick clothes. It didn’t matter if this was up close or from hundreds to even thousands of meters away, with the latter being rather tricky. There always seemed to be something to cover what Vanessa was looking at… or talking to.

  “So many images, but only these many were taken in the course of more than 6 years. How strange, no?” Lesly commented, putting each photo in her briefcase’s safe paper crushing machine, after letting Javier take a clear, scrutinizing look at each.

  Javier Laran’s eyes widened, shocked and confused. He didn’t know what to believe, but he knew what he was feeling. He looked at Lesly as if wanting to know, requesting her to tell him, what to do. Lesly amplified her smile, saying nothing but starting with the documents.

  “Look, these many people have formally shown up at the prosecutor offices across Lymoca. More than ten million per region had decided to show their dissatisfaction with the judicial branch.” Lesly gave him the documents. They were only a few pages, so she gave him one by one, letting him read twice and even check the names and delegations were right according to the system before another one.

  “And guess what? As you can see, it’s only from the first 2 months of the year, not even 3. Add to that this started a couple of weeks after the year began. Just imagine by the end of the year.” Lesly ambiguously said before giving the entire pile to Javier, surprising him, as he was about to give her the ones he had on his desk, letting her crush them, but Lesly stood up and closed her briefcase.

  “Have fun looking at the rest of those things, you may laugh out of hysteria. I know I would,” Lesly walked to his cubicle entrance and turned around. “Oh, as for the warning. Just this: she is Lymocan, with Ly heart— Lye; and her abilities can still be used for its benefit. But only if she adheres to the notion of being in the wrong. If not, she can defend herself… against the people.”

  “…” Lesly walked out, leaving with the same pace and attitude as before. Javier was left pensive, then slowly sweating, with his clothes seemingly becoming too rough and annoying. He looked at the documents for about 2 hours, ignoring all signs of life outside his cubicle.

  Luckily, he wasn’t called or visited by another SCM, so he had all the time to confirm, search on the internet, and in the records of the SCJ over and over. At last, when he finished, he had cold sweat over his entire back and even his buttocks.

  There was even some information hidden from any record or public! Javier Laran felt this was too much, but that, thankfully, Lesly’s sources didn’t know this… unless?

  Without wasting any more time, Javier picked his phone and thought for a long, long while as he sweated before deciding to text Vanessa…

  … Lesly Rivera had just started the day. A few hours later, when evening was approaching, she returned to the parliament. First, she found Aaron Mades, whom she gave some more info, a lot more, and this time in both physical and digital. Like an addict, he accepted it.

  Then, briefly meeting with Nayeli, whom she spent some time with before, under everyone’s eyes in the cafeteria, Lesly found Gracial Feks in a resting room for senators. It was a little silly to differentiate senators from deputies like this, but one was allowed to bring ‘their’ deputies, as long as they remained civil…

  Also, there were 100 senators and 300 deputies, it was a vastly different amount.

  Lesly knocked on the door before entering, surprising the few senators around, one of them a brown, tall, fat woman with nice black hair and eyes. She looked at the powerful woman who has once refused every proposal of ‘help’ in president Luis Heartez’s first term like a plague. Lesly ignored her and went to Gracial Feks, her pace slow, yet unstoppable.

  Slam. Feks looked up at her, a bit startled, in a vulnerable state that any old man might find himself at such an age. Lesly gave him no time other than to open his slightly wrinkled mouth. Slamming the table, she put her other on the back of her hip and looked down at the old man.

  “You’ve been a senator for how many decades? In fact, how many decades do you have left? Don’t tell me you wanted to try it next term? The presidential seat at the senate. You saw there was opportunity in any side you could take, so you might as well go for it? NF has no place for neutral imbeciles like you, forgive me for insulting you directly whilst you only did so indirectly. I am a bad example— but one for old-fashioned people like you, who thrive in the poor Lymoca since a couple of centuries ago.”

  “I’m the perfect example for the rest, and ‘what is that then?’ you might ask? It’s simple, the people, the new generation, the incoming generations, and you are the dying politics brought to this country in the same way the traitors of yore once made this nation fall once already. National Front won’t let this happen.” Lesly paused and looked at the nice-looking tall, fat woman at the side.

