Fluff - between our agents.
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Chapter 1 Pete's Shadow
When the weather called for more rain that week, there was a collective growl from the team. It had been raining for days now and the soggy weather was affecting everyone's mood. It didn't help that there were no pings and the group's usual snag, bag and tag motto turned to groan, moan and drone. Pete was the one who got antsy the quickest not appreciating being underground all day. And things got worse that morning. Each of his fellow agents had snapped at him. Claudia was first to push past him and grumble. Then Helena, who usually was her most civilized over breakfast if she had tea, barked orders about sharing the newspaper. He was most surprised by Leena who had smacked his hand when he tried to eat the bacon before she served it. She never did that. And then Myka yelled - "Just get in the car!" like an exasperated mother to her child when they were on their way to work. He prayed Dr. Calder or Mrs. Frederic didn't show up to day because it seemed he was upsetting the entire female population of the Warehouse.
He found solace in Artie's expression when HG openly complained about her inventory list and snatched it from his hand before descending into the Warehouse.
"Artie, have you noticed anything with them today?" Pete said covering his mouth and rolling his eyes. Artie looked at him trying to figure out what he was doing.
"And by them you mean….?" Artie asked now looking up at the ceiling to see what he was looking at.
"Them as in all the females in our group?" Pete answered changing his position to one of covering a fake yawn and then stretching.
"You know they are all downstairs, right?" Artie asked wondering why the charade.
"Oh," Pete said regaining a more normal posture. "So yeah, like what's up with all of them? Each one of 'em seems a little testy today," he shared as he peeked through the blinds to make sure no one was coming up the stairs.
"I haven't noticed anything," Artie said thinking this was a waste of time.
"HG just grabbed the inventory sheet," Pete reminded him.
"And you think that's unusual behavior? Where have you been? That's HG for 'thank you very much Artie. I will perform my duties without question," Artie said in his mock accent. His imitation was so poor that Pete put his finger to his ear and shook it. "Don't ever let her hear you do that. I'm pretty sure she'd shoot first and ask questions later," Pete warned him.
"Enough! Here's your sheet. Glad we had this little talk. Now go," Artie said having had enough bro-bonding for one day.
"Yeah well, okay but if I'm not back by lunch I hope you'll, you know, look for me," Pete said worried about being the only man on the Warehouse floor. He took his list and headed toward the designated aisle.
Claudia was in charge of putting the newly acquired artifacts in the appropriate aisles and then Pete, Myka and HG were to go and scan them into the inventory and place them on the shelves. Each of them knew just how Artie chose the lists he selected for them. Sometimes it was just plain obvious – like Helena having to catalogue things in the American Revolutionary aisle. "Really Artie?" she asked this morning knowing fully well he was reminding her of American history. "We do know the colonies won, you know," she declared as she marched off to do the work. "I mean, I am certain they informed the monarch as soon as it happened," she grumbled to anyone who would listen. "It was all we could talk about for weeks. Did you hear the colonists won the war? Oh yes, dreadful isn't it?" she rambled on incessantly.
It was no surprise that Myka got the list that took her to the library section. Artie wouldn't admit it, but he did enjoy seeing her eyes light up when her list included a newly acquired first edition or a book of antiquity. Helena detested it when Myka worked in the library because it meant Myka would be completely absorbed to the point of ignoring her texts. Being ignored was one of the things that made HG very frustrated. That and…. a poorly made cup of tea, grammatical errors, sloppy handwriting, traffic, general incompetence and anyone who did not get what she was saying after she explained it …. once. She should not have been surprised when she didn't get a response from Myka right away but that didn't stop her from resending the text, this time pushing the send button a little harder – as if that would make it go through faster.
Pete was in the 'Theory' aisle waiting to log in a pair of rubber boots when he came upon something that caught his eye. Many of the items in this section were artifacts used by scientists in their first experiment in proving a theory. Pete looked at a desk calendar with the four phases of the moon pictured above the months. The tag read; the "McClintock Effect" and he wasn't sure why that caught his attention but it was something about the name. Pete read; Martha McClintock, American psychologist did research on human pheromones. She reported on the phenomenon of menstrual synchrony among women who live together reportedly became synchronized over time. "Ooohhhhhh," Pete let out as if this all made sense to him now. His roommates were all PMSing together. "Oh that's just great!" he said to no one.
