The whole thing began two days ago.
At around 10:00 pm Friday night, Agent Doug Gruggenheim paid a fellow named LeRoi Jones a visit at his upscale, fourteenth floor condominium, located in Seattle's Madison Park. One the surface, Jones was not a man who should have caught the attention of a government agency devoted to investigating psychic crimes and monitoring supernatural activity. He ran a company that manufactured doors-plain, wooden, open-and-shut doors made to be set into any available door frame. The issue was this: Jones was looking to start making his big doors out of the rare Washington Miniature Glosswood tree- the same wood that the Psychonauts used to make their little doors that led into the mind.
Gruggenheim had gone in with the intention of 'gently persuading' Jones to reconsider his bid for the land the trees were planted on. He'd gone out with Jones' brain stuffed into his duffel bag, the rest the man left behind to drool on his couch while Late Night with Conan O' Brien played on the television before him. Nobody had cared to tell J.T. what had caused the negotiation to go so far south that it passed the equator; nor had they cared to divulge how Jones' brain had gone from being inside his skull to the front pocket of Gruggenheim's Levenger-brand duffel bag. All he'd been told was that a civilian had spotted Gruggenheim fleeing the building in his panic, and that the witness needed to have his memory tweaked a bit before he decided to tell the police about what he'd seen.
There was no way to know if Tringle was planning doing that- he had been pretty drunk when it had happened, which would have made even the most open-minded of authority figures skeptical of his already outlandish story- but it was always best to play on the safe side. Jones' body had already been collected by the Psychonauts, and the careful process of re-braining and recovery would take a few days. The disappearance of a man with Jones' standing would not go unnoticed, and it was only a matter of time before it ended up in the news. Tringle might decide to come forward with what he knew, or he might not, but the Psychonauts did not want to be implicated in any sort of wrongdoing before they could re-educate Jones on what had happened to him on that night.
Messing around a stranger's mind in order to sweep a co-worker's mistake under the rug may have once bothered J.T. Not anymore. It was part of the job he'd been doing for nearly three years now, and if it hadn't been this, it would have been something else. He didn't really feel one way or the other about the affair itself; after he was done with Tringle it wouldn't be any of his business. His most pressing dilemma was whether or not he should sit down as he waited for Agent Ojo to alter the slide he had brought her. He was feeling a little worn out after traversing the mountain that made up Tringle's mind and a bit of rest would do his astral projection good. On the other hand, Adeleke Ojo was the speediest Slide Artist the Psychonauts employed, having been at it since before J.T. had gotten his first set of spurs at age eight. If he sat, it would not be long before he had to haul himself back up- might be better to just rest his back against the wall.
"The debate is starting up again," she said conversationally as she bent over the slanted draft desk. The slide before her took up most of the worksurface, and was illuminated from below. The desk was set up in the middle of the cramped little studio she did all of her work-projects in; a space where there wasn't much room to stretch out your legs. Her back was to him, so he could not see her face, just the back of her neck and the coil of braids that made up the neat bun on the top of her head.
"Which debate is that?" J.T. asked as he flipped the tab of his Dr. Pepper open. It was hard for him to keep track of all of the on-going conflicts around the Motherlobe.
"The 'P-word' debate," Adeleke clarified as J.T. crossed over to the only other chair in the room, set in front of a small table piled high with blank memory slides on the draft table's left side.
J.T. groaned, his frustration not entirely feigned. "Why're they startin' all that up again?"
Adeleke shrugged her shoulders. From where he now sat he had a view of her brushing what looked like plain old white-out over Gruggenheim's upper body, erasing Tringle's recollection of the agent's face and sweater. The bottom half of the agent's body would remain intact- Vault's could be picky about taking back slides that had been messed with, and the less you had to alter the better. "I think one of the new TPT issues referred to somebody as the 'Paranormal Princess of…' She paused, raising her eyes to the ceiling as she tried to recall the exact details. "I'm not quite sure. Harris was miffed about it though."
J.T. leaned back in his chair, taking a sip of his drink- almost tasted like the real thing. Craig Harris was one of three slide-artists currently employed in the Information Control Unit, alongside Agent Ojo and Agent Kang. He was a nice enough guy, but he sure did get his bristles raised over things J.T. considered to be non-issues. "He go off?"
