Chapter 2: The Art of Blending In
Oscar and Todd were walking to Ms. O's office and Todd was feeling less tense and for once, safe in the headquarters, not once even when he was an agent did he feel safe in headquarters, there was always some sort of tension, like a slowly burning ticking time bomb waiting to explode at any given moment if there were too much oddness. But now it was just mellow and calm, almost haze-like. It was almost enough to ignore what was wrong. As the two walked up the steps he felt his nervousness start to go up like the steps and he felt a certain familiar feeling of uneasiness, different from his feelings of paranoia that happen constantly almost like the world around him was slowly moving around, almost like someone was holding his eyes but had shakey hands. He felt a spike of fear in him when the door opened and he saw Ms. O's almost furious gaze but then realized he was technically hiding behind a mask and cards and thus had nothing to worry about, just to be in the clear he messed up his hair a little bit and changed it slightly because he didn't want his hairstyle to be too recognizable just in case.
Oscar and Todd moved closer to Ms. O and Ms. O became more confused than mad, and just the slightest bit scared at the sight of this boy wearing an Ominous mask and not talking. And why was Oscar out of all people taking this agent to her office and not even for solving a case? Todd started to shake in Ms. O's presence. But she didn't seem to be mad at him, but why would she, in her eyes he's simply a boy wearing an Unnerving looking mask. Maybe a boy that looked all too familiar, but she couldn't make assumptions, she was Ms. O, if she were to make assumptions, she wouldn't be where she is today. But she was still curious, why was this boy in a mask in her office?
"Oscar, who is this? and what's up with the mask," When Ms. O said those words, Todd felt even more hurt because now that he was hiding behind a mask there was no holding back because to her she was just talking to a mask, little consideration for who's underneath it. But in all fairness, she would still say that stuff to his face, so it's not like there was much loss at all there. "Are you just going to say nothing because if not then I can just send you out,"
"Oh I was going to talk for him but I was just waiting for him to talk in case he wanted to talk on his own,"
"I don't mean to be insensitive, so I apologize if I come off rude, but are you able to talk, like are you maybe non-verbal? or do you just prefer not to talk,"
The blow this time was not as bad, probably because of the disclaimer but it still slightly hurt because her assumption that he simply couldn't talk when he could but couldn't at the same time hurt and made him realize just how far deep he had gotten into this whole disguise thing. But it was too much at stake, and if he got figured out, he didn't have much to lose if they didn't do anything to the garden, he would just throw himself further into the garden and block out Odd and Odd Squad completely and forget them like they never existed.
But reluctantly, Todd pulled out a piece of paper and started to write with his new pencil, a reply that reads "I can talk but I prefer to use paper to talk with people, and I'm really quiet anyway so I would need to speak up and I don't like doing that," And he slipped the paper with his trembling hand over to Ms. O, and when she read it, the confusion written all over her face got erased completely but now she was left with a new question, who was this boy and what was he about? was he even an agent or was he a random kid that just got transported on pure coincidence?
"Well now that I know that you technically can talk, can you tell me your name, or like write it down?"
Todd nodded and wrote down his fake name 'Opollo' on the paper, Todd liked committing to lies that wouldn't give him consequences later in life, but the fact that he was committing so hard to a lie that could potentially ruin his life was insane, a mask, new hair color, and now he was even using a fake name and forcing his voice, how many lies would it be until it got too much? Well, it didn't matter, he couldn't get dragged out by security guards or get a code: 43 called on him, he had to keep up this front, however thick and however fake it may be. He felt nothing but all-consuming guilt and shame. It was too much for him to take. And it didn't get any better in the slightest when his former boss asked, "So what are your qualifications to be in the odd squad, with your lack of badge, did you go through training school, work at the academy for science and gadgets?"
He now had to come up with a convincing lie, he couldn't say that he was once an agent but then got fired, which would give him away immediately. Maybe he could say that he went through the academy and graduated, and he just never got the chance to join the squad because of circumstances. That could be a pretty convincing lie, it explains the lack of a badge, but also explains how he has the knowledge he has now, but that wasn't quite convincing enough. He had to think of something foolproof because there was always the possibility of her questioning him further. And how would he explain his knowledge of gadgets? Bingo, since people can also take extra classes in the gadgets and science department, could simply say he also took some classes in the science academy. Perfect, the perfect, foolproof lie that would earn him no questions.
He swiftly wrote on the paper, "I graduated from training school, but because of circumstance, I wasn't able to become an agent because it would be too complicated, I also took about two months of classes in the science academy, so I have a pretty ok knowledge of gadgets,"
Ms. O opted to read this one out loud instead of in her head so that she could remember it better because she tended to forget important information if it wasn't read out loud or she wasn't saying it herself. "I graduated from training school, but because of circumstance, I wasn't able to become an agent because it would be too complicated, I also took about two months of classes in the science academy so I have a pretty good knowledge of gadgets," When Ms. O finished reading the whole thing out loud Oscar's face had confused spread all across his face and he turned over to "Opollo" to ask, "you never told me this information, I never knew you were good with gadgets,"
"Opollo" turned to whisper in Oscar's ear, "That's because you never asked me," He tried to not come off as rude but ultimately, his tone came off slightly sassy, which was the last thing he wanted to do but Oscar didn't seem to be too offended by his slight sassiness, maybe because Oona in the few times that Todd had seen her she tended to be slightly sassy. But this slight moment of sassiness was going to be turned into fear when Ms. O pulled out the computer and started to slowly type in his name.
