Truman, who has never smoked a day in his life, takes Sasha's proffered cigarette and lights it with trembling hands. "God," he says quietly, "this is just..." He shakes his head and runs a hand through his rapidly graying hair. Sasha nods and silently lights his second cigarette of the hour.
They're standing in the cramped observation room that overlooks one of the infirmary's private rooms. White-walled and sterile, it's home to the world's best medical equipment, along with a few innovations the Psychonauts have kept mostly to themselves. A pair of doctors--specially trained to deal with medical problems resulting from severe psychological trauma--stand in a corner of the room down below, conferring and shaking their heads over a clipboard.
In the room's center, seeming tiny and fragile in the wide hospital bed, is Ford Cruller. He's deep in a medically induced coma, hooked up to a number of devices meant to monitor brain waves and the like. His hair, which was dark gray sprinkled with white just a few days ago, has suddenly turned a stark white that matches the walls. Milla is sitting at his side, only occasionally casting worried glances back at the two men in the observation room.
"This is...this is bad," Truman finally mutters, putting out his cigarette with a look of disgust. "I mean, this is just...it's bad."
Sasha nods again. "Do we have any idea what happened? Milla...wasn't very clear on the details when she explained the situation to me." He absently checks his pocket for her car keys; she'd been crying too hard to drive when they'd left her apartment.
"He was in a psychic duel, that much I know. Something serious must've come up and he went to deal with it himself, I don't know...nobody's clear on exact details yet. But the doctors--" he motions vaguely to the two men still huddled in the corner-- "they say it completely shattered his psyche. Won't even let any of us in there to take a look, it's so bad." He picks up a pen from the desk in front of him and starts chewing on it absently. "They don't know if he'll ever recover. It's a miracle he even survived."
Again, Sasha nods and lights a third cigarette, using telekinesis to keep his hands from shaking.
It's around six in the morning when they're finally chased out of the infirmary with orders to eat and sleep and promises of updates if anything changes. Truman disappears into his office to get the smell of cigarette smoke out of his clothing and think of something to tell everyone else; Sasha and Milla continue down the hall to his lab in a shocked sort of silence.
He stops in the doorway and hands Milla her keys, watching her carefully. "Are you sure you're all right to drive?"
"I...I don't know," she admits, running a hand through her hair. It's tangled and seems to be frizzing under the stress.
"Maybe you should stay here, then. Unless you'd like me to drive you home?"
"No, no, it's all right, I just..." She stops and suddenly dissolves into tears again. For a moment he stares at her, almost dumbfounded. Finally he pulls her to him, a little awkwardly, then takes her keys back and walks her back to her office, where he settles her on the couch and doesn't leave until he's sure she's sleeping.
The next few weeks dissolve into a chaotic blur. Headquarters goes into temporary lockdown--no agents in or out except for those on critical missions--in hopes of postponing the media circus that's sure to follow. Milla and Oleander are charged with finding out who Cruller was dueling with that night (Cruller being Cruller, he left no obvious clues as to where he was headed, or why) along with a small task force of junior agents, while Sasha and Truman, being the highest-ranked field agents, are temporarily put in charge of the entire operation. Sasha hates every minute of it.
"You know," Truman says late one night, sifting through assignments that need to go out as soon as the lockdown ends, "if we're not careful this could end up being a permanent job."
Sasha looks up from his carefully sorted stack of file folders. "Why do you say that?"
"Well, let's face it, I don't think Cruller's going to get better any time soon--that reminds me, has Milla checked in yet?"
"Not yet."
"She's two hours overdue..."
"That's normal."
"If you say so. Well--where was I? Oh, yeah. If Cruller doesn't recover, you and I are the top picks for the next Grand Head, you know." He looks at Sasha over a file he's reading as if trying to judge his reaction. Sasha just moves a stray strand of hair out of his eyes and continues his work.
"We are both qualified, yes."
"I think they'll pick you."
Fortunately, the phone picks that exact moment to ring, saving Sasha from having to come up with a response. Even more fortunate, the call is from Milla, who is on her way back to headquarters--meaning that the task force is finished and the lockdown will be lifted soon. "It was Nick, darling," she says, sighing. "He did everything but leave us a note saying he did it."
