I woke up to find that Anna had draped herself across me at some point in the night, I have no idea how she never expressed any discomfort given it must be like trying to sleep on a rock. I was glad I didn’t need to rush out to meet up with Mary and Molly today. I wasn’t really coherent enough to figure out how to move, let alone do so without waking her.
I am pretty sure we were well into the morning before Anna woke, she started blearily rubbing her face on mine while saying something about how glad she was I came with her yesterday before crawling out of bed. I claimed one of her hoodies while she was in the washroom, which turned out to be more comfortable than I was expecting. It was oversized on her and pretty much a tent for me, so it had enough weight on the arms to hold itself out of my joints mostly. I think Anna quite likes seeing me in her clothes like this, she was so distracted over breakfast that she would just stop to stare at me with her spoon halfway to her mouth.
We ended up getting even more preoccupied after I pulled her hoodie off to, in theory, get dressed for the day. The fact I attempted a striptease had nothing to do with it I’m sure. I made a mental note that I need to practice those, I am pretty sure it worked as intended despite my attempts to appear alluring. Either way, it got the desired effect, Anna was happy and I got to snuggle into her for yet more of the morning.
After cleaning up and realizing how late it had gotten, we packed our costumes for storage as they had been only roughly organized the night before due to our exhaustion. We back and forth discussed various ideas for what we could start on next after exams, but there were too many possibilities to settle on one thing yet without really having the time to spare.
In the middle of getting ready to head to the facility directly, I got a message from Molly mentioning that we would probably do her check-ins today instead of training so I should dress for going out. This prompted me to rush back home to find a white button-up sleeveless shirt, stockings, a purple skirt, and what I was thinking of as my nice boots.
Molly had a grin when I met her just leaving the office in her usual going-out slacks, dress shirt, and beanie. “Geez, you don’t have to dress that nice.” She chuckled. “We are just dropping by to say hi to people after all.”
“I like doing it though,” I admitted sheepishly, getting a pat on the head and an affectionate smile in return as she passed me towards the parking garage.
As usual, the facility was pretty quiet on the weekends, although there still were enough people to encounter in the halls to waste some time on quick conversations. We stopped to talk to Drew for a few minutes when we encountered him around another confusing bend. For once he didn’t immediately try to gross me out by talking about my internals, the artifact from last week instead dominating the conversation. The team wasn’t going to try and tear into it immediately given they also wanted to try and get it working to see what the output of it was, we knew it was a liquid from the contents of my bunkers sloshing at times. We never investigated further as I was more than a little reluctant to be opened up and drained of some to satisfy their curiosity.
Wait, how does talking to this guy or Alica always end up involving discussing my innards?
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The first leg of our trip was only a few minutes drive up the street from the office, I found myself getting nervous as came to a stop outside a unit in the recently finished block of townhouses. Molly said something about relaxing before pressing the doorbell, the guy who opened the door got a broad grin when he saw Molly.
“Molly! It’s been ages, come in!” He said while moving out of the way of the door, his smile remained without even a flicker when he saw me. “Oh, who’s this then?”
“She’s Sam and is part of the reason I haven’t dropped by lately, I’ve been much busier now that I actually have a partner to mentor.” Molly declared while messing up my hair with a hand.
“Hello, nice to meet you.” I said looking up at him while patting my hair back into place, the guy was probably north of six feet and built like a tank.
“Ha, they finally got you someone then, eh Molly? Bensons the name.” He said to me before waving us in, Molly chatted with him about the band on his shirt while I was taking my boots off. When we entered the living room, he gestured at the couch and then headed up the hall while calling back to us. “Just let me tell her you’re here.”
The person who came into the room a minute or two later was a changee type I half recognized from last year, a few hundred people became what are basically armored snakes with arms just behind their heads. Her scales, where a tube-like garment didn’t obscure them, were a pleasant mix of dark and light browns with a few dashes of orange.
“Hello there!” She said there weren’t any of the stereotype hisses or anything to it, maybe it was a bit deeper than you might expect given her size but nothing that unusual. “It’s good to see you Molly, and nice to meet you, Sam was it? I’m Jade.” I shook the offered hand, which had necessitated her to hold herself off the floor for a bit revealing the light tan scoots of her bare underside.
“Any particular reason to drop by?” She asked Molly after dropping back down while heading towards a long low pile of pillows across from the couch.
“Nope! Just taking Sam around to say hi and check in to see if anyone needs anything.” She said cheerfully. “Hope I didn’t interrupt anything!”
“No, it’s fine.” She answered smiling back. “We have some cookies Benson baked yesterday if either of you wants some.”
