Chapter Text
It was a calm night in the Mexican city of Juarez, a large city just south of the U.S. border, and the city of El Paso, Texas. The moon was hanging in the sky, casting a dim light throughout the desert outskirts of the city. A lone complex of buildings towered over the empty landscape, a barbed wire fence protecting the property.
One of the buildings in the complex was buzzing with life; dozens of workers were exiting one of the main buildings in the complex, a large WOLFCONN sign illuminating the parking lot in a blue light. The workers were conversing with each other, whether it be about their weekend plans or about the recent policy changes in the facility, or even with the street vendors stationed outside that were trying to sell the departing workers a bite to eat, they were all too distracted to notice a lone man in a pinstripe suit standing by one of the delivery bays.
The guard, a bulky middle-aged man with a steel-gray mustache and a receding hairline of wirey thin hair, let out an agitated sigh as he took another whiff of a cigar he was holding. He put his cell phone back to his ear.
“No, sir. I ain’t saying that I’m mad or anything! Yeah, no I ain’t mad at all.”
A few seconds passed and the man took another whiff,
“Good, good! I’m glad that we’re on the same page here.” He said with a weak laugh. “Yeah, I ain’t mad. No, no. I’m pissed off!” He yelled, pacing around the delivery bay.
“You idiots up in corporate shove my ass in the middle of the desert and put me in charge of a bunch of incompetent dimwits for over a month! Then you make me wait hours in the blistering heat, waiting for a damn asset transfer that’s been off schedule! “
He flicked the cigar to the side. “Do you jackasses know who I am? After all the shit I’ve done for you? All the hard work and hours standing around, making sure some rich jag-off that’s worth a good fifty percent of a small country’s GDP doesn’t get a bullet between his eyes! That’s how valuable I am to this whole operation! Without you, this whole shebang will be screwed harder than- Hello! Hello!”
The man checked his cell phone. No bars. The cell service just went dead. He cursed under his breath. The Wolfconn complex had some of the dodgiest reception imaginable. Not even the new cell tower installed in the complex didn’t help; the reception always stayed at one to two bars, max.
He tossed his phone to the side. The damn thing was quite useless anyways; just an old burner phone that he was assigned. It wasn’t like the thing had any value to him anyways-
“Dan? Hey Dan, you there?”
He sighed and unbuckled the radio from his waist. “Yup, still here. Can you please someone get the cell reception fixed, it just had an aneurysm again.”
“That’s the issue. Cell reception just went down.”
Dan ran a hand through his hair. “Wait, what do you mean it just went down-“
“I mean it just went down. It’s not even just the cell reception; internet, phone lines, hell, even the damn fax machines are down.”
“And the radio is still on?”
“Barely. Our range is pretty limited at the moment. We can’t contact anyone outside of the facility.”
“Damn! Well, it can’t be anything too serious. Probably just some idiot down in IT who just pulled the wrong plug or something. Wouldn’t be the first time. Just send someone down to check it out.”
“Noted. And do you want me to notify the security team?”
The older man scratched his head. “Eh, why not? Better be safe. If this transfer goes wrong, our necks will be on the line.”
“Our necks are always on the line.” The person muttered. “Anyways, I’ll get someone down to the server room to check things out. I’ll report back in a few.”
Dan nodded and clipped the radio back on his belt. He scratched his head, thinking. Something was wrong here, that was obvious for sure. The fact that nearly all their methods of communicating with anyone outside of the factory just went kaput conveniently right before an important asset transfer was rather suspicious. It could just be a coincidental accident, sure. But something was completely off about this situation. Like it wasn’t an accident.
Like they were being sabotaged-
“¡Discúlpeme señor! ¿Me puedes ayudar con algo?”
Dan whirled his head around. Standing near the entrance to the delivery bay was a man, most likely one of the locals that worked in the factory judging by the uniform. He cursed to himself. This wasn’t the first time a local stumbled into the wrong part of the facility and he had to shoo an idiot or two away, which was made even more difficult due to the language barrier. He thought that he wouldn’t have to worry about anyone stumbling into the delivery bay, and yet here he was.
Dan tried to recall the limited Spanish he knew. “Uh….. ¡No español! ¡te vas! ¡Privado!” He yelled, wincing as he butchered the pronunciation.
To his disappointment, the man only walked closer. “¿Qué? ¡No puedo entenderte!!” The man yelled, clearly frustrated at him.
“For the love of- ¡No español! ¡Te vas! ¡Ahora! ¡Privado!
“¿Qué? ¡Solo necesito un baño!”
Dan cursed. He marched forward, mumbling under his breath the whole way. He jabbed a finger in the opposite direction. “¡Salir! ¡Ahora! ¡Vamos!” He yelled, slowly pronouncing each syllable in the words, hoping that the idiot in front of him can understand him.
“¿Q-qué? ¡S-solo ne-necesito un ba-baño!” The man spattered out, shaking.
Dan stopped in his tracks. Something was wrong with this man, that was fairly obvious. He wasn’t sure if the poor guy was having some type of stroke, heart attack, or both. Dan didn’t know, he wasn’t a damn doctor after all.
“Uh, you good? ¿Necesitas una doctora?”
“¿Q-q-qué? ¡S-solo ne-ne-necesito un ba-ba-baño” The man said. Then, like the man was in some type of video game, he began to glitch, parts of him floating around violently in the air with him still sputtering the same sentence, over and over again.
Dan backed up and
placed his hand on his holster on instinct. He had to eat some weird shit earlier right? Maybe it was like those French people who ate some moldy bread and danced til they kicked the bucket, only this time it was just one idiot in a warehouse watching a guy glitch out of reality.
Then, as fast as it began, it all came to a violent conclusion. The man suddenly poofed into a weird blue smoke, which quickly dissipated into the air, leaving Dan standing in the bay, completely bewildered by what just happened.
“What the hell-“
Dan was suddenly cut off as he felt a wet cloth thrust against his mouth. He tried to fight back, reaching for his gun, but the attacker shook him, disorientating him as his eyes grew heavy. He tried to stay awake, he tried to fight back, he tried to do anything.
But all he could do was breathe in a sweet, intoxicating fume, as his eyes grew heavy and he collapsed onto the pavement.
The man standing behind him huffed a sigh of relief. He was wearing black boots, black cargo pants, and a black fleece jacket, with a balaclava obscuring his face. He pulled it off, revealing a head of curly brown hair and weary brown eyes. He yawned, scratching the stubble on his face. He stared at the incapacitated guard for a few moments before reaching for a radio of his own.
“Control. This is Blue. Ready to proceed with the mission.”
Blue waited for a few seconds before the radio buzzed back. “Perfect timing. You know the plan right?”
Blue rolled his eyes. “ Of course I do, the plan has been drilled into my head by now.” He kneeled to inspect the knocked-out guard, digging in his coat pocket for anything useful. “Get in, get the data, get out. Perfectly easy.” He relayed into the radio.
“Great. And, uh, if you can get us some food from one of those stands outside -Like any one of them, I got no preference- that would be great-“
“Green! For God’s sake, stay on task!” He heard a woman’s voice shout in the background. Blue rolled his eyes. It must’ve been Elena, the field captain for their small rag-tag group of idiots whose job was to prevent said group from accidentally killing each other, not out of hatred, but out of sheer stupidity.
