EPISODE 2.05: BREWED AWAKENING
Summary: LEPfoul is back in business! Artemis traces the origin of the Christmas hack to Italy, Holly has a chat with the marketing agency downstairs, the interns get a new boss, and decaf coffee is awful.
-x-
"Excuse me," said a customer loudly over the counter, interrupting Vedette as she set another pitcher of milk to steam. "I asked for decaf."
She held the pitcher carefully for a few seconds, listening intently to the way air bubbled through the drink - once satisfied, she set the pitcher down against the bar and left it to froth. Only then did Vedette glance up. "It is," she reassured him. "I poured it myself. Definitely decaf."
The young man looked down at his drink in irritation. "I tasted it myself. This is not decaf."
"Would it make you feel any better if I told you that I may or may not have gone over the makeup of the triglyceride compounds involved in our decaffeination process and tweaked them a little bit myself, to make the brew even tastier when it comes out the other end?" Vedette asked brightly, giving Obnoxious Decaf Guy the pasted-on smile that usually allowed her to get away with such statements in public. "Trust me, it's decaf. The beans aren't as glossy when you go to grind them, I took them out of the bag labeled 'decaf,' and then double-checked before I ground them, too. And then I checked again after. Decaf coffees don't have as many oils collecting on the surface of the water, see? You're good, I promise. Nice and caffiene-free." Though I can't imagine why anybody would WANT to be, she thought but didn't say. "Have a nice day, sir," she finished, turning her attention back to the espresso shots she'd queued to pour from her machine. Most customers assumed she was joking when she ran on tangents regarding the chemical processes behind the cafe's signature brews. She supposed that was because she looked too young - or perhaps too chipper - to have any actual knowledge of chemistry. Obnoxious Decaf Guy clearly made no such assumptions, and (unfortunately) had no intention of simply taking his coffee and leaving her alone.
"Good," he said sourly, ignoring the paper cup on the counter before him. "Then you're the person to talk to about this." He pulled a clear plastic bag from the pocket of his coat and held it out over the counter. It seemed to be filled with tiny components usually found on the inside of a computer.
"Uh, I'm not really the best person to talk to about actual technical…" Vedette started, before she recognized the contents of the bag as having come from the inside of her computer. Her personal cube-shaped computer. The computer that she had built and programmed herself. "Hey!"
Apparently satisfied, Obnoxious Decaf Guy tucked the bag back into his coat and waited.
"Ray, can you cover for me? I'm taking an early break." She half-turned toward her co-worker while asking, and then sighed. "And what have I said about those gloves? Clear violation of our health-and-safety standards, as well as our dress code policy. I'm sorry, but they have to go."
"Sure thing, boss. I'll get rid of them right away," responded the young man behind the cash register. He clearly had no intention of disposing of the gloves any time soon, waving once at Obnoxious Decaf Guy before making a dismissive hand motion to shoo Vedette away from the bar. "I'll take over for you. Go!"
-x-
When Dodo returned to the office, she carried a silver box housing an artificial intelligence under one arm. In her other hand was a plastic pouch full of water and guppies. The first thing she did was pour the fish into the aquarium. Then she approached Holly's desk to deliver the AI.
"I found this at my doorstep when I got back from vacation," the dwarf explained, setting the box down gently. "I think Icky rolled halfway across Haven to get there."
"Icky rolled?" Holly asked.
The lights on the box blinked excitedly. "Duuudes, you should have seen me! So I'm full of this gel-stuff because it cushions my brain, right? Turns out if I try really hard, I can shift it! And when I shift the gel, it makes my brain move! And that changes my centre of gravity, so I can move along with my brain."
Holly blinked, processing that mental image. "You're a box, not a sphere. You can't have rolled."
"Well, yeah. I didn't say moving was easy, did I, dudes? If I had literal guts I totally mighta lost my lunch a couple times."
Holly sighed. "You realize that when anyone else moves their brain around like that, it's called a concussion?"
Dodo shrugged. "I tried to explain that to him already. I don't think he understands the concept."
"But that's okay, I'm here now so everything's cool! And I promise not to start anymore revolutions or dance parties. Unless you want a dance party, in which case I could totally provide the music." To demonstrate, catchy Russian pop music began to play from one of his speakers.
A moment later, Caltrop poked his head around the corner. "Can you turn that off? I'm - glub - having barricade flashbacks."
