Shawn stood in the Black Rose's office,
still slightly in awe. It was his office now, having
defeated his grandmother, Raven, in her annual
qualifying bout. It still seemed odd to him, his
defeating her with a simple distraction
maneuver. But, he had won, and the office, and
responsibility, was his now.
When he sat down in the desk chair, Carl
spoke to Shawn. "You need to set up your
authorization codes for the various files, sir. We
should set them up now."
"Let's do so, Carl." Shawn said. In setting
up the passcodes, Shawn let his sense of humor
run riot. For instance, many of the codes were
ancient comedy show tunes, mainly from the
Three Stooges and Marx Brothers, played on a
kazoo. Others were quotes from Jack Benny,
Milton Berle, Ed Wynn, Ted Healy, and other
comedians of the early and middle 20th century.
'Who would think that a hobby would be so useful?'
he thought.
Once that chore was done, Shawn started
reading through the "In" box. After reading
through the papers, Shawn realized that he has a
lot of work to do- specifically, studying. He
asked Carl for help. The next morning, they were
still at it. They only stopped when Shawn had to
go for his daily swim. Before he left, Shawn
ordered a salt-water shower for his office.
While Shawn was out, Carl made a
conference call, connecting the Gold, Silver,
Grey, and White Roses together. Carl explained
that Shawn, while he is trying very hard to learn
what he needs to learn, will take him a long time
to learn.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, it appears to me
that we all need to work closely with our new
Black Rose, simplifying the reports and
explaining to him as simply as we can what he
needs to know." said the Gold Rose, Christian
Somers.
"Since I'm going to be the closest to him,
maybe I should suggest that I handle what I can,
referring to him only the most critical cases. He's
an excellent Blood Rose, but he needs a lot of
help to become an effective Black Rose." said the
Grey Rose, Esther Martin.
"I agree." said the White Rose, Brett
DuQuesne. "I further suggest that we tell Shawn
only that we are all united in helping him, but
not tell him the extent of our help, okay? Carl,
that goes for you as well."
Everyone agreed to that, and to keep that
information from the rank and file, because they
wanted the troops to have confidence in their
leader. After the meeting, Esther went to
Shawn's office, to offer her help in his education.
The first thing she instructed him to do
was to get out of the office and start going
around the Headquarters Complex, meeting the
base personnel. "Everyone here understands that
you have been busy, but, outside the Blood Rose
Corps, nobody really knows you, except for
training sessions." Esther explained.
"You're right. Let me get changed, and I'll
be ready." Shawn changed into a clawhammer
coat, white shirt, black bow tie, black Bermuda
shorts, a black rose in his buttonhole, and a cigar.
A licorice cigar.
Inwardly, Esther cringed. 'Oh, Lord, he's at
it again. At least, he's consistent. I hope he doesn't let
his practical jokes get out of control.' she thought.
The visits lasted the rest of the morning
and into the afternoon. Fortunately for Esther,
Shawn didn't pull any pranks, just did a flawless
imitation of Groucho Marx, which brought out
smiles and laughs from the people. Most of them
knew him from the training salle, where he was
utterly ruthless. After the tour, Esther talked
with Shawn, making sure that he knew of
various operations in progress.
That night, Shawn went home to Sabra
Manor. Once there, he headed out for a long
swim.
At sea, Shawn thought a lot. He realized
that he felt like a dog that, after chasing a car,
has his teeth firmly around the bumper, and the
car is accelerating. 'What do I do now? I can't let
myself appear overwhelmed by the job. The troops
won't respect me then!'
He decided that he will study hard, but let
the trained administrators handle the
administration of VS. Grandma Raven only
appeared at HQ two or three times a week, and
Grandfather Chris even less often than that. He
will spend more time at HQ, but, then again, he
had to meet the people.
He headed back to shore more confident
than he was when he went in. More comfortable,
too- that school of sea bass was rather tasty!
Over the next month, Shawn appeared
more relaxed and comfortable in his new job.
Appeared is the key word- he was feeling
increasingly overwhelmed over the sheer scale
of VS. He had no idea how widespread VS
activity was, and he was having a harder and
harder time keeping track.
