EPISODE 2.02: SLENDER WHO?
The team learns that Artemis is the source of the Slenderman mythos when a new Changeling begins to piece things together.
-x-
Author's Note: As you may have guessed from the title, this episode talks about Slenderman. Hopefully by now you've got an idea of our sense of humor, and we're keeping in that spirit - however, if you are seriously squicked by Slendy, just scroll through to the bottom and we'll summarize the events of this episode in an A/N at the end for you!
-x-
He still hadn't stopped.
When Holly had walked into the kitchen that morning to discover that Artemis had entirely disassembled the dishwasher only to put it back together in a way that he claimed would be forty percent more efficient, she had assumed it was an isolated incident - nervous energy, perhaps. Next, he had disappeared into the bathroom to repair a leaky faucet; by the time he emerged, her entire plumbing system had been upgraded. Slightly worried, Holly had retreated into the living room only to discover that, at some point, Artemis had also found the time to reorganize her digital library.
It had officially gone too far.
Now it was the middle of the afternoon, Artemis still hadn't stopped, and Holly was seriously concerned. He'd pried a glowbar from the ceiling and pulled off the casing to attack the wiring with a pair of pliers. "It's been flickering upon power-up," he explained. "Not a massive problem, but could lead to a circuit short later on."
Holly folded her arms. "Whatever you did, am I going to get in trouble for it?"
Artemis paused. "Pardon?"
"Fowl, I have been watching you play this game all day. What did you do, and how is it going to come back to haunt me?"
Artemis stared at her a second longer before returning his attention to the glowbar, giving the pliers one last half-turn before setting them aside with satisfaction. "I have no idea what you mean."
"Let me rephrase: What don't you want me finding out?"
"That is even less specific, and I am insulted by the implications," he said, not sounding particularly offended at all. "But as we are currently on the topic, I do need your signature for -"
"I knew it!" she hissed, poking a finger into his chest. "And the answer is no."
"You don't even know what I need your signature for."
She jabbed at him again. "And yet, I am already dead certain I don't want to be signing anything."
Unperturbed, Artemis reached into his pocket for his smartphone. With a quick flick of his fingers, he pulled up the document on the lightscreen and held it out to her.
Holly hesitated before snatching the phone for a closer look. A quick skim of its contents merely solidified her decision. "Absolutely not."
"But Holly," Artemis protested, "I've now been working out of Haven for six months, and I need this permit to remain in the city. If I am not here, LEPfoul falls apart."
"You don't need my signature to remain in the city. You need it to remain living in my apartment. If I don't sign it, you have to find your own place to live and sign it yourself." The elf folded her arms. "The answer is still no."
She had, in fact, been aware that this was coming - for the last six months, a calendar on her communicator had been counting down the days until her human friend's temporary work permit expired. Three more to go. To her credit, Holly managed to avoid a smile.
-x-
Clutching a cup of lukewarm coffee that he had picked up on the way to work that morning, Caltrop stifled a yawn as he stepped into the LEPfoul office. The room was dim, with only the light from the street outside filtering through the window. The water sprite blinked in muted surprise.
"Foaly two point oh?" he called out cautiously, stepping around the inflatable strawberry that somehow still hadn't been removed from the office. "Am I the first one - glub! - here this morning?"
"Dude. Can you stop calling me that?" In the corner, the AI's interface lit up and almost immediately shifted to a rather irritated shade of orange. "It's embarrassing."
"It's . . . your name?" Caltrop set his sim-coffee down on the edge of his desk, reaching to adjust his gill tank with his free hand.
"Yeah, but it's not my name, you dig?"
Caltrop tipped his head. "You have another name?"
"Oh my - dude, I don't have any other name!" Immediately, the interface's lights shifted to a downcast shade of blue. "Dude. What kind of intelligent personality doesn't even have a name of their own? Oh, wow. That's so lame."
"Look, I didn't mean it," said Caltrop, flicking a finger against his tank to readjust the flow of bubbles through the tube. As helpful as the artificial personality could be, it was temperamental to a fault. Best to head off the oncoming temper tantrum before it had a chance to begin. "Just... pick a name and we'll start calling you that."
"Huh." The lights flickered in thought. "Caltrop. That's a cool name."
"That's my name!"
"Exactly, dude!"
"No, no, no. See, that's not - glub! - not how names work! If you wanna be called 'Caltrop' we may as well keep calling you 'Foaly' because it's the exact same thing!"
"No, I don't want to be called 'Foaly,' I wanna be called something cool like 'Caltrop'!"
"But that's my name!"
By the time Dodo arrived, twenty minutes later with her own sim-coffee in tow, they were still arguing in circles. It wasn't until Holly and Artemis showed up, nearly ten minutes after the dwarf, that anybody was able to break it up and set the two of them to work: Artemis glared at the water sprite until Caltrop remembered that he actually did have work to get done that morning, while Holly threatened to shoot Foaly 2.0.
Again.
-x-
"Maeve! No way. You look fabulous!"
A troll scrambled around the booth, nearly knocking over a pair of superheroes in his haste to catch up with the girl.
She didn't turn until he tugged playfully on her scarf, nearly pulling half of it off her shoulder in the process. With a slight frown, Maeve caught the bundle of wool before it could slide to the ground and shot an accusatory glare over her shoulder. She was a tall girl with dark hair and skin, with a long stride and a mouth that was in constant motion. In defiance of the flurry of costumes on the convention floor, her outfit was relatively plain. The only indication that she had prepared for the convention at all was the scarf itself, a concoction of bold tan, purple, red, turquoise, and yellow wool. It was nearly twice as long as she was tall, which was no mean feat; if asked, she would proudly admit that she had knit it herself. In one of her pockets nestled a replica sonic screwdriver. When she saw who had stopped her, however, the girl pursed her lips in confusion for just a moment.
"Surprise! You remember me, right? Your buddy, Ray?" the troll exclaimed, spreading his arms wide. "Love the scarf, by the way."
