Myles was eating a non-standard portion of a supermarket's own brand of cereal in his dressing gown. He sulked and sulking required overly dry raisins. His cat food bills had just shot up exponentially. Charlie was busy munching away on the remains from last night. At least his armour came off, Myles was not looking forward to applying the next flea and worm treatment. The dangerous mission to the Sweetbright black site he escaped was now inescapable. The reason for the conscription is that a member of Emergency Sentinel 999 had been taken out of action for a while. With a Member down they would be fighting at diminished capacity so Myles was brought in to play bonus meat shield as recompense.
The real problem was not so much the draft, but the the big eldritch dragon thing after him and its army of creepy pink minions. The fact that this time he knew where and when was off little succour… But, Myles did love to plan, perhaps he could use that to not die to some arsehole space dragon’s hurt feelings somehow. Maybe something with explosives…
Myles had something with explosives! He could see the beginnings of a plan swirl together. There was one very small teeny tiny problem to deal with.
“Zara, I have two questions. First question, how long do you think Rusty is going to give me the silent treatment?”
“Probably a while Endeavour, you punted his daughter halfway across town into a bowling green. The results were pretty bad.”
“How bad are we talking about?” Asked Myles
“Oh very bad! The groundskeeper was inconsolable.” Said Zara “What was the second question?”
“I understand Rusty not wanting to talk to me since I used his cat-hating progeny to indirectly vandalise a leisure facility. But why… if he isn’t talking to me… is he sitting on my sofa eating my fancy jams?”
“Zara, tell Myles I’m taking his jam as an arsehole tax.”
“Uncle Rusty said it’s an arsehole tax.”
“He could be safely giving me the cold shoulder from the comfort of the community base camp and not eating my jam!” Said Myles
“Zara, pass me… the raspberry.” Said Rusty, locking eyes with Myles.
“Fucks sake… Zara, please get him some toast it’s painful watching him eat it with a spoon.” Said Myles
“Pair of idiots” Muttered Zara under her breath as she stomped off to find the toaster and some form of bread neutral carbohydrate to shove inside it.
The quiet tension was eased somewhat by a bonus round of hot coffee Zara brought back from the kitchen. Myles would eat cereal that tasted no better than the box containing it if it meant saving money, but good coffee was good coffee and worth springing for the decent stuff. His axe-wielding friend had done the beans justice. The resultant brew was rich, balanced and almost worth the trade off of Myles being such a cheap bastard in other areas. Meanwhile, Rusty had continued to diminish Myles’ jam supply, but at least he wasn’t spooning it into his face directly from the jar anymore.
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The doorbell chimed.
The new arrivals were Dr Singh. Myles half expected her to have popped up behind him out of nowhere and a stern-looking woman, her silver hair in a ponytail and a touch of military bearing.
“Debs, this is Myles who I have told you about, and his cat should be around here somewhere” said Dr Singh
The silver-haired woman reached out a hand. Myles shook it and appreciated the lack of a pissing contest.
“Myles, I heard you are Barrington’s apprentice… My condolences.” Said Debs.
Her stature and confidence oozed leadership. Myles had a good guess as to who she was.
“It’s a bloody miracle he survived this long, I’ve been trying to correct things.” Said Zara
Myles hoped for the playful hint of a joke. But no, she was dead serious, He needed a bigger jetpack, women loved jetpacks… at least he hoped they loved jetpacks, the probably should, everyone loved jetpacks. He also reflected that on how Barrington made him fight a lot with no real instruction or plan, just jump in and start punching until the other thing stops punching back. At least he was a lot less shy about getting hit in the face these days. His desensitisation to violent acts against his person proved immediately useful as Zara tackled him to the ground.
“Did I suddenly become irresistible?” He asked. His feelings were spared by everyone not answering.
From his horizontal point of view, he could see the woman introduced as Debs pinned to the floor by Dr Singh. While Myles had been lost in thought. Debs had pulled a gun on the big orange monster with bloody teeth that came strolling into the living room to investigate why so many new people were in his house.
“Debs, he rolled Cáit up to the jack from across town for a lot less. Chill out.” Said Dr Singh
“You said that incident was about a pet cat. That thing does not look like a pet Cat” Said Debs, managing to point at Charlie from under her teammate.
“His Dad was a Maine Coon… probably.” Said Myles, defending the pedigree of his cat as Zara helped him back to his feet.
Charlie Murderpaws just watched the funny humans do strange funny human things. Then he lost interest and walked off to nap near a radiator. Rusty slathered another slice of toast with raspberry jam.
“I apologise Myles. In reality, I owe you two apologies.” Said Debs. “I’m sorry. My only excuse is doing the job for so long… you see a monster and you fight It …and as much as I’d like to think I’ve grown beyond it, the prejudice against Trigger users runs deep. Those instincts let me down today. As for my other apology… As team leader, I should have kept a better check on Cáit and her attitude. I should also warn you that her views are not hers alone but perhaps today we can build some bridges.”
Debs held out her hand towards Myles and the two shook hands.
“Deborah Davenport” Said Debs “Emergency Sentinel 999 Coastguard, I’m the special auxiliary.”
“Myles Endeavour" Said Myles “I have superpowers. Don’t really know what’s going on most of the time. I keep ending up in fights I don’t want and isn’t Davenport just a tiny bit on the nose?”
“I swear we could write a paper on nominative determinism in our industry.” Said Debs with a laugh. “I got some alteration in there too. Though it’s a touchy subject at times so let it lie when you can, a few years back we had an animal team with a Micheal Fuckbadger. HR nightmare.”
“Are you making that up? Please tell me you are making that up… and did he nominative the determinism?”
“The mustelid in question was a sapient alien and consenting, but it was really bad optics.”
Myles made a mental note to check the community codex that evening, he knew he was outside the game but he could barely find five minutes to read the rulebook. But he had so many questions, starting with who looks at Fuckbadger on a birth certificate and doesn’t immediately march over to deed pol and demand service.
“But as you might well assume I’m not here to exchange pleasantries… or steal your preserves, classy move Rusty… I’m here to issue assignments and give orders.”
“I’ve been put on the black site mission as a meat shield… that much I gathered, its part manpower shortage and part fuck you because head office didn’t like my stance on Cáit’s animal handling policies. and my participation will be contingent on if I survive acting as flashing red bullseye and keeping the giant space dragon away from the evacuation.”
“Well you’re not stupid Myles, I’ll give you that. But the good company you keep has spoiled you. The top brass are old guard who think little of Trigger users, less so of ones who injure active community agents.”
“So how else is this ‘old guard’ going to screw me over?”
“You know how the evacuation is going to pretty much send an open invitation to the big eldritch abomination currently hunting you”
“Yes, I believe I have a plan for that. I just need to prepare a few things and I should manage it just fine and then I can get on with being meat shield and getting you all off my back.”
“They gave the order an hour ago and the evacuation started twenty minutes ago.”
Rusty spat raspberry jam all over Myles living room carpet.
“Bollocks.” said Myles.