“It seems like everyone I’ve been introduced to by Summers has a lot more, I dunno gravitas, than I initially realized.” I commented while listening to the other two playing Halo, I didn’t watch the screen because of my brain flipping out but I had a decent idea of how it was going just from the sounds.
“Oh?” Jake prompted while Mike was fuming about missing some shot or other.
“Yeah, apparently I am going to be learning something about fighting from Molly and, key title here, Colonel Brant.” I continued.
“Colonel? Isn’t that like…” He trailed off
“Someone pretty important? I imagine so, googling says people that sort of rank are in charge of bases, ships, or stuff like that.” I continued.
“Didn’t you say Summers was ordering her about?” Mike asked.
“Not like explicitly, but she was doing whatever he asked.” I confirmed.
“Well, we know his minimum authority now.” Jake commented wryly.
My phone started to ring in my pocket. “Speak of the devil… Hi Summers, what’s up?”
Jake commented something about how I didn’t seem too worked up about his authority.
“Hello Sam, we have some more information on the Friday incident, but could you come in to talk about it?”
“Sure, do you mean to the hospital?”
“No, I will send you the address in a moment.” He clarified.
“OK. “ I acknowledged getting increasingly confused. “Did you want me there at a specific time?”
“No, just as soon as possible, I understand if you need to have dinner but try to be prompt.”
“Yeah, let me just get something quick, and then I will head over.”
“Thanks, Sam. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Click.
I just stared at my phone for a while.
“That sounded weird,” Mike commented. “I only got your half but that sure seems like, hey we know a thing but can’t talk outside of a secure location.”
“Sam, did you get yourself into Bond shit by being kidnapped?” Jake added. “Possibly secret training and now definitely secret information.”
“Sure, seems like it.” I agreed with a sigh, then my phone dinged with a email notification. I stared at the address and instructions of entry for a bit, then looked down at my clothes and back at the email.
“Guys, are leggings acceptable dress to a secret underground base in the middle of downtown?”
----------------------------------------
I considered the sign beside the door for a moment, while this nondescript office building has a bunch of other businesses listed there’s the Government of Canada down at the bottom. So I guess its not that secret, it doesn’t explicitly say what it is though so I guess they are at least not trying to actively attract attention with whatever it is.
When I entered the lobby was like one in any of these sorts of buildings, a coffee shop, a front desk with a bored-looking person, and the other basic business stuff. Then on top of this is a collection of random pieces of décor, like an upside-down canoe full of Kirby paraphernalia hanging from the ceiling, and a pair of elevators one of which with an out of order sign that had a cat picture on it.
You know, corporate trying to be cool stuff.
After checking the instructions on my phone again, I bypassed the front desk, not quite avoiding the stare the guy there was giving me. Then headed for a hallway that was lined with meeting rooms with painful names on their door, the theme seemed to be Star Wars and candy. I passed a Jellybean Tatooine and Chocolate Dagobah before deciding that paying attention to the names would probably cause mental damage. Eventually, the hall ended with a second green painted lobby area with a few vending machines and a set of fancy stairs going both up into the rest of the building above and down beneath.
As I descended two or three floors without any doors, the feel of the building rapidly changed. The fancy stairs just stopped at the first landing, replaced with simple concrete with anti-slip rubber applied. The green paint was replaced with a sterile white where the walls weren’t bare clean grey concrete.
The stairs ended looking down a short hallway, maybe the length of our house or less. The end of it was occupied with a heavy wooden desk stretching from wall to wall with thick glass running from the surface to the ceiling with holes through it for speaking and one of those gates like at a bus terminal for handing stuff through to the person behind it without being able to touch them.
To the left of the desk was a pair of meaty doors, while not quite bunker tier I don’t think I could have kicked those down. The guy behind the glass glanced up at me as my clanks and hisses echoed off the hard surfaces around me, I mostly didn’t notice them anymore, but I was very aware of them this time as I came to a stop in front of the desk.
“Uh hello, I’m here to see Summers?” I said uncertainly.
“ID please, driver’s license or photo ID.” He asked in a quiet but no-nonsense tone
I fished in my handbag for a second, finding my wallet then pulled my ID card out and put it in the gate. He spent a couple of moments after placing it on a scanner of some sort looking between his screen and me. It was kinda weird not being taken for granted off my appearance alone, but hey he seemed serious about his job.
He passed my card back through, then entered something on his computer.