  “And if that means we would have to say not a possible future senate president, then it’s so easy. But we won’t let the executive branch become tarnished again by the hands of those you also deem high. Hear or not, news or my mouth, put your old butt wherever you want, but you better stop believing you can reign and win with us at the side, ignoring you, in our worst… or yours.”

  “And just like the President once told off to the one and only Mu?oz Estandarte and the legacy of his Father, Mr. Estandarte, who at least had dignity someone like you trades for power and fame.” Lesly closed her face further into Feks, calmly uttering each word, growing authoritative. “You will respect me, learn to do it if you don’t seem capable. You won’t rise your voice into my face with the words of others again, unless you’re ready for whatever will come next. There won’t be another time you forget your place, my place, and the country, too. That, as not even the start.”

  Saying nothing more, Lesly turned around and ignored everyone, slightly but still slamming the door close on her way out.

  Walking out of the parliament in a hurry, Lesly checked her phone, looking down at it. She went through her scheduled list, from her new daily workout to the meal with Nayeli, and now this. Looking at the darkening, reddened sky with a pink hue in the west, she saw the time and current hour before breathing a sigh of relief.

  “Oh, I made it in time.” Lesly exhaled out and softly uttered before walking down the steps to her car parked in front, with her driver/coach waiting inside. She entered the car and didn’t even have to say where before the White Blood drove to the presidential district. Meanwhile, a piece of news was delivered everywhere.

  —“Luis Heartez, president of Lymoca, is being convoked to the supreme tribune for the interrogation and questioning of his acts against the Ly people. In accordance, as well, Phesx Caolia, aka Fox, will be subject to president Luis Heartez’s questioning over his unknown allegiance and dubious loyalty after the massacring of the Lys in the wild. President Luis Heartez will also be required to specify the integrant members of the operation for transparency and as a demand from the Supreme Court Justice, of the judicial branch, for the people’s respect and humane valorizing.”—

  … Less than 10 minutes later, Lesly was in the presidential precinct’s main building, walking through the corridor and about to turn to enter the presidential office.

  “I made it, sigh.” Lesly sat on Luis’s desk after smoothly opening the doors as he read a large document with a Lymoca map on it, changing every few minutes, with twinkling lights here and there. Luis nodded, not bringing his gaze away from it. Lesly cocked her head and looked down, smiling a little before shaking her head. Her hand brought his chin off the technological paper, making him see her.

  “Ah, you must have been troubled. Hey, I got out of my tour just yesterday, we can have more time to see if…” Luis proposed, making Lesly suckle her lips in and lick them before biting them. She nodded, but then shook her head, “That I understand. But first, you need to relax. Are you even prepared for the trial? Fox got it okay, and he still lost it. Dirty or honest, the trial was lost.”

  “Don’t you worry about it, I have… belief.” Luis grabbed her hand and placed it on his shoulder, looking up at Lesly proactively. Lesly smiled before lowering her head closer to him, “Then, you need to have something in consideration. You see, I know it’s been a long time, but shouldn’t it be time for you to get back into form? You can’t keep coming out of here looking half emaciated.”

  “Huh?” Luis was a bit confused. Lesly straightened her back and said as she turned around and slowly moved her legs onward, crossing the other time and again. “I’m saying that… You should get back to a good form, unless you don’t care about catching up with me? I have scheduled daily workouts, after all… What if I leave you behind?”

  “Gulp!” Luis looked at her departing figure before she disappeared. Then, his eyes widened, her words carrying him to the times he was with his deceased wife. Luis took his WID out. Connecting it to someone, Luis heard shooting from the other side. It seemed intense, but he didn’t care after a mere frown and blatantly asked. “Fox! When you return, do you know any good endurance training and anything good for that!?”

  “What the fucking fuck!?” Fox sounded confused from the other end. After a few seconds, with the shooting dying down, he answered. “Agh, I guess I do. I’ll show you after your trial, don’t bother me now!”

  “Hey, don’t talk like that to me! We don’t even have a positive relationship!” Luis barked back with a frown, but then expressed with relaxed eyebrows, “Thank you, I will be waiting.”

  Fox: “…”

  …