"How do you do it?" Andrew is still sitting on the floor, next to the door, with his arms resting on his knees, and his dead lowered. It sure did take a toll on him.
"What?" I ask. We've been sitting here for the past 5 minutes. I hope he gets a grip on himself soon.
"Working without a mask, I can still smell it. It's like… It's stuck in my nose," he groans, his hair slightly wet after he had washed his face at the nearby wall fountain.
I shrug my shoulders, "You'll get used to it eventually. I recognize the smell but it doesn't really get through to me. If that makes sense."
"I hope you're right."
I look at him and stay silent. There isn't much I can say to make the situation any better for him, so we have to sit it out. Finally, he raises his head, taking a deep breath, then he nods to himself.
"I'm ready. I can do this," he huffs as he gets up from the floor, picking up the mask on his way up. I nod and wait for him to get his mask back on and secured, then I turn to head back to the cages. The dome is so huge it's hard to see far. There's no chance at this late hour to see from one side to the other.
And even by daylight, it would be hard. There are a lot of things obscuring the path of sight – from bird cages, spring fountains, and ponds of all sizes, to trees and bushes. The flora is kept neatly in shape, nothing seems wild or growing out of control, but everything is arranged in a way that conveys a sense of an outside scenery.
Not that any of us would know what it feels and looks like to stand in the middle of nature; there is nothing but decay and rot out there. But if it wasn't for the meticulously cut bushes and trees I doubt anyone could tell the difference between the real nature that once was, and the artificial nature we face here.
"So… What's the plan?" He tries to fill the silence. I know he feels uncomfortable.
"We get rid of the corpse first." I try to sound as normal as possible. I'm annoyed by the whole situation, but I also know that Andrew is only partially to blame. Some people have to make mistakes to learn. This particular situation could have happened with any rookie, to be fair. But I'm still annoyed.
"Then we start cleaning. We must get rid of everything in and outside of the cage. And since we're dealing with wild beasts we have to clear the weave as well. Animals are sensitive to lingering emotions," I explain, throwing a glance at him while we navigate back to the cages.
"I've been part of a weave-cleaning process already." He sounds proud of himself, and I let it slide. I already don't want to deal with this anymore. When did my skin become so thin?
"That's good, it will make it easier." I need to see it from a positive angle. I won't have to explain every little detail to him, that's worth something, right?
What did he even do the past two months? Ah, I guess I'm being unfair here. He has had simple jobs that don't necessarily cover everything that's part of my regular scenes. We're divided into levels, which makes assigning jobs easier, and he hasn't been assigned to a high-level job before.
There are only a handful of cleaners working in the upper city, mainly because there are multiple stations, and ours isn't that close to the upper city. But in general, the trust of the upper city must be earned. And then there are the upper city stations as well. To be fair, though, the job of a cleaner of the upper city is different. A lot different.
Sure, they could find someone to clean up gore, but they cost a fortune and aren't discrete. There's no trust between the wealthy and the upper-city cleaners. Because the cleaners here are just as wealthy and will stop at nothing to get some dirt on other people, so if they are willing to get their hands dirty it's because they hope for juicy intel.
The stations of the upper city are more like information brokers; they provide the information another person might need to 'clean' – which means getting rid of the competition. And once they got rid of whoever, they call us to do the actual cleaning. We need these jobs; we don't have the security to sell out secrets and jeopardize our jobs by doing so. It's in our interest to keep our mouths shut and do our job well.
I don't really associate the upper city cleaners with us and we aren't in touch with the stations up there. I guess the core idea of stations in the upper city aligned with ours when they were first established, but it just didn't work out. The name stuck but their job changed significantly.
I walk right over to my suitcase and kneel in front of it. After that little excursion, I change my gloves, just for good measure, and get the scanner sphere out. Due to its weight, I roll it over the ground toward Andrew.
"Worked with this before?"
"No? What's that?"
"Scanner sphere," I answer drily, I couldn't be any more interested even if I wanted to. I guess poor Andrew just has to live with that now.
"Oh, I've heard of it." He sounds excited, more than I ever did in my whole life, because of a sphere. Then again it's probably his history background speaking.