“OK, go in. You will be met by someone, stay with them it’s easy to get lost.” He said as a loud clack of an electromagnet activating came from the doors, and the one I grabbed smoothly swung on its hinges. The guy who met me in casual wear called himself Frank but he didn’t really give much else of an introduction, instead simply taking me down a winding series of halls to a nondescript meeting room. As I was shown in it appeared that I had interrupted an ongoing discussion as a bunch of people looked at me.
Summers obviously, Colonel Brant in an indie band shirt of all things, then Ivy, Molly, and Peter. The rest were a mix of faces I didn’t know.
Seriously getting some weird feels off this.
“Hello Sam, thanks for coming.” Summers said while indicating a chair.
“Sorry I took a while, I had to take the bus.” I said sheepishly, wondering how long they had been waiting for me.
“No problem, we didn’t give you any warning after all.”
I noticed a plate with a few remaining donuts and Timbits on it in the middle of the desk, plus there was also a plate of woodchips beside that.
Neat.
Molly gave me a wave that I returned as I sat down. I was tempted to grab a chip but paid attention to Summers instead, not wanting to be rude.
“I wasn’t going to have us revisit all the details we have already discussed.” Summers began. “But I will let Wilson give you the quick summary since it’s primarily his team’s work anyway.”
He gestured at one of the faces I didn’t know, a young black man with short hair who nodded a couple of times quickly.
“Ah, yeah. We conducted a few interviews with the mercenaries, in exchange for reduced sentences where possible. Everything was done with dead drops, and their instructions implied that this intended to be a series of grabs.” He started unsteadily but seemed to get into it, occasionally glancing at his laptop and then back at me.
He paused for a second as a thought crossed his mind “Er, it’s worth mentioning that they will mostly recover, even if it might take a while. They were able to reattach Riley Bradley’s fingers and while some of them will be in physio for a long time you mostly avoided permanent damage, Patrick Robertson’s right pointer being the main exception.”
I nodded uncomfortably, while I didn’t know the names it was pretty obvious who he was referring to, I was glad to hear the news even if it was a reminder of what I had done to them. After looking at me for a few moments uncertainly Wilson launched back into the main topic.
“The truck with the portal was delivered to the garage by an unknown party, your class schedule and a report on Roger’s behavior were collected from a mailbox, and the grabbed people were going to be left at an arbitrary intersection in a forest.”
He paused for a drink from his mug before continuing.
“Every one of the mercenaries in this cell was a veteran with experience in at least one conflict zone. None of them knows who hired them as it was all, again, done by dead drops. They knew their specific tasks and had only a minimum of documentation for operating the portal. Unfortunately, that’s about as far as their knowledge extends. We will be able to know more by analyzing the components in the device but that’s more going to give us generalities like a possible time range in which it was built, suppliers to pull information from, etcetera.” He finished.
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“That sounds concerning,” I responded lamely then tried to follow up. “So, this is something big then?”
“Sure, looks like it,” Molly said glumly before Wilson could respond. “Someone is throwing around some crazy tech and hiring mercs to do hits in Canada, that’s not the work of some random asshole.”
A heavy silence fell for a few moments, then she cleared her throat.
“So, that’s the actual update but we didn’t want you in here just for that alone.“ She hesitated for a second then continued a little guiltily. “You may have guessed that some of us haven’t really been entirely honest about what we get up to.”
“Summers and I thought you might be a good fit for us already and to be honest the way you handled yourself last week reinforced that.” She glanced at Summers who nodded and took back the conversation.
“We are going to extend an offer to bring you into the Clash Resolution Department as a field agent, you would be helping members of the public who have been negatively affected by clashes and prevent the misuse of artifacts.”
“I assure you that it normally doesn’t involve kidnappers or anything dramatic like that, it’s more about helping people who weren’t able to peacefully adapt to their changes.” He said with a wry grin, then indicated Molly. “Molly is probably best suited to talk about that.”
“I’m our existing field agent, I spend most of my time helping people by either getting them out of tough places or preventing them from causing harm to others or themselves,” Molly started with her reintroduction. “I wasn’t lying when I said my power is inconsistent, but I have an artifact which helps even it out.
“What can I offer to help people? All I have is raw force I guess…” I asked uncertainly.
“Honestly that and the desire to help people is basically my job already.” Molly countered. “Just let me set out the most common scenarios I have to deal with.”
She held up a hand with three fingers out.
“One, someone scared by their change and just aimlessly running away from anyone else. That’s me going off to talk to them, offer a ride back and a way into our support network.” She explained while dropping a finger.
“Two, someone decides to be a supervillain or otherwise use their change in a hostile manner, in which case I go and prevent them from harming anyone, including themselves.” She shrugged. “Most of those people are just on a power rush or disadvantaged in some way which, again, our support network can help with.”