"Ray," Maeve responded, a strained smile stretching her face. "Wonderful costume. Let me guess, you're the crabby one."
Ray beamed, pointing a gray-gloved finger to the candy-corn horns stuck to his head. "Right in one! I was gonna be the juggalo but the horns wouldn't stay put so I had to improvise. But how've you been? I haven't talked to you in ages!"
Maeve shrugged, wracking her memory for where exactly she knew Ray from. There was something familiar about the teenager, but she couldn't quite place his face. It was disconcerting, to say the least. "Oh, you know - working on this and that. Recently, I've started looking into the Slenderman mythos. It's absolutely fascinating, you know. Are you familiar -?"
"Hey, yeah, I've heard of Slenderman!" Ray assured her.
"Well. It's mathy. Really mathy. I'm basically reinventing how physics works." Typically she would not be so open with the object of her research, but she had learned at a very young age that discussing her findings tended to end casual conversations in record time. "Did you know that gravity might not be exactly 9.81 meters per second after all? So much math, it's ridiculous. I'm trying to tie it into these images I found, because I noticed that fractal patterns of distortion may actually tie back into fluctuations in natural phenomena, and -"
"Wow," he interrupted, jamming his hands inside the pockets of his dark jeans. "That's really cool. Go you! I'm, uh, I totally need to catch a picture with that cosplayer over there so catch ya later!"
Maeve waved her sonic helplessly. "But I haven't even gotten to the good part yet. About how the pictures can't be photoshopped because they're mathematically consistent with - oh, and you're gone. Okay." She adjusted her scarf and rolled her shoulders back, tilting her head to stretch out a kink in her neck. "Finally," she muttered, before continuing on her way.
-x-
"Eugh," cringed Caltrop, staring in dismay at his computer screen. One hand hovered over the keyboard, ready to exit out of the tab, yet he couldn't quite bring himself to stop reading. One more section, and then he would -
"Screeeech!"
Caltrop flailed and was halfway beneath the desk before he remembered that Lucia was no longer a danger to him in these offices. "Sass!" he squeaked, releasing a flurry of bubbles through his gill tubes. "Stop doing that!"
"Whatcha reading?" the centaur asked, ignoring his glare. She bent over his shoulder to peer at the screen. "Slenderman? Isn't this one of those human urban myths? Delightfully creepy. Hey - there's this great human game you should play -"
Caltrop interrupted her before she could change the topic. "Yes, Slenderman," he said with as much dignity as he could muster. "One of the Changelings has been researching this stuff for the last few w-weeks. I can't - glub! - can't see how it'd be important, but it's eaten up so much of her Internet history that I - well, feel like maybe we should -"
Sass shrugged. "Aren't we only worried about when they find out about the People? Who cares whether some genius kid is wasting all her time on urban myths?"
Across the room, Artemis raised his head. "Think about what you just said. You are a fairy. To the majority of the human race, you are an urban myth."
Silence followed his statement. Artemis sighed. "What are we looking at?"
"S-Slenderman," Caltrop said. "It's a real urban myth so we can just leave it b-be, right?"
Rather than answer directly, Artemis asked, "Where is the Changeling located?"
Caltrop's heart sank.
-x-
Upon leaving the convention hall, Maeve nearly walked right past the troll again. He was perched on a bench outside, with his head bent down and his wig still perched neatly on top of his head.
"Hang on, I know you!" Maeve huffed, reaching forward to snatch the synthetic hair from the boy's head. Ray attempted to duck out of the way, but not quickly enough; when Maeve drew her arm back she took the wig with her. It hung like a dead animal in her grip, and she lowered her hand quickly. "I saw you this morning - you were in the coffee shop!"
"Yeah, I'm a barista. I work at the café just down the road, the one that's right across from the community centre...?"
"So if you work here, why did I see you last night in the lobby of my hotel?"
Ray gulped, spreading his fingers open against the bench as he finally uncurled to peer up at her. "Because I have a cousin in town, she's getting married! Please stop looking at me like that - !" He shifted, and Maeve looked down to the object in his lap. She gasped, outraged.
"That's my tablet!"
"You dropped it!"
"Like hell I dropped it!" Maeve wrestled the device away from the costumed teenager's grip, holding it up to examine it for damage with narrowed eyes. "You have thirty seconds to explain, or I'm pressing charges!"
"Fine, you win!" Ray scratched the back of his neck, where the bottom edge of his wig had been itching all afternoon. "My name is Raimo Eskola, I'm actually from around here -"
"The point!" Maeve snapped, tilting the tablet to study a scratch in the casing.
"Well," continued the boy without missing a beat, "I do work in that café, and when you were standing in line getting coffee two days ago I couldn't help but notice what was on that tablet of yours."
"And so you started stalking me?" It was Maeve's turn to step backwards; Ray sprang up from the bench to defend himself, spreading his hands before him, his fingers still covered in the costume gloves.
"No, not stalking! I'm just curious, that's all, I promise! Those numbers you've got there - they're really something, you know that?"
"They're mathy," said Maeve simply. "And you're not actually a cosplayer."
"I'm mathy!" he said, beaming. "And no, I'm not technically a cosplayer, I just like to dress up. I am sorry for following you but I saw just enough of your numbers to want to know what you were actually up to. I figured it didn't look like you'd thought to take your analysis - which is brilliant, by the way, so kudos to you there - and map it over real-world terrain! So I took your tablet when you were too busy to miss it, made some adjustments, and now you've got it back so everything is fine. Look right here!" The boy jabbed a gloved thumb at the screen, and Maeve rocked backwards on her heels to keep the tablet safe. "All your energy vectors converge in one particular spot, here!"
"Does this mean there's some poor unfortunate troll locked unconscious in a supply cupboard somewhere?" asked Maeve, crinkling her nose as she tilted the screen in an attempt to read it in the direct daylight.
