I'm slightly confused as to why posting two chapters gets less response than usual... I dunno, it's just odd :/

Work To Do

Managing inventory wasn't the most thrilling of jobs but it still required enough attention to make any distraction problematic. As it was, Lisa kept trying to focus on her computer screen even though she knew it was hopeless the moment she saw him coming her way. He pulled over a chair from an empty desk and set it at the end of hers, boredom evident.

"What's up?"

Lisa sighed. "Nothing more than the usual."

"Right."

Despite not looking at him directly, the movement of his legs was still noticeable in her periphery. "Get your feet off my desk, Pyro. I don't have the patience for this today."

Hands held up in surrender and mock apology, Pyro returned to his previous position. "What's this then?" he queried, prodding a medium-sized box beside Lisa's monitor. The cardboard was sealed with tape, unopened and unmarked.

"Not for us!" she whispered, ceasing typing to pull his hand away. "That's for Executive Jessi."

"Oops." Pyro pushed his chair back a pace to make it seem like he'd never touched the package. "Man, I miss the days when Cel would give us our orders. Nothing's been quite as fun lately."

"She's only been gone for two months," Lisa snorted, folding her arms as she gave up entirely on getting any more work done. There were at least a dozen other people doing the same job as her anyway; Pyro wasn't wrong about there being less field work recently, but that didn't make it a bad thing. Everyone knew the Boss was working on something big and all the rest of Open simply needed to keep things ticking over until the goal was achieved.

"Okay, look alive," Pyro warned, nodding in the direction of a figure approaching them from the management offices. Jessi adjusted his goggles as he drew near, his attention focussed solely on the both of them.

"I heard you have something for me, Lisa?" He tilted his head in expectation.

"Oh, yes." Pyro pushed the box in her direction so she could slide it further down the desk to where the hacker was standing. "It arrived this morning. Seems Boss took the liberty of ordering some items for you."

"Any instructions?" Jessi mumbled, still half asleep, as he plucked a letter opener from the next desk over and opened the box up. Lisa paused, hesitant about whether it was a delivery that ought to be exposed to the multitude of people in the room.

"The message said that Boss wants you to build something capable of storing an advanced system, and that you'd know which one."

Jessi frowned, pulling out several small, silvery bags and holding them up to the light. He glanced down at the contents of the box again, causing his frown to deepen. "There's way too much in here for that to be the only thing."

"The order was for two devices…"

Jessi made a noncommittal noise of vague agreement, placing the bags back and picking the entire package up. "Well thanks for holding on to it." What was their Boss up to, he wondered whilst heading back toward his own quarters, avoiding any collisions with people walking past even in his slightly preoccupied state. One he could understand, but two? Maybe it was foresight, or failsafe, or perhaps neither; any which way, there was something the Boss was keeping from them. Though that wasn't particularly unusual.

For the last month they'd received next to no guidance from their absent overlord and Jessi still couldn't work out whether that was a good or bad sign. On top of that, their inquiries as to the identity of 'Figit' had borne no fruit besides his somewhat unusual insistence of contacting Kia as opposed to the number of moderators around her. It might be a clue but if that were the case, both he and Cel had yet to unravel its implications and meanings.

"Took your time."

Jessi felt his eyes rolling without his permission at the sound of the commander's voice. He shifted the box to his left in order to pull his eyewear down the moment Hallie came into view; the slight delay of the reaction left his eyes with a dull ache that would dissipate in a few seconds, but it was unpleasant nonetheless. "What do you want?"

"What, I'm not allowed to just come over and have a chat?" she smirked whilst leaning on the wall by his room. "Would it make it better if we have a tea party?"

"Get on with it," Jessi sighed in exasperation. "I have a job to do and I'm not exactly sure when the deadline is, so better finish it sooner rather than later."

"Ooh, what is it?" Hallie pushed off from the wall and reached for the box, which the hacker pulled away from her prying fingers.

"Don't. This is what the Boss sent for me to make a storage device."

Hallie's eyes widened. "For the final piece?" she whispered after furtively looking around to ensure no one was privy to a conversation they shouldn't be.

"Yeah. Now if you'll excuse me," Jessi stomped to his door and quickly unlocked it with the intent of getting in and shutting it behind him before Hallie could do anything. Too slow by a margin, the commander's foot wedged itself between the sliding door and the wall and she pushed it open, choosing to now lean on the door itself to prevent it from closing.

"Calm down; at least let me do what I came here for. Cel's report came in last night but I didn't have the chance to tell you. Apparently, Hatter got stuck in a fire recently."

"I assume she survived?"

"Obviously, otherwise everything would have fallen to pieces already. The other thing is that Rage is showing signs of leaving Leeds again. You need to hold him off."

Jessi dropped the package on a desk at the opposite wall. It was supposed to be dark in there but Hallie was letting in more light than the room would normally see in half a year, her silhouette standing obnoxiously in the slice of brightness that cut cleanly through the air. "How long have I been doing that, exactly? A month and a half?"

"Yeah, I guess. Can you do it or not?"

"Sure, sure. But not for much longer; maybe a week or two."

Hallie bit her lip. "I hope we've bought enough time."

"I'd say we have, from the sound of Cel's reports," Jessi replied, sinking down into his chair and scowling as he found he couldn't even see his suspended screen with all the light in the room. "Now if there's nothing else, please leave."

His passive aggressive tone only made Hallie want to bother him more, but she knew when enough was enough. Giving a loose wave goodbye she took a step back and the door immediately hissed shut, allowing Jessi to start working on his project. It bothered Hallie just as much as it did him; despite not seeing the contents, the size of the box indicated that the Boss wanted two storage devices. The first was accounted for, but unlike Jessi, the commander had a strong suspicion she knew what the other was supposed to hold.

It was unsettling.

Hallie shook her head roughly to dispel the nausea that had begun creeping up on her at the thought of the device's purpose. There were other matters that required her attention more for right now. With Cel and the Boss gone, essentially all of their duties had fallen to her since Jessi avoided contact with the other divisions as much as was possible. It was busy work, and had she been anyone else Hallie had no doubt she would have collapsed from exhaustion already. Right now a situation was brewing that needed to be neutralised before it became a problem, but there was every chance she'd missed that window of opportunity whilst running around and fixing various other messes.

"Cel's job: Cel's division," Hallie muttered to herself and she paced through the corridors. But whom should she send? Upon entering the central hub of their base the commander felt her eyes being drawn to two extremely bored persons who likely hadn't seen a mission since this whole farce had begun. They were Cel's lackeys too – perfect. They'd be fully capable of handling the chaos unfolding at the western edge of the city. She headed straight to them.

"How can we help you?" asked the girl nervously as she stood up from her chair. A field agent stuck on management duty; it was somewhat depressing how far some in their organisation had fallen in the space of a few months.

"Pyro and Lisa?" They nodded. "You don't mind if I send you out to the Outer Wall, do you?"

Just a casual catch-up with the members of Open :3