“Finally, going to pick up some sketchy artifact or whatever. That’s just being observant and sensible, no worries there.” She finished dropping the last finger.
“So far as I’m concerned you check all the boxes we’ve been looking for in another agent.” She said giving me a grin. “A possibly reckless desire to help people, thinking on your feet, and the strength to take people down without injuries.”
“But I brutally-“
“You took out five armed and trained guys in about a minute, without killing them, and that’s without any experience at all.” She pointed out, then grinned again. “I just need to teach you how to do it without injuring them, that’s why you’re gonna be under me for a bit!”
I fidgeted in my chair while considering what she had said. I am really not sure how I feel about being brought on for my combat abilities but at the same time, it was playing to my literal strengths.
“I am still worried about what happens when I mess up, I could easily land someone in hospital or kill them with the kind of force I put out,” I said frowning. “This isn’t a game where there’s a magic knock someone out without injuries option.”
“That’s why I think you’re a good fit for the role, you are already considering the consequences of your actions,” Summers interjected with a smile. “I was paying attention when you described how you fought on Friday, and you were considering them even while they were trying to shoot you.”
“That’s exactly what we’re looking for,” Molly said cheerfully into the gap. “I can give you the tools to solve problems, but there’s only so much I can do to give you the mindset we want.”
Summers then picked up again. “It’s not expected to be free labor either, we will fairly compensate you for your time even if it’s not exactly a traditional hourly part-time job affair. We can give you a bit of time to think about it if you want, otherwise, I have the paperwork for it right here.”
Well, there’s no way this isn’t going to be interesting at least.
“Sure I’m in.”
Summers smiled.
“I expected that answer.” He said while picking up the binder of papers to offer it to me. “Most of this is confidentiality related, please read it through it carefully. we’ll take a quick break while you do so.”
----------------------------------------
OK, I think that was the last place I needed to sign, but I scanned over the whole pile again just in case.
Looks good.
Whirrrrr
“OK, I think I have all of it done,” I said aloud while putting it back in the binder and moving to offer it to Summers who had been watching. “Her-“
Ca clunk veeeeeeeee
Converting contract to low-grade chain zero – Clash Resolution Department Non-Disclosure, status in progress
…
Conversion complete, reloading normal process
Why was I holding my arm out?
Oh right I was giving the contract to Summers. Wait, wasn’t I just processing a chain?
“Here.” I finished the thought, realizing he wasn’t where I was looking anymore. Then I noticed the hand on my shoulder, turning I saw Summers had moved to my side and was looking at me with concern.
“Sam, are you with us?”
I blinked a couple of times
“Yes?”
“What happened?” He asked while relaxing a touch.
“I’m pretty sure I was loading the contract as a...” I said a bit uncertain as to how to describe it. “Reminder? Warning?”
“Sorry, I wasn’t expecting that,” I said getting embarrassed, a few coils of steam passing through my vision. “How long was I… out?”
“One to two minutes at most.” He answered while I glanced around the mostly empty room. There was a mixture of concern and confusion among the few who were there.
“Oh, that’s not so bad.” I said sagging with relief.
“Is it a problem?” Summer asked. “I know you’ve talked about the chains being pretty defining for you.”
“Oh no it’s not like that, I could just ignore it I am pretty sure. It’s more that I know it’s there in a weird way.” I said waving off the concern, then made an observation wryly. “Well, I am pretty sure I will have a better awareness of the contract than most people.”
He gave me a steady stare then sighed.
“Well, please don’t hesitate to say if there’s anything I can do to help.” He said finally accepting the offered folder as background conversations started up again. The remaining people were filing back into the room and settling in at this point, so Summers went back to his chair.
“With you joining us, I may as well do the introductions I skipped over earlier,” Summers said.
“This is Wilson, he’s an analyst that you will probably see fairly often.” Summers began with the person who had spoken when I arrived.
“You’ve met Mary before, she’s in charge of any forces placed under operations for us.” She nodded.
“Mrs. Joncas is our liaison with our sister organizations, she has been in contact with officials in California already.” He said while indicating the graying haired sharp-faced woman.
“Mr. Jung-Hoon is our general catch-all logistics, figuring out getting us what we need and enlisting the support of other Canadian organizations.” The older man gave a quick wave.
“You know me under my changee doctor’s hat but I’m also the director here, we have few enough new changees these days that I can handle both.” He said as a self-introduction. “Now as for moving forward on kidnapping, the lack of information does limit us in proactively preventing future incidents but that doesn’t leave us nothing. Wilson is planning on chasing what he can of the information they let slip.”