"Nah." Ray shrugged, reaching to pry his wig back from the girl's hand. "He's unconscious in the security booth. I figured that way somebody will find him eventually." A brief frown flickered across Ray's face as he calculated. "Actually, no. He would be awake by now. And wondering where his costume went. And probably pretty crabby."
"You're insane," said the girl flatly, glancing downwards as she tapped her tablet once more to pull Ray's adjustments to the data into better resolution.
"I was being sarcastic?"
"You're insane."
Ray beamed, tucking his hair back beneath his wig as he set it smartly once more on his head. "And mathy."
-x-
Juliet twirled the end of her braid against the palm of her hand. "Maeve Connors spends too much time on the internet. Why does that mean I have to go find her in Finland? And don't say it's because she lives there. I know that."
She could have sworn Artemis cringed. "Did Butler ever tell you what transpired in Barcelona?"
"Oh, no." Apparently, he had.
"What happened in Barcelona?" asked a dutiful Caltrop, leaning in a little to hear the story.
Artemis frowned. "In Barcelona, I was briefly pulled between dimensions by a demon. No photographs were taken of that incident in the present day, but we nearly materialized in a myriad of places and times."
"So...?"
"So, when this half-materialization is caught on film, you can see the result. Images filtered across different points in time tend to shift, in a manner akin to passing light through a prism. My movements within the time tunnel became blurred in such a way that it would be possible for an individual of sufficient intelligence to trace the patterns of distortion backwards to mathematically quantify the energy fluctuations that had caused them. From there, the existence of inter-dimensional travel - and, by extension, the existence of magic itself - would be a simple matter to prove. You need to be in Finland because that is where Maeve Connors is, and I believe she is headed towards exactly this discovery."
Juliet ignored the last part of that statement. "You're saying that you're Slenderman," she said instead, folding her arms.
Holly rolled her eyes. "Of course you're Slenderman."
"By the time I discovered what had happened, several of the images had already been uploaded to the internet. To prevent any of them from being examined too closely, I manufactured an urban myth," admitted Artemis. "So, yes. That would be exactly what I am saying."
"Wait, you wrote that stuff? That came out of your head?" asked a horrified Caltrop. Everybody ignored him.
In hindsight, perhaps he was the only one who was at all surprised.
-x-
The first hint of trouble was a groan in the piping. Artemis glanced down, irritated, before turning his attention back to Holly. "This doesn't have to be difficult. You're making this difficult."
The elf gave a sound of exasperation. "Fowl, things are always difficult when you're involved!"
A trail of bubbles floated to the surface of the water cooler, followed by another groan. Neither of them paid any attention.
"It's a signature, Holly. You sign things all the time. We both know I will continue staying in your apartment, so you might as well just end this now."
"Oh, you want me to end this now? Maybe I want you to move out of my apartment. Did that even occur to you?"
This time, the sound the watercooler gave off was more akin to a loud creak. Artemis shot it a glare while pulling out his phone. "Here, I have the form with me now. Just sign the -"
"No, Fowl. I said no. Why don't you run along with Juliet and go annoy some fellow Mud Men on the surface?"
He gave her a look. "I already said I can't risk another Changeling seeing me. Certainly not this one, as the sight of me might cause her to draw associations between Slenderman and -"
Holly threw up her hands. "I don't care! It's my apartment, so this is my decision! Not yours!"
She took a menacing step forward as though to accentuate her point. In doing so, her elbow brushed gently against the side of the watercooler. A low gurgle sounded in protest, accompanied by another ominous creak. And then, before Artemis had even formed an angry retort, an explosion of water engulfed them both.
Holly did not think twice. While some part of Artemis's brain was busy calculating the exact velocity of the explosion in an attempt to triangulate the direction and magnitude of the concussive force that must have caused it, Holly fell back to decades of crisis response training. Before the last droplet of water had finished falling to the carpet, the elf had closed the gap between the two of them. She sprang at the human, pressing him down and out of the potential line of fire from the window. Artemis gasped in protest as he was knocked off his feet, Holly twisting a little to ensure he would not be injured by the impact - she was already mentally deciding upon escape routes, and needed him to be able to run.
"Stay down!" she hissed before he could protest. The elf didn't stop moving, rolling off to the side and reaching for her weapon. By the time she was right-side up again, Holly raised her head and barked at the stunned occupants of the office, "Lucia!"
There was no sign of the bird, of course. Holly simply knew that inside LEPfoul, the threat of the bird would be guaranteed to make her coworkers duck and cover more quickly than anything else she could possibly say. Sure enough, Caltrop squeaked and disappeared immediately while Dodo took the time to lift her fish tank carefully from the corner of her desk and take it with her to safety, cradling the glass aquarium in her arms to cushion it from any incoming shock. Sass bared her teeth a moment longer before reluctantly kneeling down and out of sight.
The AI, upon running diagnostics of the situation, blinked twice and flashed a reassuring chocolate-chip mint shade of green. "Chill, dudes! Something in the water cooler pressure valve just backfired. I'm not sure what, but I'm pretty sure nobody's trying to attack us, so everybody just take a deep breath and find their happy place, okay?" If the artificial personality had eyes, it would have rolled them in the direction of Holly and Artemis. "Gee, you'd think you two were half-expecting somebody to try to kill you guys or something."
Artemis pushed himself up off the carpet, noting in vague dismay that his suit was soaked. Behind them, the twisted remnants of the water cooler dribbled rivulets of liquid down to the floor. Aside from the faint sound of the dripping water, all was silent. Able to examine the wreckage now, he murmured his agreement with the centaur's assessment.
"You broke it," said Holly flatly, staring down at Artemis with her neutrino still gripped in her hand.
"I didn't touch it."
"Doesn't matter. This only happens when you're around!"
"Actually," said Dodo, poking her head up from behind her desk in a futile attempt to be helpful, "the other day one of Caltrop's gill compressors went when neither of you two were anywhere near the office."
Surprising nobody, Foaly 2.0 felt the need to give input on the situation. "I think the universe just hates us, dudes."