As soon as Sasha hangs up the phone, another call comes through, this one from the infirmary--Cruller is awake, and in the first five minutes he's been conscious, the doctors have recorded at least three different personalities, none of which have been the original Agent Cruller.
Truman listens to the news quietly, takes a moment to process the information, and then buries his face in his hands. "Wonderful."
"Coffee?" Milla slides into the seat next to him and holds out a cup.
"Thank you." Sasha takes it and sets it down, not looking up from the pages of the report he's reading. Milla peers over his shoulder at it.
"Is that...?"
He nods. "Truman's report on the damage done to Cruller's psyche, yes." He pauses for a minute, then hands it to her, picking up his coffee instead. It's well past two in the morning; the cafeteria is dark and lit by only minimum lighting. He's been there since nine, reading the report again and again and making meticulous notes on every little detail. "It's permanent," he says, watching Milla flip through the pages. "The fragmentation is too complete; there's nothing they can do. Truman isn't even sure if his original personality still exists in any form or if it's just buried somewhere where we can't find it."
She reads for a little longer, then sets it down, running a hand through her hair. "What are they going to do?"
Sasha shrugs, taking another sip of coffee. "That's for the new Grand Head of the Psychonauts to decide. Although the logical thing to do would be to keep him here under close observation, and perhaps continue looking for a way to undo some of the damage, if that's even possible."
Milla nods slowly, pushing the report around on the table with a finger. "What do you think the chances are that they'll choose you?"
"Fifty percent."
She cracks a slow, weary smile. "Right. Do you think I'd be assigned a new partner? If you were named Grand Head, I mean."
"You might. Truman might want a new partner if he's not chosen. And I believe Leopold has mentioned retiring, in which case Morry would be available, as well. Or you could transfer back to Rio de Janeiro or elect to work alone for a while, if you preferred."
She falls silent for a few minutes. Then, "Don't take this the wrong way, darling...but I hope they choose Truman." He doesn't say anything, although privately, he agrees with her.
Two days after Truman's report is released, the lockdown ends and the new Grand Head is named. Two days after that, Milla stops by Sasha's lab in full dress uniform for once in her life--she keeps fiddling with all the insignias and marks of distinction on the arms and front as she paces around his work station.
"Are you coming to the ceremony?" she asks, finding a loose thread to pick at.
"I didn't plan on it, no." He looks up just as she breaks off the end of the green thread and tosses it into a garbage can. "And would you kindly stop fidgeting? It's not helping me concentrate."
"Sorry. I just can't get used to these uniforms, and--did you hear they picked Morceau to make the speech? I would've thought they'd choose you..."
Sasha shrugs. "They did, actually. I turned them down."
She frowns and, grabbing a nearby chair, sits down across from him. "People are starting to talk, darling."
"Are they?" He doesn't bother glancing up from the monitor in front of him and does his best to keep focusing on the equations on the screen.
"Yes," she says, "they are. And if you don't come tonight it's only going to make things worse. Even Truman--"
He snorts. "Truman should know better than to listen to rumors. I'm not angry that he was chosen over me--he's as qualified as I am; we both stood a fair chance, and I accept the fact that they thought he was the better choice. I am neither jealous nor angry."
Milla scoots her chair forward, folding her arms on the table and then resting her chin on them. "But you are angry about something," she replies quietly. "I can tell. You've been locked in here almost since we got the news, you won't answer the door...you're upset about something. What is it?"
Shaking his head, he turns to a meticulously sorted pile of notes and starts sifting through it. "That's a matter best left to myself and our new Grand Head."
"Sasha..."
"I have research to finish, Milla, and if you don't hurry you'll be late. This discussion can wait for another time."
She doesn't move. In fact, he can almost hear her heels digging into the white-tile floor. "I'm not leaving until you tell me."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm not. I'm not the one who's locked himself in his lab like a child having a temper tantrum." This succeeds in getting him to stop what he's doing and look up. He's not at all surprised to see the beginnings of a victorious smirk on her face. After a moment's hesitation--he's not sure if he should give her the satisfaction of knowing she's finally gotten through to him--he pushes the notes out of the way and sighs.
"If you must know...I went to see Truman as soon as I got the news in order to offer my congratulations. I also enquired as to his plans for his Agent Cruller."
