"Lotus. Hang back a moment."
It had been the phrase that started it all. The interrogation. The insinuations. The accusations. That Isobel had concealed some of the financial records during the Dosuun vault raids so that she could keep the money for herself. The insinuation was that she was embezzling from the First Order -- looting the corpse of the once-great nation for her own gain. The accusation was ludicrous; Isobel was reasonably well off in her own right, the owner of a successful fashion house conglomerate that also manufactured and sold spy gadgets to the First Order at cost. She was, as far as she was concerned, a model citizen. She served her country, fought and been injured in its service, been tortured and resisted it for its banner, found her way back to it after the collapse.
And still, the icy cold, gravelly deadpan of [member="Delilah Graham"]'s voice echoed through Isobel's consciousness. Lotus. Hang back a moment.
It had been two days since the interrogation, two days since her escape from Pa'desh. She had come straight to Atrisia -- one of the worlds that had escaped the SRI's violence, by and large, and with enough traffic that it could hide her movements for a time. They would look for her there, of course, but by the time she was caught on the security cameras in the system, her business would be concluded and she would be off again. A burn notice had gone out, naming Isobel as a criminal fugitive, wanted for embezzling funds, treason, assault and obstruction. The last two were true; she had broken at least two jaws and dislocated a shoulder in her escape from Graham's office on Pa'Desh. The older woman, Isobel's former controller and mentor, had chosen her office as a place to have the conversation rather than a cell, ostensibly out of some manner of respect for their friendship.
It had proved to be her undoing.
The last time Isobel saw Graham, she had slammed the woman's head against the one-way mirror behind her desk hard enough to stun the older woman. As she brought her stolen ship -- hastily hacked so that its transponder matched the ID records she had falsified for herself -- Isobel wondered if Graham would suffer any enduring consequences. She rather hoped so; after all, it was a privilege to suffer for the cause, Isobel thought with a slight curl of her lip. By the time it was all over, there would be plenty of suffering to go around. Lotus. Hang back a moment.
But it didn't have to be a disaster for everyone. Despite her predicament, Isobel wanted to know that her family wouldn't suffer. Hence, her excursion to Atrisia.
Juliet Nakano had a small but impeccably designed and built house in an affluent suburb. It sat within a gated parcel, with a beautiful, manicured lawn and a small pair of cherry blossom trees in round planters flanking the walkway. It was dusk when Isobel walked up the street, dressed in a pair of leggings and a dark hooded sweatshirt. She looked like any other young suburban woman out for an evening jog, and she circled the cul-de-sac once after parking her car on the next street over. When she was satisfied that she wasn't being watched, she completed her circuit and jogged to a stop outside Juliet's gate. She let herself in using her key and shut the door behind her, letting the door shut behind her. She wandered up the broad stone pavers to the front porch and again used her key to get inside.
The house belonged to Blue Lotus, Isobel's fashion company. It served as an executive residence for Juliet, who was a caretaker Chief of Operations as Isobel was too busy to manage the day to day running of the company. So technically, Isobel wasn't breaking and entering. She made no effort to stay out of the security cameras' lines of sight as she entered and moved through the house. It hadn't changed much since the last time Isobel was there. The security terminal was still in the office. She sat and connected the hacking device, then disabled the security cameras and recording. She didn't bother deleting the recordings already taken; it would be good for the First Order to see that Isobel had entered on her own and that Juliet wasn't involved. Lotus. Hang back a moment.
They would be coming soon. She would be gone by then.
Isobel set her backpack down on the desk and pulled out her kit. Tiny audio and audio/visual transmitters and a relay that would encode its data in the typical signals going in and out of the house. She hid one in the bookshelf, another in the communicator in the office, a third in the communicator in the bedroom, and two more in the living room and kitchen. The relay was hooked to the data line. She tucked the kit back in her backpack and settled in to wait for Juliet. It shouldn't be long now. She sat in the study, in the high-backed desk chair at Juliet's personal computer. A rotating parade of images -- mainly Juliet with various members of her family, including her parents and one or two of Isobel herself. A man Isobel had never met gazing lovingly into her sister's eyes. A man she would never meet.
Lotus. Hang back a moment.