He went back to his task hand. He looked down at the rain boots but although the tag had been written with indelible ink, it had smeared before it dried. He tried to make out the name and could only decipher K and L. He swore it said Kyle Lohse, pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. Then he read - Father of … but the word was blurred too. "Father of what?" Pete said to himself and wondered why did they have a baseball player's rain gear? He started to consider the choices; maybe he was the father of ….. rubber boots which led to the father of …..rubbers which cracked him up as he put the boots on. They had been neutralized he thought so what would be the harm? They were in the wrong aisle anyway. They belonged in the sports section.
At the same time, Helena was mumbling to herself about her own list. It was the lack of communication from Myka that really had her annoyed but she displaced it onto her items. "Really? Paul Revere's rattle?" she said as she looked at the tag. Indeed, the famous town crier was a silversmith by trade and had made one of the first baby rattles out of silver instead of clay since you could chew on silver. There were tiny teeth marks on the item which at the moment, Helena found disgusting. "How they won the damn bloody war I'll never know," the Brit said out loud as she placed the rattle on the shelf above her head. She went to the keyboard to log it in when the rattle rolled off the shelf and hit her in the head. "Oh bloody hell!" she called out before she fell on the floor. Her last conscious thought was how could something so small feel so heavy?
Pete heard her call out. "Now what, HG?" he called over but there was no response. "HG?" he repeated when he heard the soft thump when she slowly fell on the floor. Decked out in his rain boots, Pete ran to the other aisle to find his coworker on the floor in what he would later describe as 'sleeping peacefully with a smile on her face.' He nudged her gently and when that didn't work, he shook her. The rattle had rolled under the shelving so there was no apparent explanation. He tried to pick her up but she was dead weight and she was pulling to return to her slumber. He finally got her on her hands and knees when she finally awoke. She wasn't sure who was helping her because all she could see were the dark green rubber boots.
"HG, you ok?" he said and she had the strangest look on her face when she finally stood up. "You alright?" Pete asked again as he helped her stand up. "Yes, perfectly fine Mr. Lattimer. Thank you ever so much," HG said in a very friendly voice. In fact, she sounded very much like the first time they met, when she was trying to get back into her house in London; all sweet and girly. "What hit you?" Pete asked looking around for what might have caused it. "I am not entirely sure," she said still a little dazed. "OK, well what were you working on?" he inquired as he looked at her inventory list. "I simply do not recall," she said moving closer to him. "Ok, let's look. Paul Revere's rattle? What - like the town crier really was a crier and he needed a rattle?" Pete said laughing. Helena laughed too and now Pete looked at her. Helena rarely got his jokes let alone laughed at them. He pushed up on his tiptoes to look and when he turned around, HG was doing the same thing. He smiled at her with a quizzical look on his face. "Let's look down here," he said as he went down on all fours. "Let's," HG said as she did the same. "OK…," Pete said not quite sure what that tone was in her voice. "You sure you're ok? You don't feel different, funny, less British," Pete asked waiting to hear the rant how she could never, ever be less British. But nothing - Helena seemed to be thinking. "No, I don't think so," she simply replied.
After the collective feminine ill mood, this was a welcomed change and Pete decided this was better. He bent down and looked under the shelving and grabbed the object with his purple gloved hand. "Here we go," he said and then felt the lightness of it.
"This knocked you out?" he asked HG. "Did it?" she asked back. "Did it hit you?" Pete asked her back. "I guess?" she replied. "You guess?" Pete asked because this woman never guessed, she knew. "Did I?" she asked back and then Pete knew something was up.
"OK, you stay here and I'll go get help," he said because he wanted to remove his boots before calling Myka. He knew he wasn't supposed to touch the artifacts and there was no need to confess to this latest infraction. He walked back to the aisle he had been working in and jumped when he found HG right behind him. "Geez HG, you scared me!" he said. "What are you doing here?" "I wanted to be with you," HG replied. "Uh oh, " he said as he grabbed for his phone to call Myka.
"Mykes, we got a problem here. No, she's ok but she got hit on the head with a rattle and …yes, a rattle…. Well, not too heavy I mean it was small. No, I don't think there's a bump and she says she feels fine…," he said into the phone while he took off the boots. "Yeah, I'll bring her to you…," he said and hung up. "HG, we're going to see Myka….," he turned to say.
And then he noticed Helena was standing there ….smiling…. holding her boots that she had just removed.
I said 'fluff' yes?