"And?"
He absently finishes a few calculations before continuing. "Truman wants to keep him here under security, but not medical, observation. His belief is that Cruller is a lost cause better suited to an insane asylum, but he's also too much of a security risk to actually be let out of our custody."
"Oh." She leans back in her chair and starts picking at another loose thread. "Oh. I...I didn't know he thought it was as bad as that."
"He does," Sasha says, frowning but returning to his calculations all the same. "Which is why I'm doing the research for him--if I can find a way to unearth Cruller's original personality, perhaps Truman will be a little less eager to write him off as a...a..."
"Loon?" Milla supplies helpfully. He nods.
"More or less, yes. Now do you understand why I can't attend the ceremony? I have too much work to do."
She sighs, getting to her feet and putting the chair back where she found it. "I understand, darling. I'll pass along an apology for you--I'm sure Truman will...I'm sure he'll understand how busy you are."
"I'm sure he will," he says, a touch of sarcasm creeping into his voice unintended. "Be sure to wish Morry good luck with his speech, as well." She nods slowly and then slips out the door, letting him continue his work in peace.
Sasha telekinetically lifts the manhole cover and then peers down into the sewers, shining a flashlight around. "I fail to understand why, exactly, one would dump the president's brain into the sewers."
"Well, darling, that kidnapper was a bit of an amateur." Milla finishes tying her hair back and pinning it up, looking at him. "He probably didn't know any better. Did you find it?"
Something down at the bottom, half-submerged in the sludge, glints in the light from the flashlight. "I think so."
"Good. I'll be right back." With one final check to make sure her hair is still in place, she gracefully levitates herself down into the sewers, following the beam of Sasha's flashlight. He watches patiently as she stops just short of the bottom and dislodges the jar from the sludge, removes the president's brain, and levitates it back up towards him before heading back up towards the surface herself.
"You know," she says, unpinning her hair and shaking it loose as soon as her feet are back on solid ground, "I'm beginning to sense a trend in our missions."
"Easy?" Sasha asks, replacing the manhole cover and putting the brain into a jar of formaldehyde until it can be recranialized Milla nods.
"And ridiculous. First it was the prisoner transport to London, then that gang of psychic pickpocketers, and now this. I mean, I realize this is the president's brain, but anyone could have handled this mission, you know? Either we've gotten too good at this, or..."
"I doubt that Agent Zanotto--or anyone else, for that matter--has any reason to intentionally assign us these missions. I'm sure it's only a lull, and that the world will need saving again eventually. Consider this a break." He motions to the brain. "Now, we need to get this recranialized as soon as possible."
For whatever reason, the lull doesn't break. The rest of January and all of February stretches on in a seemingly unending line of relatively tedious assignments. They've had so much spare time lately that Milla has redecorated her office twice, and Sasha has made more progress on his experiments in the past few weeks than he has in months. And after a few significant missions pass them by, assigned to more junior agents, Sasha starts to wonder if maybe Milla's initial suspicions weren't right after all. However, it's not until they end up having to clean up after a pair of junior agents who completely bungled a mission far too advanced for them to handle that he finally takes his suspicions directly to the Grand Head.
The clutter that marked Cruller's tenure in office is conspicuously absent, replaced by a few half-empty bookshelves and clean, off-white walls. Truman, however, practically disappears behind his desk, which is a barely-organized mess of mission reports, personnel files, and assignments waiting on his approval. He looks ten years older; there are permanent circles under his eyes and a worn look about his face. As tired as he seems, though, he manages to listen to Sasha with something akin to concern, only occasionally interrupting to dig out a corresponding mission report.
"Listen, Nein...I understand what you're saying. And yeah, I screwed up on that last mission, I know--it should've gone to you and Vodello. I know, I know, and I'm sorry. But it's not like I'm the first Grand Head to make a mistake now and then--you and I both know Cruller wasn't perfect either. I mean, look at the way he handled personnel assignments. Malcolm and I couldn't stand each other, and I'm surprised you and Milla have stuck together this long without killing each other."
