As much as she was loathe to admit it, the humans weren't wrong about moral work — it wasn't something that paid well. Foaly had recently pulled up the data comparing their old paycheck at LEP to their Section 8 pay, and the numbers were glaringly in favor of the LEP. Vinaya was many things, Holly mused as she sipped on her protein shake, but a bureaucrat was not one of them.
Finishing her breakfast, she set her mug on the employee sink, being careful not to touch the various glasses and beakers that Foaly had left to collect mold. Using the end of her index finger, she gently shifted one of the less toxic looking dishes to the side to make room for her own. She shuddered and wiped her hand on her button up.
"You know," she called out, poking her head through the door that connected the "kitchen" to the hall. "I think you should be more worried about getting bumped off by the fact that you're washing lab glassware in the same place as our leftover containers"
"Fine," she heard Foaly's muffled response from inside one of the many rooms in their office building. "You can tell Vinaya that she needs to get a working autoclave, then."
Holly snorted under her breath. "No thanks," she said, following the sound of his frantic tapping away at his keyboard.
Poking her head into his room, she rapped her right hand's knuckles against the door frame. She tried to not look at the war zone of beakers and circuitboards that lay scattered over his desks amongst paperwork. She moved her gaze towards Foaly, who was staring, lips pursed and the tips of his ears twitching, at the soft blue glow of his monitor. Holly moved some of the debris from the desk nearest to the door and lifted herself onto it. She crossed her legs and picked up a random sheet of paper, pretending to be immersed in it.
"PAC versus support vector machines in driving AI: The pros and cons," Holly read out, scratching the space of her neck below her left ear casually. "This is my favorite piece of light reading," she grinned, moving to hold it father away from Foaly when he clicked his tongue in annoyance and reached for it.
"I can't tell if you're more or less annoying when you don't have the rest of the LEP jock posse to cause trouble with — reference to our beloved friend Captain Kelp completely unintentional," Foaly sighed, and Holly laughed as she handed over the paper.
"We had to pass the same written exam to get in the door for the hiring process," she reminded him, letting one of her legs fall off the side of the table and swing idly. "It's not my fault I can do a push-up and you can't."
Snorting, Foaly filed the essay away with care by pushing it into another pile of wrinkled papers. He rolled his eyes. "Touché."
He went back to tapping away at his keyboard, and Holly allowed her gaze to wander around his office. All things considered, it wasn't very nice looking. Foaly had probably created the mess to cover as much of the space as possible. That hadn't helped.
After the mystique surrounding Section 8 had faded, Holly found that her job was not altogether that different from life at LEP. Before LEP had undergone renovations at their headquarters, the building had been older. Holly liked that. When Root had signed off on the expansion plan with Koboi Tech a while back, Holly had initially been thrilled. Of course, her current feelings on the matter were probably influenced by her recent history with Opal, but she had disliked the new layout even before the Koboi heir had made her bloodthirsty business strategies a bit more literal.
The new building was just too… clean. It felt sterile, like a hospital. Holly shuddered. The People were meant to be children of the Earth. It was no wonder the competition for aboveground missions had become un-bleeping-tenable these past few years — she sometimes thought she'd lose it completely if she had to spend one more day under LEDs instead of moonlight.
However, there's only so much natural world that was fit for use in the core. She would admit, albeit begrudgingly, that it cost less to 3D print the skeleton of buildings and slot the pieces together with construction warlocks than it did to mine for sturdy pieces of igneous rock in the magma deposits.
Section 8 was all that remained of the administrative buildings of one of those very such mining sites — the entrance through the cave system still had some decommissioned equipment from a few centuries ago, and Vinaya had told Holly that she had a betting pool going on with Mulch on how long it would be before Foaly tried to cannibalize the machines for working parts. Holly had given the highest estimate, letting Foaly know immediately after so that they could split the winnings. Still, she doubted he'd be able to hold out for the month they had until they were in the clear, unless she managed to convince him to go to Haven's electronic junkyard and scavenge the parts he needed from there. He claimed that was undignified, but he'd have to come to terms with the fact that they lacked the bells and whistles of their old jobs soon, she reasoned.
She continued to noncommittally watch Foaly type away with vigor. "Found anything?" she tried after a moment, as Foaly had seemed to be completely engrossed in his work.
Holly picked up another document that was hanging precariously off the side of the table. This one appeared to be a printed-out copy of an email chain with Artemis. She put the paper back down. He or Foaly were most likely being unbearable in that exchange, and it wasn't out of the realm of possibilities that both of them were being awful at the same time, either. Academia was apparently one of those kinds of shared interests that made all parties involved quite hostile to one another. It was strange. After all, you didn't see her and Butler getting territorial about who was the better shot. Obviously, Holly was the clear winner in that regards, and they both were at peace with that.
"Define 'anything'," Foaly all but grunted back, not looking up from his work.
"Fine. Have you found something that's making you paranoid and antisocial, or did you not get enough beauty sleep last night?"
Foaly looked up. "I think you'll find my coat has had quite the healthy sheen lately," he shot back a tad defensively. "I think you'll find I look quite fetching even during my all-nighters."
Holly snorted. "If Caballine weren't dating you, I worry that you'd slowly morph into a gremlin."
