As Caspian and I arrived at the Sinister Headquarters, which was literally the name of the building for some reason, we took a moment to stake it out a bit. Nothing about this building was out of the ordinary, it looked incredibly similar to office buildings you’d find in the city, except this one has a security camera at the front door and men in black suits walking in and out of it. The building itself was only about 3 stories tall, which tracks for an office. There were several windows open near the third floor, probably because of how hot out it was today. Maybe they can’t afford air conditioning.
I turned to look at Caspian, who was already next to the opened windows. I didn’t even hear him move. He’s really crushing the strong & silent hero personality type. I looked around to see what I could use to sneak into the building, then remembered I can technically walk through walls until I figure out where he is.
I moved onto the supernatural plane and before long, found Caspian hiding behind a collection of potted plants near the entrance. I moved right in next to him and returned to the bottom plane (which is what I am absolutely calling our existence, I get dibs cause I’m the one that can move realities).
I guess me randomly popping into existence doesn’t surprise him anymore, he didn’t even react to me. Almost seems like he was really focused on something.
“Hey, what’s the plan, Casp?” I whispered to him, low enough so the minions couldn’t hear me.
“First of all, we need to find the list. If I had to guess, it must be in the boss's office. Then, we need to stop whatever their plan is before word reaches back to Shapiro.” He whispered in reply.
“Okay, so what, I go ghost and then wander aimlessly around the building until I find a door that says ‘boss’?” I whispered back.
“Yeah, sounds good. You’ve been able to ‘go ghost’ for a good while, too.”
Fair enough, I thought to myself, but before I was able to do anything important, the teamline started up and I could hear Alphonso’s voice come through the other end.
“Matt Shapiro’s end goal is to cure queerness,” he spoke, “he just said so on his radio show.”
“Are you FUCKING kidding me?” I said as angrily and quietly as I possibly could.
“I absolutely am not.” He replied instantly.
“Yeah, we can confirm it. Brendan & I just passed by a protest in the seattle center with the same show playing.” Jacob confirmed.
“Where does this dude get off?” Brendan shouted into the mic.
“We’re currently inside the hideout. We’re going to get that list.” Caspian said quietly into the teamline.
“I am going to murder this motherfucker with my bare hands.” I said, still angry but getting quieter until the teamline went dead.
I looked over at Caspian, who was looking down at the floor, clearly distressed about something.
“Why the sorrow, Starling?” I said in an effort to cheer him up.
He took a few seconds before replying.
“It’s no cause for concern right now. Let’s get that list.” he replied, clearly ignoring his emotions.
I nodded, watching Casp leap from behind the plants directly into the air vents above us with his grapple. Surprisingly, not a single person in the room noticed the sparkly man flying into the ceiling. That takes some skill, honestly. I should probably get moving as well, honestly. I concentrated all my anxiety and went to the ghost realm, then just walked straight to the third floor. Not a single person could stop me, cause how could they? I’m invisible, nothing. Not even on their plane of existence. Pretty spooky, all things considered.
Through the floors, I looked very specifically for a room labeled “boss”, but unfortunately I didn’t have much luck. Real life isn’t a zelda dungeon where you gotta collect keys to unlock the bosses room, unfortunately. I saw several other rooms. Storage, Kitchen, Laboratories, Lavatories, etc. Y’know, things you would casually find in a building run by a crime syndicate. Eventually, once I hit the third floor, I found a room that looked less like a boss room, and more like one of those offices you see in Noir films. A sign on the door read “Dave McCarthy”, which sounds less like the name of the head honcho of a crime syndicate, and more like the name of someone’s uncle who’s a little bit too into The Beatles.
I walked directly through the door and looked around the room. It looked like a very traditional PI room from the 1950s. There was a desk near the windows with a computer on it, some bookshelves, some plants, and some chairs. I don’t really know what kinds of plants, I’m not Tolkein.
Immediately walking towards the desk, I looked through the papers that were falling off of it. Most of them were old, unpaid rent bills. I left ghost mode to try and move things around, open drawers, see what exactly I could find.
In one of the drawers was a list, but it didn’t have the names of people on it. Instead, it had the names of Beatles songs. Yellow Submarine was at the top of the list, followed by Hey Jude, and then 8 other song titles I wasn’t even aware were Beatles songs. I put it back in the drawer and looked through the bookshelves. Most of the books were just really basic books called stuff like “Crime 101”, “How To Steal Guns Without Getting Caught”, and the autobiography of Yoko Ono.
“Geez, this dude is obsessed.” I said quietly to myself, sorting through the rest of the books, unfortunately to no avail, as the only list I could find in the room was worthless.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Right on cue, Caspian dropped from the ceiling into the room, landing with his fist to the floor.
“Find anything?” He asked.
“No, this dude just seems to have a weird obsession with the Beatles.” I replied.
“Damn it, is it not here? Where the hell could it be?” Caspian angrily stated, right before a short man with a bad mustache walked into the room.