He stops and clears his throat, pushing a few folders around on his desk. "All right, look, we've all been under a lot of stress these past few months. Tempers are starting to wear a little thin and all that. But I've got a handle on things, all right? I promise, I'll have a chat with the network monitors about this as soon as I can, and I'll be taking a closer look at the assignments from now on. You and Milla should be back to saving the world in no time. Good enough?"
Sasha stares at him for a long moment while Truman looks back at him, slightly anxious. Finally, he sighs. "Good enough."
He grins, getting up to show Sasha out of the office. "Good, good. I'll get on that as soon as I can, I promise. Really. Let me know if anything else goes wrong, okay? I appreciate it." He nearly closes the door on the back of Sasha's jacket in his rush to get back to work.
Milla is sitting out in the lobby waiting for him, foot tapping to the beat of some unheard music. She stands up as he passes by and follows him out into the hallway. "Well? What's going on?"
He stops and turns to face her, taking out a cigarette and lighting it. "At the moment at least, Morry would make a more competent Grand Head than Truman."
She winces. "Ouch."
Without bothering to knock, Milla waltzes her way into his lab, pulls up a chair next to him, and sits in it backwards, peering over his shoulder at the simulation he's running. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately; he still can't decide), he's gotten used to such entrances and isn't even remotely fazed by them anymore. "What is it, Milla?"
"Come to dinner with me."
He looks up at the clock absently--it's almost eleven o'clock. "It's a bit late for that, isn't it?"
She rolls her eyes. "Coffee, then. But please?"
"I'm sorry, but I'm in the middle of an important experiment and can't leave it unattended."
"Please?" she asks again, idly folding and unfolding her coat in her lap. "We'd only go to the coffee shop just outside of town, and it's important."
He glances at her over his shoulder and raises an eyebrow. "There's coffee in the cafeteria and in several of the vending machines, and caffeine should not be this urgent, considering the late hour. Besides, if these simulations work out, I believe I may have found a way to at least partially reverse the damage done to Agent Cruller's psyche. Is there anything more important than that?"
She peers a little more intently at the computer screen, then shrugs. "I suppose not, darling. It's just that Morceau and I had something we wanted to discuss with you, and you've been cooped up in here for days."
He knows she's just trying to pique his curiosity, to distract him, but he falls for it every time nonetheless. "And we can't discuss this here?"
"Actually, no, we thought we'd rather not." She twirls a stray lock of hair around one gloved finger, smiling impishly. "So, are you coming?"
He looks at her, then back at the simulation, then back at her again. "I can be in the parking lot in ten minutes, no sooner."
She grins and jumps up from the chair, kissing him lightly on the cheek. "I knew it! I'll be waiting, so don't be late." As she waltzes out the door, there's a new spring in her step that he's come to recognize as her equivalent of a victory march.
Precisely ten minutes later, Sasha is in Milla's car and they're already well on their way down the road. "How did the simulations go, darling?"
Sasha sighs. "Not well. They all failed. There must be something in the initial equations I'm missing, but I can't think of what. I probably just need to sleep on it." He shakes his head and looks over at her. "Now, would you care to tell me what it is you and Morry are up to?"
"Well...you know he and Leopold were supposed to find a way to protect the psitanium deposit near Lake Oblongata, don't you?"
"Yes...as I recall, Leopold retired shortly after that and Morry never exactly finished the assignment."
Milla nods, grinning as they pull into the parking lot. "He finished it. Well, almost. There's still a few details we need to work out."
"What does this have to do with me?" He holds the door open for her and two overly-caffeinated women who are leaving the coffee shop. "And why couldn't we discuss this at headquarters?"
"You'll see." She waves to Oleander--he's one of the few people in the shop this late, but has picked one of the less desirable tables near the back of the room anyway--orders a coffee (Sasha, preferring to keep to a more nocturnal sleep schedule, politely declines and takes a seat next to Morry), and pulls up a chair at the table.
"All right..." Oleander drops a thick roll of maps and blueprints on the table but makes no move to open them. "First of all, Nein, I'm assuming you read the latest reports about Cruller?"
"That several of the doctors have found signs that his old personality still exists, yes. But they have no idea how to bring it out of hiding...and neither do I. I've been running several experiments, but--"
"What about psitanium?" Milla asks, peering at him over the top of her coffee cup. He stares at her for a minute.
