Special Order
(by ShadowVulpix)
"I hesitate to ask…" Randall said slowly, staring around the room. "But what's going on here?"
Given that about half the room was filled with mugs, and the other being used to boil water, the hesitation was likely somewhat reasonable.
"Well," Taylor replied, holding one of the mugs. "It's a bit of a long story…"
"But we're currently taste-testing a lot of tea." Amy finished, appearing from somewhere behind the pile with a tray of mugs. Lisa was walking behind her with a tablet, which Kevin curiously examined.
"That's a lot of tea." He commented, raising an eyebrow at them.
"It came up in a forum." The Varga explained, appearing next to his Brain. "I don't know the entire background to it, but Lisa found the thread."
"About three pages of people talking about what types of tea are best." The Thinker added. "I haven't heard of around half of them, so I decided I'd order some of them in to try."
"And then Taylor got wind of it, didn't she?" Randall realised.
"Pretty much." The part-demon grinned, draining the mug in her hands and trading it for another one on Amy's tray. "To be fair, it's not entirely my work. Everyone's been slowly drinking our way through the boxes for the last…" She trailed off.
"Couple of hours, now." Lisa informed them.
"How the hell have you been drinking that much?" Kevin gaped, half impressed.
"I upped the metabolism so we could handle it." Amy shrugged. "No idea what Taylor's doing, but I'd place fairly even odds on not wanting to know."
Everyone glanced at her, now drinking from another mug with a raised eyebrow, and privately agreed.
"Feel like joining in?" Taylor invited, gesturing with the mostly-empty mug to the rest of the room. "We've got a lot of really interesting ones here."
Looking at each other with resigned acceptance, the duo offered their hands to Amy, who passed the tray to the Varga and made a few adjustments, where they promptly picked up a mug each and began helping the crazy collection of reptiles drink their way through most the tea in New England.
A store clerk scratched his head, looking at the strange orders on the list.
"Hey boss!" He called across the room. "Got something pretty weird here." The overseer came over.
"What is it?"
"That." He pointed at the screen, shifting his chair to the side to let the man in.
"Who the hell ordered several tons of tea?" The boss asked in astonishment, after a few moments of gaping. "And why so many flavours?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Then check. Where'd the order come from?"
"Hold on a moment." The clerk quickly manoeuvred through the menus, reaching the part of the form that had a delivery address. "It would appear…" He slowed, reading the line again. "The Dockworkers Union in Brockton Bay."
"What the hell are dockworkers doing that needs so much tea? Did they have a sudden invasion of Brits in the company?" Both chuckled at the joke for a moment, before the clerk froze.
"Wait a minute…" He said slowly.
"What?"
"Isn't the DWU where the BBFO offices are?" His boss nodded. "I think we can assume the order's something to do with the Family and leave it alone, sir."
"Ah. Yes. Perhaps." The clerk went back to his work as his boss walked away, quietly muttering, "What are the Family doing that requires several tons of tea? Did the British branch come to visit or something? Heresy, I say. What American drinks that much tea?"