Walked back to his new office space like a wayward troublemaking child, Five tried his best to stand tall against the burning stares as the Handler crowed his praises for the whole all to hear. It was a bit over the top, if he were being honest and something that he could've done without; especially as he tried to seamlessly slip from the clutches of the tight grip on his shoulder. It wasn't going as well as he hoped.
"I'm sure you've all heard that Mr Five has proven to be as adept with a pen as he was with a sword!" The Handler declared as the pair strode into the room and stood at the front, halfway between the supervisor's desk and the rest.
"Ahem" Awkwardly clearing his throat, Five was eventually able to wiggle himself free and made his way back to his desk as the blanket of uncomfortableness settled in once more.
"Let his efforts serve as inspiration to you all!" The Handler smirked, turning to the room as a whole as all eyes—burning with varying degrees of contempt—watched the boy fall back into his seat. "Herb! How long have you been on the Lusitania?"
"Oh, ah…Well, let's see…" Herb stammered, both caught off-guard by the sudden twist in attention and the fact that he knew that he had been working on his (easier) assignment for far longer than his newly neighbour. It felt a lot like he was trying to a bullshit a teacher about missing homework; an excuse that clearly wasn't working. "I, uh…I—"
"—Sorry?" The Handler quirked a brow.
"When I first started—"
"—Sorry? I can't hear you"
BRRING!
"Oh, thank God!" Herb muttered to himself as the bell for lunch rang and freed him from the clutches of the toxic blonde who had clearly been playing with him. Without so much as a how-do-you-do, the rest of the Case Managers moved as one to pack their things and make their way to the cafeteria for lunch.
"Oh! Gene! A word before you go to lunch" The Handler easily turned to her next prey on the way out of the room (even though it was clear that she wanted to play with Herb some more. She was like a cat that way; playing with her mouse before actually killing it). "Gutenberg seems to be having second thoughts about the printing press…"
Indistinct chatter flowed out of the room as Five stayed at his desk, waiting for the very last person to leave so that he could take advantage of his 'new guy' & 'teacher's pet' status and make his move away from watchful eyes. It wouldn't do to be done before he had even begun. As the last heel eventually clicked out of the room, Five swung around to Dot's desk and immediately began rifling through the files that had been left out; one in particular—a red manilla folder—which had caught his eye. Much like the Hindenburg one that he had received, this one in red clearly meant that it was dearly important in pertaining to the Apocalypse 2019. Grabbing the folder, he slid it in behind the front plate of his overalls—bouncing up and down a few times to make sure that it wouldn't accidentally come loose when he moved—before he made his way out, not the cafeteria with everyone else, but the bathroom where he would hopefully be alone.
Once locked inside the chosen solitary toilet stall, Five removed the file from where he had hidden it and sat down on the closed toilet seat to read it. Or at least, that was the idea. Instead, all he found when he opened it was a large printed smiley face instead of the apocalyptic work that he was looking for. He had been duped!
"Shit!" Five cursed quietly to himself, snapping the folder shut in defeat and just as he was contemplating about flushing the empty file down the toilet, the bathroom door opened. Peering under the stall door in front of him, he watched as familiar red heels stalked towards the stall next to him as pleasant chatter rose from the one person he didn't want to see.
"So" The Handler drawled as she situated herself in the neighbouring stall. "How's your first day going?"
"…Couldn't be better!" Five grit out through clenched teeth, sarcasm colouring his tone as he slowly shoved the folder back into the folds of his clothes. He just couldn't get rid of this roach of a woman! And now, everyone would think that he couldn't even go to the bathroom without having his hand held! Not that he care about what anyone else thought; no way.
"Glad to hear it" She replied as her skirt hit the floor and the hiss of pee hitting the water echoed about the room and a loud hacking cough followed.
Eurgh! Five stared at the dividing wall with a mix of disgust and concern; it sounded like a cat was trying to cough up a fur ball.
"I burnt my rugae. Ever burnt your rugae? Ru~gae; that's the ridges on the hard palate that help to pass food to the oesophagus." The Handler explained, unnecessarily. "Anyway, I'm on a liquid diet for two days, hence the marathon of urination"
Five could not believe what he was hearing. Having finally worked the folder back into the folds of his clothes, he crossed his arms and waited for this whole strange ordeal to be over. Growing up in a house of seven others meant that he knew the true meaning of privacy and how very little he really had; but that didn't mean he had to like where this discussion was going.
"One faulty cog and nothing works as it should" The Handler continued as she finally finished up.
Did she know? Five tensed on the toilet seat, the file beneath his overalls suddenly burning a hole in the cloth. How did she know?
"You know that we value integrity at the office above all else, Five"
Get out already, woman! Five felt a brief flash of relief wash over him.
"Trust is essential and that trust is built up over time. But in the event of a breach, the Commission will act swiftly and without mercy. An efficiency that I'm sure you above all else can appreciate, Number Five" The Handler mused aloud, warning him not to step out of line again. "I'm feeling peckish, have you had your lunch?"
"…Not yet" Five rolled his eyes as he listened to her bustle about the sinks; each action carefully considered and poised.
"Great! How would you like to eat lunch with me, in my office?" The Handler trotted back over to his stall and grabbed onto the top of the door, peering down at him with an expectant gaze. "You can eat solid foods and I can live vicariously through you!"
"Sounds…great" Five grit out as his hands clenched the legs of his overalls in frustration and defeat.
This had to be one of the weirdest meals that Five had ever had, and he had eaten roaches before! Here he sat across from the Handler, who stared at him over her cup with an almost predatorial glare as he ate his lunch. It was rather unnerving, her beady eyes pointedly watching each mouthful go down, as his tongue darted out to lick up remaining morsels that clung to his lip. If he thought Hargreeves meals were stifling, then this was something else altogether.
