POV: Smith

We're walking inconspicuously through the high-security area, disguised as some high-ranking officers we've living-disadvantaged recently.

"Okay, Taylor, just one last, minor distraction and then we have to escort our wonky ally to the courtroom. And by minor, I don't mean how your sweetheart sees you."

He flippantly replies, "Yeah, yeah, the ancient nerd has earned his visit to his family. But what is-"

I interrupt him as we walk by a stationary guard who is seemingly slacking off. I shout at him, "What am I seeing here!? Checking your phone while you should be standing guard?"

The guard tries to stammer some excuses, "But sir! What is there to guard?"

Damn lazy blueberries. Have they no respect for this universe at all?

"I don't want to hear your excuses. Slackers like you have already cost the big boss his life. If the likes of you had done your job that Eva-bitch wouldn't have gotten through to him. You need some more motivation. State your name, soldier!"

"Belu Hyu-Min, sir."

I turn to Taylor, "You heard it. Make sure he gets an adequate write-up and reeducation. It'll be a lot of work to get this group back up to par, what a pathetic state...."

I take a little box out of my pocket and hand it to the shaking soldier, "Give this to Dr. Fluke when he's back. He ordered this thing and I just happened to be on the same way as the delivery guy."

Of course, Dr. Fluke is less... living-capable than yesterday, and mister slacker here will soon follow.

The guard salutes, "Affirmative, sir. Leave it to me."

Taylor nods and we move on, leaving the sobbing mess of a deva behind.

Seriously, if this is the best personnel they can find to secure these abominations I'm surprised the universe is still standing... Everyone knows they were just lucky when they initially captured them and now... now they don't even take this risk seriously...

After a few steps, my partner-in-crime asks me, "What was in that box?"

"Just some explosives, primed of course. Should make for some nice fireworks when we leave. So what were you saying earlier?"

Taylor answers, "I wanted to know what exactly we're trying to do here. A visit to the glitch containment sector wasn't on my agenda."

"It wasn't on mine either but I thought the guys in our labs could use another sample or three of these glitch souls. If nothing else, we can use them as another distraction when we finally leave. Can't ever have enough plan Bs."

"But did the boss give his OK for this? Freeing these freaking abominations is-"

I interrupt him, "Something that would likely happen anyway if our exit goes exactly as planned. I'm just making sure it happens at the exactly right time."

We walk a few more minutes in silence and then arrive at our destination. The door... is unmanned. Typical.

Admittedly, I should be glad that they make my job easier, but I'm not. The fate of the universe is at stake here. Take this shit more seriously!!

I use the ID card we swiped from Dr. Fluke and open the door. No one is inside either.

Really, no guards at all? This is even more pathetic than I imagined...

There's a schedule on the wall, it says there should be 3 people on guard today. They are marked as currently on lunch break, sick and deceased respectively. HR needs to be fired. Into a volcano.

Do you really want to tell me you have a literal whole planet's population working for this single branch of your organization and you can't freaking find a replacement!?

I really should make sure this doesn't get to me as much, my blood pressure is already ass, and having to just suck this stupidity up doesn't do me any favors. I need to check with my doc for a new medicine type or dose when we get back, the current one doesn't suffice with how much these devas' incompetence kills me...

Shoving the distracting thoughts aside, we look around a bit, and my colleague points out the obvious, "Uh, Smith? There's only one defective soul left. Didn't you say there should be three?"

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"That's at least what my initial research concluded. Here", I hand Taylor the syringes, "get some samples from that abomination. I'll search the document cabinet for some clues."

He accepts, "Got it, Smith. Any specific parts you want samples from?"

"No clue, that would require me to know how these things are composed. No one does. Just choose some random spots, whatever looks different or interesting to your eyes. Trust your guts on this."

He nods and goes to work while I plunder the cabinet.

A quick search already yields the files I was looking for, "So not only are the devas unbelievably incompetent but also their hyper-inflated bureaucracy bites them in the ass..."

Can I migrate to a different universe? This is just embarrassing...

I quickly check through the documentation, "In summary, there were five of these glitch souls... Two were delivered to a research lab, one of those was destroyed due to mishandling, the other was brought back... but there's no confirmation of receipt? Eh, why am I surprised, they've been sloppy with everything else so far, so why not with their paper trail as well. The destroyed soul supposedly had a special property where it can travel through dreams. How the hell did you manage to contain something like that!? With your slacker guards nearby it would always have an escape route!! Did it not want to escape, or are your freaks dreaming such disturbing things that they scarred the poor abomination for all eternity!?"