Blue was pretty sure that the reason they were all still employed was that, as a unit overall, they were surprisingly competent at their jobs.
“Don’t worry Green. I’ll get the food.” Blue said, flipping through the guard’s pockets. Nothing but an empty wallet and a small pocket watch. Useless. “What do you guys want?”
“Blue! Don’t encourage them-“
“Kinda feeling tacos. Had ‘em last night, but I kinda wanna have ‘em again, y’know?”
“I’ll get what Greens having!” The group’s medic, Moss, called out from the background.
“……Fine, I’ll get some tacos too. But can we please stay on task here!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Blue muttered. He smiled as he finally found what he was looking for: clipped onto the guard’s shirt was a small ID badge. Blue plucked it off and inspected it:
[FOXCONN ENT.]
DAN LEDGEMONT
HEAD OF SECURITY
Perfect. Blue clipped the badge onto his shirt. “Got the guy’s badge. I’m ready to apply the illusion on myself.”
“Affirmative. Try not to strain yourself. We both know that stuff drains you pretty quickly.”
Blue raised an eyebrow. “No, it does not!”
“Really? Then how long did this illusion you did last?”
“Uh…. About three minutes.”
“Damn! That’s a record! I mean, even with all of the practice we did the best we could manage was about a minute.” Green replied sarcastically.
Blue rolled his eyes. “All right, you’ve had your fun. Now lemme do my magic here.” He said, putting the radio to the side. Blue closed his eyes and tried to focus. He projected a mental image of the unconscious guard into his head, trying to picture every last detail about him; the pinstripe suit he was wearing, the mustache on his face, his eyes; the more detail, the better.
He weaved his fingers into a circle, and although his eyes were tightly shut, he could feel the energy pulsating from his fingers as he weaved a small spell circle into the air. He felt a cold air suddenly surround him as he applied the illusion spell over himself.
One of the first things that the Foundation learned about illusion magic was that it happened to be deceptively difficult to master. The concept for illusions is relatively simple: one needs to picture a mental image of what they want to create, and then cast the spell. However, depending on the size and complexity of the illusion, the spell can wear out the user quickly. Esspecially if the illusion is complex, such as the worker that Blue made earlier. Blue was lucky that the illusion finally gave out when the guard was in the right spot for him to knock him out.
Speaking of the guard.
Blue opened his eyes. Instead of the black jacket he was wearing before, he was now wearing a pinstripe suit. He checked his reflection on his watch, and he noticed that his face was the guard’s face.
All right, things are going as planned.
He picked up the radio. “Illusion applied. I’m moving in.” He said, his voice the same as before. That was one of the downsides of the illusion he cast; it only changed his physical body, not his voice. He’ll need to keep quiet in there so he wouldn’t blow his cover.
“Affirmative. We’ll be shutting off all radio comms in the facility. Just buzz us back if you run into any problems-“
“Actually….” Blue interrupted. “I think I’m gonna shut off my radio as well.”
“What?”
“Look, here me out! It would be a tad bit suspicious if I’m the only guy in there with a working radio, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, but-“
“Don’t worry about it! If worst comes to worst – which it won’t – I’ll just turn it back on and let you know. Got it?”
Blue waited for a few moments. “….Fine. I’m shutting off radio comms now. Good luck. And don’t die.” Green buzzed back.
He smiled. “Wasn’t planning on it.” With that, he turned off his radio and shoved it in his pocket. He turned around and saw the guard laying on the pavement behind him.
Right. Probably should take care of him.
He spun a small spell circle. The man’s limp body levitated off the ground. On the other end of the delivery bay, a dumpster’s lid flew open. Blue flicked his finger to the side, and the guard’s body was flung across the delivery bay, slammed into the dumpster lid, and fell into the dumpster. The lid happened to conveniently fall shut afterward.
Blue winced.
He’ll be fine.
Blue walked over to the delivery bay and opened the side door.
Get in, get out. It’ll be a piece of cake.
*-_-_-_-_-*
This is not a piece of cake
Blue ran into one small, tiny, minuscule problem a few minutes into the operation.
It just so happened that the building layout that Blue was given by the recon unit, the building layout that was supposed to be one-hundred percent accurate, the building layout that he had wasted hours of his life memorizing every single twist and turn, was completely inaccurate.
Well….. sort of.
Some parts of the layout were just fine. Other parts of the layout on the other hand were just wrong. Blue had to stop himself from walking into a wall once or twice, which wasn’t good for his cover.
As Blue strolled through the building, his mind wandered to what he was really here for.
Wolfconn was a large electronic parts manufacturer. They produced computer chips and other components for some of the largest tech corporations in the world. Name a company, there was a good chance Wolfconn was their supplier.
Of course, the Foundation wouldn’t have even been interested in Wolfconn, let alone their facility in Juarez.
But then the Foundation was tipped off by one of their agents in Juarez about some suspicious activity going on around the warehouse: The sudden arrival of armored convoys delivering goods to the factory that were clearly not computer chips. The seemingly random construction of a second warehouse close to the main complex, which according to rumors, was strictly off-limits to the facility’s normal personnel. And lastly, a few dozen additional personnel, mostly heavily armed security, were hired to staff the newly built warehouse.
It didn’t take a Ph.D. to realize that things were not where they seemed at that factory.
After MTF unit Mu-3 did some digging, they discovered that the newly built facility in the complex was for a particular group of interest that had caught the Foundation’s attention for the last couple of years: Marshall, Carter, and Dark.
MC&D were major players in the market for anomalous objects and entities. In a nutshell, the group was a club for the super-rich that is headquartered in London. Despite this, the group has immense political and financial ties worldwide, which they naturally used to their advantage to achieve their goals.
Their goals in question? Providing their members with the most exquisite and expensive experiences imaginable, all with the usage of anomalous objects and entities.
The warehouse in Juarez happened to be front for a large storage facility where they kept many of their items until they were sold off or shipped somewhere else. To the disappointment of the foundation, the warehouse did not contain any artifacts that they could retrieve and properly contain.
However, they found something much more valuable. The item in question was a computer that contained sales logs from the last decade. This was a particularly valuable find since information about the group’s members and leaders was generally kept hush-hush.
One problem quickly arose: simply hacking into the computer and retrieving the files wasn’t an option.
It was obvious that MC&D thought about that possibility due to the presence of military-grade encryption which secured the facility’s computers.
If they wanted the file, they needed someone to go in on the inside.
And that is where Blue and his team came in.
The plan was simple: a surveillance van would drop Blue off a few blocks away from the warehouse. Blue would then subdue and take out one of the guards, take on their identity, and use it to sneak into the warehouse, copy the data into a flash drive, and get out.
And with the onsite security expected to be light for the night, the assignment should’ve been relatively simple.
Keyword: Should’ve
Blue walked past a pair of heavily armed guards and stopped a few feet away from them next to a door. He was starting to get a bit antsy; these guards weren’t the first he’d seen that night, and Blue was pretty sure they had to increase the security for the night.
The conversation he heard between the two guards nearby happened to confirm his suspicions:
“It’s kinda bullshit they scheduled us this late, don’t you think?” He heard one guard say.
The other guard shrugged. “ Eh, you get used to it. Management is always pretty incompetent.”