Just great, now I'm going to be figured out and dragged out by the guards, not like I wanted to be here in the first place, speaking of, how did I even end up here? I got hit on the head and now I'm here, well no time to worry about that. Todd thought to himself. The guilt of his sins was starting to show, and the guilt was slowly seeping in, and the fragile trust that he had when first walking with Oscar to Ms. O's office was starting to pour out of his poorly cupped hands trying to keep it in. Every painfully slow second he felt more and more like a fraud, and memories of when he was a villain causing oddness and problems for everyone around him started to pour in like a dam slowly breaking down. All those times he lied and lied about stuff that usually wouldn't cause too many problems when found out. And he felt more and more guilty for lying, but this was his time to be held accountable, plus Oscar already hated "Odd Todd's" guts, if he were to be found out here, what would it mean besides some yelling and arguing? But when he realized what could happen if he got found out, his guilt was replaced by fear, because even though it was probably wrong, he liked being treated with basic respect behind the mask. Even if it meant passive-aggressive assumptions, that was the thing, it wasn't blatant insults. In his mind, he wanted to keep those lies stable, but he didn't think ahead, he didn't bother to check how bad these lies would end up if they were proven to be just that, lies. Usually, if he were to make lies as big as this, he would at least try to build some safety net, something he can fall back on or prove that he wasn't lying.
When Ms. O finally hit the enter key, it was...nothing. Nothing to back him up on his lies, just like he had suspected, there were just alternate results that weren't his. But for some reason Ms. O's reaction wasn't immediate anger, instead, she was calm. Which had confused Todd further, because usually in a situation like this she would become immediately angry, I mean that was the reason he got fired, because she had figured out his lies to be false. So why wasn't her immediate reaction to send Oscar out of the office and order the security guards to drag him out?
"Hmm... the internet is usually laggy on here so maybe I need to refresh the page." Ms. O's response to his fake profile not showing up on the trainee website So instead of getting angry, she just hit the enter key again. Nothing...again it was getting clear that Ms. O's confusion was now being replaced with frustration and just the slightest hint of anger. "Can you maybe refresh it again, because maybe the website is just being rude," Oscar said in defense of Todd not having a profile on the trainee page on the trainee website. Not wanting to not take Oscar seriously, she decided to refresh the page once more, after a little bit of loading she was expecting to see at least something on the page, even someone that wasn't him would be better than having nothing on the page, but alas, nothing...again. It was getting clear to Ms. O that either something was wrong with the website, or this new agent was lying about what he was saying his qualifications were. And she started to have her signature look of anger spread across her face,
"Ok, I'm going to refresh the page one more time and if no profile shows up, I'm going to assume you're lying and I'll just have the security guards take care of you," Ms. O said in a serious and slightly angry tone. She already had her suspicions about this agent when he and Oscar showed up because Oscar never takes people to her office. But with reluctant fingers, she clicked on the website and refreshed for a third and final time, and to her surprise, a fully filled-out page was there with a photo of 'Opollo' with the mask on and off, two short videos of the kid having fun and presumably being filmed by another trainee. And even a couple of audio recordings that matched the boy's voice to a t, a couple of facts about the kid, and even stating his exact qualifications.
To be fair, Todd technically wasn't lying about his qualifications he was downplaying them but the only real thing he was lying about was the fact he left before being able to become an agent since there's about a week to a month trial before you become an agent. And there were a few more things including the fact he worked for a month in the health department, and even a little dabbling in the security department. And about 6 months to a year of work in the mobile unit, it almost seemed too good to be true. But then she thought back to when she saw "Odd" Todd's trainee page/resume where he had experience In all fields including a month-long internship in the management department. And other instances where she had seen very good trainee pages and they turned out to not be lying then realized that he probably isn't lying, she's just stumbled upon a very good agent that didn't become an agent due to circumstances, and even despite being here without a badge, this agent was too good to potentially pass up.
The look of shock and impressiveness on Ms. O's face was glass clear to the two who were standing in front of her waiting for her response, Todd nervously moved his feet around and nodded his head to try and ease some of his nerves, he had a horrible habit of fidgeting when nervous or trying to pass time and some of his fidgets could become weird if given the right things in front of him. An example would be the time he poured rubbing alcohol that was supposed to be for solving a case onto the carpet because he liked how it splattered everywhere. Or excessively drinking water out of a sparkling apple juice bottle because of the bottle alone.
"Wow Opollo, I'm impressed I'm surprised you didn't mention the fact you worked in the medical field and dabbled in security," Ms. O said with a surprisingly sweet tone, I guess the fact that she had such a good agent in front of her made her want to talk nice to him now. 'Opollo' pulled out a piece of paper to write his response, "Honestly I kind of forgot about those but thank you, I didn't mention the other parts so you wouldn't think I'm lying, I wanted the hard proof to be in front of you,"
He handed the piece of paper to Ms. O and she swiftly read all of the lines and nodded in understanding "Oh ok, yeah I don't usually believe people to have impressive experience unless the cold hard facts are in front of me, trust me I've had too many incidences where people lied and I believed them without seeing the facts, thank god we got this computer so now I can fact check if people are lying or not."Well, with a page like this, I can't pass this up, Oscar you can leave and go back to what you were doing while I talk to this new agent," Ms. O said handing 'Opollo' the badge,
"Ok, just let me if you need anything, both of you," Oscar said with his usual slight smile.
"Now that it's just me and you, here's some info that you're going to remember and some things to know before starting your first case, first, since all the other numbers are taken even for the ex-agents, your number is unfortunately going to be 43, I'm not sure if you've heard but that number used to belong to our best agent,"
"And what happened," 'Opollo' said in a quiet voice.