"Barricade?" echoed Dodo. "And what's this about a dance party revolution? I can't make sense of anything Icky says about it."
Caltrop did a double-take. "Dodo! Glub! You're back! I thought you quit." He turned around, yelling to his coworkers. "Sass, Maise, guess what? Dodo's back! She d-didn't quit!"
"Of course I didn't actually quit," Dodo responded, mildly offended that anyone had taken her announcement seriously. "I went on holiday. And would someone mind explaining to me what's happened while I was away this past week? I feel like I've been gone for a year!"
Caltrop considered explaining the past week's events. It was a lot to cover: the barricade, the attempted intern revolution, the conflict with the marketing agency downstairs, the round of mass promotions that had left LEPfoul with only a single intern to their name, and - he remembered discovering Sass and Terrell locked in embrace in the supply closet, shuddered, felt his gill tubes begin to clog, and disappeared from the doorway with a choking sound. Icky's lights dimmed slightly in presumed sympathy.
"Nothing much," began Holly. "Foaly finally gave us the replacement component for our systems so we could trace the hack that occurred over Christmas. Now that we've got a clear location, Artemis is aboveground investigating the guilty Changeling. He's in Italy now. I've got a comm channel set up with him." She gestured to her earpiece, and then remembered something. "Oh, and we promoted everyone. Congratulations, Manager Feldspar, you're now in charge of all the interns in this department. Operatives, I mean. But also the intern. Not myself, of course, and not Artemis because he's technically just a consultant." She reached into a drawer and withdrew a shiny new badge that Dodo took reverently.
"Really?" said Dodo, tilting the badge to the light. "I can't remember ever actually being promoted while on holiday before."
"We realized how important you are to keeping everyone in the office running smoothly," Holly said. "So congrats! Everyone here is your problem now."
Sass, who had only now decided to come investigate all the commotion, groaned loudly. "Does this mean I have to actually start showing up to work on time?"
-x-
By the time Vedette had rounded the counter, Obnoxious Decaf Guy had taken a seat the corner of the store. His coffee sat untouched in the centre of the table. The plastic bag of components lay in a heap beside it.
"Those are mine," she told him unnecessarily.
"Interesting," he said. "They look an awful lot like something that used to be mine."
"No," Vedette said, folding her hands on the table and trying to not feel put-out at the fact that he'd gone to all the trouble of ordering a coffee without apparently having any intention of actually drinking it. "The interesting thing here is that you've got my science fair project disassembled in a plastic bag."
Obnoxious Decaf Guy lifted a single eyebrow. "Odd, since several years ago I also told people that the construction of a cube-shaped computer was a project for a science fair in order to deflect any questions. It was a ruse that -" He coughed, adjusting his tie. "Well, it didn't quite work out for me." After a pause Obnoxious Decaf Guy touched his ear and frowned, apparently listening to something (or somebody) Vedette could not hear. "Apologies. I've just been informed by a reliable source that 'didn't work out for me' is apparently the 'Understatement of the Year,' and I should feel ashamed for saying it."
Vedette could practically hear the two sets of air-quotes.
"Let's start at the beginning. Over Christmas, my office servers got hacked. We've since traced the hack to its source: you. At first I'd believed that the hack had simply been rerouted through your systems, in order to deflect any attention from the real source, so I made an attempt to access those systems in order to see if this was actually the case without having to involve you in the investigation."
"You waited until I left for work, and then broke into my house so you could go through my stuff," Vedette simplified. She could feel her fake-cheerful customer service smile slipping more with every word out of this stranger's mouth.
"And found this on your desk: a computer that's been built nearly to the exact specifications of the blueprints stored on one of my own, hacked systems." Obnoxious Decaf Guy prodded the plastic bag with a fingertip.
"No, you found the fully functional iCube on my desk. It looked nothing like this when I left my room three hours ago."
He grit his teeth. "What did you call it?"
"iCube?"
"It's supposed to be the C-Cube," he said, touching his ear again with a grimace.
"Oh, I thought iCube sounded cuter. Plus it conveys the same idea. You know, 'eyes' can 'see'? It keeps the gist of the pun, but it's just a better name. Not nearly as clunky."
"You're not even attempting to deny any of this," he said, and then blinked. "Why aren't you attempting to deny any of this?"
"Well," Vedette said brightly, "Taking technology that isn't mine, building a new and improved device out of it, and then attempting to claim all credit for that invention by myself? That'd be super unethical, and likely to end really badly."