After I turned her offer down gently, we ended up just exchanging small talk for a while as Molly helped her self. Therapy was going well for her, work was busy but accommodating, stuff like that. I can’t say I contributed much to the conversation, but it was still kind of fun. I did get to be the subject at one point though.
“So Sam, what got you into the CRD? Did Molly try to recruit you after heroically saving you from being stuck in a storm drain?” Jade asked with an extremely specific example.
“I take it she’s made a lot of attempts to recruit people?” I asked wryly while trying to think of a way to explain how I got involved.
“I think she’s been trying to get a partner since about when the last lead agent left.” She confirmed while Molly whistled in an attempt to appear innocent. “I expect most people were like me where life is confusing enough for oneself let alone helping others.”
I glanced at Molly who nodded a bit apologetic. “Yeah, finding someone with the experience and the right mindset has been hard.” She explained, then scratched under her beanie. “Like in theory we could recruit cops or something but we haven’t found one that we feel comfortable is going to work out just because it’s a system that produces… well you know what the cops are like?”
“If instead, you look for someone off their mindset alone that can work well, most of the old agents were that route. Plus me of course, I turned out great.” She said with a grin and a flourish, then frowned. “But training them is a huge time commitment and historically Mary and I were too busy to do that.” She shrugged and looked guilty. “So uh, I kinda just procrastinated and asked people I thought we could train quickly. Fuck, you have no idea how glad I was when you said yes, then took to the training like a duck to water.”
“Admittedly it was also the first time Summers was on board with bringing someone I found on, he usually was desperately practical with why someone wouldn’t work.” After a moment or twos pause with a frown, her face split into a grin. “I got some friends out of the attempts though, ain’t that right Jade?”
She laughed. “Yes, and you should drop by more often, we do still do board game nights with a few of the others you know? Bring Sam too, it will be fun”
“I will have to get out for one of those again, the largest castle shall be mine again!” She declared while dramatically shaking a fist as I smiled at her antics. I was grateful that the initial question that had started this was seemingly forgotten as we continued talking about other board games they played.
After a few more minutes of aimless chat, Molly declared that we probably should get going. “People to see and all that, thanks for letting us drop by!” She said as we pulled our shoes back on.
The rest of the afternoon was filled with similar ten-to-twenty-minute interactions with a wild collection of individuals. Some people I wouldn’t have been able to tell were changees, others like the spider person were very obvious. I actually recognized the old spider woman from the grocery store before I changed, I had grabbed stuff off the top shelf for her a couple of times. She always seemed nice enough, although she seems to like touching me now, I had to redirect a leg reaching for my hair a few times after it got weird the first time she started stroking it.
“How was that then?” Molly asked after we left the last house we were visiting that day. She had previously mentioned doing another round of visits next weekend to see the people who weren’t around or that we didn’t have time for before dinner.
“Pretty good, everyone seemed quite nice honestly. Only Francis was particularly abrasive, but he was molting so I won’t judge him for that.” A thought crossed my mind. “Wait, was that the guy you found under that abandoned factory?”
“Yeah, it was!” She confirmed with a laugh. “Really though, most of the people I encounter because of work are just normal people you know? Maybe dangerous at the time because of their situation not because of them as a person, I’ve only seen a few cases where I actually thought it was beyond a free place to crash and or therapy as a solution. Anyway, how did the nerdfest go yesterday?”
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I was working on assignments Tuesday morning when I got another work-related message from Molly.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Ex4ctPlac3: Hey!
Ex4ctPlac3: You down for a local artifact pickup after class today?
Ex4ctPlac3: Shouldn’t take long
IndustrialCat: Sure
IndustrialCat: I was going to come in anyway
Ex4ctPlac3: Rad, thanks!
IndustrialCat: NP
The halls of the facility were a hive of activity of a sort I wasn’t used to, there was a swarm of uniformed soldiers hauling gear this way or that under the guidance of some of our support staff or Mary herself.
“Hey, is this to do with that transfer of people you requested?” I asked her when she didn’t seem too preoccupied.
“Correct.” She confirmed while glancing through a stack of papers, then sighed. “They seemed to have decided to just give us everything at one time with very little warning which means this is a nightmare. We only barely got the living quarters set up before the troops arrived, at least they can help with unloading everything.”
“Uh, good luck with this I guess.” I offered while moving to the side of the hall so a couple of soldiers with a large crate between them could pass. “I need to go and catch up with the other two if that’s ok...”
“Later Sam.” She said a bit distracted. “Oh. Could you warn Molly to watch out for the LAV, it might be arriving when you three leave.”
“Sure.”