“Yeah, but you’d think they at least give us some heads up? One moment I’m in my hotel room drinking my ass off, the next moment they send me here, shove a gun in my hands, and now I’m stuck in this place, waiting for a delayed asset shipment.”
“Yup, tell me about it. And everything is down too. Radio, cell reception, hell, even the damn fax machines went kaput.”
“The hell’s a fax machine?”
Blue stifled a small laugh; both out of the other guard’s acute unawareness of what a fax machine was, but also out of sheer frustration. So his suspicions were apparently right: This place really did have extra hands on deck.
Well, that was an issue. If he couldn’t find the server room fast, he might need to bail and run back to the van. Granted, the chances of him even finding the dang room with the wrong building layout on hand were exponetially lowering by the minute-
A small sign next to the door in front of him caught his eye. He took a glance at it:
--- INTERNAL TECHNOLOGIES DEPARTMENT ---
Huh, that was convenient.
Blue looked around and walked into the room. The room was small, with large computer servers towering over the back of the room. On the other end were a few monitors, with a man staring intently at one of them. He noticed Blue come in.
“Oh! Hey Dan, glad you can make it. Can you take a quick look at this?” He said. Blue walked over to where he was seated and glanced at the monitor, which displayed several error messages.
“All of our systems just went down about five, maybe ten-ish minutes ago.” He explained. “ I’m looking at the error messages here and it’s kinda weird. It’s not like our communications are damaged from the outside or something. I had some of our maintenance guys look upstairs, and they managed to let me know everything is in the green before our radios went down. It’s almost if like our communications are being jammed-“
Blue took that moment to gag the poor guy with a rag. He struggled to get a good hold of him for a few moments before his body gave in. His limp body fell out of the chair and into the ground.
Blue pocketed the rag and leaned over to the computer. Within a few minutes, he was leaving the room, flash drive with the newly acquired data in hand, and ready to head back to the van, not before getting some food for his fellow agents first.
But of course, things had to go wrong.
*-_-_-_-_-*
Blue learned one thing about the guards on site that night: they were apparently very trigger happy.
Also, getting shot while wearing a bullet-proof vest hurts. A lot. Well, it wasn’t like he knew that already. It was more like a reminder. A rather painful reminder.
“Right there, I see him! Third central pillar, right at the base!”
A flurry of bullets attacked the pillar Blue was crouched behind. He quickly jumped behind a nearby crate that to provide himself some more cover from the oncoming gunfire.
He didn’t even know how everything escalated up to this point: one moment he was walking to the warehouse’s exit and the next moment he was stopped randomly by a guard who recognized the person who he was disguised as, who simply asked him how he was doing. Blue, in what was probably a mixture of overconfidence and stupidity, replied that he was doing fine, which drew the guard’s immediate attention. Here was the thing, Dan – the guy Blue was disguised as – had a thick Boston accent. Blue did not have a thick Boston accent. So, when the guard immediately drew his sidearm at Blue and asked for identification, Blue panicked and did the most logical thing he could think of in that situation.
He ran in the opposite direction.
And now he was slumped behind an empty shipping crate, surrounded by several heavily armed lunatics who were firing at him in what seemed like all directions. He flinched as a bullet struck the crate, mere inches from his head. He looked up, quickly pinpointing the source of the bullet: a guard lying flat on his stomach on a catwalk above him, aiming a rifle toward him.
“Fuck…….” Blue cursed under his breath. He took a look to his right. He could see several other guards rushing towards the crate he was hiding behind, guns drawn. A glance to the left told the same story. He was cornered.
Blue wildly glanced around. No, that couldn’t be possible. There had to be some way out of this, some type of loophole that he could exploit, right?
Another shot hit the crate, this time much closer. Blue drew his own gun and fired a few shots back, which given his current luck, all harmlessly bounced off the metal catwalk. He pulled the trigger again to only find that the gun had run empty, and with a quick patdown of his waist, he came to the sudden realization that he was completely out of ammo.
It was at this moment Blue realized that he probably wasn’t going to make it out of this one.
Fuck.
To be honest, this wasn’t exactly the way he’d expected to go out. He’s had it drilled into his head that he would inevitably have to go out sometime, somewhere – it was an unfortunate fact that came with the job, after all – but he’d never expect it’d be so….. mundane. If anything, he’d think his death would be intense and exhilarating.
Like being ripped to shreds by a giant indestructible killer reptile. Or having your entire molecular structure rearranged, rebuilt, and then rearranged yet again until you were disintegrated into sheer nothingness by some Lovecraftian horror. Or having your brain taken over by a giant intelligent parasitic centipede. Or-
Another gunshot rang out, and Blue recoiled as he felt his left arm erupt in pain. He glanced over and saw a large gash across his upper arm and a bullet embedded in the wooden crate next to him. He clenched his arm and looked up, noticing the guard above him cursing and slamming his fist against the catwalk like a small child. The guard quickly reloaded the gun and aimed it at Blue.
Blue widened his eyes.
Farts.
He braced himself, getting ready for the now inevitable sweet release of death.
“Getting sniped in the head in a warehouse in Mexico,” Blue murmured to himself. “I’ll take it.” Blue then closed his eyes shut, waiting……..
And waiting…………..
And waiting- ok, what’s the hold-up?
He opened his eyes in confusion at looked over at the guard. He was tempted to taunt the guard to just shoot him already when he realized the guard was struggling with his rifle. Wait. The guard’s gun had jammed. Blue watched for a moment as the guard struggled with unjamming the gun. Although he was clearly outgunned, the idiots he was facing didn’t seem to have any formal training with their weapons, as clearly evident by the guard in front of him somehow making his jammed gun problem worse. All Blue had to do was make a quick decision before the guard realized that he had a second gun and then proceed to shoot him with that one.
All right, think Blue, think! Options. What options do I have here?
He considered the limited options that he had. He couldn’t fire back at the guards; not only was he considerably outnumbered, but he was also completely out of ammunition. Maybe he could just throw the empty gun at a guard’s head and- nope, that wouldn’t work either.
He looked at his watch: a cheap standard-issue watch that already had a cracked screen from years of work in the field. The watch was equipped with a panic button on its side; one quick press and alert his fellow agents that he was in a messy situation, and they would come over and bail his sorry behind out. Basic standard operating procedure.
Blue looked at the button and hesitated. It would work on paper, but he was sure if he would be able to hold out on his own before backup arrived. Given his luck, he would most likely be the human equivalent of Swiss Cheese by the time his team broke into the facility to get him. Besides, he wouldn’t want them risking their necks to save his neck.
So he can’t run, shoot back, or even call for backup.
Wow, he really got screwed over this time.
Well……there was the last option.
Was it risky?
Yes, yes it was.
Was it against every single protocol the Foundation had?
Yes, yes it was.
Was it going to get him into a lot of deep shit?
Yes, yes it was.
But was it going to get him out here alive?
Yes, yes it was.
Blue breathed a rushed sigh. He fell onto his knees and quickly cast a simple detection spell. After a few seconds, the spill pinged back and Blue was surprised at how few guards were shooting at him. There had to be at least five or six other guards around him at most, which to be fair still was pretty bad for him, but at least it was something he could work with.
He ran through a list of spells in his head. Maybe he can make some copies of himself using an illusion? No, that wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t have enough time to cast it. Besides, there is still a chance that a guard will get lucky and end up shooting him.