"Of course--that's what I was missing! I can't believe I didn't think of it from the start! I'd have to run a few tests, of course, but it could require massive amounts of psitanium, and where would we--" He stops, seeing the matching grins on Milla and Oleander's faces. "You can't mean..."
Oleander unrolls the first map, which turns out to be of Lake Oblongata and the surrounding area. "That's right, Nein. The psitanium mother lode would probably do the trick."
Sasha looks at Milla, remembering what she said on their way inside. "So...you're proposing that the Psychonauts set Cruller to guard the mother lode?" He shakes his head. "Truman would never agree to it. He still sees Cruller as a security risk--you might be able to convince him to let Cruller out, under careful supervision of course, but to keep watch over the mother lode? No, he'd never agree."
"That's why we're not going to tell him, darling."
Oleander unrolls a series of blueprints and hands them to Sasha--each one details a separate building for placement around one side of the lake: a lodge, boathouse, and so on. He inspects each one of them in passing and then looks to Oleander for more information. "I've had an idea for a while that the Psychonauts should have a training facility besides the academy. We're wasting valuable time by waiting until the kids are almost adults to get them started on the basics. Hell, most of the new recruits we've got this year are practically useless."
"It would only be for a few weeks each summer," Milla adds, "and we could only take so many children...but it would still help."
Sasha opens his mouth to say something, but Oleander interrupts him. "Vodello's going to try and talk to Cruller and see if she can get him to agree to come out there and act as a groundskeeper or something--but we can also set him up to guard the psitanium deposit and see what that does for his brain. Who knows, if it works, maybe we could set him up as an undercover network monitor and he could be back to giving you two sane assignments in no time. So Zanotto gets a new training facility, Cruller gets his sanity back, and you two are back in the headlines--everybody wins."
Nodding slowly, Sasha looks over the blueprints again. "You do realize that you're suggesting we essentially disobey and lie to the Grand Head of the Psychonauts. If Truman ever found out, we would lose our jobs."
Milla rests a hand gently on his wrist. "We know. But I think we can all agree--" she takes a furtive look around the room, even though it's empty save for the bored looking teen at the counter-- "I think we can all agree that Truman's been making some...poor decisions lately."
"Yes, but--"
"Nein, if you don't want to do this, just say so already. Vodello and I could probably swing it by ourselves; I didn't even want her to bring you into it in the first place." Milla glares at Oleander from across the table and he quiets down, taking the blueprints back from Sasha and starting to roll them back up.
"Morceau wants us to join the staff on a temporary basis," Milla explains, not letting go of his wrist. "Just while the camp is actually in session. He'll be staying there with Cruller for most of the year so Truman thinks he's the one guarding the psitanium. But the children should have a chance to learn from the best instructors, and we've both taught at the academy before..."
He absently pulls one of the blueprints out of the pile--the one of the geodesic psycho-isolation chamber, which Oleander has marked for demolition--and motions vaguely to the ground underneath it. "That would be an excellent location for a lab...I've had a few ideas in mind lately that could be put to good use there."
Milla smiles at him, but Oleander just looks confused. "So does that mean he's in?"
"Of course it does, darling. Do you think you could have a proposal ready for Truman by tomorrow morning?"
As predicted, Truman is thrilled by the idea. The only convincing Oleander has to do is in regards to Cruller. Truman balks at the idea of letting Cruller out of his sight at first, but Oleander gets him to warm up to the idea after explaining that he'd be there to guard him year-round, and that it gets him out of Truman's hair at long last.
In almost no time at all the construction crews are at the site and hard at work (the high concentration of psitanium only drove a few of them insane), while Oleander frantically tries to compile lesson plans and the like. Milla, against Sasha's warnings that she not be so optimistic, is already talking to one of her friends among the network monitors, trying to find the best way to sneak Cruller into the system undetected.
As soon as work is finished on the one structure conveniently left off the proposal Truman received, Sasha and Milla bundle Cruller up and fly him out to the newly-christened Whispering Rock.
Sasha hovers over him throughout the entire flight, hoping that even a relatively close proximity to the psitanium mother lode will improve the state of Cruller's psyche. It doesn't, and instead Sasha nearly gets hit in the face with a broom Cruller insisted on bringing with him for his trouble.
