Chapter 10

There was a cup of a mud-like substance Claudia insisted was made of quality hand-picked, freshly-roasted, home-grown, pesticide-free coffee beans. I was her boss and I insisted it was mud; not that cheap-skate runny mud they have in Florida and the tropics, the stuff that looks like just dirt and water all mixed up together. This looked, felt, and tasted like one-hundred percent frozen, volcanic sludge-like mud with all the physical qualities of cement.

I buzzed her:

"Claudia, this isn't coffee ... This is -"

"- mud, I know. Why do you keep asking me to make it then?"

"It's my prerogative, I'm your boss. Now be a good girl and make me a fresh cup, yeah?"

She didn't reply to that, and I knew she was already hard at it. I had hand-picked her from among the bureau staff because she was one of the few who had finally survived the ordeal, a real good shot, and very keen on voicing her personal opinions, which could be easily discerned from the fact that I could see her through the glass pane, pouring actual dirt from a pot plant into the coffee machine.

I returned my focus to the briefing report laying on my desk, which contained little noteworthy intelligence on the Himalayan incident of a few weeks before. There were some dark points to cover, but there were capable people on it, and I was pretty adamant that they'd get to the bottom of who was behind the resurgence of ghost yetis and bone dragons near McLeod Ganj.

I had been signing paper after paper concerning logistics supplies, administrative reorganization efforts and most notably, putting into full effective force the discontinuation of the practice of using those awful papal mitres and other silly hats as warding devices. We would be replacing those with stylish, dependable - and above all perhaps - inconspicuous-looking fedoras. Jules had said that the next thing we knew, we'd be in the music business, doing concerts to save orphans.