Maybe some type of electrical discharge to shock these guys? No, that would be a terrible idea given all the exposed wiring and electrical components around the warehouse. He’ll probably end up shocking himself.
What about some type of harmonics-based spell that he can use to put these guys to sleep? Oh wait, he can’t really do that since he doesn’t have any specially enchanted instrument to work with. He could try whistling, but he might end up putting himself to sleep by having the spell backfire on him. He would know, it’s happened before.
C’mon Blue! Think! Think as if your life depends on it BECAUSE IT KINDA DOES!
He rustled his pockets, trying to find something to work with. A small cylindrical device fell off his belt and hit the ground. Blue ducked down and picked it up, ignoring the gunshots around him, and inspected it. It was a standard-issue stun grenade or flashbang. He honestly forgot he even had it on him. He could use it to stun the guards around him, but the grenade was simply too weak to do anything substantial. He needed something stronger.
Wait.
The Ultra-Flashbang of Doom.
Back during his training days, one of his fellow candidates for the thaumaturgy program had created a spell that would generate an “Ultra-Flashbang of Doom” by combining an amplified light spell and another spell that would manipulate the air molecules in the general vicinity to create a large *BANG*. Like a regular flashbang, but it doesn’t rely on an explosion for its effects, which helps to minimize the risk of burns.
Before the idiot got booted out of the program for using the spell in the mess hall as a prank he had taught it to all the other candidates in the program, Blue included.
He rummaged through his pockets and produced a pair of silicone earplugs. He shoved them into his ears and began to cast the spell. He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the spell circle he was drawing in the air, a lot larger than the one for the detection spell earlier. He heard the shooting die down a little as some of the guards stopped shooting and yelled at each other in confusion.
Blue completed the spell circle and a large glowing ball of light was generated in front of him. It was so bright that the entire warehouse was completely illuminated like the sun was high and bright outside, and not late at night. Blue tightly shut his eyes and slapped his hand against the light, praying to whatever God there was that he did the spell correctly.
A sudden thought hit him: Wait a minute, this spell would probably affect me too right-
And then the spell activated.
*-_-_-_-_-*
“What the hell is taking him so long?” Elena Lennox silently muttered to herself. She was seated in a rusted foldout chair in the back of the surveillance van, fanning herself with a bundle of reports that she should be working on, but was too preoccupied with worrying about Blue to focus on.
Well, it wasn’t like she was worried about Blue-
Wait, that sounds bad.
All right, she was worried about her friend, but at the same time, she was also worried about the status of the operation as a whole. She had been a field captain for what, two, three months now? And within that time period not a single mission, not a single damn one, has gone to plan. Sure, it’ll start out nice and smooth, but then the roadblocks appear, and things get messy. Phone calls have to be made, a few disinformation agents have to be discharged out to the field, and she gets the flack for it.
Every. Single. Time.
She likes the unit she’s with: Blue, Moss, and Green. They’re nice people, but at the same time, she feels like she’s wrangling a herd of cats from running off the side of a cliff.
Case in point: Moss, the group’s assigned medic.
In a normal unit, the medic would be taking stock of supplies while the operation is running. In this unit, Moss was passing the time by telling ‘fun’ medical facts to keep her and the surveillance specialist, Agent Green, occupied.
He always talked when he was bored.
“Here’s a fun fact! When you blush, your stomach lining also blushes as well! I can that can explain the ‘Butterflies in your stomach’ phrase, eh?” Moss laughed at his own awful, terrible excuse of a joke.
“Oh, here’s another fun fact! Your own immune system can sometimes go haywire and kill you! Like for example, you got Devic’s Disease which is essentially when your immune system attacks your eyes, which leads to blindness. It’s pretty fun, right? Like, imagine falling asleep, not knowing that it’ll be the last time seeing your loved ones, and then you wake up to perpetual darkness! It’s amazing! Oh and did you that if you squeeze out all the bacteria from your intestines, you can fill a coffee mug-“
“Will you please shut up man,” Elena said. “I don’t even want to know how you even know half this stuff, but you’ve spent the last twenty minutes traumatizing everyone in this van-“
“Oh, believe me, that’s just the tame stuff. Wait until he gets to the graphic descriptions of obscure medical procedures.” Green called from behind her.
Elena sighed. “I- I don’t even want to know. Moss, did you at least take stock of the medical supplies before you went on a tangent about the effects of Escolar on the digestive system?”
He nodded. “Yup. Nothing changed at all, we still got everything. Gloves, cold packs, bandages, you know, medicine stuff.”
She nodded. “What about you Green? What’s Blue’s status so far? Is everything going smoothly- oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
She groaned at the sight before her: while she was completely preoccupied with (not) filling out the mission reports, Green thought it would be totally professional to recline back on the old office chair, relax his boots up on the desk (which was filled with some expensive and sensitive communications equipment) and reading a worn lavender book.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” Elena yelled. Green snapped his head up from the book and gave her a small smirk. “Reading.” He replied, sarcasm oozing from his voice.
“Oh for the love of- You’re supposed to be on surveillance, not reading whatever crap that is!” She said.
Green gasped and fanned a hand on his chest. “Oh how DARE you call…. uh, La Bruja Buena Azura crap! I’ll have you know that this story happens to be a literary masterpiece comparable to the works of Shakespeare!”
Elena blinked. La Bruja Buena Azura? She translated the title into English and facepalmed. “Really, Green? The Good Witch Azura? That book is for kids. You’re a bit over the target demographic, don’t you think?”
“Excuse me! This book’s target audience happens to be teens, thank you very much-“
“Ok! Ok, I get it! You like the book. That’s great and all, but you need to be focusing on the task on hand here.” Elena sighed.
“Oh, I am!”
“You’re reading a Spanish edition of a children’s book.”
“Yeah, and I’m also monitoring Blue’s position within the warehouse. He hasn’t really been doing much so far, just wandering around by the looks of it.” He pointed to the screen, which was connected to a tracker.
“And is the radio still down?”
“Yep. I don’t wanna turn it back on until he’s outta the building though. Don’t want to risk anything going wrong.” He said.
Something always goes wrong. She thought to herself.
As if the universe was giving her the finger, the van then suddenly shook as a large explosion was heard in the distance.
“What the hell was that!” She yelled. She looked at her fellow agents. Neither of them seemed to know what was going on either. Green sat back down and practically flung himself towards the communications console. “I’m taking a look at it now, Elena. It looks like it came from inside……oh fuck.”
“What? What is it!” Moss yelled.
“It came from inside the warehouse.”
Moss simply sat in shock as Elena ran over to the back of the van and flung open the door. She peered outside of the back alley they were parked in and looked toward the direction of the warehouse. Nothing. No fire, no smoke. Just the sound of car alarms wailing in the distance and unintelligible shouting.
“I-I’m not seeing anything.” She said, slamming the door. “There’s nothing going on out there. It had to be an explosion, right?
“That’s the thing…..” Green started, his eyes darting around the screen trying to make sense of what was going on. “It wasn’t an explosion.”
*-_-_-_-_-*
It would be fair to say that Blue did not think things through.
The sudden burst of sound from the triggered spell knocked Blue off-balance, and despite the earbuds he’d shoved into his ears moments before, his head was ringing louder than the fire alarms that were blaring around the warehouse. The explosion (was that the right word to call it) must’ve triggered the fire alarms somehow.