He didn’t seem to notice us at first, so Caspian immediately clung to the ceiling and I went back to the supernatural realm. I couldn’t hear anything the man was saying, but I saw everything he did, which was mostly just him sipping coffee and reading a sheet of paper. I walked behind him as he sat down at his desk, his eyes focused hard on the piece of paper, and read it. I saw the first three names and realized this was it, the list. I couldn’t give a signal to Caspian, so I had to think quickly. I channeled my anxiety and climbed the mental ladder straight to a rung labeled “Asgardian Armory”. I plopped myself inside as I opened my eyes and realized that there were a lot of guards in this room, and they noticed me immediately.
“HALT! What is thine business in the royal armory of Valaskjálf?” One of the guards demanded, with multiple guards pointing long, pointy spears directly at me.
“Hey, hello, so, funny story, I’m an agent of anubis and I need something tough to knock out a guy who’s got a hard-on for John Lennon.” I replied, which made them move their spears closer to me.
“I do not know of this Lennon of John, but no agent of Anubis has set foot in these halls for eons. How do we know you’re telling the truth?” Another guard asked, getting ready to poke me really hard if I didn’t give him the answer he desired.
“He summoned me and told me I was a Phasewalker. Well, maybe not summoned, exactly, but-” I started, before an old man with white hair & a white beard entered the room.
“ᛋᛏᚨᚾᛞ ᛞᛟᚹᚾ!” He shouted, in a language I didn’t understand, and the guards immediately lowered their weapons.
“Thanks, old dude.” I said, breathing a bit easier.
“If Anubis named a new Phasewalker, then Ragnarok is upon us,” The old man continued, “Lass, what are you doing in my armory?”
“I need a weapon to knock out a dude obsessed with the Beatles in order to steal a list to save a bunch of people from harm.” I replied immediately, not wanting to mince words.
“The Beatles? Like, Scarabs or Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds?”
“The Latter.”
The old guy rubs his beard for a second, before coughing loudly and motioning the guards to return to their positions.
“I will give you aid, but in return, you must return and defeat Fenrir. It is your sworn duty as the Phasewalker,” he explained, “As the true purpose of the Phasewalker is to protect the Gods and Kings.”
“Would that make you another God?” I asked.
“Yes. I am Odin.”
I felt super stupid. I did enter a rung saying this was an asgardian armory, so obviously I shouldn’t be surprised that Odin showed up. I should talk to Caspian about this later.
“Okay, God-King Odin-” I started, before Odin interrupted me.
“Just Odin is fine.” He replied.
“Okay, Odin, what do you have that's a blunt weapon?”
Odin looked around the room, as if he doesn’t go into this armory often, walked towards a very basic hammer that looked a lot like Mjolnir, and handed it to me.
“This is a replica of Mjolnir. You cannot wield the real thing until you defeat Fenrir.” He spoke, his voice booming through the room.
“Cool, this works. Thanks, Odin. I’ll be sure to give you props next time I speak with Anubis.” I said gleefully.
I grabbed the hammer and disappeared straight back to the bottom of the ladder, returning to our reality where Dave hadn’t moved, and smashed the side of his head with the hammer, causing him to drop the list and fall to the floor, bleeding. Caspian dropped back down to the floor, looking at me and my now bloody hammer.
“Where did you get that?” He asked.
“Asgard.” I replied.
“Jealous.”
Then, he noticed the list sitting on the table, grabbed it, and immediately jumped out the back window, not even waiting for the rest of my answer.
“Fine! We’ll talk about this later!” I shouted out the now broken window.
I turned around and saw a few Sinister Gang Goons standing at the edge of the desk, looking directly at me with guns in their hands. I panicked.
“Hey, guys, I think I see someone else breaking into this building across the hall.” I said, trying to distract them.
“Don’t listen to her, she’s clearly with the sparkly suit guy.” One of the goons said.
“No, seriously, I think he’s trying to steal your guns! Isn’t that your job? You should probably stop him.”
The other goon immediately turned around as I dropped the hammer out the broken window and turned ghost, before jumping out the window, hoping that there’s no fall damage in this paranormal reality. I landed on the ground, safe, looking back up to see the two goons looking out the window in shock. They didn’t see anyone and ran back inside. I came back to reality, still panicking, and ran directly towards Caspian’s motorcycle, hopping onto it. He then drove off as we watched the building turn bright red with the sinister gang running amok all over the block.
But we were too far gone and had the list.
Caspian then opened the teamline once more.
“We have the list,” He said, revving up the motorcycle, “Meet us at base.”
“Nice.” Jacob’s voice came through the teamline.
“That’s one big step done,” Alphonso stated, “oh, by the way, Mylo and I recruited another team member. She’s on the teamline already.”
“Yes I am. Sandra Saunders, blind lesbian in a wheelchair. Call me Omnigirl, I can see out of anyone's eyes except my own.” Sandra said.
“I love her already.” I replied, ecstatic.
“We recruited a couple of people as well.” Brendan said.
“Is this thing on? Gwen Spacey, nerdy alien drag queen. Lasagna Fox is also on the line.” Gwen spoke.
“True, Lasagna Fox IS on the line. We’ve been caught up on everything.” Another, even gayer voice came through the phone.
“Alright, let’s regroup and go over what we found out.” Caspian said, ending the phone call.