-x-
Maeve had barely settled in for a long flight when the person behind her started to kick the back of her seat. Gritting her teeth, she flipped open her novel in an attempt to ignore the irritation. It didn't help.
She managed to last until the plane was taxiing down the runway to take off before her temper snapped. "Would you stop that please?" she hissed, straining to peer through the seats to the culprit behind her.
Then she realized who it was. "No. Oh no. No way."
The teenager waving cheerfully at her was hardly recognizable as the troll she'd confronted outside the convention centre. With a shock of red hair and a set of thick-framed glasses, the only sign of his costume were the thin gray gloves that he still wore on both hands. His wide grin, however, was all too familiar.
"No," Maeve said again, and then, "What are you even doing here?"
"Well, the vectors all point to Barcelona, don't they?" Ray asked.
"Which explains why I am here," Maeve said tightly. "Why are you stalking me again?"
Ray leaned back, propping his feet up against the back of Maeve's seat and ignoring the glare of the passenger beside him. "Wait, no, I'm not stalking you! This is just fascinating!" he exclaimed. "Slenderman! Coordinates!" He winked. "Mathy stuff!"
Maeve groaned and turned to face frontward again. A moment later, a voice sounded over her shoulder, "So I was thinking when we arrive -"
Ray had leaned forward to peer through the gap in the seats, the sides of his face pressed firmly into the fabric. Without hesitation, Maeve pressed her hand over his mouth and pushed him back. A lock of his hair brushed against her hand and she realized with a start that it was synthetic. Another wig. How, she wondered, had he managed to get that through security?
-x-
"And I just don't like it! You know, I bet if I had a name that was super awesome and smart and cool, everybody would have a much easier time seeing exactly how fantastic of a dude I really am," said the artificial intelligence in an especially whiney tone. It had taken it all morning to pick a voice interface that sounded nasal enough for the purpose, and he was secretly quite proud of the result.
"Well," said Dodo diplomatically as she delicately sponged another few drops of water from the intelligence's circuit board, "I can certainly see where that would be upsetting."
"It's hard trying to be a unique individual! It's hard, and nobody understands!" The lights on the AI's console flickered in time with the syllables, a lurid shade of orange that burned at the dwarf's retinas.
"Maybe," Dodo suggested as she shaded her eyes with one curled hand while the other held the sponge steady, "if you want a name that belongs to somebody else so badly, go read some stories or something and pick one from there. That way you can be named after somebody you admire."
"Hey!" exclaimed the AI, lighting up in a yellow burst. "You know, you're pretty smart, Dodo Feldspar. People don't give you enough credit for that, do they?"
The dwarf scuffed the toe of her boot against the carpet. "People give me enough credit," she said simply. "If they don't, it's their problem."
"I mean, dude, you're smart but people don't realize it. Maybe if you had the same name as a super smart and cool AI, they would -"
"No!"
-x-
"All right," Juliet began, speaking into her phone as she looked out over Helsinki's cityscape. "I have successfully arrived in Helsinki like you asked. What am I supposed to do again?"
"Actually, our plans have changed," Artemis responded. "We need you to head to Barcelona."
"Barcelona?" Juliet repeated. "You do realize that's hours away?"
"If you take the chutes, you'll arrive in plenty of time before Maeve."
Juliet looked down at the sunglasses clutched in her hand that she hadn't even had a chance to put on yet. With a sigh, she tucked them back into her bag. "There had better be a good reason for this."
Artemis coughed. "You can blame the centaur's artificial intelligence. Originally, I was planning to have you wait in Finland to meet with Maeve when she returned from Barcelona, but I'm afraid that will not work any longer. The AI was in the process of searching the internet for stories - for what reason, I have no idea - when he caught wind of Slenderman from an office discussion. It took less than a minute for him to read the Slenderman database, determine the internet was better off without the urban myth, and delete everything."
"Wait - everything? Like, everything? Can you even do that? I thought the internet was forever."
"Not when a fairy's artificial intelligence is involved. As I said, blame the centaur."
Juliet rolled her eyes. "All right then. Why do I have to confront Maeve in Barcelona, then? Can't you just send someone to mind wipe her?"
"Not if the entire Internet is talking about the disappearance of Slenderman," replied Artemis. "It could easily trigger a recall. The only way to resolve this situation is to give her an answer. And what better closure than at the location where the incident began?"
-x-
Supervising the office clean-up had taken most of the morning. Even though they'd done everything in their power to encourage the place to dry out more quickly, Artemis's loafers still squished against the sodden carpet. It was bad enough to be walking around with wet socks when one had the normal number of toes; adding an extra digit to the equation only ensured that he had spent all morning acutely aware of how uncomfortable he was.
Compounding matters, the marketing agency downstairs had already sent a rather peevish-looking sprite up to complain about the fact that their ceiling had begun to drip on their weekly "meeting of the minds." The human had glared at the poor sprite so intensely that she had only gotten half a sentence out before deciding that perhaps a career in marketing wasn't exactly for her.
Artemis cast a glance across the room. Along the opposite wall, Holly was deep in conversation with Foaly's artificial intelligence. She seemed to be threatening to shoot it again; her fingers drummed rhythmically against the barrel of her neutrino, and Artemis kept catching his own hands twitching in response. "I'll go find us a new water cooler," he volunteered, just loudly enough to be sure that the elf heard him.
"The answer's still no, Mud Boy," responded Holly without looking up. "I'm not signing that form."
"Why must you always assume that I've got an ulterior motive?"
"Do you seriously expect an answer to that question?"
"I was not making any attempt to -"
"Of course you were, it's you we're talking about -"
"But Holly-"
"I'll go instead," interrupted Dodo, brushing her hands together as she stood up from her desk. "Could use the fresh air."
"Me too!" said Sass quickly, springing up and turning towards the door. "I think Dodo and I can handle this one! You two just stay here and -"
"Can I come?" asked Caltrop, a hopeful air bubble pulsing through his gill tube.
