With her fingers spread out along the surface of the trap door, Tasìa stayed perfectly still for nearly an hour. The activity above her was clearly mapped out in her head.

She knew the two guards disliked one another. Typically, the tall, thin one stayed busy at a desk in the same room as the trapdoor into the Cistern. Approximately one minute before the heavyset guard regularly walked through from the back rooms to take her piss break, the tall guard would make herself scarce.

There was a break room centered off the corridor between the office suites. Likely the tall guard would go to refill her coffee.

She would not return until after her workplace nemesis finished her own routine.

Tasìa had a simple plan, it would take less than a minute to execute. Forty-five seconds perhaps, if she pocketed her underwear instead of putting the bloomers on.

There was an exit to the main corridor in the next hall over. A second exit was down in the second set of suites. She would have to pass the break room to get to that one.

She felt through her fingers the now-familiar rapid scamper of the guard leaving.

A minute later, the trod of the heavy set guard pulsed through into her fingertips. When the motion stopped, it was time.

Tasìa turned the key. It slid the locks out, beautifully.

She opened the trapdoor, only to be greeted by the soft singing of a pretty voice behind her. The song she recognized, Obrerito, an old Paraguayan tune of rebellious fervor.

Tasìa had miscalculated. The tall guard had not retreated down the hall, but instead, she was in an open area annex adjacent to the main hall.

Tasìa had planned to leave through the nearby exit into the corridor leading back to the IMCQ medical center, the main building. From there she would have to talk her way past the guards.

Before she could do any of that, she would have to cross through the annex where she would most definitely be spotted. Unless she slipped into the corridor, passed the break room, and made off into the office suites as her other option.

Tasìa found the bin where they dumped her clothes. Thankfully, it was on a top shelf where no one could merely eyeball it and see her clothes were missing.

The singing guard drew closer. Tasìa glanced toward the annex. She could see the shadow of the guard as she moved, and hear her rifling through a file cabinet as she sang.

Tasìa had to climb up the bracket platform to retrieve her clothes.

She didn't bother to put them on, but she grabbed them in hand, jumped down beside the guard's desk. There was a cup full of pens and a tray full of paperclips.

Tasìa grabbed two of the former and several of the latter before she made her retreat deeper into the office complex.

Tasìa reached an atrium. Above was a much smaller version of the same glass onion dome used so prominently above the Spore Isolation Unit.

She noticed it was no longer sunny weather out. In the time she had been in the holding cell, the sky had turned gray. Sprinkling drops of rain dripped down the dome.

Tasìa slipped her clothes on.

Highly unattractive bloomers, gray sweatpants, t-shirt, socks, and sneakers.

There was an open office layout of cubicles past the atrium. Tasìa peeked into the hive of workstation clusters to see if anyone was working overtime hidden from her sight amongst the cubicle dividers.

She did hear the thud and click of a heavy-duty virtual controller coming from a workstation out of her view.

Tasìa worked her way in the opposite direction from the lone worker, but then she heard something that gave her chills.

A pneumatic whisper, like the low wail of a pissed-off cat, but greatly dampened down.

She had heard that sound before in the Spore Isolation Unit.

It can't be. Here, while using office equipment?

Tasìa crouched down and she started crawling her way towards a second atrium that served as the office suite entrance.

She had to be patient in her egress, and not let herself surrender to flight or fight instincts.

Of course with Tasìa it was never fight in the instinctual sense. Deliberative knowledge gathering and acting upon that skill had always been her means of fight, she so prided herself.

The sounds on the other side rumbled disjointed as if the Manifested One was frustrated with something; something cosmic in its significance she gathered from the fret of it.

Tasìa rolled under a desk. She needed to pause. As usual, she understood nothing of their mentality.

Yet, as she listened to the sounds of the Manifested, she found herself empathizing with the intent of the creature in its emotional capacity.

Frustration, anger, internal struggle, fear, and a profound sadness were all expressed in the pneumatic whisper as she listened.

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If she crawled the long way around she would be able to observe him from behind, assuming he was facing his desk.

As she crawled, she glanced back down the corridor from wince she came. The break room was just past her viewpoint.

A question then puzzled Tasìa.

If the Manifested worker had been there all morning how could the tall guard possibly not hear him when she went to refill her coffee? Could it alter its physical appearance?

Tasìa made it to the position she had in mind as being the most advantageous. Before she peeked around the divider she did determine by the noise the Manifested made that he faced towards his desk.

She leaned over. Surprisingly mundane in appearance, he was dressed like an office worker. His body also went through the mannerisms of an office worker - an Oxford Red Wing donned foot shook as a bent knee rocked back and forth, covered in black slacks.

The Manifested One hunched over his desk with a controller in one hand and a rounded mouse-disk hovering over his tabletop clinched in the other one.

Only his head and face bore the chaotic insanity of spore manifestation. The skin of his bald head shivered with the movement of snake like projections crawling beneath.