Making my way to the garage was a bit of an endeavor with all the bustle, some things don’t change despite it though, like encountering Kat arguing with Peter about something having just left a meeting room. Their complete lack of awareness of how busy the hall around is was pretty amusing, I did at least get a quick smile from Kat when I called a greeting to them although Peter seemed too intent to notice. I had no idea what they were talking about as I passed them, maybe something about a testing methodology?
I met Molly and Alica waiting in the relative quiet of the parking garage, only a few extra trucks and a handful of people were down here given the limitations offered by the low ceiling and the need to use ramps to get to the surface. I half recalled encountering some freight lifts when I got lost trying to find a meeting room recently, presumably that’s how most of the stuff was getting in.
“It’s been like a month and a half, how long do artifacts turn up after clashes? This is an office we are going to right, so it seems odd for something not to have been noticed yet.” I asked after they told a quick summary of the report once we were in the truck, it sounds like it’s probably an artifact from ‘my’ clash again.
“Eh, not really.” Molly answered after joining the traffic around the facility. “We got a call about an artifact we determined to be from the first clash three months ago from a similar place, it’s pretty easy for some smaller object or something out of the way to change and just not get noticed.” She paused for a second to change lanes. “It’s one thing if your favorite coffee mug is replaced, another if it’s a spare mouse at the bottom of a filing cabinet.”
We arrived at the office block just before five, the brick building was another of those sprawling single-story offices that usually had a bunch of smaller companies in them. Roughly shaped like an ‘E’ if seen from above, with parking between each of the legs and a mix of units with any combination of signs above them, logos on doors or just being plain undelineated units. We parked in an empty spot at the end of the leg google maps said our destination was in. There were some empty spots in the lot a bit closer, but this was close enough Molly deemed, presumably not wanting to risk scraping up someone’s car by squeezing the oversize truck around them.
As we walked down the leg of the building, we could see some early leavers just starting to emerge from the other units. When we arrived at our destination there wasn’t anything to differentiate it from any other part of the block, just a simple ‘Unit 5’ on the door without even the name of the company being listed. They weren’t particularly interesting either from googling, just another small tech company that was a few months old whose product was some upcoming alternative point-of-sale service.
When we entered there was an empty front desk with a few business cards and a bowl of candy at it, they didn’t have a receptionist or anything. An awkward moment or two passed after the ding of the door opening. I had just started wondering if one of us should call out when a guy in slacks and a dress shirt appeared from the corridor leading into the office space.
“Hi, you’re from the CRD right?” He asked while looking us over, there was the slightest flicker of recognition on his face as he passed over me, but it was just for a moment.
“That’s right.” Alica confirmed while getting her clipboard out of the tool bag at her hip and glancing at it for a moment. “Are you Mr Price?”
”Yeah, I’m Reid, I was the one who called it in this morning.” He said nodding, although it seemed more to himself than us from the slightest hesitation he had. “Uh, I can take you right to it if you want.”
“Sure, that works.”
He led us in silence down the corridor before turning right into the open-concept office that made up most of this leg of the building, there were a few clusters of low cubicles that occupied most of the room. There were maybe two-dozen people spread through the one’s closet to where we entered in a variety of mostly business casual wear. A few glanced up at us as we walked past their cubes, I felt their looks were a bit harsher than I was expecting, maybe they were in crunch time or something.
The center of the room had an island around a large concrete pillar with a fancy coffee machine, several containers of snacks on the counter, and a fridge. Past it was more empty cubes than a short corridor to the emergency exit, lined with several individual offices from what I could tell.
“It’s in here.” Reid said when we stopped at the island, he leaned down to pull the cabinets under the coffee machine open before stepping back to give us space.
Sitting in the open cabinet was what looked like a small engine block, a roughly rectangular prism for the upper half and then a narrower rounded bottom with an exposed drive shaft coming out of one end of the block. The whole thing was covered in cables, hoses, and small plastic containers with twist tops on them. Unlike the last pick-up we had done, this artifact was just sort of placed there without any packing material, if anything it was being crowded by the box of coffee filters sitting next to it.
Alica crouched down to look at it while starting to ask questions to Reid, her pen scratching on the paper with each response. As I listened, I noticed a little puddle of oil that had collected around a small hose dangling down near the box of filters. It was starting to soak into the otherwise crisp cardboard, then as I watched a drip dropped from the cut end of the hose to join the puddle.
I blinked and tried to figure out what looked so weird, then another drop fell without much pause. “Molly.” I hissed while placing a hand on her arm, she glanced at me. “it’s still dripping.”
She blinked then looked back into the cabinet while tensing up. “When did you say you found it, Reid?” She asked, interrupting his answer to a question about if anyone had seen any health impacts.
“Ah, this morning.” Then he quickly appended to his statement. “We-I finished off a box in one of the other cabinets, and I knew we had more so looked over for it and found that.”