Blue rubbed his head. He wasn’t expecting the earbuds to work, this was the same spell that landed several people in the hospital for ruptured eardrums after all (the disinformation bureau had a fun time explaining that to the hospital staff). Still, he’d thought they at least do something.
Here’s a spoiler alert: they did jack-all.
With some difficulty, Blue managed to get back up on his feet. He looked around for a few moments, checking to see if he was in the clear. The guards who were firing at him moments before were lying around in the warehouse, some clutching their heads in pain, others just screaming a mixture of curse words and incomprehensible gibberish. The guard who nearly killed Blue earlier wasn’t faring well either: he appeared to have rolled off the catwalk and fallen into an empty crate, now screaming a colorful variety of curse words.
Blue breathed a sigh of relief. He patted himself down, checking for any potential injuries he may have sustained. His hand brushed against his arm, and he felt a stabbing pain. He looked down and cursed to himself. The wound seemed to be pretty worse for wear, especially since it seemed pretty deep, but he should be fine. At least for now.
Blue began walking down the deserted warehouse, his boots crunching on the shards of broken glass that littered the warehouse. As he stepped over another unconscious guard, he noticed that all the windows in the building were completely gone, presumably shattered by the spell, and several car alarms wailing in the distance. He winced to himself.
He probably went a little overboard, but on the bright side, he was alive!
After some walking, Blue spotted a promising-looking door. Above it was a neon sign that simply read SALIDA, or EXIT in Spanish. That was good. Exit means he can finally get out of here with the data, and back to the van. Granted, Elena would most likely be completely ticked off at him for…… everything – which to be fair was completely reasonable – but what did she expect him to do? Just stand there and get shot?
Well, that…… and the fact he didn’t want them getting killed over him. It wasn’t like he’d thought his teammates would get killed trying to extract him– quite the opposite in fact – but he wouldn’t live with himself if something were to happen.
He got to the door and clasped the handle, hoping for an exit. He turned the handle and opened the door.
It was not an exit.
He wasn’t sure what type of room he stumbled upon. It seemed like a mixture of a recording studio, judging by all the styrofoam paneling lining the walls, and a break room, with a large table in the center of the room, cabinets, and a sink on the other side of the room. Across from him was a still intact glass door, with another exit sign above it, taunting him. Most concerning was a trio of dazed guards. The walls and styrofoam paneling must’ve drowned out most of the effects of the spell, saving the guards from a lifetime of permanent hearing loss. Lucky them.
But it wasn’t exactly lucky for Blue. The guards perked their heads up and noticed him in the doorway. The table they were sitting at was littered with playing cards and a few half-empty bottles of what Blue can assume was – as the cool kids say – the fun juice. They seemed to be in the middle of a card game. They all stared at each other, a tense (and awkward) silence in the air.
After a few moments, one of the guards spoke. He had a wad of cards in his hand. “So, uh……. Does anybody have any sevens?“
Another guard shifted the cards in his hands, which were covered with some rather nice white gloves. “Uh…..no. Wait hold on, I just found one! Yup, there ya go-“
“Wait, wait, hold on. Are we just going to ignore this guy?”
The two guards muttered to each other and nodded. “Yup.” Card guy announced.
“W-What, that question was rhetorical! You know the orders, right? Apprehend any trespassers.”
“Yup.”
“And there is a trespasser right there.”
“I see him.”
“So by that logic, we should be apprehending him and taking him into custody instead of, I don’t know, playing fucking GO FISH!”
“Makes sense to me.”
“So, you two get off your lazy asses and help me take this guy out!”
“Hm……no.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO!?”
Card guy sighed. “Look, we’re on break right now. We don’t get paid while we’re on break, thus, anything that goes on is simply not our problem.”
The guard’s face turned crimson. “W-what, but for the love of- ITS OUR JOB!”
“Exactly! A job that we get paid to do. We’re on break, which means we don’t get paid, which means anything that happens out there ain’t our problem-“
Gloves interuppted him. “Hold on, it is our problem now since he’s in here.”
“Shit, you got me there.” Card guy sighed. He collected the cards laying around the table and pocketed them. He stood up. “Well, I’m continuing this game outside. You two coming?”
“Eh, sure.” Gloves got up.
“Wait, what the hell are you two doing?” Crimson yelled.
“Taking the game outside. Since he’s in here, if we go outside, he’ll no longer become our problem.” Card guy explained.
“You- what- you can’t-“ Crimson sputtered, watching as his two fellow guards waltzed out of the room. He spotted Blue. “Hey! Where do you think you’re going!”
Blue cursed to himself. While the guards were bickering amongst themselves, he took the opportunity to quietly sneak around them and through the exit. He was so close, so damn close, to slipping out of the door, but of course, it couldn’t be that easy.
The guard got up and drew a knife from his belt. He approached Blue slowly like he was some kind of wild animal. “Alright buddy, just hold still.” He muttered. “Just put your hands behind your back, and cooperate with me, otherwise things are gonna get complicated.”
Blue raised his hands in surrender and let the guard approach him. He noticed that the guard was jutting his arm out too far, exposing it. The idiot probably didn’t even know how to use a knife.
When the guard got close enough, Blue sprung into action. He lunged forwards, dodging the knife in the guard’s hands, and twisted his arm. He flipped the guard down to the ground with a loud thud.
Perfect. Now to leave- wait, why did his shoulder hurt?
He glanced down at his shoulder and said a few choice words. There was a knife lodged firmly in his shoulder.
Ok, so he may not have dodged that knife too well.
While he was processing this realization, the door to the break room flung open and a group of guards stepped in, arguing among themselves. They all stopped when they noticed Blue.
Once again, there was that silence. The awkward silence. Blue simply stood frozen like he was a deer caught in the headlights. He should’ve been running, but no, he was just standing there. Like an idiot.
“Uh……..hi!” Blue smiled nervously.
The guards all drew various types of weaponry: batons, knives, even a taser, and charged him. Blue gritted his teeth.
Things might get complicated.
*-_-_-_-_-*
“What do you mean it wasn’t an explosion?” Elena all but yelled.
“I-I don’t really know, the SMRs aren’t picking up any traces of an explosion. It looks more like a sudden rush of air if anything,” Green said.
“What do you mean?”
“When you pop a balloon, air that was trapped inside of it will rapidly rush outside of it, right? Well, that’s what I’m picking up here. It’s like someone just popped a huge balloon or something.”
Elena leaned forward to glance at the monitor. Green replayed the footage from the SMR and it showed a large shift of air within the warehouse. He was right, it wasn’t an explosion.
She sighed in frustration. The SMR, or Satilite-based Monitor and Radar was the Foundation’s advanced monitoring system that was designed for situations like this. She didn’t know too much about the specifics of the system, but what she did know was that the system was based on a series of satellites in Earth’s orbit. Most of the satellites were for civilian or government use, but all you really have to do is just log into the SMR interface, choose a satellite that is adjacent to your location, and a few clicks later you got a perfect bird eye view of the area you’re in.
Basically, the same satellites that you’d probably watch trashy reality TV with can be used to pinpoint the exact location of a missile launch. Or in their case, figure out the cause of a disruptance in an operation. But what they had right now made no sense.
An idea popped into her head. “Can you try pinpointing his location?”
