Kahli held Agent 42's stiff, limp hand up to the scanner by the door panel and watched as gears on the door whirred and turned in speedy resolutions. Then, she slumped his arm back inside the pod and relaxed a little as she reached her big left foot over to his pedal and placed it on the gas. She never thought she'd be riding shotgun with a dead man.
"Are you sure this is going to work, Kahli?" whined Sahdi.
"Of course it's going to work," said Kahli with confidence. She'd seen what her [skill] could accomplish. She'd even seen what it could accomplish on Sahdi. But Kahli was happy to keep that information to herself for now. Sahdi just needed to sit down, shut up, and let her do the talking as they drove in to what was clearly the nucleus of the F.I.N.G.E.R. facility.
For the first time, she saw other pods zooming around at the same dizzying speeds as their own, weaving in and around one another in some sort of strange, syncopated rhythm it seemed. And then, without warning, someone stopped their pod and rolled down the side wall as if it were a window.
"Hey, if it isn't Agent 42!" said the agent in the pod. They, similarly to Agent 42, had a near-spotless face, the bark of the living wood on it seemed almost buffed and without blemish. "Wait a second, oh my gods! What happened to you? Are you dead?"
Sahdi started to hyperventilated, but Kahli remained cool and calm. She knew what to do. Froufrou squelched with a similar confidence.
"What? Oh, no, no, not at all," said Kahli, trying her best to deepen her voice and mimic what Agent 42 had sounded like.
"You're not dead? You sound sick, Agent 42. Well, either sick, or like your voice was suddenly swapped with a girl's. But regardless, I mean, you're barely even moving your lips. It looks like someone is jerking your body around like a puppeted corpse. It's disturbing."
Kahli still wasn't concerned, although the sound of Sahdi's muffled screams as she buried her face were somewhat distracting. Still, Kahli kept her cool. She knew her [skill].
"What, oh, you think I'm dead because of this gash in my forehead?" she said. The other agent nodded. "Oh, that's silly."
The other agent laughed immediately. Such was the power of the [skill] Kahli weilded.
"Yes, I guess it is silly, Agent 42. But, the point still stands. How are you alive with a big gash in your forehead?"
"You know, Agent, uh, Agent-" Kahli squinted, finally spotting a badge with the agent's number on their unitard's lapel, "Agent 18, it's a funny storry. Kind of funny like how it was funny that you thought this gash in my forehead meant I was dead. Anyways, let me start at the beginning. See, when I was younger, a lot younger - well, okay, I mean not terribly too much younger - I was in, um, I was in finishing school."
"Yes, they say finishing school is the climax of our education, Agent 42," replied Agent 18 with a serious nod.
"Great, yes, glad we're on the same page, Agent 18," said Kahli. She did her best not to chuckle, she found it kind of silly how these agents insisted on calling one another by their number so often. It seemed almost like a compulsion. Maybe these agents were a kind of automaton, almost like Unit 5a23 was - although they were automatons in mind only, and in body they were flesh and blood. Conversely, physically Unit 5a23 was an automaton, but mentally he seemed more like an actual person - even if his stuck up 'pacificity policy' seemed like a bunch of bad excuses for laziness and for feeding his meditation addiction. She cleared her throat - putting on this fake Agent 42 voice was starting to hurt her throat, but she felt it imperative to correctly telling the lie. "See, okay, Agent 18, back when I was at the apex of the climax of finishing school-"
"Oh, so you were nearing the end of your Edge-ication?" Agent 18 said expectantly, raising an eyebrow. Edge-ication was, as everyone in Nomachiato knew, the tail end of a person's education where they studied edge cases, took the edge off with copious drinking, were on the edge of their seats with concern over passing or failing their courses, and were often said to act a bit untoward and edgy.