Adeleke nodded. "He most certainly did," she answered, angling the brush to the side so that she could white-out Gruggenheim's arm without taking out too much of the background behind her. "I tuned most of it out to be honest. Lord knows I heard enough about it the last three times this issue cropped up." She dipped her brush back into the pot. "Can't say that I understand what the problem is. 'Paranormal' seems like a pretty nice term compared to the other things we get flung at us."
J.T. scratched his head. "From what I hear, it's because the word makes us psychics seem like somethin' other than normal, and that makes everyone else treat us bad." He shrugged, not sure if he was repeating what Harris and other agents against the word had said to him right. "But the thing is...we are different from other folks. You gotta have some kind of term to describe that."
Adeleke made a noise of agreement. "In my humble opinion, getting upset over a word as inoffensive as paranormal means that you don't have enough problems." She dabbed out the last traces of Gruggenheim's hair before slipping the white-out brush back into its container. "You tell them that though, and they threaten to go to H.R."
"You don't actually think they'll do that, though, right?" J.T. knew that Harris and his ilk could be a bit sensitive at times, but that seemed like a step too far.
"Oh, who knows." Adeleke came out of her hunched position, rolling her shoulders and stretching her neck. "If they did, I probably won't find out until a month later. Long after I've forgotten what I've done or who I've upset."
J.T. raised his Dr. Pepper in mock toast. "God bless the bureaucracy," he said before taking another sip. It had the same effect on him as the 'water' from the fountain in Tringle's mind. "So," he said, his gaze falling upon the white spot drying on the slide, "who are you plannin' on putting in Doug's place?"
Adeleke looked at the slide and then back at J.T. "Our old friend John Doe," she replied, a smile playing on her lips.
J.T. grinned back, more than a little relieved. 'John Doe' was a fellow who didn't actually exist. Sometimes the higher-ups asked the slide artists to put the image of a real person into a memory, usually a career criminal whose guilt would not be questioned. The practice never sat right with J.T. Sure, the people being drawn in weren't exactly angels, but putting anyone away for something they didn't do wasn't real justice in J.T.'s eyes. "Shoot, that fella travels far, don't he? Wasn't he embezzling money from a waste disposal plant in Panama three days ago?"
"He's mastered the art of being in two places at once," Adeleke joked as she checked the spot again to see if it was dry. It must have been, since she turned to face the slide once more. "What I haven't decided," she said as she picked up a fine-tipped pen, "is what color shirt he chose to wear to commit this particular crime."
J.T. chuckled softly. "Well, you got rhino grey, charcoal grey, steel grey, pewter grey, ash grey, stone grey, and all them greys in between."
"A monochrome rainbow." Adeleke said, sighing. This was the only part of the job that J.T. had ever heard her complain about. Blacks and whites bored her. The smock she wore to protect her shirt- a vibrant green and yellow button up criss-crossed with a bronze chain pattern- was dotted with a rich variety of colorful stains. She must have been working on her personal projects before he had showed up with his slide. He'd seen some of them before; lively and scenic images of crowded cities that she drafted out in her head before painting out on a canvas in the real-world.
When he'd first met her and the other slide-artists, he'd been envious of them. They were able to retain a bit of themselves while on the job, while J.T. had pretty much forced to mask everything about himself. "People are going to remember a cowboy hopping around their heads," Boris Carron had told him after he had forced J.T. to remove his hat. He'd gotten over it by now. "Do you reckon that folks will ever be able to remember things in color?" J.T. asked, not really expecting a serious response.
"It would certainly make my job more interesting," Adeleke answered as she started sketching John Doe's body.
The conversation died a peaceful death as Adeleke focused on replacing Agent Gruggenheim with John Doe. J.T. didn't mind it; it gave him time to relax for a spell before he had to go back into Tringle's mind. J.T.'s missions could be divided into five stages. The first two stages-infiltration of the target's mind and the extraction of the appropriate slide- had already been completed. J.T. was now on stage three, the alteration of the memory into something more beneficial to the Psychonauts (and supposedly the world at large). This was the easiest stage for him, since it didn't require him to do more than wait for the Slide Artist on call to hand it back to him.
