Campus Games- Season 2/Week 1- Story Title- Team Titans

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If there was an actualization of the word efficiency, it was the Police Headquarters on Ayinde Street. They always solved their cases, including matters of national security.

So naturally, they had more good reviews than bad. Word got to the big boys at Corporate and the officers were assigned a case.
But four months in, they had nothing except board pins and even more dead ends.

Corporate was getting irritated and were about to make it Federal Affairs. The officers on Ayinde were losing confidence but weren't going to give the Feds a win. So they revisited their research aggressively and found a crack.

Excitement bubbled in the office again and Jobi, lead captain of the investigation, was on his toes to seal it.
He swung the doors with a pump that morning when research said they might have something.

The office was alive with fresh energy and activity. He was motivated and hollered to the officers.

“Tell me we found our person!”

“Yes sir!” Anna piped “They call her ‘The Lady in Red’.”

“Any reason?”

“She dresses in red, sir.”

“So creative.” He mocked. “And where is she now?”

“Somewhere…not in sight for a while now.”

“What does that mean?”

“She works on Little Road…,” Dili said, “…at night.”

“A real lady.” Jobi scoffed.

“So we can’t be sure when exactly to see her cos her schedule has no pattern.” Anna finished.

“Oh for fuck’s sake. What does this help us do now?” He spat.

“Actually, there’s this IT guy who might help us." Ifeatu intervened.

"I know for a fact that he likes taking tours of special places in the city and is a regular on Little Road; cos he tells me. He might know our mystery lady.”

Ifeatu walked in minutes later with Klein, the IT guy.

“Yes son? What do you know about the person we’re looking for? And why are your hands around your crotch?”

“I might have picked up pubic lice sir.”

“Jesus!” Jobi sparked. “Is this the guy who’s supposed to help us?”

“I don’t know why y’all need her so bad but I suggest you leave her alone and find other girls." Klein said.

"Little Road has the finest selection of girls I’ve met since I got here, and they can even be customized to your taste. Any girl from there will be worth it.

But this red lady? I’ve only seen her twice since I’ve been going there. Both times, she had heavily armed men escort her to the car. She's no ordinary girl."

“So what? She’s like a diamond in the rough?”

“More like fire for this house of cards.” He circled with his arms.

“Get him out of here!”

“No wait!” He apologized. “I am also curious and can help. I could kill lots of birds with this one stone in my corner if you let me.”

“Keep talking.”

“I made a software that’s still in the works. It allows me unholy access to information I of course, shouldn’t have.”

“I’ll buy you drinks for the week if you can get me a certain celebrity in…” Dili raised his hand, “sorry.”

“But I’ll need more than just her street name to get any reasonable intel. Like her biometrics."

“Hair samples?”

“That’s too much, just her finger print.” He pointed to a large monitor and other gadgets.
Remi whistled.

“Does corporate know you got this?” She said.

“Nope. And I wanna keep it that way. Don’t wanna do more than I’m paid for – no offence.”

“I can however, find her with something else.” He swiveled to another monitor and tapped at keys.

“Now the men I saw then looked like travelers and judging by their timeline, they might be around now. They had editions of Range Rover sports that aren’t even in the market yet. So if I just trace the limited cruisers….” He touched more buttons. “There’s your red riding hood!”

The officers almost jumped.

“What time do you close from work?!” Jobi made for the door

“5pm?” Klein said unsurely.

“Wait here! If we get her before then, we’d have about 2 hours till Corporate boys touchdown.
They’d want to give us more time to do their dirty work.” Jobi’s words skated.

“You should crack something before then. I wanna know why they’ve got the hots for her.”

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She was a true lady, not at all as they'd pictured. Her poise was elegant, she was calm and had refined manners. Like royalty. Her speech was sonorous and sweet to the ears. And of course, she wore red. It was hard not to stare.

But she cut the spell when she spoke.

“I would say don’t stare but you would have seen the last of me in about an hour and half.”

“You’re not escaping here.” Jobi said coolly and took her further in to his office. “Do you know how much we all needed this break? Your proper collectors will be here for you in a bit so you make yourself at home.”

“Escape?” She coughed. “Darling, if I wanted to leave here, I’d do so and raze this building on my way out. Why exactly do you think your top watch sent you after me? You don’t know do you?” She looked at him pointedly.

“For war crimes against the country.” Jobi straightened.

“Trust them to say that.” She scoffed. “After those covert missions up North.” His eyes grew.

“You won’t believe me. I am after all a criminal. But your IT guy is cooking up my details, so maybe you’d know for sure then.”

Jobi retuned a while later from Klein’s cubicle.

“Because you’re no longer useful to the ones who did this to you, they’ve set off a bomb in your head that goes off in an hour…And you've got top-tier intel that Corporate wants to extract.

Two questions if I may? What are those scars that inspection drew from your body? And why hooker?”

“Extraction, and termination.” She corrected.

“The hooker part is ‘cos I’m less suspicious that way. Targets are chattier when they see how…ravishing I am. It’s basically easier than sending expensive armour to the job.

So when a high roller needs to rest, I play Grim Ripper.

Those who…altered me, placed a response droid under my skin when I was little. So for every time I refused their orders, they sent splinters tearing my skin at random places. It stopped ‘cos I thought that I might be free one day if I just did what they said.

How stupid. My life ends in half an hour and I haven’t done a single thing I like.”

“Say I was to humor you,” Jobi empathized, “what would you wanna do with this short time while Klein works?”

“I wanna dance to a song. Onyeka by Burnaboy…And eat doughnut. They never let me have sweet treats cos it would spoil my ‘form’”.

Now he watched - awed again - as her body swayed to the music. She avoided his eyes knowingly.

“Just curious, what is my moniker around here?” She sat on the chair and licked sprinkles from her fingers.

“’The lady in red.’”

“How fitting.” She said dryly. “That I should end up in the shade I’ve left many people before now.”

“I would have felt foolish for saying this if I hadn’t read your profile,” he took her hands, wondering what had possessed him, “but I think you’ve suffered enough. Take a break these remaining minutes and lay off the guilt.”

Their eyes swallowed each other’s and for a long moment, they connected.

“All the men in my life have only said nice stuff to sleep with me but you have been genuine with yours. I’m not a hooker, so if I had to choose someone with whom to lie with the rest of my life, I’d do so with you happily. This may not be appropriate but…” She trailed off and kissed his cheek.

Jobi’s breath hitched and he felt his heart squeeze. She smelt of pomegranate.

“Now you won’t want to share my moniker: the man in red…” she smiled sadly, “so maybe wait outside?”

Walking home later that night, hands in his pockets, Jobi wondered what a life with her would have been like. His loneliness spoke from deep places. So to protect the small streak of happiness she’d given him, he didn’t stay to watch her go off or for the forensics team to clean her out.

He closed the door with his back to the room and smelt pomegranate whiffing the air…he turned around and there she stood. She walked to him and kissed him, on the mouth this time. His heart swelled weirdly as he held the lady in red that would now be, his lady.

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