"Nah, we've got it!" the centaur reassured him, already halfway out the door with Dodo right behind her.
"But I'm head intern!" said Caltrop pointlessly. Artemis, on his way back to his desk, tried to nod in a way that was reassuring without being patronizing. It didn't quite work.
"And no, you can't start calling yourself 'Holly'!" said the elf as she returned once more to her argument with the artificial intelligence. "That's not how names work!"
-x-
Do not engage the Changelings was top amongst the LEPfoul's surveillance rules. In the weeks since the department had started operating under their newfound directive, this rule had been repeated often enough that anyone would have to be particularly obtuse to not pay attention to it.
Obtuse, or perhaps just determined. Possibly both. Then again, this was the Foul Team.
Two hours after the plane carrying Maeve and Ray had left Finland, an alert popped up on Caltrop's screen. "She's online again!" he chirped, and glanced up to see that the office was empty. "Hello? Where did everyone go?"
"We-ell," drawled the AI from across the room. "Juliet is currently travelling to Barcelona, Sass and Dodo left to go replace the water cooler, and I think Holly and Artemis took their argument outside. I am still here, though, because I am a nameless artificial intelligence with no method of independent movement. Are you sure 'Caltrop' is out of the question?"
"No!" Caltrop blurted. "I mean, yes, it is. Out of the question, I mean."
The AI's lights flared green. "Dude. No need to get snippy."
Rather than answer, Caltrop looked down again at his computer screen. The surveillance technology allowed him to pull up a view of Maeve's screen so he could watch her online actions in real time. The very first site she navigated to was the Slenderman forum she had frequented - or rather, where the forum would have been had the AI not scrubbed it from the internet an hour ago. Next, she checked several Slenderman blogs only to find that they had disappeared as well. Web searches predictably revealed nothing.
Caltrop watched all this, nervously playing with his gill tube and glancing up repeatedly to the door in the hopes that someone would return soon enough to tell him what to do.
Finally, Maeve opened a tab to one of her social media accounts and submitted a post.
slendywho tweeted:
Just me, or are all the Slenderman websites down at once?
Again, Caltrop fidgeted, glancing up to the door and then to the AI. There was no one who could help him with this decision. "Well," he muttered to himself, "I am head intern."
Across the room, the AI's lights blinked hopefully. "What's that, dude?"
Caltrop was too busy typing to answer. It took only a minute to create an account on the social media site. Another two minutes were spent deliberating over how to reply. Finally, biting his lip, Caltrop reread his message and clicked send.
fishibusiness tweeted to slendywho:
I don't see anything either. Bizarre, isn't it?
He sat back, tapping his fingers anxiously against the desk as he waited. On the screen, Maeve was cycling through the deleted Slenderman sites again, until finally she pulled open the twitter tab to read Caltrop's message.
slendywho tweeted to fishibusiness:
Weird! Any idea what's going on?
Any idea? Caltrop shot a glare across the room to the oblivious AI.
fishibusiness tweeted to slendywho:
well I've got a friend whose slender blog just went down. I'll check with them maybe?
slendywho tweeted to fishibusiness:
YES please do!
Satisfied that his initiative was leading to promising results, Caltrop pushed his chair back. Taking his time, he left the office to find a cup of sim-coffee. When he returned, Maeve was reading a new blog post about the sudden disappearance of Slenderman information.
fishibusiness tweeted to slendywho:
Friend has no idea why her blog went down. It's not the host site - rumours of a virus attacking only Slenderman info.
slendywho tweeted to fishibusiness:
Yeah, so I've heard. Any other ideas?
fishibusiness tweeted to slendywho:
Friend knows someone trying to trace the virus. I'll let you know if they find anything!
raimooo tweeted to fishibusiness and slendywho:
Hey guys! Talking about Slendy? XD
slendywho tweeted to raimooo:
NO. NOT WITH YOU.
- slendywho has blocked raimooo -
-x-
"Hey, that wasn't called for!" said Ray over her shoulder, kicking the back of her chair.
Maeve closed her eyes and reached for her headphones. Three hours to go.
-x-
The flight from Helsinki to Barcelona would have been long even under ordinary circumstances. With Ray in close proximity, years seemed to pass. It turned out that the Finnish boy didn't sleep on planes, nor did he stop talking. The brief moments of relief occurred only when Ray would disappear to the bathroom, returning all too soon with some subtle change in his appearance.
Once, after a three-minute pause of silence, Maeve turned in her seat to check whether Ray had finally fallen asleep; instead, she discovered that he'd switched to a wig of long, black hair and applied feminine eyelashes. Maeve could only stare at him in disbelief.
Ray misinterpreted her expression. "Oo, are we going to talk about Slenderman now?" he trilled.
Maeve just shook her head.
The moment they landed and disembarked, however, a now-blond Ray collapsed in a row of chairs near the baggage claim and instantly fell asleep. Maeve found herself staring down at him, debating the pros and cons of leaving him behind. It's not like I agreed to have him tag along, she thought. Yet he was so small and defenseless on the bench that she couldn't quite bring herself to move away.
Fine, she decided at last, dropping her bag on the seat next to him. I'll wait. He'd probably catch up to me anyway, and I'd never see him coming.
-x-
slendywho tweeted to fishibusiness:
Just landed. Any new updates?
fishibusiness tweeted to slendywho:
Can't believe you're actually in Barcelona! Um, managed to trace IP address of the comp where the Slendy virus originated from
fishibusiness tweeted to slendywho:
And I located where the comp's currently at! I'll DM you the coordinates. And guess which city?
slendywho tweeted to fishibusiness:
No. No way. Barcelona? REALLY?
fishibusiness tweeted to slendywho:
Some coincidence, huh?
slendywho tweeted to fishibusiness:
More than that, for sure. But we'll get to the bottom of this! Nicely done, btw. You are AMAZING.
fishibusiness tweeted to slendywho:
Just let me know how it all turns out, okay?