"It's for self-defense, obviously," Milla says, watching them both with amusement.
"Very funny," Sasha mutters as they land.
Although the tunnels have been dug for the camp's rapid transit system, it hasn't actually been installed yet, so they have to walk to the deposit and the sanctuary built around it. Cruller's personalities shift randomly as they walk along; Milla does her best to keep them under control, occasionally shooting Sasha concerned glances out of the corner of one eye.
When they finally emerge from the tree stump and onto the narrow walkway leading to the sanctuary, though, Cruller falls silent. Milla holds her breath and even Sasha tenses up, waiting.
He ambles his way out into the center of the room, now standing directly over the mother lode, looking around the largely empty cavern. Then, finally, "Sasha? Milla? What the hell's going on?" He looks down at his feet. "And what's with the bunny slippers?"
Milla lets out a whoop and tackles Sasha with a hug that nearly knocks him off the walkway. She quickly backs off, however, clearing her throat while he dusts off his jacket. "We were right," she says, spinning in midair as if she's suddenly full of energy she can't get rid of. "You were right."
"So it would seem," he answers calmly, although even he can't hide the smile that's crept across his face. Cruller just stares at them, completely bewildered.
Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp's first group of psi-cadets arrives late that next July in a blur of overstuffed suitcases, parental well wishes (or not, as the case may be), and the standard screaming that seems to accompany small children everywhere. Although he's not much taller than they are, Oleander is attempting to herd them into some sort of formation and march them over to the cabins, but the best he's able to manage is a sort of wavy, occasionally single-file line that doesn't really go anywhere. Milla is having much better luck at checking them in and distributing t-shirts, and has even managed to send a few on their way to the cabins already.
Sasha, on the other hand, is standing on the hill overlooking the parking lot, smoking a cigarette and doing his best to stay as far away from the general chaos as possible. He has absolutely no desire whatsoever to get involved in that mess, and would have retreated back to his lab the minute he heard that the first of the cadets had arrived if he wasn't so curious about them.
Seeing as the oldest among them is twelve, none of them are particularly skilled, and a few even seem completely lost and confused. There are also, unfortunately, no prodigies in the crowd--but then, he'd known that already, having helped Milla and Oleander select these few from the long lists of potential cadets. He'd been hoping to see at least some glimmers of talent, however. "If these are the best of the best," he mutters, watching as Milla attempts to put out a small fire a girl accidentally set on her own shoes, "the Psychonauts are doomed."
"Eh, we've got bigger things to worry about--like where are those burgers I ordered?"
Sasha turns to Cruller, who is standing beside him and also watching the new arrivals, but with the slightly-panicked air of a chef trying to figure out how to feed everyone. "I believe you had those put in the freezer."
"...Yeah, that'd make sense." He shrugs and shuffles back into the main lodge. Sasha turns back towards the parking lot just in time to catch Milla's eye. She smiles and waves, motioning for him to come join her. He gives her a look and shakes his head. She pouts and waves at him again. Again, he shakes his head. She puts her hands on her hips and gives him a look that implies that if he doesn't get down there right this instant, she'll come up there and drag him back if she has to. He sighs, puts out his cigarette, and starts down the hill.
Sasha frowns and looks over the results again, scanning them for anything worth keeping. Finally he gives up and, declaring the day's work a total loss, deletes the entire thing. Milla stretches in a nearby chair, yawning. "Problems, darling?"
"You could say that." He looks back at the Brain Tumbler. In theory, the device was supposed to send the user into their own minds, where they would be able to cure their own mental problems, figure out their own personal demons, and learn a thing or two about self-control, while Sasha, as the project observer, could gain unparalleled insight on the effects this all had on the human psyche. In theory, anyway.
She stretches again--it's late, and been a long day besides. "Well...I hate to say it, Sasha, but maybe the children just aren't ready for this sort of thing. You might have better luck with it at the academy."
Sasha's jaw clenches involuntarily. He knew from the moment she'd arrived alongside Bobby Zilch (slow, untalented, and a bit of a brute, but at the moment the best of his class--unfortunately) exactly how this was going to end. He isn't deaf; he's heard the stories that are spreading already--several students hadn't exactly had pleasant experiences in the Brain Tumbler, worse than usual even, and of course stories like that tend to circulate around the camp like wildfire. Eventually those stories would have reached Milla, and he can predict her reaction easily.