Unbelievable. These living horrors have the potential to destroy all of reality and they just... urgh!!

"...in contrast, they found nothing special about the other specimen aside from generic glitch contaminations."

Conspicuously, all the handwritings are the same. Almost robotically identical even, certainly not natural.

Does that mean the devas have more infiltrators than just us? Wouldn't really surprise me. Their security is as lackluster as can be, only two dozen guards ever suspected that we were up to something, and everyone else immediately caved to our orders when we presented stolen badges of high-authority personnel. Such poorly trained dogs. We didn't even know what the people we imitate behave like but no one ever questioned rank. Fools.

And with their usual mingling, the devas clearly don't endear themselves to everyone. Most people don't like it if a random outsider enforces their worldview on them with the threat of eternal damnation.

Anyway, what does the documentation say about the other souls, "The remaining three... one tried to break out and was gunned down. It seemed to ignore anything that was in a different state of motion as itself. That's basically tame for what glitches can usually do to reality. And the two remaining ones are just documented as being here, no paperwork on one of them being somewhere else. No listed known quirks."

They have a potentially reality-threatening glitch being on the loose and no one fricking cares!

Calm down, Smith, calm down. Think of your blood pressure.

"Taylor, how much longer do you-", I stop when I see something happening in one of the empty capsules.

A green-black vaguely person-shaped mass appears in it and collapses into a glowy-white, roughly soul-like shape.

"What the..."

Why did that creature just remind me of Sally? ...I know she's dead. Does this glitch soul have the ability to create some kind of illusion? Draw forth repressed memories?

...that won't work on me so easily, buddy.

Taylor asks me, "What's wrong, Smith?"

I turn to him, "It seems the missing creature is back. It's-", but when I look over to our new guest, it is already gone again.

"...or I'm slowly going mad. Never mind then, let's finish quickly and then go to the meeting place. Any problems with the samples?"

He shrugs, "No, and that is what me extra nervous. The thing is too docile. No wild flailing tentacles, no reality-defying abilities, no nothing. In fact, it helped me with the sample taking by pointing out a conspicuous spot I should use."

"Yeah, clearly going mad. I could swear I heard you just saying the glitch abomination helped you..."

He shrugs, "It did."

Not only did Taylor just tell me that the glitch soul... "helped" him, but it is also waggling its tentacles like a dog its tail. I'm clearly going mad over here.

"Forget it, give me the rundown later when we're on the ship. Big G is waiting for us."

Before I can collect my thoughts again, I hear the door slide open and an unknown voice shouts at us, "Hey, what are you doing here?! No one is authorized to enter!"

Finally some resistance. I show him the stolen badge, "I'm Dr. Fluke, of course, I'm authorized to be here. This is MY lab!"

He pulls his gun, "Negative, I know what Dr. Fluke looks like. He's-"

Stab

"My dear Taylor, I was about to finally have some fun..."

Taylor pulls the knife out of his newest victim, "Is that so? I thought we were in a hurry."

I begrudgingly admit, "Yeah, you're right."

He grabs the body and tries to feed it to the glitch soul, "Hey buddy, want some fresh food? It's on the house today."

"Just leave them there. I don't care what your new friend does, be it eat the corpse or escape - we've got places to be."

Taylor mock-salutes, "Yes, sir!"

We leave the containment room and seal it again. Let the dog-glitch-soul-thingy do whatever it wants, it isn't my problem anymore. Maybe it'll break out of its cell and follow its new owner Taylor home. I wanna see Bert's face should our 'puppy' really follow Taylor.

My colleague asks me, "So any bets on whether they'll declare the chick guilty or innocent at the trial?"

"That's a tough one. If the devas did their jobs properly they'd find her innocent, 100%, and reinstate her in the system. But given their competence, or rather lack thereof, she'll most likely be found guilty of deicide and then completely purged."

"Are you sure? I heard Dr. Allheil will testify on her behalf. His word holds a lot of weight."

"So what? Prof Placebo's area of expertise concerns glitches, allegedly his main focus concerns curing their victims. But so far, he has nothing to show for it. He can talk all he wants but he has nothing of substance to contribute to her plea. In fact, I'd love nothing more than to rub in his face how we've stolen and misused his research to improve the Defects. Maybe that will get the ass to make some tangible progress instead of empty theories."

Taylor puts his hand on my shoulder and tells me with a threatening tone, "Smith, he may be a deva, but he is one of the few that actually does something worthwhile for the universe. His research could save all of our asses, so leave him out of your revenge schemes!"

Fanboy...