"You don't say."
"Oh, I definitely do say. I guess I'd even say that, well…" She reached for the paper cup, taking a huge swig of coffee before finishing her sentence. The cafe's decaf blend, even after her best interventions, really was awful. "If I did that, it probably wouldn't work out for me. And that's an understatement."
-x-
Holly was laughing so hard that it took Artemis three tries to catch her attention through the comm: "Holly? Might be time for that talk with the downstairs neighbours. Holly? Captain Short!"
"Understatement," she snickered. "I'm sorry. I think it just hit me that we are dealing with people every bit as smart as you are."
"Yes, ha ha," said Artemis, not at all amused. A confused Vedette opened her mouth and he held up a finger, turning in his chair to continue his conversation with Holly. "The hackers, Holly. Amateurs they may be, and they would not be a threat if not for their Changeling contacts, but clearly they've started leaking isolated packets of information about instances of interspecies contact. Worse, they have stripped it of any context that would clarify the consequences of said incidents. We need to stop this before it spirals any further out of control."
"Which is what I've been saying for weeks," Holly grumbled. "Have I finally gotten your permission, oh great consultant?"
Artemis could have reminded her that, while their department's systems were crippled from the Christmas hack and unable to stand up against scrutiny, passively gathering information from afar had been the wisest course of action. Watching the hackers act while they were unaware they were being observed had been a valuable opportunity to figure out exactly who - and what - they were up against. He also could have pointed out that there was little point in denying her permission, as Holly had certainly never needed anything of the sort before. She'd have acted on her own accord weeks ago if she disagreed with his logic, and they both knew it.
However, it turned out that Artemis was smart enough not to take that bait. Instead he just rolled his eyes, and turned back to face Vedette. "Fine. Let's have it your way. Why don't you tell me everything you know about the People?"
-x-
"Wait, you're leaving already! But I just got here!" Icky yelped as Holly stood up. "Where are you going?"
Disregarding the AI, Holly strode into the main office. "Caltrop," she said, "I'm heading downstairs to talk to the hackers. Keep an eye on our servers to make sure we don't get hacked again while I'm gone."
"Y-you're just going to talk with them?" asked Caltrop. "You - glub - think that'll just make them stop?"
"Oh, no. I definitely don't think that'll be enough to make them stop." She grinned. "We're going to shut them down no matter what it takes. I have no problem arresting every fairy in that office, and I'd have done it by now if they'd stuck their toes far enough out of line for me to do so without explaining the entire Changeling situation to the LEP. Now, I figure I'll give them a courtesy visit first."
"Oh, I see," said Caltrop, still unsettled. Then, "W-w-wait, you found them?"
Holly shrugged. "There's a reason Artemis chose this office space for us. Think about our downstairs neighbors - what do marketers even do all day, and why on earth would they need an entire office to do it in? They're your hacker friends. We've known this since day one."
"I thought we were here because the previous tenants had just gone bankrupt?" Caltrop blinked. "Wait - my friends are here? My internet friends stormed our office and forced us to build a barricade to defend ourselves?"
"They've been trying all sorts of tricks to figure out what we're up to. That strawberry Juliet took from their offices was actually a surveillance device that they've been trying to retrieve ever since. And you already know that Maise was originally a spy for their cause."
"I was the only one who thought she wasn't a spy!" Caltrop wailed, casting an injured glance across the room. "I defended her!" Maise had the grace to sink down in her chair and attempt to hide behind her hair, mumbling something that may have been an apology.
"And the tenants before us didn't just move. They were bought out and moved to a nicer premises," said Holly. "I'm sorry, Chlorella. This is why you shouldn't trust strangers you meet online."
With that, Holly continued out into the hall, leaving Caltrop to process everything on his own. "The hackers," he said, "They were the - glub - of course they - blub - would -" He cut off with a yelp as something heavy landed on his toe.
"Oops," said Icky. "Sorry. Just passing through, dude!"
Maise mumbled something else, probably another apology to Caltrop.
"That's right!" agreed Icky cheerfully, tilting on its side. The cube wavered for a moment, and then tipped over with a thud. "I can move by myself. See? It's okay, you can stay right where you are. I'll follow 'em and find out what's going on with our neighbors."
Maise made a skeptical sound.
"Of course it's safe," the AI argued, right before toppling once more. This time it slammed against the leg of Dodo's desk. Her fish tank wobbled. The dwarf reached to lift the glass out of harm's way, scowling.