Green typed a few commands on the keyboard. “Doing that now. Lemme see what’s going on-oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” He paled, staring at the screen.
“What! What’s wrong!” Moss asked.
“His tracker just went dead.”
Elena froze. “How?”
Green shrugged. “The trackers connected to his watch. So I’ll take a guess and say his watch was damaged somehow. But that’s just being optimistic-“
“No, no! We’re being optimistic here!” She said. She was beginning to panic, which wasn’t something she wanted to do in this situation. She couldn’t lose one of her teammates in this operation. Not again. “Can you try to figure out where he was last?” She asked.
Green hummed for a minute, rapidly clicking away at the console. “Well…..kind of? I can dig through the saved location data in the cloud for his last known geographical location, but I may have to dig pretty deep through the files since the system isn’t really designed to show previous data. It sort of just deletes the old data and replaces it with the new data for redundancy purposes, so worst case scenario I have to go through the deleted data cache which will be a pain in the-“
“Green, you need to understand that everyone here isn’t well acquainted with computers like you.” Moss interuptted him. “So can you please-“
“If you tell me to ‘speak English’, I will throttle you.” Green snapped.
“Hey, don’t you threaten me with a good time-“
“BOTH OF YOU, SHUT IT!” Elena yelled, and Green and Moss fell quiet. She didn’t need Green’s excessive sarcasm and Moss being…… Moss right now. She breathed a sigh. “Ok, so you can get his location. How long will it take?”
“It depends on whether the data has been deleted or not.”
“Give me a worst-case estimate here.”
“Uh….. maybe an hour? There’s a lot of data to shift through here, Elena. As I said, this isn’t really what the programmers had in mind when they were designing this tech.”
Elena cursed to herself. She wasn’t sure what was going on in the warehouse, but she had a feeling it wasn’t exactly good. She also had a feeling that Blue probably won’t be able to hold himself off for enough time for Green to pinpoint his location. She might have to go to drastic measures here.
She leaped into action, jumping across the van to the gun safe in the back. She opened it, grabbed a rifle, and checked it. It was still in good shape, that was good. She grabbed another gun and thrust it into Moss’s hands. “Grab the medkit, we’re going in after him.” She announced.
Moss didn’t even protest, he simply shouldered a medkit and followed Elena to the back of the van. “Hold on! What about me?” Green called to her.
“Keep in touch with us, our comms should be good, right?”
“Uh, I think so.”
“Good. If our comms go down, signal an MTF team for backup.” She ordered, unlocking the van door. She was just about to open the door when it unexpectedly flew open, and she saw a stranger looming in the van’s doorway. Elena instinctively went to her side to draw her gun but stopped and breathed a sigh of relief upon noticing that it was a familiar face.
Blue. The son of a bitch was somehow still alive.
He was wearing the same clothes as before, so she assumed that the illusion spell at least went off without a hitch (the alternative plan was for Blue to change into the guy’s clothes and dump his unconscious body in a dumpster, and boy, she was glad it didn’t come to that). His balaclava was wrapped around his neck, exposing his face. He looked a bit worse for wear: several small cuts and bruises littered his face, and there was a large gash along the side of his left arm. Probably a graze wound by the looks of it.
He gave a large toothy grin. “Sup guys. I got that food you wanted.” He held up two large paper bags, the smell of freshly cooked Mexican cuisine emanating from them.
Moss smiled. “Aww….. Thanks! You know you really didn’t have to do that-“ He stopped short, his eyes widening. “Uh…..Blue, I’m not sure if you noticed, but you kinda got a knife sticking out of your shoulder there.”
She glanced down, and there was indeed a knife firmly lodged into the right side of his upper chest. Blue glanced down as he’d just noticed it. Because knowing him, he’d probably just noticed it.
“Huh, I forgot that was there.” He muttered.
Yup, of course, he’d just noticed it.
Elena had many questions. How did he get a knife lodged in his shoulder? Was he going to be all right? How did he forget it was there? And- oh lord, she was going to have to file an injury report for that, wasn’t she? Knowing her luck, the answer was a resounding yes.
Moss facepalmed. “How did you forget- do you know what, forget it. We’ll just talk about this later. Can you clear these reports off the table here, Captain? I need the space.” Elena nodded and began to declutter the table, Moss barking at Green to pass him several pieces of medical equipment, and telling him to get his lazy behind off his chair.
Moss ushered Blue into the chair, reclining it back all the way. She heard Green mutter to himself from behind her. “I swear if he gets any blood on that chair….”
“Don’t worry about it, Green. Blood cleans off pretty easily. Just slap some hydrogen peroxide on it, and it’ll disappear.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m a medic, Green. It’s kinda my job to deal with Blood.” He tore through Blues jacket with a pair of scissors, exposing the wound. He began to work on Blue, carefully examining the wound.
Blue noticed Elena staring at him and smirked. “What?”
“What? What? You scared the living crap out of us! We saw your tracker went down and we were going to go in after you!”
“Awww…. That’s sweet. Also, you’re gonna have to let the folks over in IT know that I need a new watch because the old one is……uh, kinda kaput.” He said, showing his wrist. His watch was completely shattered.
“What the- What happened in there?”
“Everything. Everything happened in there.”
“Well, can you elaborate? You look like shit!”
He grinned. “ Believe me, you should see the other guys- OW! Dammit Moss! That hurts!” He flinched as Moss rubbed a wet cloth on the wound. Moss rolled his eyes and ignored.
“All right so I got good news and bad news. The good news is the knife didn’t go in too deep, so there should be no risk of any permanent damage.” He said.
“That’s great! What’s the bad news?” Blue said.
“Bad news is I can’t really take the knife out right now. We gotta wait until we get back to the safe house to give you some better treatment.”
“Why can’t we pull it out?”
“The knife is keeping you alive right now,” Moss explained. “It’s not lodged in too deep that it’s damaging any important muscles or nerves, but there’s a solid chance that it may have nicked an artery. There are about three major arteries running through your shoulder; you pull that knife out, and you’ll bleed out in minutes. The knife is acting like a plug essentially. Just don’t mess with it, and you…. might be fine-“
“No, I’m going with ‘will’. I will be fine. I did not risk my neck getting that data only for me to kick it in the back of dingey van.”
Elena wanted to slam her face into the table right then and there. The data. The one measly little thing that her team was sent here for. With all the commotion going on, she completely forgot about it.
“The data, did you get it?” She asked.
He nodded. “Copied it into a flash drive. It’s in the front right pocket.”
Elena ripped the pocket open and found the flash drive safely nestled inside. She felt all the tension quickly release itself from her shoulders. Only for that tension to build back up as a loud siren began to sound over the complex. She had no clue what the siren was for, but she didn’t want to stay to find out.
“Uh, Captain. I think that may be our cue to leave.” Green said.
“You don’t need to tell me twice.” She muttered under her breath. “Green, get us back to the safe house!”
He smirked and climbed to the front of the van. “You got it!”
“And without breaking any traffic laws this time!” She added.
“Dammit!” He yelled.
Elena rolled her eyes. “I’ll never understand that man’s beef with traffic laws. Oh, and speaking of beef, can you pass me one of those bags over there?” She pointed to one of the bags of food next to Blue.
Blue smiled and leaned down to pick up one of the bags, suddenly lurching forward as the van began to speed off. He tore open one of the bags and passed a styrofoam food container to her, and another to Moss.