-x-
The next time Maeve turned around, Ray had aged a decade.
"Okay, seriously, how are you doing that?" she hissed.
This time, the boy's grin was more relaxed and mature, as befitting his new character. "It's all about the lines," he explained, waving a hand over his face.
"Really?"
"No - but if I told you, I'd have to kill you."
"Ray."
"Actually kill you. Gotta protect my trade secrets."
"Ray."
He spread out his arms and protested, "Sarcasm!"
-x-
"Say, Arty dude. I was just thinking -"
"Run through the possible outcomes before voicing your request," Artemis interrupted immediately.
The AI's lights dimmed. "I just thought I'd ask," he said sulkily.
Half-hidden behind her computer, Holly coughed in disbelief. "Do you ever give anyone else a choice, Fowl?"
"Do you really want a second 'Artemis' in this office?"
-x-
From his position on the roof of the Casa Milà, Ray had a perfect view of Maeve and her contact as they spoke on the street. He wore one half a set of earpieces that he'd snagged from one of the convention security booths before leaving the hall, leaning against the roof's edge as he listened to the conversation below. He was happy he'd taken the extra few moments to properly secure his wig, as the rooftop breeze threatened to set the synthetic hair askew. Somehow, when he'd pictured Barcelona, he'd imagined something warmer - from his vantage point, it was just cold enough that he was grateful for his gloves.
Ray always wore gloves. It wasn't something he could fully explain, beyond the fact that he just liked them. It was nice to have some kind of calling card, a trait that he could take with him through each of his disguises. And besides, it was much easier to not get caught in any of his various misdemeanours if he knew he wouldn't be leaving fingerprints behind him. Stalking, though! That's a new one. I don't think I've ever been caught - erm, accused of - stalking somebody before.
Now, both his hands were wrapped around a pair of binoculars. They were nothing special - also stolen from a security booth at the convention, as a matter of fact - but they allowed him to get a decent view of the outdoor cafe patio. Not quite enough resolution to read lips, of course, but he figured that was what the earpiece was for.
"I just want to know," Maeve was saying, "Did you have anything to do with the Slendy Virus?"
"Hang on." The contact paused to study her. "You're a friend of Ralph's?"
"Ralph?" Maeve repeated.
-x-
Belowground, Caltrop sat up straight in indignation. "Ralph?"
Artemis winced. "Chlorella's twitter username is fishibusiness."
-x-
"Fishibusiness," Juliet repeated, closing the laptop that sat on the table before her.
Maeve nodded eagerly. "So you talked to him! Look, I just want to know why you did it. And how. That must be some code to crash every Slenderman-related site at once!"
"Yeah," Juliet said slowly. She rubbed the back of her neck. "Um, about that. It was an accident?"
"That makes even less sense."
-x-
"You spend your free time writing code," Artemis coached, "And you got hacked. Someone set your code off before you had a chance to refine it."
-x-
"My friends dared me to write the code. And then my ex decided to set it loose as a parting gift. He works at a TECHNIO digital center, and apparently had access to enough processing power to make it as destructive as it was."
"Your ex," Maeve repeated. "Why would your friends even dare you to write that kind of code?"
Juliet rubbed her chin. "Because I accidentally made Slender-Man to begin with? They were freaked out by how creepy it ended up being, and then we blinked and it was everywhere. I think they just wanted to know I could kill it if it got too annoying." She paused. "Look, it was a long summer and we were bored. Just took a simple algorithm and used it to determine the distortions to use on each image. Looking back at it, it came out a lot more impressive than it actually was."
-x-
"You'll send her a copy of the code," instructed Artemis. "I'm writing it as we speak."
-x-
"I won't explain it in detail - there's a ton of math involved. But I can send you a copy if you want."
The offer didn't even need consideration. "A copy? Math? Yes, please do!"
-x-
Ray watched as the two women parted ways, finally straightening to tuck his binoculars back inside his bag. As he turned to leave the rooftop, something caught his eye. The Finnish boy narrowed his eyes, stepping closer to get a better look.
There. A rooftop mosaic, depicting a pale figure in a suit stepping out of thin air. Ray paused. Something in the back of his brain was humming, and he examined the surrounding tiles closely for more clues. There! Not too far away, a second mosaic - almost an extension of the first - showed an unfamiliar lizardlike creature. It, too, seemed to be slipping through a crack in the universe.
Oh, that's interesting. Maybe mathy, too. We'll see.
A moment later Raimo Eskola was descending in the lift, his camera phone tucked snugly once more inside his pocket.
-x-
It was near the end of the workday by the time Sass and Dodo returned. The centaur swished her tail proudly. "We're back!" she announced triumphantly. "Did we miss anything?"
Dodo waddled across the room with Sass keeping pace behind her. The dwarf's short arms barely reached all the way around the tank of the new water cooler, but she didn't trust the centaur to carry their prize without dropping it. "I'm sorry it took so long. We had to visit nearly every office supply store in the city," she said. "Clerks kept recognizing Sass and kicking us out."
"But you're glad you took me along anyways because I got us one stellar deal on this baby!" The centaur patted the top of the new cooler with a hearty sort of fondness, and Dodo's knees almost buckled. "Here, let me help you!" she finally offered, two feet away from the stand.
Caltrop set down his tablet, drifting to that side of the room to watch with bated breath as the two interns attached the water cooler to the main supply. One moment passed, and then another.
When no imminent disaster surfaced after half a minute, the three of them sighed in unison.
"That's the end of that!" Sass exclaimed, brushing her hands off against each other.
"Thankfully," said Dodo.
That was when Foaly 2.0 turned itself back on. "Hey, buddies? Come over here a second?"
"We can hear you just fine," pointed out Dodo. The AI sighed.