The remaining stages involved J.T. replacing the altered slide back into its Vault's reel, and then recalling his astral projection back into his physical body before getting the hell of the dodge. The most difficult parts of the mission had already passed, but that did not mean that J.T. could relax his guard entirely. Things could still go belly-up. J.T.'s biggest concern was that the Denizen he'd interacted with before wrangling the Vault might realize that there was something fishy about a foreign entity coming into her office without her knowledge. She's got a lot of work to catch up on that should keep her occupied, J.T. thought as he stared into his soda can contemplatively. That should be enough to keep her behind her desk. And if it wasn't? Well, J.T. would figure something out.
That figuring kept him occupied as Adeleke drew. Although they did not speak, the studio was not completely silent; there were the soft sounds of pens and brushes going over the slide, the clatter of small objects being dropped and picked up, and the creaks of the chairs as the two occupants of the room shifted in their seats. He only became aware of the noises when they suddenly stopped. J.T. looked up and saw Adeleke with her eyes closed, her mouth a flat line and her brows drawn inward. "Problem?" he asked when she opened her eyes.
A short hesitation came before the answer, letting J.T. know that the message Adeleke had received didn't have anything to do with the mission at hand. "My brother has just been hired as a Slide Artist," she said, sounding equal parts confused and concerned.
J.T. blinked, surprised. The Information Control Unit only ever employed three artists at a time for as long as he'd been working as an Extractor. "Is somebody quitting?" he asked, unable to think of any other reason a new person would have been hired.
Adeleke shook her head. "Not that I'm aware of. He said that he was only doing it part-time."
That was certainly strange. The caseload in Information Control hadn't been any busier than usual. Why add another person onto the team now? "Maybe they're opening up another I.C. branch in one of the other outposts?" he posited, though it sounded unlikely even as he said it.
Adeleke blew out a sigh. "He gave me the news while sitting on a jet coming directly from London to the Motherlobe. Pretty sure he'll be working in this department." She rubbed her eye with the heel of her palm. "I thought that family members weren't allowed to work in the same departments."
J.T. bit back his congratulations, since it didn't seem like Adeleke would share the sentiment. "When does he start?"
"I'm not sure. Some time this week, maybe."
"Oh." J.T. bit the inside of his lip, wondering if he'd be overstepping his boundaries by inquiring further. He and Ojo had got along well enough, but they weren't really friends, and the course of their conversations had never gone past pleasant small talk. One the other hand, J.T. was probably going to be working with her brother real soon- surely she wouldn't his curiosity too offensive circumstances. "Is that, uh, alright with you?" he asked tentatively, broaching the subject as delicately as he could. "Pardon me if I'm gettin' too personal, but you don't sound too enthused about this."
Adeleke shrugged, turning back towards the slide. "Aside from it being very odd that they hired a part-time artist," she said as she resumed the last of her inking, "this isn't the sort of job that would suit him."
J.T. mulled that information over for a second. "Because he's not an artist, or because he's not a sit-down sort of fellow?"
"The latter," Adeleke responded. "He's young, around your age. Sitting around in an office is going to bore him very quickly." She put the pen she was using aside and took up another one. "A more active job in the Architectural Unit would be better. Or even doing Extraction, if he has to work in Informational Control."
J.T. nearly pointed out that they didn't have any openings there, before remembering that Ojo's people hadn't been hurting for help either. "Might be it's just a temporary placement," he said instead. "Higher ups could just be holding him here until a more suitable spot opens up for him."
"Hm, perhaps," Adeleke said, sounding doubtful.
"They had me working with the Mind Clearing teams before they stuck me with this memory-wrangling schtick," J.T. continued. "I was shootin' down Censors before they transferred me over here. Said this place was a better use of my skills."
"And was it?" Adeleke asked.
J.T. shrugged. "I'm still here."
When J.T. arrived back at Tringle's high-level office, he found the Vault right where he had left it, in much the same position. It was still laying on its stomach, with its stubby legs spread out and it's door wide open, though it's tongue had mostly retracted back inside. The final slide of its current reel was visible; it featured Tringle waking up on his couch with a confused expression that only the truly hungover could affect. "Hey there, little buddy," J.T. whispered, standing before the Vault with the missing slide tucked under his arm.
The Vault looked up at him, something akin to bovine interest sparking into the circular knobs that served as its eyes. It was impossible to measure how long J.T. had been away into minutes, since time did not pass in the psyche the way it did in the physical world. At most, it may have been five minutes. J.T. reckoned that it must have felt like five hours to this poor thing, laying in a dejected heap missing one of it's parts. "Look at what I've got," he said as he presented the slide, allowing it to get a good look at the image on it. "I told you I'd be back real quick." The Vault stood up upon seeing its slide. J.T. thought that if it had possessed a tail it would be wagging it pretty fast right about now.