"Those are my fish," she said primly. "It may be a mistake, but I am trusting this office not to kill them."
Maise made another skeptical sound, before bending out of her chair to scoop Icky up and set him on the edge of her own desk.
"Thank you, dear," said Dodo, replacing the fish on the desk corner. "As for you -" she said, turning back to the AI. "You stay right here. You've had enough mobility for the day."
Caltrop was still coming to terms with Holly's revelation. "Sass," he called. "Did you know about this?"
The centaur flipped her neon blue hair, glowering. "I most certainly did not."
-x-
Downstairs, Holly had wasted no time getting in an argument with Terrell.
Like Vedette, the centaur hadn't even bothered denying any of the accusations levelled against him. Unlike the barista, he had a habit of stamping his hooves as he spoke, alternating left and right with each syllable. "No! We're fairies for change! We want to bring fairy and human societies together once more. It's time the People returned to the surface of the planet! It's time we properly reveal ourselves to the humans so our cultures can learn to coexist in harmony."
Holly groaned. "Humans are all well and good in concept. But have you ever spent time in close proximity with one? Because I live with one, and it's not all fun and games. He literally built an entire machine just to get out of doing the dishes."
"See! You cohabitate peacefully!"
"'Peaceful' is a stretch," said Holly. "As is 'cohabitate.' Let me simplify this." She pulled out her tablet and selected one of the books stored in its memory. "Here. Pick a page, any page."
Skeptical, Terrell took the tablet and poked at the screen.
"Read it aloud," Holly prompted.
"'The bank in question was one of the most guarded in the human world,'" Terrell read. "'This fact did not at all deter Artemis; rather, he took it as a challenge. Using a recording of his own mother's voice to…'" He stopped reading. "Clearly, I chose an unfortunate passage."
"Clearly," repeated Holly wryly. She nodded to the tablet. "Pick another."
He did. "'The Extinctionists were a human group devoted solely to the eradication of endangered species. Because of this, handing the lemur over to their custody was certain to guarantee the small creature's death - yet, Fowl did it anyways.'" Terrell coughed and then, unprompted, flipped to a new passage. "'To this day, Fowl expresses dismay over the ability of his fragmented subconscious to evoke the hallucination of a squid roughly the size of a blue whale. Of course, the reader can be left to make their own assumptions regarding exactly what horrors this human's mind - conscious or otherwise - is actually capable of conjuring.'"
He set the tablet down and gave Holly a searching look. "A giant squid? Clearly this entire book is a work of fiction."
The elf raised a single eyebrow.
"Well, I mean, it must be," continued Terrell, less sure of himself. Slightly unsettled, he poked at the screen again, sliding one finger along the scroll bar to find a passage closer to the beginning of the book. His eyes flickered as he read the scene silently to himself before blurting, "There is no way a thirteen year old human kid shot his own father in front of the Russian mafia!"
Holly frowned. "I hope he didn't tell Argon that he pulled the trigger himself, because he definitely made somebody else do that part. His aim was nowhere near good enough to pull off that shot. He just stood back and watched the chaos ensue."
Frustrated, Terrell slid the tablet back across the table toward her. "Well clearly this author is biased."
Holly laughed. "Actually, Argon is the only psychiatrist that hasn't had a mental breakdown after dealing with Artemis. They may not be friends, but they both have a healthy respect for each other."
The centaur was beginning to grasp at straws. "Maybe that human is just a bad egg. All species have them."
"That human is one of the best humans I have ever met," Holly countered immediately.
Terrell sat in silence for a minute, processing the backhanded compliment. Finally, he told her, "Well, that's racist."
-x-
Artemis was having the same conversation with Vedette, but in reverse. "No, really. You don't know what you're asking for. If humanity were to learn of the People, it would devolve into chaos."
"But they're fairies," Vedette protested, taking another sip of coffee. "They can't actually be that bad. There's so much we could learn from them!"
"Have you ever met one? Flame-throwing goblins. Mind-bogglingly stupid flame-throwing goblins, who attempt to run crime syndicates in their spare time. This goes about as well as you'd expect. Carnivorous cave trolls, with poisonous tusks. And yes, they are smarter than the goblins. Dwarves with hair that can actually be crafted into tools, the ability to tunnel their way into nearly any location, and a digestive system that can break down even diamonds if given the time to do so. And that's saying nothing of their flatulence. Swear toads - those are exactly what they sound like, by the way. Toads that swear incessantly and reproduce non-stop. They're actually quite a problem for the People, so it's a blessing that they're confined to life underground. Oh. And there's elves."