"Well, he slowly started to cause oddness before he intentionally led us the wrong way in a case, and then after he got fired he released the pienado, he was also Olive's old partner, her new partner is Otto, but I'll advise you if someone asks your agent number lie about it and say something like 433 or 344 or something like that, and be cautious around Olive because she might get reminded of Todd if you're around or if you tell her your actual number and she's our best current agent. Second, the rule of Odd squad is Doing. No. Odd,"
"Third, the break room is located on the lower floor, reach the entrance, take a left go straight, and then take a right and that's where the break room is. Fourth, we're probably going to have you have one practice case so that you can get a feel for how solving a case works, psst don't tell olive Otto Olympia or Otis about the practice cases, they'll probably be bitter about how they had to dive straight into case solving. Also, we might have you take some practice classes just so that you can refresh your mind on the basics of gadgets and case-solving. We also have this thing where you get assigned a partner so you'll probably be assigned a partner within a couple of days working here but if we can't find one maximum it'll take a month-ish in the meantime you can either choose to work alone or work with an existing pair so that you're like a trio of sorts. Most agents don't get that choice but since you're such a good agent I might just let you have the choice. Partner-wise, I've had my eyes on a girl named Olalla, she seems to be around your skill level, has multiple specialties, kind of a jack of all trades master of all kind agent and I think you two will be good together, I've learned from my last mistake of putting someone from a high skill level with someone with a low skill set so now I put agents with similar skill sets together so that they can work together better and no one is dragging the other down. Take a look,"
Ms. O turned the computer to 'Opollo' and he was amazed, she looked lovely, she was the same age as him only born 2 months after him, had training experience in science, medicine, regular, and security and a successful trial in the Maintenance and Transportation and mobile unit too. Videos of her in all departments, voice memos, and updates, the whole package. Todd himself felt like he was Mr. O looking over recruits and had stumbled upon the jackpot of trainees. His face of consideration faded into one of proudness slight pride and impressed were written all over his face times 5. "I see you're just as impressed as I am, I nearly fainted in my chair when I saw her full page for the first time and her information page seems to be written by her too, which is a rare privilege to have as that is usually given by Instructor O's,"
Ms. O turned the computer back to her and continued to talk,
"Ok, where was I, oh yeah stuff about the Headquarters, Fourth, if you are given gadgets as an agent it is not advised to leave them unattended, frowned upon to lose them, and you are not to break them intentionally if you do you'll get your right to gadgets taken away for some time, depending on how bad the break was and which gadget it was and how important it was, you get Extention to this if it was someone else gadget and again the same rules apply it depends on which gadget it was, etc."
"And don't forget the number one rule, Do. No. Odd,"
"Lastly, it's hard to get fired, but easy to get rehired, so if you mess up and get fired it won't be that hard to find a job somewhere else, just ask oscar he's been in almost every job in headquarters before he landed on being a scientist," 'Opollo' almost laughed at that comment that Ms. O made about Oscar, but since Oscar had been treating Todd so nicely, in his mind this would feel like disrespecting someone that he had decided wasn't that bad after all, although Oscar had only treated him nice because he was wearing a mask and got rid of his white streak and didn't talk in his usual obnoxious way like he used to. But even if he was only being respectful to him for less than a minute, it didn't matter he valued the respect that he had for him in his mind over laughing at this small joke.
"Now no more beating around the bush, you are now an agent, welcome to Odd Squad, and you'll get your first case soon, here is your badge, well what are you waiting for, go!" Ms. O said giving 'opollo' the golden badge of verification. This time her tone of voice was not angry, however, it was one of kindness. It felt surreal to Todd that he was holding the badge that was once willingly snatched from him the gold shone in the overheard light glistening in his eyes even with the tinted black of his gold mask, he paused for a second, and for a moment he felt himself fading into a flashback to when he had gotten his first badge and the familiar glisten of the badge in the overhead of light of Ms. O's office, the feeling of it in your hand and the slight weight it had in his hand the triangular smile that stretched across his face the first time it happened. And now that it was happening again he felt oddly happy, almost like it was an old light being dusted off and being revived again. He felt like he was slowly floating but when he checked the ground and his feet and thankfully he was not floating which was a common thing that happened to him when he was in headquarters, usually when he was excited, just like how Olive would start running and jumping around while screaming "EEEEEEEEEEEE'" as he stared at the gold insignia he felt his smile grow wider, and a loud high pitched squeal was just begging to escape his mouth but he had to keep his volume down and save it for the excitement room where he could go to just after. Or who knows maybe in the mathroom since at 3:00 the mathroom girl falls asleep and she never seems to wake up unless you need to do a math problem, not even screaming can wake her up. In a futile attempt to keep his cool and not just start screaming out of excitement, he started twitching slightly,
"Thank you so much, Ms. O, it's the biggest honor, I won't let you down, just let me know when you have a case," 'Opollo' said in a slightly less quiet but more forced voice. The first thing that Todd needed to do was to get out of Ms. O's office as fast as humanly possible. Ms. O nodded with a smile. He politely closed the doors and put on the badge carefully. He adjusted it to make sure that it wouldn't fall, he had learned a little trick while he was working so that it be sure to not fall even in intense situations, and once the badge was adjusted he was rushing to the excitement room so that he could get out all the squeals and screaming and jumping and hand moving and fidgeting as much as he would like. The first person he wanted to ask was Oscar because he usually knew the ways around the headquarters so he would probably know and if Oscar wasn't there then Oona would probably know at least where the excitement room is. He rushed down the slide and felt like a volcano slowly building pressure and about to erupt. He ran to the lab and when he looked around saw that Oscar wasn't there, it was odd to Todd because usually, Oscar was there at all times, so what was going on here? He saw Oona working on the gadget and walked over to the table and waited until she put down the tools so she wouldn't drop a thing because the final thing he needed was to be responsible for the ruining of a gadget because he decided to be loud for no reason when either Oscar or Oona were working on the gadget.
"Heey Oona," 'Opollo' said in a soft but not quiet voice, but he had to strain his voice a bit further, but not overly so. Even though "Opollo" had used a quiet tone of voice, Oona had nearly turned her head so fast that Todd was secretly worried about her getting whiplash for how fast she had turned her head. Oona slightly flinched when she was greeted with the gold mask and black lifeless eyes yet the cold stare that lay behind the eyes nearly made her freeze. Oona seemed kind of scared of Opollo, but she was still willing to help him despite so because he didn't seem too overly rude or mean or scary. Her expression softened a bit and she spoke in her usual country-ish accent
"Howdy-do! How can I help you?" Oona said with a bit more enthusiasm than she probably should have.
