Visual art by SavannahHorrocks

The Silent River name is well known in political circles. If there is something not-quite-legal that needs doing, they are typically the first ones to call. Beyond that aspect, the company does do completely legal work, as well. Whether protecting a VIP, helping investigate a murder or taking down illegal labs, their reach is quite astounding.

The company pretty regularly takes down IGME, illegal genetic modification experiments, labs and, unfortunately, is forced to destroy most of the lab creatures for the safety of life on Esoteria. After an outbreak of a super virus created from mutations inside an IGME that nearly took down an entire country, extreme measures were approved hastily. Occasionally, the experiments are allowed to live, but are needed to be closely monitored. For most, that means life behind a glass wall, which is not really a life worth living. But Silent River takes a different approach.

After Silent River takes down an IGME lab, any creature allowed to exist is examined and tested thoroughly and then put through rigorous training or given to one of the employees to look after. In Shelbe's case, Gabby gave her the opportunity to become a field agent, given her intelligence. Under Elly's tutelage, the hybrid learned valuable lessons. She accompanied the bundrake on various missions to get a feel for what they would be like and to get guidance from her if necessary. Shelbe was a bit easy to distract, due to her extremely curious nature, so Elly had to keep a close eye on her.

There were a few incidents caused by Shelbe's wanderings, but most were very minor. On a more recent case, Shelbe accompanied Elly to a photo shoot where they were to investigate a stalking incident. The target of the stalking was a well-known arthropoditaurian model by the name of Chela. While Elly was talking to the scorpion's manager to get details, Shelbe was supposed to be paying attention in order to learn the important questions to ask and see if she spotted anything out of the ordinary but she caught a glimpse of something interesting and wandered off without Elly noticing.

The point of interest Shelbe saw was none other than Chela herself. The IGME had never seen an arthropoditaurian before, nor anyone quite as large as Chela, so she followed after her out of pure curiosity. Unfortunately for Shelbe, Chela was heading to her dressing room to get back into her normal clothes. When the hybrid wandered in, Chela stared, shocked, and quickly turned away. After a few seconds and a warm 'hello' from the naive Shelbe, Chela gave off a long, awful shriek that transformed into 'get out' at the end. When everyone came running over to see what had happened, Chela was holding clothes over her body while pointing at Shelbe's quivering shell with a huge pincer.

Elly and the manager ended up having to slide Shelbe out, because the poor IGME had never received such scathing anger before. It took a good fifteen or so minutes before she finally poked her eye stalks back out. By that time, Chela had a chance to calm down and got an explanation from the bundrake about the IGME. Chela calmly apologized and coaxed her over with a plate of strawberries. Shelbe can't resist strawberries. After that, there were no significant issues and the stalker was found and dealt with appropriately.

Shelbe was praised for helping them find the offender quickly, which balanced out her feelings about being shouted at.