Bright coral patterns glided along subdermal. They were commonly called the serpent guides. Thought to be unique of those touched by the Wise One.

No one knew for certain.

His lips possessed the same impossible geometry of so many of them.

Tasìa could not see his eyes, but something ocherous green and plant-like poked through both of them. The ugly little things squirmed as if without purpose.

She thought of the words the Incubus told her just hours before in her sleep. In her head now she responded.

If this is your idea of improving my species, I don't want any part of it.

The Manifested One got up from his chair, and he started to put a jacket on. Tasìa rolled under the desk beside her, slipping behind its chair for cover.

He passed by her. As he did so, the morphology of his face changed as well. No phantoms crawled beneath his skin; his eyes appeared normal and undamaged. His lips seemed entirely human in appearance.

He walked past the open office, and he then sprinted out into the entranceway atrium. A badge shook nervously in his hand.

Tasìa stayed still for a good, solid minute. As tempted to see what he had been working on, she did not want to touch anything it may had contacted either.

What the hell did this all mean?

When she was young there were signs on billboards announcing, 'They Are Amongst Us' with a list of warning signs, and a number to report anyone behaving suspiciously.

It was the cause of much social disorder. Violent riots, lynchings, internment camps, and a thoroughly paralyzed civil society resulted.

That is, until the Salvage stepped in. They denounced what they called mass delusion and conspiracy theory paranoia. The newly formed governing body engaged in an educational campaign to end the unrest.

Now, it was universally accepted that the Manifested were not shape-shifters who could hide amongst us.

Now, the old ways were considered the pre-enlightened bad old days before the Salvage was formed and brought with them hope for a better life for all throughout the Quadra.

Tasìa shook her head at the fairytale narrative they enforced.

What the hell did anyone really know about the Manifested and their transformative capabilities?

Tasìa turned to the atrium entranceway. Before she exited, she noticed a name on one of the several office doors she passed by.

Lieutenant Hugo Brassi.

Tasìa smiled. She thought the paperclips might prove useful when she saw them.

Inside his office were many accoutrements indicative of status.

Tasìa's fingertips clicked together rapaciously. What to steal? What to steal?

A pen on a plaque under glass caught her attention. It appeared platinum and diamond dusted. She read the writing captioned beneath it.

It was the legend of a fraternal organization.

In Latin, it read:

Ordinis Sancti Romani de Novissimis Diebus

Tasìa thought back to her days at the seminary. Her Latin was a little rusty, as best as she could translate, it meant:

The Holy Roman Order of the Last Days.

At the college, many fraternal and sororal orders vied for dominance. For whomever the motto belonged, Tasìa did not recognize it as any she had encountered before.

The lock was once more easily bypassed. She grabbed the pen and looked for anything else she could sneak out.

A decorative plated gold bar caught her eye. It bore an etching of two wolves ripping into the sides of Christ on the Cross.

Quite subversive. She thought, for a fraternity she assumed was designed to advance the social status of its members.

Tasìa stashed it, pressed in her sock at the ankle.

As for everything else noteworthy - Tasìa's puss protruded a frown. A lot of nice things, but unfortunately her bloomers were loosely fitting, and the pockets of her sweats were ripped.

Nothing else would be safe for transport.

She looked around for anything of informational value. The desk did not even have a networked terminal, nor even an old fashioned individual computer as many executives still preferred.

She riffled through his desk. He didn't keep notes or files. She should have figured as much.

Lieutenant Hugo Brassi was about his personal status only.

Operational nitty-gritty was beneath his personal assessment of his station in life.

Tasìa did find a notepad. Several pages had been torn out, but otherwise, it was unused.

She took out the bejeweled pen. She decided to leave him a note.

Lieutenant Hugo Brassi,

You are one stupid motherfucker. I hope you are not overly attached to the material wealth in your life because you are soon to lose it all.

Signed,

Tasìa del Alma-Gris,

The Angel of Theft.

She placed it in the top drawer of his desk so he could not miss it. As an added touch, she left the clay-work key on top.

Tasìa left the office suite through the entrance door. She strolled down the hallway as if she belonged there.

With prison staff, it was like a hundred separate fiefdoms where no one thought it necessary to keep the others updated on their activities.

Tasìa hit the buzzer at the secured door leading into the IMCQ buildings center court.

She waved at the camera above and gave her best squinchy-faced toothy smile.

Este-Oeste called it her goblin-face, she said it contoured unnaturally wide on Tasìa's long visage, but Tasìa didn't care. It always got her what she wanted.

"Hey, Alma-Gris," came a friendly voice over the intercom. Rubin, the center court officer with whom she always flirted.

He continued.

"I don't have you down for a pee test, today."

"Not today. The Goon Squad came and grabbed me. Brassi wanted to have a little chat."

"How did that go?"

"Could have been worse."

"I suppose so," he said as he unlocked the door and buzzed her through.