Elena opened one of the containers and took a whiff. Delicious. “Ah, this is great, Blue. How much do we owe you?”
Blue froze, his mouth wide open and about to take a large bite out of a taco. “What do you mean?”
“For the food. How much do we owe you for the food?” Elena clarified.
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I took care of that.”
It was Elena’s turn to be confused. “What?”
---[EARLIER]---
Blue sat down, exhausted from the chaotic last few minutes. Several guards were strewn about the breakroom, all hopefully unconscious.
From where he was sitting, he could spot one of the many unconscious guards. In particular, he spotted a leather wallet sticking out of his back pocket.
Blue walked over to the guard and pulled the wallet out. He opened it and saw a large wad of cash sticking out.
Was he really going to take this money from an unconscious guy-
Wait a minute. Blue took a closer look at the guard’s face. He recognized him as that little shi- sorry, as the guard who slammed a baton right in his……er, area.
Blue pocketed the cash and threw the empty wallet to the ground.
*-_-_-_-_-*
“Like I said, I took care of it,” Blue repeated.
Elena decided then and there to simply drop the subject. It wasn’t because of the murderous glint in Blue’s eyes, but because she had some work that she wanted to finish up before they got back to the safehouse. She collected her unfinished report off the ground and gave it a once over:
[After Action Report – Operation Benevolent Zebra]
She stifled a laugh at the operation name. Benevolent Zebra? Really, that was the best name the higher-ups could come up with. They needed to think of some better names for these operations. In their defense, most of the decent names were all used up a long time ago. But Benevolent Zebra? Really? What a pinnacle of creativity there.
She picked up a pen and opened the unfinished report. After all, there was still a lot of work to be done.
*-_-_-_-_-*
Change is a funny thing, isn’t it?
It’s not exactly something that you can just plan into your daily schedule or anticipate. You’re given no warning. No anticipation. It just happens, and sometimes you’re completely unable to stop it.
It was no wonder why Thomas Hayes hated change. And yet, here he was, standing in the doorway of a newly emptied-out office within the confines of Site 374, a small research site in El Paso, Texas. He looked at a small placard that was hanging right next to the door:
[ Dr. Thomas C. Hayes – Site Director ]
He rubbed the placard, for some reason expecting the letters to fall off and return to the name of his predecessor. But they didn’t, they simply remained there. It was all real, but at the same time, it still felt so unreal.
Hayes stepped into the office – his office – and dropped his suitcase. He walked over to his desk and collapsed onto the chair. He took a moment to just breathe for once, for the last few days had been a complete whirlwind of events.
Yesterday had been esspecially rough for him. His presence was requested over in Site 91, or if you preferred to call it by its full title, Xenobiological Research and Containment Site 91, for an emergency meeting. The site served, as the name suggests, as a research site for xenobiolgical specimens. Despite the hefty file he was given about the site before his flight, he still didn’t understand much about that part of its inner workings. He decided to stop reading and call it a day after he got to the part where he learned that the site was built under the body of a decomposing god that was dissected in the late 18th century by a local occultist society. Damn, even that sentence couldn’t do that mindfuck of a file justice.
However, Site 91 also served another purpose: it acted as the working headquarters for the Department of Thaumaturgy, the SCP Foundations’ definitive authority for the study of the anomalous science of thaumaturgy.
Or in other words, the Foundation’s department that studies magic.
The emergency meeting over in Site 91 was to discuss the recent power vacuum that was left over in Site 374 in the wake of the death of one Mr. Hugh Clarence, the former site director, and to assign a new on-site director.
Which, as it turns out, happened to be him.
Hayes opened a desk drawer, which happened to be packed to the brim with dozens of unread paperwork and documents. He groaned. When he got back to the site, the sun was just beginning to set, painting the sky a lovely orange. And for once the weather wasn’t deathly hot outside. Hayes was sure that most of the personnel on site were enjoying the beautiful Friday evening, enjoying themselves after a hard day’s work.
Hayes on the other hand? He was stuck here, doing paperwork for the site. Approving asset transfers. Organizing meetings. Running an entire site.
He should be happy with the position, right? When the announcement was made during the meeting that he was assigned as the new site director he was shocked. He sat in silence for a few moments, trying to convince himself that he was dreaming, and he continued to sit in a dazed silence until the person next to him shook him out of it. Literally. The person next to him grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. It was kind of rude come to think of it.
Then again, being a site director for 374 wasn’t too much of an ask for him. The site wasn’t exactly too large, it happened to be one of the smallest sites in the region. The site served as the headquarters for the Department of Thaumaturgical Analysis and Countermeasures, though the name was a bit of a mouthful, so most people preferred to call it DTAC instead. DTAC was a small subdivision of the Department of Thaumaturgy that specialized in a different approach to its research.
While the Department of Thaumaturgy specialized in the study of magic within a scientific field, DTAC specialized in the active utilization of magic within the field to gain a better understanding of it and to better contain it.
Or they essentially used magic to contain magic. Simple, really.
A sudden knock on the office door interrupted his thoughts. “Come in!” He called out.
The door creaked open, and a head of red hair popped into view. Hayes rubbed his head for a moment, trying to recognize the visitor when it clicked. It was his new secretary, Richard, a junior researcher that recently joined the Foundation a year or two ago. They met via a quick phone call while Hayes was waiting for his flight back home at the airport. Judging by the interactions he had with him so far, the kid was smart, albeit shy.
Hayes gave him a weak smile and waved him inside. Richard stepped inside and Hayes noticed a large folder in his hands. Probably more paperwork. His lab coat was wrinkled and Hayes couldn’t help but notice the dark bags underneath the kid’s eyes.
“Uh, good evening sir-“
Hayes sighed. “Richard, I told you this a million times already. You don’t need to call me sir. Believe me, it just makes me feel old.” He chuckled.
The young researcher rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. “I apologize si- Dr. Hayes. I apologize.”
Hayes pointed to the folder in Richards’s hands. “ I assume that’s for me?”
“Y-yes, it came in the mail a few days ago. It’s urgent.” He fumbled the folder over to Hayes. “There was also a note attached to it as well.” He produced a small slip of paper from his pockets and handed it to Hayes.
“Thanks, kid. Out of curiosity, are you all done for the day?”
“Almost, I just need to finish that preliminary report for the cross-testing tomorrow. Oh, and I also need to finalize the details for that test with those tabloids we found in Gravesfeild a few months back. And I need to-“
“Woah, kid, slow down for me.” Hayes cut him off. “Just get that report in when you come in tomorrow, I’ll take care of everything else.”
“Dr. Hayes, with all due respect here, the report is due tomorrow. I don’t think the research department won’t be happy with it coming in so late-“
“Fine, then I’ll take care of that too. I’d just call it night if I were you. There’s a good restaurant downtown, a lot of the other researchers are over there. You should head over there and join them-“
“Are you- are you sure? I can just get all of this done tonight and-“
“Yes, I’m sure, Richard,” Hayes said. “Confident even. Someone your age shouldn’t be stuck in an office doing paperwork until the crack of dawn. That’s my job. Someone your age should be having a nice night out, especially you.”
The tension in his secretary’s shoulders released, and he gaped his mouth open in surprise. “Uh…. Thank you, doctor.” He turned to leave.