It didn't seem like the Vault noticed anything amiss but he wouldn't know for sure until he tried to put it back into the reel.
Vaults could be funny creatures. Sometimes they kicked up a real row upon seeing him a second time, fearing that he might snatch up another one of their slides. Sometimes they rejected the slides that had been altered, or they struggled against him when he tried to put them back in- he'd had more than one door slam on his arm during the replacement process. The strangest thing that had ever happened to him had occurred on his fifth mission out, when he had discovered the reel he'd taken his slide out of had been replaced by an older memory from the target's childhood that had randomly been recalled.
J.T. thought that the replacement procedure would go smoothly in this case. The Vault had been pretty docile so far, and this slide hadn't been altered enough to cause it any discomfort. He knelt down and began putting the slide back in, setting the upper corners into the frame first, then the bottom corners. It went in easily, securing itself within the Vault's interior cavern. "There we go," J.T. said, placing one hand on top of the Vault while running the other along the edges of the slide to check for gaps. He then shook the Vault a little, to make sure that it wouldn't come loose.
After confirming that the slide was set in properly, J.T. did a quick run through of the entire reel, just to make sure that everything was in order. Once that was done, J.T. firmly shut the door, relief at another job done flowing through him as it clicked shut. Almost done, anyway. He still needed to get out of Tringle's head and make his way back to H.Q. without catching anyone's attention, but that would be simple enough so long as he kept his wits about him. "Alright, buddy," J.T. said, patting the Vault one last time before he rose. "I'm all done messin' with you. Thanks for puttin' up with it."
The Vault merely stood there, which was weird. Normally they scampered off the moment they were shed of him, eager to get back to their aimless hopping. This little critter's strange behavior put J.T. on edge, and he was reluctant to leave until he could be sure that he hadn't scrambled the Vault's wits with all of his tampering. "Go on now," he said, shooing it along. "It's okay."
His reassurance did nothing to encourage the Vault to move about like it should. Instead it shifted slightly to the left, the direction of its gaze focused on something behind him. J.T. glanced back and realized what the Vault wanted the moment he saw the office's closed door. "Oh, I get it. You want to go back to where you were."
The Vault made a rapid little squat motion; the closest it could get to a nod without a neck. If he granted the Vault's request and opened the door, it would skip merrily out into the hall and back into Ms. Cougard's office. That was guaranteed to make the Denizen angrier than a wet hen, which could bring the wrath of any mental defense she might have control of right down on his hatless head. It would also mean breaking his promise to rid her of the Vault that had been having a lot of fun wrecking her workspace. Ms. Cougard may have been downright rude to him, but J.T. had still given his word, and he liked to think that he still had enough integrity for that to matter to him.
On the other hand, leaving the Vault here might upset the balance of the mental ecosystem. Vaults did not manifest in the places that they did for no reason, and one of the rules of the job was that you had to leave the headspace as much unchanged as you could. J.T. had left much worse things behind than a frolicking Vault and an angry boss. "Okay, I'll let you out of here," he said, already reaching into his pocket for his smelling salts- he would have to leave very quickly after unleashing this out into the hall. "But go easy on Ms. Cougard, you hear me?"
The Vault gave no indication that it did. J.T. reached out with telekinesis and turned the knob anyway. The Vault charged the door before it was completely open, nearly knocking J.T. off of his feet and bumping very loudly into the wood on the it's way out.
The last thing J.T. heard before the strong scent of the salts sent him back to his physical body was the outraged scream of a very mad middle manager.
"So I said to the big blue dude, 'look, I don't know where those little psi-chunks came from. This is my friends coat.'"
The deluge of words came to an abrupt stop; the first pause Gabriella Esgarde had taken since she had begun regaling J.T. with the tale of her latest mission the very instant he had walked into their department's breakroom. J.T. took this silence as his chance to turn the Nutribullet on. The blender made quick, if noisy work of the spinach, apple slices, blueberries and ice he had put into it, mixing the contents into a vibrant green concoction. "And what did the big blue fellow say to that?" J.T. asked as he poured the drink into his cup, eyeing the liquid skeptically.