"I'd be surprised if you didn't. Our station only has one, and there are only three in the whole city," I explain, not because it matters but because it seems like that's the kind of information he likes to get. I can be nice sometimes, okay?
"I imagine. Weavespheres are extremely hard to alter, even for the best Archists. It's a science in itself." There he is, in his element. I watch him pick up the sphere and I can't help but be mildly amused by his facial expression upon the sudden realization of how heavy it is despite its size. It is the size of a ball children use to play with in the streets.
"Gods, how are you carrying this around all day long? It's heavy," he snorts, trying to sound teasing but I can tell he has a hard time holding it properly. He tries to act like it's nothing in an attempt to mock me. I guess he thought I would simply collapse under the weight because of my rather slender build. But the thing is; strength isn't always displayed in muscle mass.
"Habit." I can't help but sigh – is this the way we handle conversations now? By micro insults hidden along the lines?
"Must be it, you don't strike me as a particularly strong person." He really tries to push this matter now. I'm so tired of this.
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"Neither do you right now," I return the insult but in a much calmer matter. "Activate it."
He glares at me for a moment, but his focus switches back to the sphere. He gives the sphere a glance-over, probably to see how it works, but then finds the little cavity and pushes it. I take a deep, relieved breath the moment the hum starts to emit from the sphere. It never fails to put me at ease.
Even though Andrew doesn't really know what he's doing, he is adapting fairly well to the sphere. If his studies taught him anything about artifacts, it's that they'll do their thing just fine without human intervention. The moment it starts to hover, he lowers his hands, slowly letting go of the sphere. He doesn't trust it to not plumage down right away, so he is cautious, but I can't hold that against him.
He is handling a new tool correctly – with caution. That's how it should be, and I have experienced the opposite with past rookies. It's not much of a problem with the sphere, but other tools could – and did – cause quite some problems. So, for once, I approve of Andrew. Rare, I know.
The sphere activates its purple light, covering every inch around us. "That's so much more effective than the flashlight." He's right, that's why I technically prefer it despite its weight, I just really don't want to carry this thing to every single crime scene I have to attend.
"True, but the flashlights are handier, to be fair. Dragging this thing around all day long has its downside."
"Yeah, for you, maybe. Maybe you should work out a little more. I'll be taking this baby everywhere." I don't even want to react to this anymore, but I have to, don't I?
"I have to inform you that the sphere is reserved for high-level jobs."
"Another reason to climb the ladder of success!"
I… I give up. It's not worth it. It really isn't. He'll eat away on my nerves even faster if I keep trying.
"Good luck." It's all I can muster. We've wasted more than enough time anyway, so I get to attend the Weave. I don't have to explain the details to Andrew, which makes this a lot easier. And it is a lot easier with the two of us. There are a lot of emotions here. Mainly fear, but also awe, intrigue, intimidation, and of course the dread and pain of the victim.
I've dealt with scenes here before; the hard part is to leave the beasts' emotions untouched. They are very subtle and primal, which should make them easy to distinguish. But it's never that easy. They are underlying and can be so vivid that it's sometimes hard to tell that they are even there, at least for us humans.
Removing them, or cutting out parts of them, can lead to unpredictable reactions from the beasts. They are extremely sensitive to lingering emotions and use their own to identify their home, their pack, their surroundings. Especially when kept in cages. They can't roam around freely to rub their scent on everything they deem their own, but their simple emotions can travel beyond the cage.
It's thought that some beasts can even communicate using the Weave. It's what we often perceive as the sixth sense and it's speculated that this extends to some children before they grow up and lose their natural touch with the Weave. The Arch currently tries to find out if the twin phenomena is likely to be based on the Weave as well.
"You move up to the entrance, I'll take care of the inside of the cage," I instruct him, but I am met with a rather stubborn reaction, "Why do I get to do the boring part? The emotions fizzle out, like, two steps away from the cage."
"Because you do not have enough training to distinguish the emotions of humans and beasts."
"You wish. I'll let you know that we did tests with animals, if there's someone able to recognize the emotions of animals it's me."
I eye him up and down, trying to find anything in his posture or expression that could support or dismiss his claim – I can find neither.