"I need to find a way to the Excitement room, and preferably fast because if I don't get there and let out my squeals I think I'll start quite literally levitating from excitement," when "Opollo," said those words Oona felt like she immediately understood this agent better almost like they were now speaking the same language. On the same page, working in the same department. Her expression changed to one of understanding and her eyes ever so slightly widened before they went back to normal size. Over the days of her working at Odd Squad and being an excitement room frequenter, she had been waiting for someone to ask her a question like this. But something was making her scratch her head, what did he mean by levitating?
"Levitating, like floating in the air," Opollo said trying to explain but Oona's confused expression didn't yet leave her face almost like she needed a proper explanation. She understood him to an extent but the pieces of the puzzle weren't quite clicking.
"Yeah I start doing that out of too much excitement like you know how Olympia starts to squeal loud and explodes into literal glitter when she's excited, Before you ask I watched her Oddtube videos more specifically the one where she interviewed Olive I'm not weird like that trust me, or how Otis starts to like pace around in a circle until he gets tired when he's excited and/or starts to talk really fast like almost too fast to understand him, I overheard a conversation while in this headquarters don't ask about it, Or how Otto starts doing silly dances and maybe even a little singing or Ooh, how about when Olive starts running around really fast and starts screaming/squealing really loud think of her having cat-like zoomies, well its kind of the same for me but instead of doing any of those, I start to levitate and the only way that I can get down and stop levitating is if I start to feel anything other than pure excitement which only tends to happen if I start floating really high but then i start feeling pure fear and then every time other people have to use the trampoline-inator and you dont even wanna know what i have to do when I'm alone and Odd Squad isn't coming fast enough
Oona's confusion started to erase from her face and she started to understand what he was talking about but she was slightly overwhelmed by all the information that he was giving her. And when he finally paused taking to catch his breath the look on her face made him realize that he was accidentally info-dumping again and he felt like it would be best to just apologize to her because there was no real use in trying to do even more info-dumping. "Oh, my Odd, I am so sorry, I was info-dumping again I have this horrible habit of info-dumping to people I don't know I hope you understand I'm so sorry if that was too much information for you to take in, basically, in short, you know how other people do weird things when their excited, well I just start levitating and the only way to get me to stop floating is when I feel anything other than pure excitement which is usually fear after realizing how high I've started to float which is usually a height that is dangerous to fall from. Again I'm so sorry for accidentally info-dumping to you,"
"Oh no it's fine, I was just surprised that I found someone so much like me because I always find myself accidentally info-dumping all the time, and the only time I realize that I'm info-dumping is if someone reminds me, If I had a dollar for every time I realized that I was info dumping or Oscar told me that I was info-dumping I would probably be swimming in money, But now I understand what you're saying, what if I give you your gadget so that when Odd Squad doesn't happen to be coming quite fast enough you can just do it yourself or at least have it on you when you forget to call Odd Squad Lord knows how many times I forget that I literally work at Odd squad and thus they would literally teleport to where I am so that I can be in safety as quickly as possible," Oh I just realized while talking to you about Info-dumping that I just started to Info dump I am so sorry anyway"
"Well back to what we were talking about, Do you want me to just tell you how to get there, or do you want me to like show you how to get there by guiding you there," Oona tilted her head to emphasize the question. Todd contemplated the decision, but he decided that it would just be better if Oona I'd guided him to the excitement room so that he would remember it better
"I think I would remember it better if you were to just show me how to get there so that I can get there faster when I need to go there fast," Opollo said.
"Well then follow me," Oona said, putting down the tools she was holding in her hand and motioning with her hand for him to come with her the two walked out of the Lab, and started to walk across headquarters,
"So basically you go up these stairs, and then go here past ocean's room," Oona told Opollo as she walked to the Excitement room Opollo followed her wanting to know how to get there after the headquarters got reworked. It was interesting to see the contrast between how he remembered it being before he got fired. And now after he came back despite not knowing how he got here in the slightest. It was cool to know that there was now an upstairs instead of just there being endless halls, too many rooms, and cramped spaces.
The two stopped at this wall and then Oona in a turn of events tapped the wall and the wall moved down so that Oona could fit her fingers in the space and now she could pull down the wall so that the two could walk through the wall together, and Todd was amazed even more by the new mechanics of the place because the most that the place had mechanics wise were walls that also functioned as doors, the more contrasts that he had seen around the headspace the more it made him think about the life he had before he had become "Odd Todd" and just how much had changed after he left/got fired and now much he remembered being there before he left/got fired. The two walked through the wall doorway and Todd was amazed to see a hallway that was full of rooms almost like the main hallway except this one had different rooms and more cool ones for the record.
"I know this was supposed to just be a way to get to the excitement room, but I think another room that you might want to go to is the pod room which is essentially a room where you have like these pods for beds its kind of weird to try and explain but they're like isolated beds in one room, pods in the other and a third room is kind of like a big shared college dorm room, I'm a kid so calling it a shared dorm room is kind of rich coming from me but that's the only way I could describe it. After I show you where the Excitement room I'll show you where it is unless you just want to go the excitement room and then once you get out I can show you where it is, I could like wait at the end of the hall so that you get privacy but you also don't have to run to the lab."
Todd liked the idea of him being able to choose which he never really had when he was an agent, but in his mind, the only thing that he wanted to do was to go into the excitement room and just scream until his vocal cords went to the ice, literally. But as the decision lingered in his mind the latter seemed pretty good because he could get his excitement out and then he could also learn where the dorm room is so like a package with a free extra gift. He was about to go to the room when Oona started to say something
"Hey, I know this is a weird thing to ask, but how about we make a thing where we just kind of info-dump about stuff to each other even if the other doesn't understand a single thing about the thing that either of us is info-dumping about," Oona said with a slight smile. The idea seemed like the perfect thing to pass the time but would it just be spontaneously, would there be a set time or maybe any time of the day except one particular hour? "Well I mean how would it work could I just come to you while you're working on stuff and then you just listen and we can chat while you work or would it be every hour except one or would there be set times to talk like 4:00 PM" 'Opollo' asked Oona took the time to analyze those words carefully before making a concrete response because it would depend if Oscar was there or not, or if she was there or not.