"Look, dudes, it's polite to look in somebody's face when you're talking to them. I don't have a face, per say, but I'm still a unique and individual type of - well, individual dude!" AI's console light turned a bright shade of blue. "And I was reading through human myths and folklore and stories, and man, I think I found a name. Well, a cool individual dude's name. I mean, the whole sun thing didn't work out too great for him, but we're underground so I figure it's gotta be a safe bet, right? So from now on, fellow interns, please call me 'Icarus!'"
Caltrop, to his credit, responded with a smile that may have been entirely genuine. "Good job, buddy! You - you thought for yourself, and I think we can all agree that we'll get used to your new name. Welcome to Foul Team, Icky!"
"Wait, what?" The console light turned a suspicious shade of green. "What did you just call me?"
"Icky...?" repeated the water sprite cautiously, reaching to touch the side of his gill tube in a preemptive attempt to ensure the bubble valves remained clear in case an argument broke out.
"Icky!" exclaimed Sass with infinitely more enthusiasm, tossing her purple hair in victory. "You've got a nickname now!"
The console light froze. "But I don't want to be 'Icky'!"
"Too bad!" The centaur flashed a grim smile. "That's the thing about names - once you've got one, you're stuck with it. If I have to walk around with 'Pihassas' written on the top of every single form I ever sign, you can deal with 'Icky.'"
"You never do any of the paperwork, Sass," noted Dodo primly. "Icarus always does your paperwork."
"And it has to sign the paperwork with 'Pihassas,' which is a terrible excuse for a name. Get over yourself, Icky!" Sass folded her arms across her chest, her front hoof tapping the carpeted floor lightly.
"I'll - dudes, I don't even know what I'll do, but Foaly or Fowl or somebody will fix this and you're going to be sorry that you -"
"One of those people has a name that's every bit as bad as yours, and the other one still wears tin foil hats every now and then. I think you're out of luck there, dude."
-x-
Maeve and Ray parted ways outside of the security gate in Helsinki Airport. Ray had changed his appearance once more before passing through customs, now sporting sandy blonde hair and a dark green pair of gloves. "This is what I look like in my passport picture," he explained. "Usually I try to push it a little bit, but it's been a long few days. Time for us to split up, huh?"
Maeve sighed, shaking his hand all the same. "I'd like to say it's been nice having the company, Ray, but..."
"I'm glad we met, too!" There was a sincerity in his voice that, despite herself, made Maeve quirk half a smile.
"By the way, I've unblocked you on Twitter. If you ever decide to start stalking me again, could you maybe warn me first?"
Ray shook his head vehemently. "Hey, I already explained that I wasn't stalking you. I just wanted to find out what you were up to so I followed you around without telling you about it, that's all."
"Ray. You just defined stalking."
"Huh." His eyes widened in horror. "You know, I didn't actually think about it, but you're right. Wow. That's a bit creepy. I guess I should maybe apologize?"
"Yeah," said the girl flatly. "You should."
"Maeve Connors, I extend my most sincere apology for stalking you," said the Finnish boy with an earnest nod. "It will not happen again, and if it does, my disguise will be so good that you'll never know about it!"
"Ray!" exclaimed Maeve sharply.
Ray raised one gloved hand in self-defense. "I was being sarcastic!" he said, and gave a mock salute. "Keep in touch!"
"I will." Shaking her head in dismay, Maeve turned away from him and reached into her bag for her tablet. May as well get one last tweet out before I catch a taxi out of here. I bet fishibusiness would like to know how this situation resolved itself.
Instead of the expected smooth edge of her tablet, Maeve's hand closed around something soft. Brow furrowed, she pulled out from her bag a pair of fingerless gloves. They were knit from thick turquoise, tan, red, and purple wool, and perfectly matched her costume scarf. She was unexpectedly touched by the gesture but by the time the girl turned to thank her new friend for the parting gift, he had already blended away into the crowd.
-x-
Busy tapping at his phone, Artemis hardly bothered to glance up when the landlord barrelled into the apartment lift. Nor did he raise his head as the lift continued upward, despite the gnome's nervous fidgeting. When the doors opened again, Artemis stepped out first and pretended not to notice that he was being followed as he strode down the hall.
Only as he paused before the door to Holly's apartment did the gnome, still halfway down the hall, call gruffly, "Oi! You. Mud Boy!"
Artemis sighed before turning. "Hello, Jenner."
"Hmph." The gnome waddled down the hallway to meet him, stopping to jab at Artemis's chest much as Holly had that morning. "I heard something through the grapevine today, human. I heard that you have two days left before you have to submit your signed residency permit if you want to continue living here. And I heard that the elf in charge of signing that form doesn't want to sign that form."
Artemis regarded him blandly. "Interesting, the rumours you can hear without leaving your apartment."
The gnome flushed red. "Look here, Mud Boy. I want you out of my apartment, you hear? No way is that elf signing your paperwork."
"I very much doubt 'that elf' is going to consider your input," Artemis commented.
Jenner went so far as to stamp his foot, straining his neck to glare up at the human. Deliberately, he pushed past the boy and down the remainder of the hall to pound loudly on the last door on the left. "Open up, Short!" he bellowed. "You better be in there. I have an issue I need to -"
The door swung open. Holly stood in the opening, hands on her hips and an eyebrow quirked in a manner she'd learned from the best. Her fingers drummed on the barrel of her neutrino that was still strapped to her waist. "Jenner."
The gnome visibly gulped. "Short," he barked, making up for his sudden apprehension by further raising the volume of his voice. "I just came to - that is - no way are you signing that form."
"And what form is that?" Holly asked, her tone level and deceptively reasonable.
Buoyed by the prospect of an ally, Jenner straightened his shoulders and lowered his voice slightly. "The form - the residency - oh, show her the form."
Both Holly and Jenner turned to Artemis, who already had his phone out and was pulling up the form as they spoke. He slid his fingers across the screen to enlarge the page before passing the device to Holly.
"That one," Jenner said decisively. "Don't sign that one."