Molly glanced back at me and mouthed ‘trap’, and I nodded. “Hey Alica, this one should be pretty safe right?” Molly asked conversationally.
“Hmm? Yeah, but we have the procedures-“
“Ah, but it’s probably well after hours for these folks, Sam could just grab it so we can leave right now.”
Alica paused uncertainly, then a loud shuffle came from behind us as I whipped my head around to see the cause. The ‘employees’ we had seen earlier were wielding pistols having taken stances to point them over the low cubicles, I had just a instant to start covering Alica with my body before they opened fire.
None of their rounds reached us despite the deluge, as soon as they crossed a threshold in the room they would suddenly randomly divert towards the ceiling or floor. Fortunately, the defensive barrier was practically instinctual for Molly.
I yanked Alica to her feet while Molly continued to focus on keeping us from being hit despite standing in the open, I don’t know how long she could keep it up as that was a lot of shots coming our way. Even as we were moving, I saw ‘Reid’ had pulled out of the line of fire and was drawing a pistol of his own out of a drawer. Alica let the tool bag fall away from her while I pulled her around the island to get ourselves into some kind of hard cover.
Molly tossed herself behind it an instant later from the other direction to Alica and me, a few shots thunk-ed into the structure while she lay panting. The ambushers switched to flinging suppressive around the structure, their pistols evidently insufficient to get through the concrete.
“Give me a bit to charge up again!” Molly shouted to be heard over the shots while resting her head with her eyes closed against the pillar “Can either of you call Mary?”
“No!” I shouted back; my phone is in the truck with my backpack.
“I don’t have her number!” Alica wailed.
Molly nodded then pulled her phone out of her pocket before unlocking with her fingerprint then tossed it towards me, all without taking her head off the pillar or opening her eyes. I flipped into the contact list and scrolled to B and hit call on Mary Brant’s number, it rang for a second as the steady staccato of fire continued around us.
I could hear her say something but couldn’t tell what when she picked up. “It was a trap!” I shouted into it. I couldn’t hear her response before she hung up. I hoped she had gotten enough of the idea, not sure what else to do with the phone I tossed it back to Molly who let it lay in her lap.
“Molly I’m going to take a look, cover me for just a sec!” I shouted and she nodded, I stuck one eye around the pillar before I ducked back having gotten enough of an idea. “They have a fucking RPG or something!” I shouted, having seen someone in one corner of the room pulling a long tube with a large knobbly projectile on the end out from a closet.
“What the fuck!” Molly shouted dragging herself to her feet. “I guess I’m good enough then!”
After pulling Alica up with me we started a mad dash towards the exit. I let the other two draw ahead of me as the occasional shot was going past Molly’s shield this time and I was at least somewhat bullet resistant. As we ran, I looked back over my shoulder, the guy had lined up the knobbly projectile towards us having moved closer to leave space for a backblast behind the launcher.
“Faster!” I shouted to the other two as we neared the hall.
There was no way we could get out of the building before he pulled the trigger, plus I had no idea how fast it traveled nor if Molly could block it. There was a slight hesitation from the wielder while he corrected his aim, then there was a woomph sound over the gunfire and the football-sized projectile launched.
Molly must have tried to deflect it from how it wobbled, but she only managed to alter its course from the middle of our group to spiking itself into a nearby cubicle off to my left. There was a crunch as it tore into the flimsy material then the room was bathed in red light as I got a glimpse of a wave of eldritch geometry rushing towards me. It passed over me before I could get my hands up, there wasn’t any feeling of an impact just my vision being blinded for an instant before an utterly black void replaced it.
It slid off me like a physical presence a moment later, in its place was darkness broken by a faint red glow from where the projectile hit the cubicle accompanied by a roaring sound in my ears. I tumbled out of my run as I lifted off the ground beneath me, just as if Molly had robbed me of gravity. I could see a whirl of pieces of particle board around me for a moment then the glow seemed to be yanked off into the distance.
I had an instant to realize that I was getting further away from the debris myself before I felt my burners snuff out. Air was rushing out of my body through my airway and exhaust at the same time, the roar in my ears had stopped as well. Lily was practically screaming into the repair bus about a lack of atmosphere even as I felt myself lock up to preserve what little pressure was in my steam lines to keep my power turbine spinning as long as possible. I think I must have been tumbling from how fluids were moving about within me but the lack of any visual reference to the motion from the blackness around me made it impossible to tell for sure.
I had the longest few minutes of my life as I felt the pressure in my steam lines dropping while my boiler rapidly cooled, unable to even scream or thrash about to express the terror that feeling was instilling in me. My turbine eventually ground to a halt once the little steam being generated was insufficient to push past the resistance of the generator.
.
.
.