"Elves? Those don't sound so bad."
Artemis fixed her with a dead stare. "Elves are the worst." He paused, blinked as though his entire life had flashed before his eyes, and then continued. "Biggest threat of all, if the situation were to escalate to conflict. They're incredibly bright, almost impossibly resourceful when cornered, and altogether too stubborn. I've seen one elf in particular cheat death more times than I can count, simply by refusing to accept it. I think I would rather face down another dozen trolls than have an elf mad at me."
-x-
Holly was having a difficult time controlling her anger. "You can't be this stupid! Your plan to bring together our two worlds would lead to nothing but trouble and war. Do you have any idea -"
"Let me through!" brayed an loud and familiar voice from outside the room. This was followed by a loud clatter, a shriek of protest, and the thud of hooves falling against a door. The door in question swung open, and Sass barged into the room.
"A hacker!?" she shouted. "You are one of the hackers? Bad enough that you were leader of the marketers, but to find out you're actually a part of the hacker group we have been battling from the start? You're the reason I have to put up with Caltrop!"
"Who?" asked Terrell, backing up. "Or, uh, what is a Caltrop?"
"Don't you dare! This is all your fault! All of this is your fault. What are you trying to do, anyway? Change the world? And you couldn't even tell me?"
In the face of Sass's fury, Holly's own anger seemed insignificant. "Um, Sass, could you wait outside?"
"I thought we had something, Terrell!"
Holly swore loudly, eyes darting around the room as though searching for a place to hide.
"No!" yelped Terrell. "I mean, we do! I like you, Sass. I really like you!"
Undeterred, Sass stormed around the table. "Yet you couldn't even ask me to change the world at your side? Did you think I wouldn't be able to embrace your extreme ideology? I want change! I want chaos! Why do you think I was attracted to you in the first place? Chaos! Revolution! But you couldn't even share this with me?"
Terrell gulped. "Well, it wasn't like this was ever going to actually happen, Sass! Be realistic! It was a pipe dream! A hobby! Actually making contact with humans - that wasn't supposed to happen! It just kind of snowballed out of control on us. We didn't expect any of them to actually believe us, and even if they did, we didn't expect them to be bright enough to actually do anything about it!"
"What?"
"I mean, have you ever met a human?"
-x-
"You may be right," Vedette conceded, tipping her head to the side. "You might not, though. Time will tell? It's kind of too late to do anything about it. Phase one starts tomorrow."
"What?"
-x-
"It wasn't my idea," protested Terrell.
Holly's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
"Um. There's this Russian pop artist - you may have heard his music before? We've been playing it around the office for weeks."
Holly thought back to the revolution and cringed. "I don't like where this is going."
-x-
"I don't listen to music," retorted Artemis.
"Even so," said Vedette. "Everyone's heard his stuff. Dorian Maslov. You know, that Russian musician that's been everywhere lately? Pop artist who's already made it big in Europe, now poised to finally make his worldwide breakthrough. Interspecies breakthrough, even, I guess you could say now. He's the linguist who translated the fairy language in the first place for me, back when he was still gaining traction so he had time to spare on things other than his career. And he's playing a huge concert tomorrow. Biggest venue yet, and he's got some new material he's definitely ready to debut."
-x-
Author's Notes:
Whoops. - Freud
Turns out it's been a year since our last update. Which, uh, well, was completely unintentional. A small team of side characters that we were going to introduce in a webisode later on suddenly started demanding a whole book of their own. So we thought that wouldn't be a huge deal, we could write it in a matter of months and then come back to LEPfoul. But then these characters started making puppy dog eyes because they wanted a whole trilogy. And for some odd reason, we decided to give it to them.
Turns out, we are weak in the face of ragtag teams of misfits. Who knew?
Aside from that, both Freud and I finished our bachelor degrees, woot! You might have been able to tell - one of us is a marketer and the other one a psychologist who currently works as a barista. And then the summer got busy with post-degree life changes. Apparently being done with school can lead to less writing? (Although hopefully, that is soon to change!) - Winged
As previously stated, "whoops" is about the most accurate summary - and apology - that we can give! If you're still reading, thank you so much. Seriously, it means the world to us. - Freud