Holly brought her eyes back to him. In that moment, the gnome realized rather suddenly that he had severely miscalculated the situation. He could only watch helplessly as Holly slid the stylus from its holder and, without breaking her eye contact with the landlord, scribbled her name across the dotted line.
"I - I can have you evicted, you know," the landlord declared half-heartedly.
Artemis ignored him. "By the way, Holly," he said as he accepted his phone back, "I installed a frequency jammer a few months back. Kept neglecting to mention that to you. It's probably nothing more than a case of paranoia but I thought it would be better to safeguard against any potential eavesdroppers."
Holly was still watching the fuming landlord. "You don't say. Good thing I'm not kicking you out, then."
"Indeed."
The moment the door closed, Holly turned her gaze onto Artemis. "You do realize that it is illegal for a landlord to spy on his tenants, and that if you were aware of this you should have done something about it, right?"
Artemis was slightly insulted. "Of course. And I did do something about it. For the entire building, as a matter of fact."
Holly resolved not to ask.
"By the way," Artemis continued. He was frowning slightly, the only outward sign of his unease. "I can't quite believe that I am saying this, but you were right. I apologize for my presumption: it is your apartment, and your decision. If you didn't actually want to sign the form, I haven't sent it in yet. You can still retract your signature. Although I'm afraid I won't be able to relocate immediately; I will be up the remainder of the night reverse-engineering this code to send to Maeve. It has to be mathematically sound without giving away too much."
Surprised at the offer, Holly briefly considered it before admitting, "That's fine. You can move into the guest room in the morning. It's only used for storage anyway. You clear it out, it's yours." She added, "And maybe next time, you'll think to apologize and admit I'm right just a little bit sooner."
Artemis's brief confusion gave way as he visibly brightened. "Excellent. Do these new benefits extend to shelf space in the front room?"
"Don't push your luck, Mud Boy. And if I ever find you've messed with my digital library again, I will kill you."
-x-
"No, go left!" hissed Caltrop in the dark, his eyes wide with panic. Sass shook her head, leaning in close over his shoulder, her face green in the illumination from the computer screen.
"No, we've already been left!" she whispered in return, clicking frantically as though she could make the ground shift faster beneath their virtual feet. "How many more bits of paper do we need to grab before that - that THING stops chasing us?"
"Three!" wailed Caltrop, swinging the flashlight to the forest ahead. "Wait - glub - there's one on the side of that building! C-can't this thing run any faster?"
It turned out that not all copies of the Slenderman computer game had been deleted for good - the version of it saved to Sass's computer had remained. Now, the dim light of the virtual late-night city just barely illuminated the Foul Team offices as the two interns huddled together over a computer screen. Sharing an interface, hearts pounding, they hissed constantly at one another as though attempting to evade a real-life threat.
"It's behind us!" gasped Caltrop.
"Keep running," said Sass, trying her best to be brave. She clicked desperately for the object tacked to the side of a building; on the screen, the woods went dark.
The music stopped.
The beat of silence that followed was punctured, after a moment, by a magnificent Lucia SCREECH.
"AAAAAH - glurk!" Caltrop screamed until his tubes clogged, dropping down beneath the desk. "Sass, that's not - not - not funny!" he stuttered, tilting his head to peer up at the centaur through widened eyes.
Much to his horror, Sass's face was also twisted in alarm.
"I didn't do it!"
"You WHAT?"
"Oh, d'arvit - she's back!" said Sass, her voice low with awe.
Apparently Lucia had finally tired of terrorizing Police Plaza and had gone off in search of her owner. One did not need a Changeling's IQ to know that this was not going to be a happy reunion.
Caltrop squeaked, and Sass reached for the nearest blunt object (a lamp that she hoped Caltrop was not actually using for anything). She raised it threateningly as the angry yellow bird wheeled around the corner towards them. For a second the canary flared its wings outwards to cut the momentum from the turn, braking as one more caw broke loose from its beak. And then Lucia bore down upon them. The water sprite cowered behind Sass, sprawled on his stomach as he frantically attempted to adjust his gill tubes. The centaur reared up on her hind legs for battle, steel in her eyes.
"Caw caw, mother -"
-x-
Author's Note:
At the time of this posting, Homestuck has been on hiatus for 40 days. We're starting to go a bit loopy. Can you tell?
By the by, the game that Sass and Caltrop are playing is called "Slender: The Eight Pages" and you can find it through an internet search! -Freud
All credit goes to Freud for braving the Slenderman parts of the internet in the name of research. -Winged
Seriously, guys. I had nightmares. So. Many. Nightmares. -Freud
-x-
Too Much Slendy; Didn't Read:
The team responds to a crisis when a new Changeling, a Finnish girl named Maeve Connors, spends her spare time cosplaying and using memes to mathematically quantify the time-space continuum. They head her off in Barcelona, revealing LEPfoul's new operating procedures: Do not engage the Changelings. Just give them some of answers they're looking for, so they stop looking at anything we don't want them to see.
Unbeknownst to LEPfoul, a second Changeling - Raimo Eskola, a kooky chameleon with a penchant for friendly stalking - uncovers the Gaudi mosaic on the roof of the Casa Milá that shows Artemis in the middle of travelling through time. While Maeve goes home satisfied to have gotten to the bottom of things, Ray stores this information away for later.
Foaly's artificial intelligence has an identity crisis upon the realization that it has no name of its own. After some serious soul-searching, it finally chooses the name Icarus (immediately shortened to Icky!) and begins to identify itself as an individual. And thus, the singularity occurs without fanfare - or, indeed, anyone at all taking notice.
Throughout this all, Artemis and Holly have domestic problems when the still-sharing-an-apartment issue comes to a head. It ends with an apology from Artemis and the offer from Holly to move off the couch and into the guest bedroom.
Last but not least, Caltrop and Sass decide to stay late in the office to play through the last remaining copy of a Slenderman-based game. That's where they are when a screech announces the return of everyone's favourite canary.
And that's what you missed on - glub - Foul Team!