"Oh, are you doing that whole smoothie thing?" Ella said, pointing at his cup as he made his way over to her table. "I tried to get into that but I kept getting really bad brain freeze every time I drank one. Which was weird, because I never put any ice into the mix, since my blender was really old and made this 'grr-grr-grr' sound everytime I used it. And then it did break when my boyfriend put too many carrots in it for this ginger dressing. We still ate it though; it was actually pretty good. Just, really chunky."
J.T. managed not to laugh as he sat down across from her. Gabriella Esgarde's voice sounded like she had sucked the helium out of a balloon, which paired poorly with the silly things that she often said. Her being alone in the breakroom before J.T. had come in was no coincidence. J.T. didn't mind talking to her; her chatter would keep him awake until his boss called him into his office to give his report. "Chops talked me into giving it a shot," he said. He picked up his cup and gave it a sniff-kinda fruity, kinda plasticy. "He says he's had a lot of extra energy since he started drinking 'em daily. Somethin' in the spinach, I don't know."
"Oh, it's probably the green stuff," Ella said, nodding sagely. "That's supposed to be super good for you." She clapped her hands together, her eyes wide with awe behind the lenses of her round, red-framed glasses. "But wow, that's so amazing!"
J.T. looked up, confused. "I ain't committed to anything yet," he said, assuming that Ella was impressed with his decision to live a healthier lifestyle. "To be honest, I'm not sure 'bout the whole drinking your vegetables thing."
"No, I mean that it's amazing that you're still close enough friends with your ex to be taking health advice from him," Ella clarified, beaming sweetly.
"Oh." J.T. felt his cheeks heat up.
"Most people say they're still going to be friends when they break up, but then they aren't," Ella continued, oblivious to J.T.'s growing discomfort. "My cousin tried to be friends with her ex-boyfriend. They'd hang out at Dave and Busters every Friday, but, well, tension just kept building between them. They had too much history. She ended up getting a year in prison for bludgeoning him with a skeeball. It worked out though, because she got together with her cellmate." She made the 'OK' sign with her hand. "Gene's really nice. I hope it lasts."
J.T. rubbed the back of his neck. "That's, uh, really somethin'."
"But you guys are doing a really good job with the whole being friends thing," Ella said. "You can't even tell that there was a break up. Sometimes it's really freakin' obvious; there's just this bad vibe, you know?" She ran her fingers through her short, purple-dyed hair. "Though to be honest, I didn't even know you guys were dating for like, months."
"Hm, yeah." J.T. took a sip of his green drink. The surprisingly fruity taste did little to alleviate the awkwardness he felt at the moment. "So about that big blue guy you were tellin' me about earlier…"
"Oh my God." Ella slapped her hands over her mouth, her face heating up like she'd eaten three habanero chillies at once. "Was it insensitive to bring that up? It totally was, wasn't it? I was just, um, really impressed with how mature you guys are being about everything."
"Now hold up," J.T., said, "don't go gettin' upset now-"
Unfortunately, Ella appeared intent on getting upset anyway. "But then again, it's only been a few months, right? That's too soon to be one-hundred percent over it." She smacked herself on the forehead. "Oh man, I always do this. It's like when I invited both Fitz and Serge out to that new Sushi place; you know, the one that just opened up downtown? It has a big tuna fish on the sign? It's next to that Hookah bar they found all those stolen inhalers in. Anyway, I thought it would be okay, since it's been a year since Serge ate Fitz's goldfish on a dare. Water under the bridge and all that. Except the water was definitely not under the bridge. Hoo-boy." Ella shuddered. "More like water completely wrecked up the bridge. Serge still can't turn his neck that well."
Ella, Ella," J.T. said before she could get her motor mouth running again. "S'fine. I'm not upset." That was sort of a lie but he figured that now wasn't the time to be forward about his emotional state. "Let's just move on, okay. Switch gears."
"Okay." Ella closed her eyes and let her head hang forward, inhaling through her nose. She held the breath for a good ten seconds before letting the air out in a gust that sent her pen rolling off the table onto the floor. "Alright," she said, opening her eyes. "What were we talking about again?"
J.T. picked the fallen pen up with telekinesis and placed it back on the table. "What did the big blue fellow do after he frisked you and found all those chunks of psychic energy in your coat?"