"Uh, since it depends on when I or Oscar are there then I guess whenever I'm there but if I have like goggles on or I'm using one of those fire mask things then I don't recommend you talk to me because it could be dangerous, and I don't want to be fired from my job because I was responsible for a lab fire," The door to the excitement room opened with a bouncing noise and as Oona held the door open Todd peered into the room and saw a dark and colorful room with neon lights fidget and sensory toys, a dance floor, music seemingly noise-proof walls considering he couldn't hear screams for any of the other rooms maybe except for the door which was decorated with neon colors and a happy smile face.
"Well, what are you waiting for, go wild! Oona said with one hand holding the door and the other hand pointing to the room as Todd stepped into the room he could have sworn there were literal stars in his eyes as the flashing lights and darkness of the room were dazzling, it was almost too much to take in, "Ok I'll be in here for a couple of minutes and then I will take you up on that offer to see where the dorm room is, and if you want to show me any other rooms do show me, Bye for now!" Opollo said saying his goodbyes with a two-handed wave, as Oona closed the door the feeling of freedom set in, he was able to do whatever he wanted to do, dance around as much as he wanted to scream until his vocal cords turned to ice and jump up until he started to float. He tried to hold back on the screaming but it was too late the conditions were already right and the volcano was seconds, at best away from exploding with the force of Mt. Tambora time two.
His useless at best attempts to keep his screaming at a reasonable volume fell flat within seconds and his volume went up dizzyingly fast from a cheer of excitement to screaming so loud you would think that someone was getting attacked if you were to put your ear on the door it was that loud,
"eeeeeaeaaaaaEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEE I IFINALLYGOTMYAGENTBADGEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAEEEEEEE!" Todd was talking too fast and screaming too loud and too excited to even care if he was talking properly, he physically could not stop squealing and screaming and running around and dancing and started to float a bit with all the excitement. He was jumping around everywhere and squealing too loud for a human to squeal without tearing out their vocal cords. The world around him was starting to start feeling brighter, all sadness that he had was slowly falling out of his body like sand being sifted out of a sifter he was so excited that it felt physically impossible to get all the energy and excitement out of his body, he had looked around the room amid his celebration and saw that there was a music player where you could select songs as long as they weren't rated e for having explicit lyrics, he had put on a celebration song and had the words of the song flowed out of his mouth like a fast and rough waterfall. When Oona waited at the other end of the hall, she got a bit curious as to what was going on inside the excitement room and went near and put her ear against the door, her brows furrowed and her eyes grew akin to the size of saucers as she heard what was in her mind were parallel to screams like someone was getting hurt and screaming for help for their life. But with the context of the excitement room, it didn't seem too out of place maybe a little overboard yes, but not something that would be weird in the excitement room probably out of the context of the excitement room would be very, very very very concerning. Her facial expression changed after the sudden realization and her shoulders lifted in a switch from shock to apathy and she walked to the end of the hall to wait for Opollo.
It was almost 10 minutes since Todd had entered the room and his excitement had not even come close to leaving him and he realized that the only real way to get the energy out of him was to do a hard and exhausting song choreography with full effort and start singing and running around some more, he had searched up on the screen the hardest choreography that didn't require gymnastic moves to do. It didn't have explicit lyrics so he was in the clear, the choreo had some slightly suggestive moves however so he knew he was going to have to change those moves but still do them with the effort of him in pe trying to win an invisible tug of war as he would have to do the whole choreo to try and get out all of this excitement and energy. As he started the song he felt like he was at full energy but by the end of the song he was gasping and panting for air, but he still felt like his energy had not gone down a single bit, his energy percentage was not going down stuck in a constant state of regenerating and charging and going up, he now realized that it was getting a bit out of f hand and he didn't want to be in here until the end of the day just to wake up the next day being on 1% the whole time because his energy would not go down. He only had one option, to do the most energy-draining things that he could think of to at least take his energy down to around 35 percent, so he started to use gadgets that take down his energy drink a little bit of energy reducer medicine and also run around in circles because that was the most exhausting exercise he could think of doing, and after doing these things for about the next ten minutes he felt his energy go down but it wasn't enough and he started to dance around to his favorite song and squeal and scream a bit more, but mid-song a realization hit him like burning ice being poured down his shirt and simultaneously being kicked in the legs. Even while his feet were moving around and his hands were waving in the air and the music was blasting and the lights were flashing and the bubbles that were in the room for extra excitement effect were blasting all around the room.
The wide-eyed looked face of his realization never really seemed to leave for the next five minutes, even while dancing he was still stuck with that face, why was he so excited at the possibility of being an agent again? Was it because of the new respect he had earned himself, was it the fact that Ms. O had said something to Todd that wasn't blatant insults about him? Or perhaps, was it because he loved the idea of a second chance and being able to regain respect, build up his reputation again, and not let it slip out of his hands as he had foolishly done before this time the fragile liquid would stay inside his cupped hands and would not leave this time. Not for a single second, he could let no one know what lay behind his mask because regrettably, his face was too recognizable for anyone to mistake him for someone else unless he had used a face-swap-inator gadget, but unfortunately, the only thing holding him back from using it was the fact that there was no guaranteed that he would be able to get his face back, or normal face for that matter. The thought lingered in his mind of just how dangerous of a game he was playing, but the idea of thrill and being almost like an unsolvable enigma, leading a double life with his mask on and the one with his mask off. But he was worried for the gardeners that were in his garden, what would they think of the fact that the person running the place, for the most part, was now gone and they had nowhere to go, no one to lead them, no one to remind them the tips and tricks to keep the garden thriving in his care. But at this point, in his mind the sacrifice was right, he was now helping out other people and helping to fight odd stuff which was the reason that his garden had gotten attacked, the reason that he had succumbed to the temptation of causing such oddness and losing the one opportunity he had, and who knows he could still technically be an agent even with the whole garden thing, he would just push it to the side for the moment and maybe come back once things calm down.
