Chapter Five: The Clerks

"Sarah! Sarah!" Jim shouted, worriedly. He scrambled around the 67th floor frantically looking for his lost goat.
"Jim! You're going to get us caught!" Harry exclaimed.
"But... What about Sarah?" Jim questioned, the fear and worry for his goat could be clearly heard in his voice.
"She's a good goat and she'll take care of herself," Harry said, reassuringly. "Come on, let's try and get the 69th floor keycard."

"Oh my aching head," Rusty groaned, rubbing his head. He was riding in the elevator with the fellow people in black.
"You shouldn't have ran head first at those people in the elevator," the curly haired man explained.
"But you're always telling me to use my head."
"He didn't mean it literally, you idiot!" the woman with blue pig tails shouted.
"Shut up, Helga!" Rusty commanded.
"..."
"You too, Parrot!"
"Calm down. Right now we need to catch those intruders," the curly haired man said, evenly.
"I don't know if we can catch them, Murry. They're more clever than we think," Rusty said.
"Rusty... You're an idiot. Come on, we have no time to lose. We'll perform a floor by floor search. Parrot, inform security that we have intruders," Murry ordered as the elevator door opened. Parrot nodded, turned on his stereo and walked out the elevator.

"Sarah! Sarah? Sarah!" Jim continued shouting. He opened a toilet seat lid. "Sarah! Ew, someone didn't flush."
"Jim! We have to get going here. There's no time to spare! We swiped a key card from the old cleaning lady. There's no point in waiting for Sarah any longer," Harry reasoned.
"I have to find her! No matter what, I need to find my goat!" Jim dashed out of the men's washroom and immediately burst into the women's washroom shouting, "Sarah! Sarah, where are you?" This was followed by female screams and several slapping sounds.
Harry rushed out of the men's room, shouting for Jim. Florence looked at Harry with a look of sadness on her face. "He's taking Sarah's sudden disappearance quite hard," she sighed.
"Where is he now?" Harry asked, worriedly.
"In the ladies room. I'll go get him." Florence turned and walked through the ladies room door, just as three other woman stormed out heatedly. Florence glanced at Jim, he was on the floor with three steaming hand prints in various places on his face.
"Oh, poor Jim. Come on, dear, I'll help you up." Florence helped Jim to his feet. "You need to pull yourself together. Sarah will be all right, but you're jeopardizing the rest of us. Don't worry so much, Jim. You have a good goat that can take care of herself."
Jim nodded slowly, he stayed silent. Worry still shrouded his face. He looked at Florence with a bit of a frown. She smiled at him. "Don't worry, Jim. She'll be all right," she spoke warmly and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Let's go." She turned and led Jim out of the bathroom.

"Hey Murry! Get over here, I found something!" Rusty exclaimed. He was in a far corner of the 67th floor. A few feet away stood Murry. He turned and walked over to Rusty.
"What is it?" he questioned, trying to get a peek at what Rusty had found. Rusty managed to drag a quivering goat out of the shadows, a leash hanging at her neck. "It's the goat that was with those guys from the elevator. I wonder how this got away from them. They can't be too far away. C'mon, let's get Parrot and Helga."