“One more thing….” Hayes added, stopping Richard dead in his tracks in the doorway.
“Make sure to get some sleep tonight. You look like a Racoon with those bags around your eyes, kid.” He said. “And make sure to close the door when you leave.”
Richard relaxed. “Yes Doctor…….thank you.” He walked out of the room, easing the door shut behind him.
Hayes sat in silence for a few moments.
He’s a good kid. Has a bright future ahead of him as well.
He would make sure of it.
Hayes turned his attention to the file Richard passed him earlier. He unfolded the note and began to skim through it.
To the current director of Site 374
I would like to first apologize for the unorthodox delivery of this message and the documents with it. I do realize that it would’ve been easier for both parties to just E-mail these documents to you, however, my higher-ups insisted that I mail this to you due to the….. nature of our situation.
These documents involve an inter-department project that your predecessor, Senior Researcher Hugh Clarence, was involved with. Clarence acted as the head of research of our operation, and we were entering the final stages of the project when his unfortunate passing occurred. The specifics of his role within our project are enclosed inside. I would like to also offer my condolences for his passing. He was an interesting character, and I’m sure he’ll be missed.
Hayes had to stifle a small laugh. Hugh Clarence being missed by someone? That was unlikely as all hell to ever happen. Although it was considerably screwed up, according to a few rumors a few researchers celebrated his death a few days after it happened. Hayes wasn’t sure if the rumors were true, but knowing Clarence’s reputation as a stuck-up narcissistic asshat, he wouldn’t be surprised. Although he never had to undergo the horror of dealing with the man himself, he’d heard stories.
And they were not good ones.
Although Hayes could at least see why the man was chosen as the head of research for this mysterious project; he was a brilliant man who led some important research that furthered the understanding of thaumaturgy.
Still a prick, though.
However, we must press on with the project. The O-5s are getting a bit antsy with our lack of progress within the last few months, and they want results. This second part is where you and a few other personnel come in.
We need you and four other personnel (their names are listed at the end of this note) to visit Area 42 in Gravesfeild, Connecticut, where the project is being held. I HIGHLY recommend you familiarize yourself with the enclosed documents to get familiar with the project, however, I need the agents involved to be kept in the dark about the project for now. We will inform them when they arrive on site.
Hayes paused. The Overseers were in on the project? That was a bit of a shock, considering the fact that the O-5 council happened to be one of the most powerful groups of people within the foundation. Hell, Hayes didn’t even know they existed until he was promoted to a senior researcher a few years ago. So if the O-5s were in on this project, it meant serious business.
Not even a day into the new job and I’m already getting all the serious shit.
And why was Hayes supposed to keep the agents involved with the project in the dark about it? It seemed pretty counterproductive to send a bunch of people halfway across the country and not tell them what the hell was going on until they got to their destination.
Enclosed in the documents is some documentation that’ll get you a flight over to JFK International in New York. There, you’ll meet up with our transport unit who will ensure your transfer to the site. You and the chosen personnel are expected to be on-site by the following date. No sooner, no later.
Hayes glanced down at the date and groaned. It was only two days from now.
Christ, are they trying to kill me? I’d just got back from England and now they are shoving me in another damn plane.
Was it a good time to mention that Hayes hated flying?
If you have any concerns or questions, don’t hesitate to send me a message.
Exitus Acta Probat – We Die in the Dark, So You Can Live in the Light
Sincerely,
Dr. James Whitman – Head of the Department of Thaumaturgical Analysis and Countermeasures
Hayes froze when he read who signed the letter. Dr.James Whitman. The man who built the entire department from scratch. The man who fought tooth and nail to establish thaumaturgical analysis in the field during a time when the usage of anything anomalous in the field was frowned upon. The man who was now his boss.
Whitman was an interesting character. Mostly because nobody saw him. The man rarely made any sort of public appearance in the Foundation. He never showed up to any meetings, choosing to either attend virtually or send his assistant in his place. The emergency meeting in Site 91 was no different; one of Dr. Whitman’s assistants sat right next to him during the entire thing.
He was about to put the note to the side when he saw there was more text on the bottom.
P.S. – Congrats on the promotion by the way!
Yeah, congratulations to him. Yay.
P.P.S. – Also there is a slim chance that there is a memetic kill agent attached to the documents that will, since you’re not accustomed to the kill agents protecting these documents yet, cause immediate cardiac arrest and therefore, death. I would just recommend removing the first couple of pages in the document for your safety. Burn it. Shred it. As long as it’s gone you should be fine.
Oh, for the love of- Yup, of course, he would do that. Two words that fit perfectly together in a sentence were ‘James Whitman’ and ‘incessantly paranoid’. Wait, that was four words. Whatever, close enough.
He went to the folder and, with his eyes shut, removed the first few pages of the document and shoved them in the shredder. There! That should do the trick.
Because if it didn’t, then Richard will most likely find him collapsed on the ground dead when he came back the next day, and they’ll have to find another poor idiot to take the job. Hayes opened the folder, and judging by the fact that his heart didn’t stop, he assumed he did a good job taking out the kill hazard.
He flipped through the remaining pages and skimmed through them. Most of it was a bunch of scientific mumbo-jumbo that Hayes didn’t have the qualifications to understand. All he could make out what was that the project had something to do with generating an artifical spacetime anomaly, and a lot of math.
Seriously, when did they add letters to math?
He pushed the documents to the side and drew his attention back to the note. One the back was a small handwritten list of numbers: four numbers to be exact:
C – 01
C – 05
C – 07
C- 08
Wow. That’s so helpful.
Hayes rubbed his head, raking his mind to figure out where he saw those numbers before. Normally foundation personnel would be assigned a small serial number which would be used for identification purposes, however, Hayes had no idea what he was looking at here.
He booted up the computer on his desk and logged on to the RAISA database. If he couldn’t figure out what those numbers meant, surely the foundation’s database could.
And to his surprise, a result came up:
RAISA ARCHIVES
Recordkeeping and Information Security Administration
T.I.T.A.N PROGRAM CANIDATE LIST – CLS 2011
C-01- [ERROR]
RN – [DATA EXPUNGED]
STATUS- INACTIVE
C-05- “Rose”
RN – [DATA EXPUNGED]
STATUS – ON ASSIGNMENT ( LIST – S 19 )
C-07- “Keeper”
RN – [DATA EXPUNGED]
STATUS – ON ASSIGNMENT ( LIST – [DATA EXPUNGED])
C-08 – “Blue”
RN – [DATA EXPUNGED]
STATUS – RETURNING TO SITE (LIST – S 374)
Well….. that was a problem. One of the names was simply marked down as inactive. Hayes didn’t even know what that even meant. Was the agent dead? Retired? Defected? The database didn’t tell him too much. And the other two agents on file were currently on other assignments. That was surely bound to complicate things. Hayes would send Whitman a message about that later.
But the last name though……he recognized that name. He entered the name into the database and let it load. After a few moments, he was staring at the file image of a man with a small amount of stubble on his face, brown eyes, and a small, sly smile.
Oh…. That Agent Blue. He loudly chuckled, staring intently at the image. To say the two of them had a history would be an understatement. Hayes didn’t know what Whitman wanted Blue for in this project, especially with the several disciplinary reparations that lined his file, but he knew one thing was for certain.
Things were bound to get interesting.