The attempt at rationalizing his decision had made him oddly tired and he felt about ready to leave the room, by this time Oona was looking at her watch thinking about going down to the first floor and just telling Oscar that she was going to be waiting for an agent that she was showing around, but since there was a possibility that Opollo could just leave the room at any time see that Oona isn't there and thus there would be trouble because she would be gone and they would be out of the room already, so she decided the only real way to do this is to speed down as fast as humanly possible and then tell Oscar as quick as humanly possible then dash back and then hope to god that Opollo hadn't already left the room and was waiting for her, she had used a trick she learned from Oscar to go down the steps super fast since there was no slide and she would just sprint across the headquarters, go to the lab and tell oscar that she would be showing an agent around and thus would not be there for a couple of minutes and maybe 1 to 2 hours maximum.
She didn't feel her shoes even touching the ground as she floated down the steps so fast she felt like she was falling. She had breezed across the headquarters and was rushing to the lab when she saw that Oscar was quietly working on the gadget that the two started and was inaudibly humming a soundcheck tune to himself without really realizing it, Oona wasn't a fan of the soundcheck song or soundcheck, in general, she preferred NoiseTest but TomAto Tomato. She was rushing to be able to tell him that she forgot to speak properly "soimjustgoingtobeshowinganagentaround-" Oscar turned his head at the almost inaudible way that Oona had said that line, "Huh can you say that again but a little slower this time, so that I can understand," Oscar asked
"I don't have that much time but I'm just going to be showing an agent around, you know that boy in the gold mask? Well I'm just going to show him to some rooms on the second floor nothing much, but I'll be back soon the most I'll be taking is an hour or two if it accidentally takes too long, so I apologize in advance if I accidentally lose time and come here a bit too late, but I'll make sure to at least be here before the day end's that's guaranteed, I have to get back so that I can be there when the agent leaves," Oona said super fast but at least attempting to be understandable.
"The agent you're referring to has a name you know, it's Opollo, like Apollo but with an O instead of A,"
"Oh, well thanks for telling me I wouldn't have known, I probably would have forgotten to ask,"
"Well, you're welcome just don't forget where the doors are and which doors lead to which room, or else you'll end in deep trouble, and don't forget what happened the last time that happened, you know when you accidentally ended up in the ball pit rain room instead of the dorm room,"
"I remember that, well I gotta go, bye!"
"See ya," Oscar said waving
Oona gave a two-handed wave goodbye to Oscar as she had learned, she liked the idea of a two-handed wave over a one-handed wave, it was more interesting, she moved like a tornado across the headquarters nearly hitting some people but she was able to get across safely without bumping into anyone with just two close calls, not the best but at least it was better than nothing, she had raced up the stairs moved the wall door down which was now shut and shuffled over to where she was standing and was thankful to see that Opollo had not yet left the room.
Todd felt exhausted as he walked over to the door and lazily opened it, he stumbled across the hall to where Oona was, and the idea of having energy felt almost alien to him like it was something that was no longer obtainable and he was too tired although he was skipping and hopping around just around 10 minutes before, then the fact that he had spent almost a half hour in that room sunk into his mind. "Hey Oona, I'm ready to be shown where the dorm room is, and if I sound tired that's because I am, for some reason rationalizing a decision deciding to go through with becoming an agent instead of staying in school/home took more energy out of me than doing the hardest choreo that didn't require literal gymnastics to do off the top of my head. Let that sink in," Opollo said his speech slightly slurred and his slight stutter/speech delay started to kick in, usually when he spoke he had a quick and clear way of talking but usually when he was tired or frustrated his slight imperfections in speech would start to kick in because he would stop carrying about how he sounded. It wasn't a huge issue mostly because he only started to have these issues when he was tired or frustrated which was not super common nowadays,
"I mean you do sound tired so it was kind of obvious, I don't mean that in a rude way it was just kind of obvious from the start," Oona said with a slight shrug and smile.
"Anyway, here's where the dorm rooms are, seeing how tired you are I feel like you would benefit from that, but talking about that reminds me of when I could have sworn that someone was also in the bunker with me when I was taking a nap, but all I saw were blankets and something that vaguely represented a human so for all I know it could just be blankets that look like a human tucking into a pile of other blankets."
Todd felt like he was in an elevator on the top floor of a building trying to go down to the first place now but then the ground beneath him fell and he was now falling to the first floor at full force, and his heart fell into his shoes, Oona had figured out it was him who was in the bunker with him, despite the small amount of trust he had built with her, he could never tell unless the two magically became best friends all of the sudden and trusted each other fully. But he kind of wanted to admit that it was him in that bunker as well, just so that it wouldn't come back to bite him,
"Well, I have something to confess regarding that bunker..." Opollo hesitantly said with the last part of his sentence taking a couple of seconds to come to his mind, and to say,
Oona nearly got whiplash from how fast she had turned around to look at his face, what did he have to confess, did he accidentally zap her with something in her sleep? Did he accidentally come into the bunker, or was it something else?
"I don't mean to pressure you but what is it?"
"Uh...I was the one in the bunker it was not blanketed that looked like a human, it was just me with my face buried in my pillow, so sorry if you liked the thought of blankets turning into a human, though that would be kind of cool to see and even better to fix," Opollo said nearly slipping up but quickly catching himself before Oona got the wrong idea about him and started to get suspicions. Though the clear-up sounded a bit suspicious in and of itself.
Oona's face turned to a look of not-so-surprised shock almost like she saw it coming but she was still shocked about what it was about because she knew that it was about the bunker, but she didn't realize for a second the blankets could be an actual human being, I guess she has just used the covers looking like a human and not being another human since it was uncommon for both Oscar and Oona to be sleeping in the bunker at the same times even if it was on the opposite sides of the bunker.