"It's better that they learn these things when they're younger," he explains, doing his best to keep the tension out of his voice. "Besides, the Brain Tumbler is an imperfect science. I'm not expecting usable results every time. The camp is still in its first year; I expect that in later years these sort of mishaps will happen less often, particularly as I fine-tune the machinery." He pauses and waits for the response he knows is coming.
"I'm more worried about the effect this is having on the children. The stories I've heard--"
"The stories you've heard are grossly exaggerated narratives based off of extremely rare incidents. Was today's session anything like you've heard?"
She stops in mid-stretch, obviously caught off-guard by his interruption. "Well, no, but--"
"Then I see no reason to stop the experiments. If anything serious did happen, I would, of course," he says, nodding to her. "And you know I only take the best and most capable students. I'm not torturing them, Milla."
She stares at him a while longer, then sighs, getting up and heading for the stairs. "All right, fine, you win." She waits until she's almost to the ladder up to the surface before adding, with a faint grin, "This time."
He smiles despite himself, slowly shaking his head. Sometimes she's easier to figure out than she realizes.
Milla pulls the car to a slow stop a few blocks away from the building and shuts the engine off, slipping the keys into her pocket. She pauses with her hand on the door handle, looking at him. "Ready, darling?"
"Of course."
They leave the car and merge into the crowd entirely unnoticed--Milla having traded in her normally flashy clothes for a more subdued business suit, this is easier than it usually is--and let it carry them right up toCassandra Inc.'s front walk. Milla slips in through the front door; Sasha circles around the back and enters through an unguarded employees-only door. There are a few employees standing around on their cigarette breaks, but Sasha just nods to them like he knows them and they nod back, assuming that they must have met him once in a hallway and not remembered him.
He jogs up several flights of stairs and meets Milla on the fifth floor, just as she exits an elevator chatting with a young woman in a smart-looking suit. After the woman disappears down another hallway, Milla turns to Sasha and steers him to the left. "The main security office is this way."
They walk by it but don't go inside, instead taking up a position in a nearby hallway with a clear view of the door, where they pretend to have a very involved conversation about an unspecified business proposal. A few minutes later, the door opens and a guard leaves--they slip in just before the door closes, invisible and completely unnoticed.
Sasha moves over to a bored-looking guard watching the video feeds from the security cameras. A few well-placed psychic suggestions later, and the guard stands up and goes over to inspect one of the currently empty stations that happens to face away from the monitors. Sasha quickly kneels down and grabs an unlabeled tape from the end of last week's security footage--Agent Bulgakov had left it there when he'd infiltrated the night shift last week--which he slides into the nearby tape player. Then he carefully hooks the player up to the monitors, running the wires around behind the equipment via telekinesis.
It takes less than a minute, and he's just hit the play button when the guard on the far side of the room stands up. "Hey, Cooper!"
The guard who was supposed to be watching the video monitors looks up. "Yeah?"
"I'm going on break, okay?"
"Yeah, sure, okay."
The other man nods and heads out the door--Sasha slips out behind him again and then heads down the hall and into an empty men's room, where he finally returns to the visible spectrum. He leaves just as Milla is exiting the women's bathroom across the hall, and they walk in silence all the way to the nearest elevator.
Sasha leans closer to her to push the call button and whispers, "Did you get the security keys?"
"Yes. Did you take care of the cameras?"
"We're invisible for the next four hours."
They both get onto the elevator when it comes but get off on different floors, and then spend the next hour wandering around and acting like they're on their way to or from someone's office or a meeting while waiting for most of the employees to leave for the night.
Finally, the elevators start showing up with fewer and fewer passengers, the lights on a few floors are turned off, and more and more offices are locked down for the night. When most of the cars in the nearby parking structure are gone, Sasha meets Milla by a vending machine on the eleventh floor and they take the stairs up to the eighteenth in silence. There's a security panel on the stair doors; Milla punches a password in and waits until it turns green and the door pops open.
The floor is dark and empty when they arrive: it's mainly higher management and the CEO's offices, and they all tend to go home long before the regular employees do. They pick their way through the secretaries' desks and file cabinets to the CEO's office, where Milla keys in another password to let them in the door.
