The processing plant was a dreary-looking building, housed in an old factory in the industrial section of the city. I hated coming here, especially today; I had the seventh girl to worry about, and now I had to pick up the slack on Kendra’s case had left … but it had to be done.

As the doors opened and I walked in a saw an elderly, bored-looking woman sitting at the front desk. She wore glasses that covered half her face. When she saw me approaching, she slid the glasses down her nose and gave me a look that made it clear she did not hold me in high regard.

“Clones need to report to the back of the building,” she said, then slid her glasses back up and continued reading; one of those trashy women’s novels that were filled with sex and big beefy men. I cleared my throat, making her put the book down and look at me again. “Look, I already told you clones report to the back of the building for processing, or are you too dumb to understand that? Did someone fuck up your cloning?” she sneered at me.

She was seriously getting on my nerves. I managed to give her a soft smile before responding angrily. “Did someone fuck up your head shrinking and only did half the job?”

She looked up at me. “Well I never,” she replied as she reached for a big red button. “Report in the back, you smart-mouthed copy, or I will call the guards to take you there,” she snarled.

“You sure you can hit that thing? I mean with those glasses it would be hard to miss anything.” I smiled as her face turned redder; she looked like she could explode any second. “The name is Tara Duluc. I have an appointment,” I told her finally.

Her hand moved from the big red button and to an old ledger. “Ah yes, there it is: Duluc,” she said.

I was done with waiting here. I moved off into the plant, heard the woman shout something at my back but I didn’t pay any attention to it. I knew who I was here to see and I would just ask one of the employees where the office was and go there.

The person I was here to talk with to try to fix Kendra’s muck-up was called Ron Hinkley; an average human name if ever there was one. I found his office quickly as it was one of just a few in the building. I knocked on his door and, without waiting for an invitation to enter, walked straight in.

The office was large; it overlooked the processing plant on the floor below. Ron was a fat man. Not like the Police Chief, who in comparison with this guy was a stick insect. No, Ron was so fat elephants would give him diet advice. His face was sweaty and his dark black hair stuck to his forehead. He panted heavily as he looked at me.

“Did I say you could enter?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Does it matter? I’m here now.”

I disliked these people, and didn’t have time to waste. I sat down in one of the two chairs in front of his old metal desk. “I am here on behalf of my associate, Kendra; she was here a little while back to inquire about a possible processing of a possible clone.”

He gave me a sleazy look. “Ah yes, that bloodsucker did ask about that, the Pratchett girl,” he replied. He reached between his legs to scratch his crotch, before reaching into his desk and taking out a file. “We still haven’t caught that filthy clone, but rest assured we will.” He gave a smug, selfsatisfied grin.

I drew a file out of my bag and placed it in front of him. “You are hereby instructed to stop looking for this girl. She is not a clone, as you can see by the DNA mapping.”

He grabbed the file and examined its contents. I had stopped by Hud before coming here, and paid her to forge the DNA analysis and hack into the clone database to erase any trace of the girl. He looked at me and shook his head. “But she is a clone, your bloodsucker told me so,” he stuttered.

“Come on, she’s new to all this, and young for a vampire; she clearly fucked it up, and here I am just trying to save you from a very expensive lawsuit by showing you that she did fuck up. Look, if you want to keep pursuing this girl then go ahead, be my guest. But know that if you do, you will be processing a non-clone, and we all know that will be murder.” I got up and walked to the door. “I hope you have an amazing lawyer; you’ll need one,” I said as I opened the door.

“WAIT!” he yelled, looking desperate. He pressed a button on his desk. “Lxdor, can you come in please?” he said.

Moments later a young tauren came in. He gave me a look as he walked past me and stopped in front of Ron. “Yes, sir?” he asked, giving a slight bow.

“Lxdor, I want you to go ahead and cancel the search for the Pratchett girl. It turns out she is not a clone,” Ron said.
The tauren nodded obediently, but annoyance showed on his face. “But sir, I’ve spent a lot of time on the search. I haven’t slept in some time,” he said.
Ron looked at him sternly. “Well Lxdor, you know our motto: ‘Rivers have beds and they don’t sleep, so be a river and keep going.’”
The tauren gave another bow and walked off.“That wasn’t that hard now, was it?” I asked. “And you should be nicer to your employees.” I turned and left his office.

Halfway down the corridor I stopped and reached into my pocket. “Rivers have beds and they don’t sleep,” I said as I took out the riddle and looked at it. What can run but never walks, What has a mouth but never talks, What has a head but never weeps, And has a bed but never sleeps? Well at least the last part of the riddle pointed to a river. The same could be said for the first part; rivers did run through some parts of the city. But a river head and a river mouth? I had to see Victor about this; maybe I was onto something, and besides I had cleared up Kendra’s mess and really should get back to finding the seventh girl. This had wasted more time than I had wanted … and I didn’t have time to waste.

Next Chapter: A river?