"Oh!" You're not gonna believe it!" Ella exclaimed excitedly. "He took me right to jail! Marched me straight into a cell, without even reciting Miranda's rights or anything." She picked her pen up and began twirling it between her fingers. "And I told him, 'hey, you gotta read me her rights if you're going to arrest me.' He didn't say anything so I started reciting them outloud to myself, you know, to give me some legal protection." She stopped twirling her pen, looking as though something had just occurred to her. "But now that I think about it, this all happened in Leeds. Maybe Miranda hasn't given the British any rights yet."
J.T. laughed. "Well, shoot. Can't say that I know too much about British law."
"I could ask Adeleke next time I see her," Ella said, pressing the point of her pen against her chin. It left a little blue dot on her skin when she pulled it away. "She's from there. Well, I mean, she's from London, but the law there should be the same, since it's all the state of England."
"Er." J.T. did not think that Adeleke would appreciate being interrogated about the British legal system by a girl she had once called a 'chatty little magpie.' Before he could suggest that she just google it, the voice of his boss' secretary popped into his head. Mr. Carron will see you now, Ezikiel Rhodes thought, his voice crispier than the apples J.T. had put into his smoothie.
Gotcha. Be there in two, he thought back as he downed the rest of his drink. He decided that it was pretty good taste-wise, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to go to the trouble of blending up a bunch of stuff anytime he was feeling parched. "Time to go," he said, rising and pushing his chair back in. He set the cup back onto the counter next to the blender (which he would have to come back and clean up- another point against the smoothies) and waved goodbye to Ella. "I'll be back to hear the end of that story soon."
"There's not much more to it, really," Ella said, waving back. "The Vault I was looking for was in the cell with me! Isn't that lucky?" She glanced over at the blender. "And don't worry about that, okay? I can clean it up; I bet you're super tired."
J.T. smiled. "You're a saint, Ella."
Boris Carron, head of the Slide Extraction and Alteration Sector of the Information Control Unit, listened to the verbal report of J.T.'s recently completed mission closely. At no point did interrupt to ask questions or make comments; he merely sat there with his fingers steepled and an expression of intense concentration on his plain, broad face. When J.T. finished, he un-steppled his fingers, unfurrowed his brows, and leaned back in his chair. "That, Agent Hoofburger, was the most boring thing that I've heard all day."
J.T. nodded. "Thank you sir." He spoke without accent, the effort needed to do so now minimal due to years of practice.
"A very routine mission, with everything going according to plan," Carron said with a note of pride in his voice, as though the mission had been accomplished by his own efforts. "No detours, no damage to the target's psyche, and no slide rejections." He raised his hand and drew a horizontal line in the air in front of him. "Smooth sailing from start to finish."
"Uh, yes sir." J.T.'s eyes darted over to the clock hanging on the office's left side wall. It was rectangular in shape and designed to look like the front of a Vault, with the combination lock serving as the clock face. "I always try to do things by the book," he said, hoping that Carron would not keep him here much longer. It was getting on three am and J.T. looking to hit the hay soon.
"I know that," Carron said amicably, hand falling to his desk. The thump that should have resulted from the action was strangely absent. "You've been here what, three years?" He stared at J.T. until he received a nod of confirmation. "Three years, God knows how many missions, and not a single one of them memorable in any way." The corners of Carron's mouth turned upward. J.T. couldn't say the man was smiling, since the rest of his features didn't follow through. "I've always liked that about you."
J.T. straightened his back to prevent himself from sinking into his comfortable chair. "Well sir, I know you don't like the extra paperwork that comes with excitement." He knew that Carron was inching toward some sort of point, and wasn't just praising him to be nice. The exhaustion tugging at him made it difficult to predict what that point would be.
"I also don't like brains being unexpectedly sneezed out," Carron said, traces of humor sneaking into his bland brown eyes. "Let me tell you, it's a real shitshow over in Extensive Reel Manipulation." He leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratolly, as though he was sharing some sort of secret with J.T. "Jones has been resisting every attempt they've made at changing his mind about what happened on Friday. That guy will be lucky if his brain is only half mush by the time those dimwits get done with him."
J.T. was more unnerved by the amusement in his boss' tone than by what he was reporting. "I...sure hope they pull it together over there," he said. That funny feeling he got whenever he talked to Carron for an extended period of time was creeping up on him again; the one where all of his muscles seemed to tighten up of their own accord.