"…And that's how Phil determined the archduke just had to go" The Handler chattered on as she slurped resolutely at the last of her own liquid lunch. "Care for dessert?"
"Ah no" Five politely refused, waving off the offered bowl of yellow-wrapped sweets as he set his own water glass on the desk in front of him. "I had a bad Twinkie in the apocalypse once; it kinda put me off desserts"
"Please! Indulge me" She nudged the bowl of sweets closer to Five, persistent and expectant as Five took a small one from the top of the pile with a sigh. Unwrapping the confection, he plopped into his mouth, wondering if this was supposed to be another one of her tests.
"What's that taste like to you?" She asked, leaning back in her chair as she exchanged her cup for her pipe to inhale a rather large breath. Three guesses how she burnt her rugae.
"…The 1950s?" Five offered, brows furrowing as he shifted the sweet around on his tongue. He was perplexed by the question and even more so by the answer that just seemed so right.
"Precisely right!" The Handler bragged, lifting the chosen sweet aloft "Our clever metaphysics division concocted a way to perfectly distill an entire decade into a single sweet! This one's modelled after the Fudge Mutt, America's favourite sweet in 1955"
"Remarkable" Five impressed, and it was. The engineering and scientific know-how it would take to develop something so simple was vast.
"You'll be happy to know that it's this very division that's building your new body. Oh! That reminds me! I have something else for you" The Handler chirped as she moved to press the intercom button upon her desk and glanced over at Five (who was still chewing away at the sweet) to see if he was impressed. "Carla?"
"Yes?" Carla chirped over the intercom, equally as bright as the other woman in this place.
"Would bring in the box, please?"
"Certainly"
Clicking off the intercom, the Handler stood up to receive the rather large box from Carla and moved to place it on the desk, in front of Five. "Go ahead, open it" She encouraged, nudging the schoolboy who stared at the clean white box with trepidation clear in his eyes. Lifting the lid on the mysterious box, Five found a pile of new, much larger clothes inside.
"Hm?" He quirked an inquisitive brow at the woman next to him, wondering if this was some kind of sick joke. These clothes were in good condition, but much to large for him as he was now.
"Clothes make the man, Five" The Handler explained, leaning up against his side of the desk, "Won't it be nice when you can actually wear it? Very soon too, I assure you. They're perfecting your body as we speak"
Ah. "Thank you, it's a very kind…gift" He replied politely, shutting the lid on the box of newly acquired clothes before he turned to point at the weaponry display at the back of the room as he finally let loose the question which had been burning at his tongue for some time. "…Is that a Chinese flamethrower?"
"Good eye. War; such a fascinating concept" She smiled as they crept closer to have a look at her souvenirs. "A temporary salve for a permanent human flaw, of course. Then again, I s'pose it is easier to see that from 30,000 feet. These are just some of the things I've collected in my travels: an M26 grenade from the Vietnam War—"
Klaus. Five easily recognised his brother's jaunty handwriting which had been engraved into the side of the armed device.
"—And this, the most noteworthy perhaps, is my Walther pistol. The very one that Hitler used to kill himself" She bragged, picking up the next item in question and showed it off to her companion with the same air that a child might show off a new toy. "We're not supposed to take these kind of things, but he wasn't gonna use it anymore. Feel how perfectly balanced that is, hm?"
The Handler handed Five the prized pistol in question and watched on with an expectant gaze—like a mother watching her child play with her most prized family jewels—as he tested out the balance & fit of the small historic pistol. Five's tongue darted out to wet dry lips as he tried to think of a way to start the inquiry that would allow him fuller access to the Tube Room once again; a way that would bypass all of these silly protocols.
"…I had some thoughts that I wanted to run by you" Five began as his fingers ran all over the nicks & grooves of the thing. "Some suggestions to improve Commission protocol"
"Mm? Shaking things up already! I admire that!" The Handler appreciatively petted at his cheek, before she meandered her way back to her desk. "Go on, do tell!"
"Gloria" Five stated, "The tube operator"
"Hm? What about her?" Her tone suddenly turned tight and suspicious.
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. "Wouldn't it be simpler if Case Managers sent their own messages?"
"…I appreciate the thought, I really do" The Handler barked a chuckle, one that sounded disbelieving to her own ears as she forced the smile to remain on her painted lips. "But everyone loves Gloria. I would never hear the end of it! She's been with the Commission family for years and she's this close to making pension"
"Surely—"
KNOCK KNOCK!
"—Sorry to interrupt" Dot appeared at the door, once again thwarting Five from his furthering his plans with an ease that frustrated him.
Damn woman! He knew that with enough time and flowery words, he could wheedle whatever he wanted out of the Handler, so long as he wasn't interrupted!
"May I have moment alone?" Dot shifted awkwardly in the doorway, her arms clutching tight to a pile of documents that Five suspected were the very ones that he had been searching for earlier.
"Of course" The Handler nodded, sitting upright as she dismissed Five. "Duty calls. We'll continue this discussion later, Five"
"Sure" Five smiled tightly, before he pointed to the sweet bowl still on the desk. They were surprisingly rather pleasant. At least the Commission could get something right. "May I?"
"Please"
Snatching a handful of the golden 1950s sweets on his way out, Five slipped by Dot without a backwards glance that would've served to show him just how the Handler's face had fallen at the news she had received. But he didn't, instead the time travelling schoolboy was out of the door without delay. It had been an eventful lunch, that was for sure, but now he needed to get back to his family. In 2019.