Once inside the room, Sasha takes a quick look around. "You take the file cabinets, I'll take the desk."
"Right."
There are no locks on any of the desk drawers, which Sasha finds a little strange, but convenient. Most of them contain little of interest; a few internal memos of no real importance, notes from a meeting two weeks ago, a carrying case for a laptop but no actual laptop, and so on. In one drawer he does find several pages from a financial report, which he hands to Milla to take pictures of with the camera she brought with her. When she's done he puts them back exactly where he found them and resumes his search. Milla, meanwhile, is nearly finished going through the first cabinet and is busy snapping pictures of internal memos and other possible bits of evidence.
He pulls open the bottom right-hand desk drawer, the last drawer he has left to search. It's empty and a little dusty from disuse, but there's a sheet of paper lying in the center, facedown. Sasha picks it up carefully.
Nein, Vodello --
You really didn't think it would be this easy, did you? Come on now, Sasha, you at least should know me better than that. I'm disappointed in the both of you, I really am. However, if you should somehow manage to make it out of the building alive, please give my regards to Ford.
-- Nick
"Milla...it's a trap."
"I noticed, darling."
He looks up to find her staring at something in the bottom drawer of a file cabinet. "Bomb?" he asks, hurrying over.
Milla nods. The bomb in question is a tangled mess of wires and explosives so big it barely fits in the (cleverly soundproofed, Sasha notes) drawer and is beeping ominously at an ever-increasing frequency. "We must have triggered it when we came into the room," she says, letting out a slow breath. "How much time do you think we have?"
"Probably not much. It seems likely to take out at least the entire floor; we should hurry." He moves for the door, but Milla goes for the phone on the desk and starts dialing. "Milla, what are you--"
"Hello, Cooper? ...Yes, I'd like you to evacuate the building." The beeping from the bomb has reached a speed and pitch that can best be described as ear-splitting; Sasha grabs Milla by the sleeve and starts dragging her out the door. "No, you don't need to know why. No, you don't--I don't care if it gets you fired, darling, just do it!" She drops the receiver and then bolts out ahead of Sasha, pulling a fire alarm on the way out for good measure.
They're halfway to the stairwell when Milla suddenly stops, grabs him by the arm, and makes for the nearest window. He figures out what she intends to do just a few seconds before they go crashing through the glass and barely manages to psi-blast it out of the way in time. They go flying out the broken window just ahead of the explosion, Sasha falling headfirst in a rather ungraceful manner until Milla manages to latch onto his elbow and slow his descent a bit.
Pushed on by the shock waves from the explosion and being more concerned with dodging flying debris than controlling their fall, they hit the ground hard; Sasha lands first and rolls under Milla to help break her fall. She lands with little of her usual grace and manages to knock the wind out of him, and he nearly ends up with a mouthful of her hair trying to get his breath back.
A few seconds slip by. There's a strange, eerie sort of silence around them, broken only by the sound of falling debris and the wail of sirens in the distance. A few more seconds slip by, these a bit more awkward than the first. Milla is breathing hard and her face is flushed, and suddenly the smell of her perfume is making his head spin and her hair is tickling his chin but oddly enough he doesn't mind.
"Milla..."
She lets out a breath and the color in her face darkens. "Yes?"
"Your shoe is stabbing me in the leg."
She turns bright red and rolls off him, disentangling their legs and springing to her feet and sputtering apologies the whole while. He gets up, dusts himself off, and makes sure that her three-inch heels didn't do any real damage (a bit of a scrape and the beginnings of what will be an impressive bruise, nothing more). Then he looks back at her again. "Ah..."
"Yes?" she asks again, still blushing faintly.
"You...ah..." He reaches out and pulls a chunk of debris from her hair. "Drywall."
"Oh. Thank you."
They slip out of the area relatively unnoticed and well ahead of the emergency vehicles and news crews, making their way back to the car. The drive back to Whispering Rock is quiet in an oddly awkward sort of way, broken only by pauses to brush leftover dust from clothing or to pick bits of paper and drywall out of their hair and pockets. Sasha keeps scratching at his chin whenever Milla isn't looking; it still tickles as if her hair was still there.
End Part Two