"I'm sure they'll manage to think of some story that Jones' psyche will accept eventually." The way Carron shook his head was reminiscent of a parent recalling the silly antics of their child. "Right now, the only team that doesn't look like a bunch of incompetent assholes is ours."
J.T. glanced at the little wooden sailboat sitting on Carron's desk. "You run a tight ship here, sir."
"I'm lucky to have an excellent crew." Carron's not-smile tightened. "Unfortunately it seems like somebody's trying to rock our little boat."
And there it was. The topic that Carron had actually been intending to broach. "Not sure I follow, sir," J.T. said, as he knew Carron would have no doubt expected him to.
"We've recently received a new addition to our team," Carron said, the casual way he spoke undercut by the tic in his jaw. "Agent Ojo will be working as a Slide Artist with us on a part-time basis starting Wednesday." He let out a cheerless laugh. "Maybe you already heard about it from Agent Ojo."
"She did mention it to me, yes." J.T. bit the inside of his lip, already anticipating a very uncomfortable conversation.
"You know what this guy's first name is?" Carron asked, then answered before J.T. could respond. "Adewumi. Can you believe that? Bad enough that they both have the same last name. Mix-ups are basically guaranteed." He exhaled a sigh of disbelief. "Their parents really should have dug deeper."
J.T. swallowed, wishing that he had another one of his green smoothies to alleviate the dryness in his mouth. "It is sort of strange they're letting siblings work together."
"It's not strange at all," Carron said, his levity gone. "This guy didn't end up with us by accident. Somebody up above pulled some strings."
J.T.'s stomach clenched anxiously. By now he knew that his boss was about to drag him into something that he most definitely did not want to be apart of- agency intrigue. He would have to choose his next words very carefully if he wanted to escape whatever task was in store for him. "With...all due respect sir," he began, trying not to let his nervousness slip into his voice, "are you sure that this isn't some sort of clerical mistake? Maybe he was supposed to go somewhere else, but someone checked the wrong box or filled a blank in wrong."
Carron waved the argument away. "The circumstances are too strange. I could understand a mix-up if we actually needed a new full time person, but suddenly getting a part-timer when I haven't requested anybody? Something is fishy."
"Oh…" There was little J.T. could say to that- he was too tired and too nervous to think of a logical way to counter Carron's conclusions. "So...what are we going to do? Do you need me to find out who ordered him here or…?"
Carron shook his head. "No. I already tried tracing the paper trail and got nothing. Whoever did this knew how to keep their hands ink-free." He made eye contact with J.T. before continuing. "Steele, Torres, Esgarde? They're great, but not who I can rely on with a situation as delicate as this."
J.T. tried very hard not to look away. There was a small spark within Carron's normally impassive gaze, and that it was visible at all told J.T. that Carron was furious about this hiring. Why, J.T. could not even begin to guess. "Uh, thanks?"
"I want you to keep an eye on him," Carron said. "This, Agent Adewumi Ojo. I'm going to try to schedule you two together as much as possible. I want to know if he does or says anything suspicious. If there's so much as a goddamn pen missing after his shift I want to know about it."
J.T.'s mouth dropped open for a second before he regained his control and closed it. There were many reasons why monitoring a co-worker like that was totally messed-up, even without him being the close relative of another one. But J.T. was not used to voicing protests, especially to authority figures, and the one he raised here was weak and vague. "Well, sir, I'm not...not too sure about this. I don't think I'm the right guy for it. Spying in that manner really isn't what I do."
"I'm not asking you to break into his head or anything," Carron said, brushing aside J.T.'s poorly conveyed concerns. "Just watch him. Do what you would do if you spotted any of your other co-workers doing something suspicious."
"Uh...alright." It was not alright, but J.T. didn't have the gumption to do anything but capitulate. "Suppose I could do that." It felt wrong just saying the words. His only hope was that Adeleke would be right about her brother getting bored and transferring out of the department before this whole spying thing got out of hand.
"Excellent." The friendly demeanor was back, like it had never gone away. "Between the two of us, we'll find out what's really going on, and the best way to maintain this good thing our crew has going." He then gave J.T. the same dismissal he always did, as though the previous conversation had never happened. "Good work, Hoofburger. Enjoy the rest of your night- or morning, I guess. Who knows."
And J.T. departed in the same manner that he usually did, albeit a lot wearier.