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"Yes, exactly. So, anyways, I had this thing I liked to do where I'd meet up with a group of like minded soon-to-be F.I.N.G.E.R. agents, go to a discotheque, and do a bunch of mind altering substances. You can... imagine the trouble we got up to, as I often do too, as there are only some of those escapades that I can still remember. Regardless, there is one night I'll never forget. This lady just... bewitches me, she's dancing like, like some sort of amazing electrocuted slug, and she's got wonderful eyelashes, and she's wearing this crazy brassiere-as-a-shirt with like this thin, silky suit jacket over it... Eyeliner like a dead raccoon... The look worked, trust me. Regardless, she gave me this come hither look, and soon enough we were in the outhouse together. Oh, it was magical. Wondrous. A glorious experience, like a kaleidoscope of prismatic colors dancing around juxstaposed with the rank odor of manure... What a timeless memory. Well, I think it is a memory. Funny thing is, you know, I do barely remember it, and sometimes I wonder if I really am remembering it, or if I'm only remembering my memory of it. Either way, there is one thing that I'll always remember, forever and always, and that was when I woke up the morning after the fact. I woke up in my friend's van pod and everyone screamed. They said 'Agent 42! Agent 42!!' except they said my actual name, and then I said 'What?' and my friends told me that I looked like I'd just been axe murdered. I asked them what they meant, they told me to look into a mirror ball, so I did - and by the pincers of Theseosus I could not believe what I beheld. I looked just like this, face all bloody and maimed awfully. Truly it was a terrifhying experience to behold. And now, and probably forever I guess, it just flares up every once and a while. So, the lesson is, always use protection, Agent 18. Always, or you'll end up like me."
Agent 18 balked and frowned in disgust. "Wow, Agent 42, wow. This... changes everything I thought I knew about you. Have a nice day, I guess."
Before Kahli could say another word, Agent 18 had closed up their pod and zoomed off.
"I can't believe that worked," said Sahdi with a gasp.
"Yea, well, get ready for things to get even crazier," said Kahli with a smirk.
----------------------------------------
"Yes, I'll be happy to take a look at your robot friend, Agent 42," said the agent manning the technology bay, a small tented hub in the facility that was surrounded by pistons and gears and big, rocky towers. Clearly, this agent was a metal elemental, and rare subsect of stone elementals.
Kahli had to hold back her interest, as it was still her duty to pilot Agent 42. "Yes, thank you, Agent 55."
Agent 55 had pleaded to Agent 42 to cover his face somehow, saying that it was disturbing and uncomfortable to look at. However, Kahli had argued on Agent 42's behalf, stating that he had a right to live without having to cover himself due to his rare affliction, and told Agent 55 to be wary of how he talked down to the less fortunate. That was enough to get Agent 55 to stop trying to inquire as to why exactly Agent 42 looked so gruesome and instead take Unit 5a23 over to his desk to begin work.
While the agent pittered away, Kahli and Sahdi dragged Agent 42's corpse over to a collection of small leather chairs into a side tent that smelled like grease and burnt coffee. A small conch was sitting on a table. It was playing the sound of the latest ballcross game, a popular sport in Nomachiato - in fact, it was the world's most popular. Kahli's team, the Burning Water Dragons was one of the best, but also great at letting their fans down, and this game was, disappointingly enough, no exception. Kahli tried not to listen, it was like a pod crash gone wrong that you just couldn't help to watch as the team scored point after point against hers. She was just glad that she wasn't wearing anything to identify herself as a fan. Last time she did that in a public place - not that she was certain as to whether this facility could rightly be considered a public place, but still - she'd been yelled at and heckled like some sort of a sideshow character. Of course, that had been the day that her team had won a game, but had only won it due to a minor technicality. That minor technicality had been a fluke event where one of the people watching and reviewing the game had mistakenly ruled a point earned by the rival ballcross team as an antipoint, which somehow all ten game reviewers managed to collectively hallucinate as indeed an antipoint when all other spectators agreed that it should have been a normal point. This discrepancy had, in many ways, generated some unwanted animosity towards the Burning Water Dragons.
"Hey, is Agent 42 okay? He looks... dead," said an agent who'd walked up and sat next to them.
"What?" Kahli looked up at the agent, then looked to Agent 42, who was slumped over in his seat with his tongue hanging out. "Oh, no, no, he's just sleeping. He's had a long day, trust me, it's crazy out there."
"Don't I know that!" said the agent with a wink.
Then, Agent 42's head popped clean off. Only a little splattering of blood pooled out from his neck at this - it wasn't like he'd been alive or anything.
"Okay, what the fuck is going on?" said the agent. They pulled out some sort of ray weapon and pointed it at Kahli. "Seriously, I need some answers."