The two walked to the dorm room and opened the door, it opened with a slight creak and he can see that there were maybe only one or two people max in the room they had just walked into, and the people possibly there were sleeping. That was usually to sleep or have a free bedroom to stay in overnight. Usually just to be able to be in headquarters for the whole day. As the two looked around and walked around the first room Opollo said "I'm sleeping in here if not sleeping in this one then at least one of the other rooms for sure, these beds look so comfy."
A look of uncertainty washed across Oona's face and she tilted her head in slight confusion, "Ehh, I would get here early if I were you because usually this place gets filled up pretty quick and if you have a designated bed or spot, and/or you want one of the better beds like the comfier beds, then it's best to get here early, odd only knows that some people are here by six o'clock, that's been me sometimes honestly but those were like long nights or exhausting days usually."
A tired smile of agreement was creeping upon Todd's face, "Yeah, I'll probably be here by at maximum 8 PM honestly, but that's a bit weird since I usually go to bed at around Midnight, not on purpose of course, almost always seems to be on accident because I tend to push myself just a little too far time-wise,"
The two walked into the next room which was a room of pod-looking beds that had colorful lights, ambient noise playing, and a general smell of lavender that somehow didn't seem to reach the room that they were previously in and presumably would not reach the room that they were going to be entering in after this, the pod beds looked surreal almost like they were out of a sci-fi novel like an example of where aliens sleep, the smell of lavender filled Todd's nose and he felt suddenly calmer than he was in the other room the ambient music was calming, every part of this room was supposed to be calming and it was working, even Oona who was full of energy suddenly started to feel like she just wanted to go in one of the beds and just sleep the day away despite the fact she and Opollo had already done that even though it was lunch/break time.
They both looked around in a calm elatedness just admiring all of the stuff around them and the fact that they had been in the room for less than five minutes and yet they both felt like just sleeping on the ground not even bothering to go on the bed, just sleep right there and then. But to not fall asleep right then and there the two walked into the third and final room which looked drastically different than the other two rooms, it was just like Oona had described, but Todd never realized just how different the rooms were like he understood that they were different, but not this different.
It was like what he had imagined a shared dorm room to be but it was just a bunch of beds all around, the place and there were mostly people just relaxing on these beds and scrolling through their watches, one was using a phone they had seemingly snuck in from probably via their pockets, but looking at the rooms Todd had one question on his mind, do they have some type of PJs to change into because if there wasn't then what was the point of being in these beds if you weren't even allowed to have your suit on because it was a pure guess but he could only assume that most agents didn't have under clothes to sleep in, God knows he didn't just have a full-on shirt and pants to sleep with underneath his suit a short-sleeved shirt and shorts at best. And at that point, the question just slipped out of his mouth,
"Does this place have PJs that you can change into like at least a sort of closet or at the bare bare minimum a wall with two walls around it so that you can change with proper privacy I don't think it would be reasonable for Ms. O to have us bring our own I mean some agents might not know about this room, Odd, some people get hot easily and not everyone wants to put a whole outfit underneath their suit, and what about summer I can barely stand shorts and a t-shirt by that point. Sorry if that one's TMI but I just needed to ask"
"Thankfully this room does have dressing rooms and pajamas in all of the rooms male female and gender-neutral PJs so everyone can have pajamas, I was glad to hear from Ms. O that she implemented this the moment the room was done so no one had to carry in their pajamas at any point, fun fact."
Todd was relieved to know that fact about the room knowing that he would not have to go through the suffering of sleeping in a suit
"So now that we're done looking around if you want to go into any other rooms or, stuff like that I can do that but the most I can take is one hour, two hours at the most because I did promise Oscar that I would be back by then, well technically I did promise that I would be back by the end of the day but anything past three hours would be too much for me, I'm sorry,"
"Oh, no need to apologize It's fine I was getting a bit tired of all the walking around and stuff," Opollo said. Oona agreed the walking around was starting to get a bit tiring for even her, she blamed the lavender, Todd blamed the running around, and lavender as well. It was clear to both of them that it would just be better to go back and maybe chat a little bit and then Todd could just go back to exploring and getting used to being an agent, who knows he might just get his first case in the same day of becoming an agent. The prospect of being able to solve cases again was exciting, but the only thing on his mind was that now he was very parched, almost too thirsty, and now he had to find a water fountain, and fast or at the very least an unused water bottle. He realized that the last time he would have been able to drink water and eat food was break time and he had realized that the whole time that break time was happening he was either hiding from everyone else, or he was sleeping, and now he had another question for Oona,
"I don't want you to show me where it is, but can you tell me where the water fountain is, preferably one where I can use an empty-water-bottle-inator and just fill it up and drink from that bottle for the rest of the day?" Opollo asked.
When Opollo asked that Oona realized that she too had for the whole entirety of break time she had been sleeping as well and was also thirsty as well, all the times when she had forgotten to drink water for almost the whole day or forgot the purpose of break time and simply just slept in, worked on stuff or just messed around in headquarters came back to her in that moment of realization. "I think I could show you because I also just realized that I need to drink water too since I also slept my whole lunchtime away," Oona said
"Ok, well do you know where any of the water fountains are?"
"Easy peasy, come with me," Oona said as the two walked in a direction that wasn't too common but Todd already knew in his mind that this was going to be a good fountain and who knows it might be a nice area to just relax in. As the two were walking to this water fountain Todd was starting to notice just how many people were passing by them, he always knew that there were lots of people in the organization but he thought it was spread out between all of the precincts but now that he was walking around and exploring instead of staying at his desk all day it was starting to sink in. It probably passed him by all those days he worked because he was either working or solving cases or doing something that required his full attention and not allowing him to just look around and notice all the small details about the headquarters.
They were walking down a slightly narrow hall but it could still fit people that were walking alongside each other it felt like an endless hall, he had experienced endless halls before even intentionally, but he started to see in his peripheral a small dark square which was signaling that they were reaching the end of the hall and it was only going to get closer to the area from here. As the black square got bigger he started to feel tired of walking but the hall wasn't even that long so he was kind of confused, it was probably because he had done all that running around. It was also probably because of his lack of water.