"No. You go there, I stay here," I insist. And I won't change my mind. If anything happens here it's on me. Andrew is my responsibility today and he hasn't given me much reason to trust him or his abilities. He has a solid background and good knowledge but he hasn't given me anything to prove him worthy. For all I know he may fuck this up severely.
If he was a little more grounded, a little more honest I would let him handle the inside of the cage under my supervision. But if he isn't working with me I'm not giving him access to the more dangerous parts of the job.
He grunts in annoyance, throwing his hand up in frustration. "Fine, have it your way."
"Rookie… Mr. Morell," I try to appeal to his common sense, "If you don't keep calm I will have to remove you from the scene and send you back to the station. Your emotion can make this whole scene so much worse."
He pauses and looks at me, knowing fully well that I am right. He raises his shoulders, ready to defend himself, but then he seems to get a hold of himself, his posture relaxing a little.
"Yeah, yeah, sure. Sorry…" He doesn't sound genuine but at least he tries to get a hold of his frustration and turns away to attend to his portion of the Weave. I'll leave it to him to deal with his own emotions. Maybe he'll learn that way because everything he experiences right now gets stuck in the Weave.
The more things he feels the more emotions he'll have to cut repeatedly. I don't even want to imagine how much of my exhaustion's residue Mrs. Morell had to cut at the Lane mansion. Thomas really made the right call back then, I didn't even realize how much I handicapped myself.
Pushing ourselves too hard when dealing with unfamiliar emotions can lead to a vicious cycle that's impossible to break without help. I rarely get into such situations, so when they occur I have a hard time recognizing my limits and accepting defeat. Luckily it happens very rarely.
I follow the Weave, cutting any emotion I can find that is connected to the crime, meticulously leaving out Betty's own emotions. It's usually not how we handle things; getting rid of the perpetrator's emotions is a key element of almost all scenes – but usually, the assailant isn't a beast. So this is one of the rare cases where I have to cut around the hunger and the instinct to hunt and kill. I have to ignore the satisfaction of inflicting pain and fatal wounds.
I knit my eyebrows together… Something feels off. I see a pull on one of the strands in the Weave, and suddenly it gets cut. I snap my gaze at Andrew who's just standing right outside of the cage, grinning at me.
"Sorry, you looked so focused I just had to!" He sounds like a child who's absolutely proud of himself doing something so stupid he can't even grasp it. His mocking grin, however, gets suddenly interrupted by a mind-numbing roar from Marceline's cage. She felt that. They are all connected over the Weave, they feel each other, and at the same time, they are too primitive to tell what exactly happened.
For all she knows something may have happened to Betty just now and it makes her furious. "Get out..." I told him I would remove him from the scene, and I'll do so right now. I can't deal with this kindergarten, not while surrounded by wild beasts. Yes, they are caged, but the last thing I need is them getting all upset and adding to the pile of work.
"Killjoy. No wonder you're so boring and lonely." How would he even know, but fine, I don't want to have this conversation now… or ever.
I retract my steps and get out of the cage, just to be rattled by the sudden sound of Marceline throwing her whole body at her enclosure's metal bars. Her force shakes to whole floor, the sound of her weight against the bars is deafening. With a tab I deactivate the sphere, catching it midair – It's more my reflexes than active reaction.
"You're aware of the fact that your action just forced us to take a break until Marceline has calmed down?" I don't like to speak that loudly, but if my voice was any lower Andrew wouldn't be able to hear me with Marceline rampaging right next to us.
"Sure it was me and not your cold-ass demeanor?" He snarls at me, visibly annoyed at the whole situation, but being in contact with the Weave just now I can tell he's trying to mask fear. He is so intimidated by Marceline's aggressive reaction that he is trembling ever so slightly. I could have missed it if it wasn't for my altered senses right now.
So I take the lead. It doesn't seem like he is able to move on his own right now, the fear and some basic instincts prevent him from bolting to the door. Everything he knows tells him that sudden movements may agitate the beasts more so his brain just shut off. I stuff the sphere into my suitcase and head to the door; suitcase in one, Andrew's wrist in the other hand. At least he follows despite his mental stupor.
I don't run, but I sure as hell want to get away from Marceline as fast as possible without giving her more reason to give chase. But then I hear a sound that breaks me into a sprint: the sound of her cage door breaking open.