~14~
"I knew I should have fixed the AC before I left." Mike was driving through Arizona and the inside of his car was burning up. It was 94 degrees outside, but felt like a million with the air conditioning busted inside his car.
It had been a week since the woman known as Claudia Donovan had visited Mike and given him directions to this spot. Well, not this spot exactly, but one not too far away. Mike's GPS system told him it was only a mile away. Only one problem: it was one mile away from the main road. "What the?" Mike shrugged and turned off the road, barreling through the desert.
This is so stupid! Mike thought. Why am I doing this? I don't even know where I'm going!
Then he saw it. A large, rectangular building made of rusted metal with a triangular roof. A crow rested on the edge of the roof, cawing and taking off as he pulled up to the building. He got out of his car and walked up to the building. "Hello?" He called. "I'm here." No answer. "Anyone?"
At that moment a mysterious object flew out of nowhere and hit the building. Mike turned in surprise. "What the?" He went to pick up the object. "A football? Seriously?"
A second car rolled up to the building. Mike recognized it the moment he saw it. "Tracey? What are you doing here?"
Tracey got out of the car and walked up to him. "I dunno. Last week some chick named-"
"Claudia Donovan?"
Tracey blinked. "Yeah. How did you know?"
"The same thing happened to me. Why didn't you tell me about it?"
"Probably the same reason you didn't tell me." That was true enough. Mike didn't tell Tracey because... Well because it just seemed too crazy to be true.
"Hey." Mike and Tracey turned to see a strange man wearing a straw hat, a gas mask, and carrying a metal-detector-looking thing. He removed the gas mask. "Sorry about taking so long. Just had to fix the fish."
"Hey, I know you!" Tracey exclaimed. "You're the guy we saw in Jimmy's!"
The man extended his hand. "Agent Steve Jinks. Pleasure to meet you. Now, follow me." He pulled a remote out of his pocket and pressed the button on it. The door to the building swung open. Tracey and Mike followed Steve Jinks inside. "So, this place is essentially a storage facility for strange and dangerous artifacts." Agent Jinks explained as they walked down a white corridor. "Our job is to hunt down those artifacts and bring them here. Snag it, bag it, tag it."
"This is unreal." Mike stopped and had to lean on a thin, white rod to keep himself from falling over.
"Don't touch the bombs." Mike immediately backed up. Agent Jinks went on. "My friend Artie, you'll meet him later, likes to think of this place as 'America's Attic'. Well, technically not this place. A different place, but also kind of the same place."
"What happened to that place?" Tracey asked.
"It blew up." Another door stood before them. Agent Jinks opened it and the three of them stepped into a cluttered office space. "Please, make yourselves at home. You want a cookie?" Agent Jinks grabbed a plate of cookies off of the desk in the center of the room. Mike took one.
"I'm good." Said Tracey. "I don't really want a cookie."
"You're lying." Agent Jinks replied.
"S'up?" Mike and Tracey turned around in surprise to see Claudia Donovan standing behind them.
"How did you do that?" Mike exclaimed.
"Trade secret." Claudia explained. "So, you two ready for the tour?"
"Uhhh..."
"Good. Just let me get Artie." Claudia walked over to a small, fat cylinder on the floor and flipped a switch on it. Suddenly, a blue hologram of a man with curly hair and glasses appeared over it.
It was the same man from Mike's dream. "Hello." Said the blue man. "You must be our new recruits. Welcome to Warehouse 14."
Mike stared slack-jawed at the hologram. "I'm sorry. Who, or what, are you exactly?"
"Mike and Tracey, meet Artie Nielson: old guy supreme, and dead agent of the Warehouse." Claudia explained.
"Dead? Then why is he a hologram?" Tracey asked.
"Well, Artie was the Warehouse's prime source of artifact know-how." Claudia explained. "So, when he died in the previous Warehouse's explosion, I downloaded his consciousness into this holographic interface I designed."
"How do you download a person?" Mike asked.
"It helps when you have Steve Jobs's thumb drive. It can download files as well as brains." Mike and Tracey stood there shocked as ever. A thumb drive that could download a person's brain? That's impossible! And what was this Warehouse place anyway? "So," Claudia continued, "time for the tour."
…
"I told you not to touch it."
"I know. I know." Mike, Tracey, and Claudia were just arriving at a small bed and breakfast near the warehouse. Mike had smoke coming out of his ears from accidentally kicking over Catherine O'Leary's milk bucket. Tracey was in a fit of laughter. The group stopped outside of the B&B. Mike read the sign. "'The Pete and Myka Bed and Breakfast'. Who are Pete and Myka?"
Claudia looked at the ground. "They were ex-agents of the Warehouse. They died when the old one exploded."
"You feel guilty about that, don't you?" Mike and Claudia looked at Tracey.
"No. I don't feel guilty."
"Yes you do."
Claudia's face went from about to cry to smiling in a split second. Mike barely registered it. "You've got some skill there." Claudia said. They went inside the B&B. "So, you guys can pick any room you want. The owner, Karen, should be back any time now. She just went to town to get some groceries. Anyways, just relax and we'll let you know when-" A buzzing sound came from Claudia's pocket. She pulled a small black box out of it and opened it. "Yeah?"
Inside the black box was a circular television screen. On it was Artie. "Claudia, we need you three back at the Warehouse ASAP."
"We'll be right there." Claudia shut the box and led Mike and Tracey outside again.
"Why do we need to get back to the Warehouse?" Mike asked.
Claudia turned and smiled. "We've got a ping."