They had reached a nice-looking room with purple decorated all around it and nice there were couches and a water fountain as well as a water jug with cups, a bathroom area, and food as well, just a small bag with chips and small snacks, but it was more than nothing. He had not remembered there is a place like this but he was now forever thankful to Oona for giving him this new knowledge of this room he had already remembered the direction that he would have to go in and the hall just permeated it even further into his brain so now it was fresh and important knowledge that he would not forget as long as he was here or at least as long as it was in that direction and not moved to somewhere else, as he admired the scenery and the music and the oil defuser that filled the room with a pleasant aroma, but they weren't around to mess around they were there to do one thing and one thing only, get some water, maybe eat a little food use the bathroom and then leave the place. A question began to form in Todd's mind as he looked around the room some more and noticed just how much purple and gold were decorated around the room and that started to make him concerned, concerned that the two were in an area only meant for Ms. O and maybe her assistants to relax and chill and they were just invading her space, and he was begging to ask Oona if she had at least checked in with Ms. O to see if it was ok with her or at least to check in why there was so much gold and if it was for her.
"I hate to ask, but did you at least check in with Ms. O to see if this place was for her, or if she was ok with people being in this place or if at the very least she knew about the place or something like that?" Opollo's nervousness was very apparent in his voice, even though it was probably nothing to be that worried about. It was probably nothing to worry about too much.
"Oh yeah I checked in with her and she said that she uses this place to relax for a little while on the occasion but since she usually just has her main break room she's mostly fine with people using that area to hang out, but she just doesn't tell people because then a lot of people will come and then it'll just get ruined for the people that know about this place and like the alone aspect of the place," Oona said. Now todd felt like he was keeping a top-secret FBI-type secret from everyone else like this was a government-protected place, now he knew that he had just stumbled upon a hidden gem that needed to be kept secret at all costs, just between him and Oona, and anyone else who happened to know where this place was and what it was for. The fact this place was like an open secret was amazing, it was so hidden in obvious plain sight that it was painful but at the same time no one seemed to notice or go into it.
Todd had walked near the fountain and poured a cup of water using the free seemingly endless cups, and when he had realized that the number of cups that were there had not gotten down, he started frantically grabbing cups, and yet the number of cups was not going down at the slightest, and then he realized this seemed to be a sort of mechanism where it refills cup so for every cup lost there is a cup added and thus infinite cups for life, but then if he were to put them back he would then what would happen to them? He put the cups back and he had seen that the cups just disappear so that the number of cups still stay the same despite the new cups being added, it felt trippy to see the number of cups never truly go down but it also looked cool, but while figuring out this weird cup theory after Oona had grabbed some snacks, she noticed Todd's manic cup removing, he had officially been caught red-handed.
"Hey, Opollo, what with the cup removing,"
Todd, not even bothering to turn around just simply said,
"I need to know how this system works how did Ms. O make this mystery mechanism, I must know, now"
"Oh that's simple, she just used a cup-replace-inator, a cup-remove-inator and set both the dials to infinite, so it ends when she sets it to anything but infinite but I highly doubt that someone would do that because its nice to not live in constant worry about whether or not you refilled the cups in a room that you don't even use or people don't even know about, so it's just easier to have it that way, hope that helps, and please stop taking out cups that just leads to the trash getting clogged up."
The way she had worded the last part was confusing but he still somehow understood what she meant by the trash would get clogged up and good thing because Oona didn't even think for a second of correcting herself.
Then after Todd was done getting water he filled up three extra cups and got a bag of chips to eat, the taste of having food after not having food for almost a day felt good, but he didn't end up eating too much of it which was odd because he had expected himself to eat the bag of chips like it was his last meal. Oona had already gotten her bag of chips and was seemingly drinking an endless amount of water, not even manically taking out water cups for the sake of taking out cups but instead was drinking water as if refilling a cup was not a thing and she was drinking these paper like cups like the water in them were the last drinks of water she would ever have again or like she had not been drinking water in over 100 years and had just discovered an oasis.
When Todd was done eating and drinking and using the washroom and Oona was casually chilling on the couch
"I think we need to give this place a proper name, or even better, a code word so that we can talk about this place without people picking up on it and wanting to go there or wanting directions to go there or something like that and then end up finding it out and telling everyone and then we get in trouble because Ms. O didn't want that to happen in the first place," Opollo asked.
"How about the break room, now it might seem weird but its the perfect deception because no one thinks about this room when they think of break room they think of the break room and it gets us no questioning about what we're talking about because everyone knows the break room and we can talk about it without seeming weird, because it's such a common room so no one questions it," Oona answered.
"Perfect it's the perfect code word,"
"Well, then its settled, our code word for this place is going to be break room the perfect word, or should I say term for it,"
As the two were walking out of the place and down the hall the two noticed just how weird the hall was because it felt like it was wobbling all over the place, when they finally reached the hall, Ms. O's loud yell from the office balcony had shattered the general silence all around the headquarters outside of chatting and quiet videos and whatnot. And when she had started to speak Todd's eyes widened.
"You, Opollo, gold mask boy, IN MY OFFICE NOW!"
A/N: I just realized that my story focused more on Oona and "Odd" Todd than anything else in this chapter... Oops, I didn't even realize how much I had focused on their friendship-ish dynamic I won't say exactly friendship because these two have known each other for less than a day. Also, I am NOT used to writing chapters more than 5k so I'm sorry if I ruined your eyesight by having to read so many words I sincerely apologize for that. Also to clarify, when I use "Opollo" I'm using it in the sense of Todd's outer self kind of persona and when I use Todd I'm writing more about Todd's inner thoughts and inner self and inner feelings, it's kind of hard to explain but I'm sorry if that was confusing. Anyways I hope you at least semi-enjoyed this chapter :) -Odd-Squad-Girl