“Yeah, usually stuff like this is only surface level obscured. You can do dead drops all you want but there’s always a mistake or unavoidable contact point, it’s mostly to hide things for long enough.” Wilson said before shrugging. “We might not get to it while the information is actionable but it at the very least will give us an idea of how they operate.”
“Thank you, Wilson. Now Peter was going to help our technicians with analysis of the portal device as we need to get progress on hopefully returning those people to their homes without nearly killing someone to do it” Summers added.
“Yeah, I may have not totally explained my abilities before,” Peter said with a conspiratorial smile. “I have a pretty good idea of how gadgets I pull out work and I can usually apply it to real stuff too, even if the tech doesn’t really operate by our rules.”
There was a bit of a pause in the conversation, which I was guessing was Ivy saying something judging where everyone else was looking.
“Oh, I can speak for you Ivy! She was saying that she usually helps with negotiations and translations in general.” Molly relayed. “She’s in the midst of helping with getting the rescued hostages housed until we can figure out how to get them home again.”
“Oh, one caveat on your role.” Summers raised with an associated finger and deadly serious expression. “Anything dangerous, anything, will wait until we are certain we can both make spare parts and that your body doesn’t reject them. Peter, I want your team helping with that when they can too.”
After an enthusiastic thumbs up from Peter, the topic returned to whatever I had interrupted them from when I arrived. I didn’t really have anything to add as it went right over my head, mostly details of specific interactions with other domestic and international organizations with regards to the investigation.
I took the opportunity to start helping myself to the woodchips instead.
Hey, these are pretty good, hickory or something.
----------------------------------------
As I locked the door behind me a set of greetings came out from the front room. I wandered over to join them and sat in the free armchair, River was in another with a textbook and the other two were playing some coop shooter I didn’t recognize presumably having given up with Halo.
“How did it go, learn anything new?” Mike asked once I was settled in, still carefully avoiding looking at the screen.
“Pretty good, I learned way more than I was expecting.” I admitted.
“Any tasty deets?”
“Yep, can’t tell you though.” I said sheepishly.
“Ha, I was right!” Jake declared. “Summers dragged her into Bond shit!”
“Do you feel comfortable with what they have you doing?” River asked.
“Sure.” I said with a shrug.
“Well, so long as you are OK with it.” River said while returning to their book. “Just keep your head about you and know when it’s crossing a line.”
“Yeah, for sure.”
The conversation died down for a bit and the air was only occupied by the sound of unrealistic gunshots and zombie noises.
“This really has been a busy couple of weeks.” I said with a sigh, sort of flopping onto the armrest of the chair.
“Really, I don’t believe you.” Mike said flatly.
----------------------------------------
I hesitated a long moment staring at my phone, mom’s number up on the screen as my finger hovered over the green call button.
I pressed it and then waited as it rang a few times.
“Hello Sam.” She answered.
“Hi mom, I uh have an update for you… on the kidnappers.” I got out in a rush but stumbled a bit in the middle.
There was silence for a few seconds. “Okay, if you’re ready to talk about it.”
“Not really but I need to get it out.” I answered, then turned and started reading out the email up on my desktop, I had asked Summers if he could forward a summary to me for this purpose.
“… somewhere around three months they expect then he should be ok.” I finished before leaning back in my chair and running a hand on my face. I realized I was getting used to there not really being any stretching of skin or anything, my hand just sort of slid over top skittering just a touch as friction between the skin of my hand and my face impeded the motion.
She let the silence hang for a moment. “Do you know how your friend is doing?”
“He is ok, just held up in hospital for a bit longer.” I answered.
There were a few more seconds of awkward silence, then she spoke up again.
“I know we have been a bit distant on this subject dear.” There was the sound of a heavy breath, not quite a sigh over the phone. “Neither your father nor I have lived through anything quite so… threatening. I know you did what you thought best at the time, and please believe me that we aren’t judging you for what you did.”
I sniffed and wiped a tear threatening to drip off my face, there was a pause as she heard the sound.
“We will always support you no matter what happens Sam.”
“Thanks mom.” I choked out, not sure how else I was supposed to respond.
She hesitated for a moment. “I do have a more mundane topic I have forgotten about, how have you been getting on with laundry?”
“Really mom?” I said laughing through tears. “You want to talk about laundry after that topic?”
“Why yes,” She started with a smile in her voice “Yesterday was probably the first time you’ve ever washed any of your new clothes…”
After a while of assuring her I had followed the washing labels and everything turned out ok, she let me go to get ready for bed.