4. An assistant's life
Nothing could be easy could it? All Miss Pauling had wanted was a bubble bath, some relaxing music and a new novel this evening but nope, couldn't happen. She had finished work, she had no hours after seven scheduled but one phone call from the administrator and she had to be in a crappy smelling van, going to a crappy smelling base, to be surrounded by crappy smelling people.
And what happens when you are surrounded by crappy smelling people who kill each other for a living? Oh, nothing much, just you know getting soaked to the bone by sprinklers set off by an exploding teleporter. And that wasn't even the unusual part, no. Teleporters explode all the time because Mann co makes shitty products that end up costing more in repairs then installing them did. No, the big issue was that THERE'S A WHOLE BUNCH OF HEAVILY ARMED STRANGE WOMEN RUNNING LOOSE IN THE BASE.
" Today is not my day." Miss Pauling gritted her teeth as she surveyed the room. Ceiling sprinklers were dousing everything in sight, alarms and lights were flashing while the medic and some strange Indian woman dressed like the medic were running around like chickens without heads because a teleporter was on fire and so was most of the lab equipment. Ceiling sprinklers took care of the flames, and an engineer who was peculiarly small shut off the alarms but Medic was still shrieking in panicked German.
"Feuer, Feuer im Labor!"
" Medic, chill out the fire's gone! Will someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?"
" I donno I'm jus' as befuddled as you." A brunette with a new york accent answered. She had met Miss Pauling at the door, and followed her through the base the whole time making fairly cheesy compliments. Miss Pauling had only responded by rolling her eyes, but seriously? You're in a mercenary base you're not supposed to know exists, dressed like a mercenary yourself, and you start hitting on the first person to come in from the outside world? Not even an explanation to your presence, just shallow things about how someone's ass is nice?
Even though Miss Pauling secretly prided herself on that very ass it did not make it okay to not explain yourself. She exasperatedly stuck two fingers in her mouth making a shrill whistle that could have made a cab two miles away stop for passengers. All activity in the lab halted abruptly.
" I am having a terrible night so far so you people better start explaining. Why did a teleporter explode, why are there a bunch of women dressed like mercenaries here, and- god dammit if you are touching my ass I am going to make you disappear in such a way they will never even find teeth!" Her voice rose to a shout in the last few words, and the brunette backed away with her hands in the air.
" Fraulein Pauling, Frauen unserer Klassen haben hier aus einer anderen Dimension angesaugt und wir versuchten, sie nach Hause zu schicken, wenn -" The male medic began spouting rapidly but Miss Pauling cut him off
" Please, English Medic. My German's rusty and I think I'm feeling a headache start." She rubbed her temples, feeling an ache behind her eyes. Medic took a deep breath, and then began speaking slower.
" Ze engineer und I accidentally teleported ze red team from un alternate univers vere ze members uff our classes are females. Ve vere trying to teleport zem home but-" He waved his hand helplessly at the teleporter. "Somezing vent wrong."
" I'm not drunk enough for this." Miss Pauling sighed. First the thing with the bread a few weeks ago, now this? She'd permanently abandoned disbelief with this job, and she didn't doubt the team's capability but… can anyone here give a little warning when they're about to do something totally crazy?
" Fraulein, forgive me, but vhy are you here?" The medic interrupted her internal sulking.
" I don't know. Administrator called me, something about a check in visit which I've never done before but whatever. Sent me over to the base in a company van. Oh, god what am I going to tell her about this? You know she'll blow a gasket about all theses girls and then I'm probably going to have to assassinate them!"
" You could lie about it." A familiar voice chimed in from the doorway. Miss Pauling turned, and among several others clustered in the hall she saw the male scout.
" Scout, have you ever heard of anyone lying to the administrator?"
" Well, no but-"
" Exactly. Because she always knows when people are lying to her, and I ' take care of' them, including burning all records of the incident. I would prefer not to be reduced to a few ashes of my file cluttering up the fireplace of her new assistant after they've disposed of my body."
That presented problems, but Dell's quiet voice rang from the other side of the medibay.
" You don't have to lie. Just wait here until we fix the teleporter and send the other team home. When you go back say there was a slight problem, but it's all taken care of. If this is a check in thing I assume she wants you to correct any issues."
" There are so many holes in that plan it may as well be the ozone layer, but since I won't technically be lying to her and I don't want to be killing even more people this weekend I'll roll with it." Miss Pauling knew there was a bathtub somewhere in this base, maybe one of these ruffians had a bar of soap. Her evening could still be salvaged. " What's the time estimate on getting this teleporter working?"
" Vith ze explosion? At least five days." She groaned internally, but out loud only said
" Fine, fine. I'm going to take a bath." And stormed off. Five days here, good thing she didn't have any social life.
…...
Several hours later, the male medic was alone in his medibay. It's pristine white tables had been scorched from the fire, walls burned, tools destroyed. He would have been fairly upset about this if he wasn't so interested in the charred remnants of the teleporters inner workings.
The engineers and female medic had retired long ago, it was late enough to be considered early morning but there was something fascinating about this…
" Zese vires are all out of place." He mumbled to himself, his fingers probing the ashen gadgetry. No wonder the thing had exploded, it looked like someone had yanked a bunch of random wires out and jammed them into plugs they didn't belong in.
If he didn't know better, he'd almost say it was sabotage.