Shawn decided to ask Riley to take him on
a tour of VS installations off Earth. That week
was very hard for him- he was naturally attuned
to Earth, and being off-world upset his
biorhythms to the point where he was
increasingly confused and erratic- on Jolia, he
acted like a proper administrator should, not like
his normal self. He also had very little memory
of the trip after the first day- fortunately, Roxy
and Ratzie recorded all of his conversations, and
played them back to him once he was back on
Earth, and recovered from his ordeal.
As Shawn struggled to hide his rapidly-
decreasing ability to manage the VS, the high
Roses had another conference. "Opinions,
everyone?" asked the White Rose.
"I have to hand it to him, he's really trying
just as hard as he can. Everyone at HQ can see
that, but they're all 'playing the game', not
letting Shawn know that they know he's having
a hard time." reported the Grey Rose.
"Most of his changes are somewhat
unusual, but, I recommend we keep one. He
lowered the testing standards by 5%, to increase
recruitment. After three washout lectures, few
have decided to leave." reported the Silver Rose.
"I concur." said the Gold Rose. "We have
had problems with under staffing, as you well
know. This idea goes a long way in relieving it. I
think it's time to start another underground
recruiting drive."
"Agreed. But, how are we going to get
Shawn to step down before the job breaks him?
Mahree's getting worried about him, but he
won't listen to her when she brings it up. In fact,
he's avoiding his sister, and she's getting close to
term- that's real unusual." said the White Rose.
"I'll speak to Raven about it. She's been
out of sorts recently, so I'll remind her of her
right to challenge for the Black Rose at any
time." said the Gold Rose.
"Sounds good. Everyone agree?" asked
the White Rose. At everyone's nods of approval,
he continued, "Do it, Gold. Let's see if he takes
the bait."
It was actually almost two weeks later
when Raven made the challenge to Shawn for
the Black Rose. Most of that time, Chris was
gone, doing something that he never told anyone
about, except Raven.
Shawn accepted the challenge without
question. After all, it was her right to do so.
During the time he had been the Black Rose, he
had purposefully avoided giving Raven any
missions, to give her time to herself. Another
reason was that he was too stubborn inside to
want to ask her for any advice.
During the challenge bout, Shawn came to
a realization. 'Here is my way to step down without
losing face to anyone in the Service. I'll let her win,
but not until I show her a good fight.' he thought.
The fight lasted almost two hours, with
Shawn giving his grandmother a good battle, but
allowing some blows to slip through his
defenses, allowing himself to take a good
battering in the process.
At what proved to be the end of the bout,
Shawn looked at his grandmother through only
one eye, because his face was beaten and puffy,
favoring some broken ribs, and fighting
dehydration. "Are you ready to give up?" he
mumbled.
"No." said Raven.
"Too bad. I am." Shawn muttered before
he fell, face first, towards the sand.
She caught him before he hit the floor.
After the medics hauled him off in a portable
saltwater tub, she accepted the congratulations
of the people who watched the bout live. The
overwhelming consensus from the people was
that Shawn was not yet ready for the job. He had
their full respect, but covering for his
inaccuracies was getting tiresome.
Raven went back to what was, and now is,
her office. The first thing she did was to reset her
old passcodes. "Good to have you back in
harness, madam." Carl told her.
"It's good to be back." she replied. Raven
then surveyed her office, packing up Shawn's
belongings. What she found surprised her.
Forty-seven kazoos of different colors and sizes,
a closetful of costumes, and a case of Milky Way
bars. His filing system was completely bizarre,
with files placed where it made a queer sort of
sense, if you used twisted logic. For instance,
under "F", she found fish; under "S', shrimp; and
under "C", a box of Snickers bars. It took Raven
almost an entire day to reset the files the way
they should be. In the closet, in a box that
contained rubber chickens, fake mustaches,
licorice cigars, greasepaint, wigs, and other such
oddities, she found her case of blood bottles that
she kept there.
All the time she was resetting her office, a
slow, steady stream of people trickled through,
welcoming her back to where she should be. To a
person, they never spoke ill of Shawn.