Otherworldies P1: Budget cuts
“Damn. You’re healing far faster than I thought you would, sorry about this,” their head snaps back into the ground where it previously rested. “I can’t have you following after me, it’s bad business.” The voice intones above them; they barely hear it over the radiating ringing in their ears.
They black out.
——2 hours earlier——
The warehouse, nestled between two banks, appeared like an office building. Some type of charm or ward one of the heads of the department made it so, but Duck didn’t ask. They were asked to join out of university where they trained to be, you guessed it, an accountant. Duck was initially hired for bookkeeping, the warehouse desperately needed someone to keep track of their spending, but due to budget cuts and layoffs, Duck became an active agent.
The warehouse is an international communication and holding station for ‘otherworldlies’—coined for any human or non-human who presented traits such as telepathy, pyromancy, necromancy (any -mancy really), etc.—to be rehabilitated, especially if they were new, and re-educated, i.e. taking courses to remember how squishy the average human is.
Some otherworldlies forget, in the euphoria of their new abilities, how to treat others and it makes a big mess in the streets, hence the need for collection. Active agents are tasked with peacefully bringing them in, though psych-evals have been lax of late (budget cuts meant lack of money for psychologists to administer the tests) and the warehouse has been sending out untrained personnel like Duck.
Duck was what you would call an inactive agent, as it sounds, meant to stay indoors and deal with the internal and therefore non-violent aspects of the job. Until four days ago, where they were given a gun-net and send out with a tracker. Another active agent would’ve normally been teamed up with Duck but there are only three others who are already over-worked.
Most agents are apart of the Third Division otherwise known as Collection (but there is a First, Second, and Fourth; in-house managing like Duck, Professors/Trainers, and Disposal, respectively). So Duck took on the task after much complaining, afterall they knew how much money would be given to them, and bundled up with an umbrella, a flashlight, a lock-pick, and a deck of cards—brought from home—and grabbed the file.
“File 2097-1885; Phlebomancer (new type, recently discovered)
Suspected otherworldly has been sighted thirteen blocks over, following victims home and draining them of blood.
The only evidence sighted is small punctures wounds in the discarded corpse; there is an eye-witness named Carol Kline. The warehouse agreed to house her, at Kline’s behest, in room 803 of the West wing; it is suggested to confer with her first before dispatching the otherworldly. She has been given a memory tonic to bring forth a better description of the otherworldly.
Interview with Kline conducted by Agent Burke (Sn. Lt. Third Division):
K: Dear God, are you sure I’m safe here?
B: Yes, there are wards and other protections on this building, not to mention it is full with agents. Now, can you tell me what you remember?
K: Okay…I was walking my dog, Butters, when two people push past us! I would normally ignore such a display but something about them unnerved me and Butters. So I yelled after them to watch themselves! [she clutched her dog to her, whom weve also housed] The look in the tall one’s eyes, it still makes me shiver.
B: Can you describe the pair of them?
K: One was a woman, she was the tall one, and the other was a child. I couldn’t guess their gender from just a glance but they seemed out of it.
B: can you expand on that?
K: out of it, I don’t know, they couldn’t meet my eye even as they passed and their skin looked grey and rashy. The woman smiled and kept her hand on the nape of their neck; it gave me the chills even with such short contact.
B: Did the child seem distressed as though they were forced to follow?
K: um, how would I know? Kids often look like they are being forced places, so sure., but I doubt the kid had much awareness to even protest.
B: How did the rash look?
K: Splotchy and red?
B: was bumpy looking or irregularly shaped?
K: [she takes a moment to think, scratching Butters head] It was a bunch of blood points come to the surface but I couldn’t see much of it as it only crept up from the front of their neck but it looked irregular, multiple patches that connected.
[Burke ends the interview here as Kline becomes more and more shaken]
Duck nodded along as though it made sense to ask about a rash and not question what a ‘phlebomancer’ is. Duck knew it was bad but they couldn’t make out it’s importance.
As Duck is very new at this, they assume it is best to follow the file to the T so they make their way to Kline’s room. The door is ajar when they reach the room, not entirely odd as they doors stick, but the odd part is the corpse which greets Duck.
“How unfortunate, I am sorry Kline.”
Kline’s body laid on the couch with her dog lapping dried blood which covered her hand. The rest of the blood stemmed from her nose which looked as though it had burst. Perhaps too much tonic, Duck thought, but the tonic was just water mixed with a type of focusing medication used for ADD diagnosis.
TO BE CONTINUED (May 3rd)
