The messenger arrived after her breakfast, just as Amber finished dinking the last of her breakfast. Her hair, cropped short, allowed the elaborate earrings to swing freely as she turned her head towards the source of the commotion in the hall. The sound echoed easily in the high-ceilinged rooms. It was one of the advantages of the centuries-old house; it was how she had picked up on most of her knowledge of her father's business in the years she grew up. One only had to sit very quietly in the hall, and you could accidentally overhear whole conversations. It's amazing how easy it is to accidentally overhear people, especially if you accidentally hold a glass to the wall and put your ear against it. But no glass was needed here, as the man's pleading voice carried through the house.

"Please, please, I've told you all I know!"

Amber sighed and placed the glass back on the table, next to the rest of her uneaten breakfast. It was lucky for this man she was up early today, or else he would have caught her in bad form. As it was, her mood was on a rapid downturn; the man's voice bore on the ear like a drill. She snapped her fingers to signal for her breakfast to be taken away just as the gaggle of guards entered the room, carrying between them a struggling man in a rumpled uniform.

The man lay where he had been thrown, his bleeding nose dripping steadily on to the tile floor. This further irked Amber; blood was always such a hassle to get out of the grouting. With another prompting from the guard, in the form of a sharp blast from a Taser, the ragged man in a guard uniform spilled all he had seen. Amber listed with interest disguised as boredom, tapping her sharp, polished talons on the table top as she waited for him to finish.

"And then I- he ran away, uh, with the girl. Um. That's it. " The man finished, watching Amber with barely disguised terror. Amber raised an eyebrow at him.

"If I find you are lying…" she began, and it was just as amusing to see this horrid little man crawl forward on his knees and swear it was all true as it was all the other times she had threatened other with the same line. The man was watching her immaculate, tapping fingers like a mouse watching a cat, and visibly jumped when she brought her hands together in a sharp clap.

"Well, I think this is all sorted, don't you" she said cheerily, flashing the bewildered man a dazzling smile.

"We-we have?" he asked hesitantly, his voice cracking in hope. It was almost laughable.

"Oh, yes, you have nothing more of value to add this inquiry" she assured him, smiling sickly sweet. The man broke into a crooked smile of pure happiness, showing his rotting, yellow teeth. He began to stand, to thank her, but his sudden burst of happiness was interrupted as the two guards that escorted him here grabbed him again.

"What-?" he began, glancing at amber with fear in his eyes. Her smile remained in place, her hands folded in front of her.

"You heard me; you have no more use to us. But I'm sure parts of you do. And I believe they're overdue to be returned, too. "

The man's screaming rang throughout the house as he was dragged away. Such wonderful acoustics in this old house, thought Amber. She looked at the guard left behind, an official-looking man that stood to rigid attention and showed absolutely no emotion upon hearing his lesser colleagues screams. Apathetic and obedient. Amber admired qualities like that in a man.

"Any more reports on this?" she asked. The man saluted earnestly.

"Yes ma'am! All photos found seized and all witnesses convinced they did not see anything or otherwise disposed of, ma'am!" he said that the opposite wall, almost robotic in his speech. Amber decided she liked him.

Several photos were placed in from of her, the quality varying from blurry pixels to half-decent shots. They all showed, without doubt, the night surgeon, a limp body slung over his shoulder. The photos really piqued ambers interest. Any babbling fool could be picked up off the street, but this… this was something else. So, this repo man was real, hm? She knew for a fact Nathan was dead, she had made doubly sure by ensuring his remains were cremated, even his organs. As far as she was concerned, there was no value in him. But the outfit, well that had disappeared the night of the opera, and she had never given it a second thought. She shifted thought the photos looking at each carefully. The body looked real though, so were they simply looking at a run-of-the-mill imposter, a serial killer? It wouldn't be the first time GeneCo. would have had to handle such a situation.

But this was the first sighting of him in the day, and killers were less careful than he had been; they wanted to be caught, usually. She took a closer look at the body slung over his shoulder. There was no good angle of it. Why would he kill a dealer though? That snivelling little man said it was a girl with a bag of Zydrate running from him. A girl with a bag of zydrate… Amber looked up as a thought struck, gazing down the long, polished table, inner eye seeing past the dark wood and the large French windows beyond. She turned to the guard, who had not relaxed an inch.

"How did that man describe the girl dealer?" she demanded. The guard drew himself up even more before answering.

"Couldn't rightly say, ma'am," he answered, "But down at the station he mentioned she was small-younger than most dealers, if I'm remembering correctly." Amber raised an eyebrow, hooded eyes showing not a spark of humour.

"And are you remembering correctly?" she asked, not in the mood to play games. To his credit, the man's expression never changed as she saluted, and said:

"Affirmative ma'am!" Amber was impressed, most men crumbled under the pressure of her stare.

She turned her attention back to the photos. A young, small dealer… she examined a photo take from an angle behind the repo man. There was only a shock of black hair to be seen of the corpse, and a limp, pale arm streaked with blood. Uncertainty arose and Amber didn't like it. Could it be? Whoever was behind the mask… were they killing of Grave robbers? Her dealers, to be exact. The picture crumpled under her angry grip, her nails piercing holes through the thin paper. Whoever this was, they would pay. She looked over the photos, each taken in the different place, spread across the city, a handy little guide to follow.

With a snap at a specific servant, an old, rotary phone was brought forward. impatiently she jabbed out a number, frustration building with each turn of the wheel. as it rang, tinny and echoing up the line she could imagine how the call flew along the lines.

And fly it did; along lines across the city, over grey building and dirty streets. It crawled up the side of skyscrapers and hopped from one to the other to the penthouse of one that proudly proclaimed the GENCO logo to the world. it worked its way through the wires, into the darkness of a room with an unmade bed and floors strewn with dirty clothes and rags stained with dark, unidentified liquids, the call rang urgently from a phone next to the bed.

A hand broke free of the thicket of duvets and groped for the phone, missing the handle twice before finally freeing it of its socket to bring it beneath the folds of the blankets. A voice, gravelly yet petulant, and simmering with barely-controlled anger could be heard.

"what THE FU-"

Across town, Amber smiled a smile that was far more related to a sneer than anything else as she cut across her brother's outburst.

"Shut it, Luigi," she said, and the edge in her voice quietened her brother as well as any threat, "and round up those thugs you call the city's finest, we've got a ghost to hunt."