"How could that weird fish thing scare Sarah so badly? I've never seen her so frightened," Jim murmured as he walked with Harry and Florence to the elevator.
"It's hard to tell. Maybe she knows what Jimbles is. Kind of a weird name if you ask me," Harry said, thoughtfully.
"Don't worry too much, Jim. As soon as we make sure that Gengai can't do any harm, we'll get Sarah back. She'll probably trot up as cheerful as ever," Florence consoled, with a bit of a smile. She wasn't speaking in full confidence.
They continued walking along, drawing closer to the elevator. Jim was still mumbling sadly about his lost goat. In the corner of Jim's ear, he could hear something. It was some strange rhythm. He paused, and strained to listen. Then, the familiar sound of Sarah's shout echoed in Jim's ears.
"Sarah! It's Sarah!" Jim shouted. He turned and dashed away from Florence and Harry.
"Jim! Come back!" Florence cried and dashed off after him.
"Dammit Jim!" Harry yelled and was soon dashing off after Florence and Jim.
Jim stopped. "Sarah!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. From around a corner trotted Sarah, followed by Murry who was holding the leash. Following Murry was Parrot, holding his stereo, Rusty, grinning wickedly, and Helga. Jim glared at them angrily. "Give me back my goat!"
"So this is your goat," Murry commented, sinisterly. "Well, I'm afraid this is our goat now."
Helga chuckled, "We could give her back to you."
Rusty smiled, deceivingly, "But we'd rather kill you."
Parrot put down the stereo and pulled out his switch blade. "..."
"You said it, Parrot," Rusty said, the smile growing wider.
Florence ran up beside Jim. "It's you guys again!" she exclaimed. "Wait a second, who are you anyway?"
Murry smiled and began speaking as he began pointing to the people in his group, "I'm Murry, this is Rusty, Parrot and that's Helga over there. We're the Clerks. We're Gengai's security, among other things."
Harry caught up to Florence and Jim. He looked at the Clerks, and sighed, "Looks like we have yet another delay. Oh well, it's not like we had anything of importance to do anyway." He readied his beer bottle and stared at Helga, Rusty and Parrot cautiously as they stepped forward.
Rusty held up his fists, ready to strike, and Helga revealed a short, pointed blade. Parrot slowly moved forward, glancing at Harry, sizing him up, scanning for a point of weakness. Rusty cracked his knuckles and began closing in on Jim with small steps and a steady pace. Helga smiled sweetly for a moment toward Florence and then lunged forward.
The battle had begun. Fierce strikes and slashes were sent back and forth, the sound of rubber slapping on skin, boots cracking against skulls, and bodies hitting the floor with a thud.
In the end, the crew found themselves waking up inside cramped cells. They were in prison. It was Jim who was the first to come out of an unconscious state to see himself in his cell. Laying beside him was Sarah.
Jim screeched with joy and childish delight as he saw his goat again. Sarah immediately awoke and the ceiling flew down to meet her. She thudded back down on the floor and moaned goatishly. Jim immediately attached himself to his goat with a death grip hug. Sarah squirmed and gasped for air. What a way to wake up.
"Oh Sarah! Thank goodness you're alive! Why did you run off like that? What happened Sarah?" Jim asked his beloved goat.
All that Sarah could reply with was squirming and gasping for air.
"Oh, sorry," Jim apologized and released his grip on the goat. As he did, she fell backward, relief flooding over her as air was returned, and she went unconscious. "Sarah? Sarah?" he questioned his animal, blinking. He sighed loudly. "What a time to take a nap," he grumbled.
The third to wake up out of the group of four was Florence. She found herself on a little cot. She glanced down to see Harry, murmuring in his sleep. She sat up and looked around her surroundings. They were in some sort of enclosed containment room. It didn't look like she could get out. She thought to herself for a moment, "What do we do about food?"

"Herman... yabba yabba.... You can'tern... drink that.. ther case of...... azzama....... tequila.. Oh... my... emu... head... What's burnin'.... Herman? Herman?... Gergl... Zzzzzz..........." Harry muttered softly in his sleep. He rolled over and slowly his eyes opened. He had a bit of trouble adjusting to the light. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. He smelt something strange. Almost like something was burning, or melting. He couldn't tell which. Whatever it was, it was foul. "What is that, stench?" he asked as he slowly began sitting up.
"Breakfast..." came a reply. Harry turned to see Florence hunched over something that looked like a makeshift rotisserie. By the looks of things she had impaled a rubber chocobo and was now proceeding to roast it over a small fire she made in their cell.
"What?" Harry shouted in shock. "You expect me to eat that thing?"
"If you don't want it, you don't have to have it," Florence stated. She sounded strange. She was speaking quickly, almost with anxiety. She seemed nervous and a little paranoid. She kept on blinking, far too many times for a normal person. The side of her face began to twitch ever so slightly. She licked her lips. "You'll be happy just to have some of this thing soon enough. I've looked around and there's no way out of this place. There won't be any food. I'm still thinking of a way to get liquid. Is there any good way to collect sweat...?" she trailed off and began mumbling to herself at a surprising speed, still rotating her rubber chocobo.
Harry stared at the maddened woman in front of her and began moving back to the corner of the room. All he could do was to wait for sleep and at least some form of freedom from her insanity.
Florence took a large, ruthless bite from her rubber chocobo when suddenly a small opening in the wall opened up (at least she thought it was a wall, it was actually the door) and some two servings of food and water were provided. She stared at it, for a long moment, a bit of rubber chocobo beak hanging from her mouth.

That night, each slept a little restlessly. They were unsure of what they were going to do next. They had to think of a way to get out of that prison and find out what Gengai was really doing and what made Sarah so afraid of Jimbles. At the same time, strange shadows were lurking about and doing other deeds of evil inside of Gengai HQ that the President didn't know about.