He gave her a dirty look. "And I guess I have to worry about that happening to you now that Lilli and Trouble are no longer our coworkers?"
"Shut up," Holly's ears reddened.
Foaly all but cooed, completely delighted to no longer be the subject of their teasing. "It's hilarious you're related to Cupid, it really is," he chuckled, finally rising to face her from the ottoman desk chair by which his computer lay. "You're quite shite at romance."
She crossed her arms. "A guy meets his first real girlfriend and gets cocky now, hm?" she griped.
He smirked. "Sensitive. And per your earlier question, my something concerning is actually a someone—"
"Artemis," she offered bluntly.
Foaly sighed. "Yeah, it's Artemis."
"It always is," Holly grinned. "I appreciate his consistency."
Foaly shrugged and reached for various papers. "I sure as hell don't," he sighed, bringing his reading glasses to rest on the bridge of his nose as he tried to decide between two documents. "It's actually quite annoying."
Once he found what he needed, he crowed victoriously.
"Alright, here we go," he began, shuffling the papers slightly. "All the work we've been doing here for the past few months? You know, that? Worthless. Completely negated."
Holly blinked. "What?"
Sighing, Foaly handed her a stack of documents. She raised an eyebrow, and he gestured in annoyance for her to look. Fine. She glanced down, her eyes ghosting over the set of papers in her hands.
One was a travel log, she assumed. Holly squinted, concentrating. The second paper seemed to be something within the realm of theoretical physics. She shuffled that one to the bottom of the pile. Not today, Foaly, not today.
The final paper was completely incomprehensible. It was covered in a mishmash of English and Gnomish words and numbers, and there didn't seem to be any guiding theme behind the text before her. She quirked a brow upwards, glancing at Foaly for further explanation. He offered none. Fine, then. If he wanted to be difficult…
"You're right, Artemis does seem to be going on a disturbingly frequent amount of vacations. We should talk to him about that, though, because losing track of him after he goes backpacking in Europe and gets mugged would be unfortunate —"
"Take this seriously, Holly!" Foaly complained. It would've been more accurate to describe his actions as veering into whining territory, but Holly was feeling generous with her internal monologue today. The protein shake really did make a difference in her mood.
She held up her palms placatingly. "Fine, fine. I'm sorry that I don't think Artemis researching the multiverse theory and taking a few sabbaticals here and there means that he's cracked the code on finding the 8th family. He probably saw some of your work for Section 8 when he was rummaging through your hard drive and got curious."
She snapped her fingers suddenly. "Oh, wait, that actually sounds reasonable, so clearly I'm on the wrong path." Foaly looked dour at that statement.
Sighing, Holly shoved her hands into the pockets of her slacks. "Face it, Foaly, in a weird way he — well, I wouldn't say that he looks up to you," she amended before Foaly could interrupt. "But he certainly admires your intelligence in his own way. Just send him an email and compare notes so that we can all stop digging around in each other's digital trash. He's already contributed enough to global warming as it is with all the jet fuel this travel log says that he's wasted."
Foaly sighed, massaging the worry lines that were forming at his brow. He was too young to be this stressed — clocking in at two centuries and a half, Foaly felt each and every second of his age. He should probably invest in some eye cream soon, he thought gloomily. His eyebags were beginning to develop smaller, carry-on versions of their parent bags.
"Fine," he threw up his hands. "I'll send him an email."
Holly nodded, pleased. "Good," she said approvingly. "He'll like—"
Artemis blinked. "Why would I want Foaly to send me an email?"
"Oh, you're such a shit — see," Foaly swore, wildly gesticulating at Artemis while glaring at Holly. "That's what you get when you try to be nice to him!"
Holly stared at Artemis. She looked at Foaly, waiting for his brain to catch up to speed with the situation. She didn't have to wait long.
"I — why are you in my office?" Foaly realized suddenly, his tone deadpan as his eyes narrowed.
Artemis took in a shaky breath, looking around the room. Holly could see that he was covered in what appeared to be soot and slime.
"Because I am very, very lucky," he offered, leaning his weight against the desk on which Holly was perched. Foaly looked equal parts vindicated and horrified. If she wasn't going to have to eventually deal with whatever mess Artemis had gotten himself into, Holly thought, she would've found this whole situation quite funny.
She recrossed her legs on the table and grabbed one of the papers that Foaly had handed her earlier. "You are lucky, I would agree. Dimension hopping without Butler just seems like you're tempting fate, though." She handed Artemis the article on theoretical physics that Foaly had offered up as proof of Artemis meddling with things that he shouldn't. Points to Foaly, she internally sighed.
Artemis laughed, but it came out nervous and pitchy. "I didn't have time to bring him with me, unfortunately."
Holly's ears perked up and she frowned. "Wait, is he—"
"Fine, he's fine," Artemis clarified quickly.
Holly relaxed. "Good."
Foaly seemed to shake himself, his face turning to one of confusion. "But why…," he began, voice trailing off
Artemis held up his right arm, and the cufflinks on his shirt glinted in a way that indicated they were expensive. "It was the silver," he said almost reverently, and Holly found herself unable to tear her gaze away from the precious metal. "That's what you were missing in your notes. It was silver."