'My deepest condolences on the loss of your team member,' a deep, aged voice spoke. Blinx and his two remaining team mates stood in an office decorated in dark wood furniture and old upholstery. The room itself was fairly large, a few second's walk from one side to the other. Each wall, except one, complete with shelving. The last wall was, in fact, a massive glass sheet looking down on the Time Factory's large conveyer belted corridor, the length of which stretched to the horizon and beyond. Around twelve feet from the glass sheet stood a large ornate desk, neatly piled with paperwork, stationary, and a tray, sitting four glasses and a pitcher of water. The bookshelves from the far side of the room up to the desk was filled with artifacts and random exhibits from many of the worlds that the Time Factory supplies. The shelving from the desk to the window housed a selection of books, from binders containing important paperwork, to non-fiction reference material. The room itself was complete with the one who worked inside of it; imposingly tall, moustached, and nearly pure white fur. He poured from the pitcher into all four of the glasses. He grabbed his own glass with one hand, and waved his other hand as a silent offer to each of the sweepers for a drink. He promptly sat down to finish what he was saying: '...But I am afraid that coming directly to me in the hopes that I grant permission for you to act outside of standard rescue protocol shall bare you no fruit.' He swilled his drink around the glass in a slow, controlled manner. 'Now,' He bolted, placing the glass on the counter and reaching toward the paperwork, 'Whilst you three are here, we best start talking about Mister Justice's replacement.'
'Excuse me?' Skitch asked. His eyebrows both raising in shock as he did so.
'It's only going to start as a temporary role, I assure you. Just to fill your roster to four; the protocol is clear in that area, too. Teams must consist of exactly four members.' He replied, pointing in Skitch's general direction. Skye, hearing this, darted her eyes between Blinx and the one who was sat behind the desk. Blinx met Skye's eyes calmly and slowly nodded.
'CEO, perhaps we can look past the four person party rule, considering that Kevin and Skye are romantically involved. It wouldn't feel right having someone in his place, even for a second.' Blinx suggested, in an effort to compromise. The CEO, still sat in his chair, looked away from the sweepers and hummed to himself.
'Romantic couples in the same sweeper team are fairly uncommon. And trust does seem to weigh heavily in a team's decision making capabilities...' The CEO looked to the paperwork again. 'Perhaps, just this once, I can offer on compassionate grounds some sort of bending of the rules and allow your team to operate as a unit of three.' This made all the sweepers' bolt open. 'I have faith you'll keep an even closer eye on each other, now you're one member down. Is that all?' The three sweepers nodded. 'Very well, now go and get some rest, you'll have more work available later.'
The three sweepers had left the ornate office of the Time Factory's CEO, and walked through the small office corridors, with checker plated flooring, blue and orange metalwork level with the tops of the many door frames, and a distinct lack of clockwork on the ceiling that would be expected of the large corridor that would house the gate rooms. 'That could have gone better.' Skye quietly dismayed, positioned on Blinx's left.
'There has to be something else we can do.' Blinx chirped in response, poised for action. Skitch, walking on Blinx's right-hand side, scrunched his lips together, and pulled his eyes to the right. He held his face like that for a small while before snapping back to the other two.
'Maybe there is,' Skitch opened, swinging his body round in front of Blinx and Skye, walking backwards whilst doing so. 'Each portal has a programmed destination; if we can change said program, we can get back into the ice caves.' The group stopped their walking. Blinx lowered his eyes to Skitch, who looked unusually excited by the matter. 'You should talk to Aniki, Blinx. Given you two are on good terms, he may just humour you.'
'Skitch, what you're suggesting is a big risk for us. I don't know if I can keep us working on the floor when we get caught.' Blinx's response had an air of sadness amongst the worry. His gaze hinted at both severity and remorse. Skye turned to Blinx, arms bunched close to her sides, hands holding themselves a few inches out from her sternum.
'Blinx, this is all we have right now.' Skye reminded in a voice quiet and cracked. Blinx looked back and forth between Skye and Skitch a couple of times before humming in agreement to them. Skye let out a worried smile; and Skitch cackled excitedly.
The trio found themselves stood in line at the Time Factory's cafeteria. The room itself stood nearly a hundred feet wide, close to five hundred feet long, and had three floors of seating. Each of the many benches in the cafeteria had a max capacity of eight sweepers, four per side, seperated by an attached table. The benches were tightly arranged for maximum seating capacity. Despite the densely packed arrangement, available seating seemed low, with most spots filled by the diverse population of sweepers, all ranging in colours, sizes, and fur types.
Blinx stood at the front of his team. Patiently waiting for their turn. Skitch stood directly behind Blinx, jostling his clothes in discomfort. He would pause for a second, before shifting the fabric once more. Blinx tilted his head out of the line and noticed four familiar sweepers, donning all black, walking in his direction. Roland, once again in the front of his team, didn't speak to Blinx as he walked past. Instead giving him a wink as he passed. Behind Roland was the purple sweeper, Chesh, who only gave Blinx a glance. Behind Chesh, Minden pulled up his fist and made eye contact with Skitch, who met Minden's fist with his own.
The last sweeper, bearing thick, mostly black fur, walked past without much action or reaction. Skitch caught the sweeper's eye and immediately felt uneasy. Their general build seemed to differ greatly from the rest of the sweepers. Slightly taller, slightly slimmer, slightly longer limbs, even their head shape was different to the status quo, with a longer, narrower snout; longer, sharper ears, and much shorter whiskers. The sweeper's black fur was decorated with white countershading, and a white snout, leading to a white stripe up the bridge of his nose, fading into the black just above his eyes. The sweeper looked straight forward again, his pupils shrinking rather than turning to slits, indicative of a silent panic that was setting into the sweeper Skitch was looking at. Skitch gasped, and tried to whisper to Blinx to get his attention.
Blinx was not listening, he instead realised that sweepers normally don't walk against the direction of the line, prompting him to stretch half of his body out to look in front of him, there he saw a familiar sweeper, sporting grey fur, a green jacket, red trousers, and a green hat. Without looking away, Blinx spoke to Skitch, 'Cover my spot a second, Skitch. I'll be back.' Blinx walked out of the line, and alongside everyone stood inside it. Skitch, frustratedly, called out to Blinx to ask what he was going to order. Without a break in his step, Blinx responded with a simple 'Don't worry, I'll be right back.'
The green-clad sweeper caught sight of Blinx coming toward him, and greeted him warmly. Blinx did the same, immediately smiling at him. The sweeper asked how he could help Blinx, Blinx chuckled sheepishly in return. 'Aniki, odd question, but where would one find detailed instruction manuals for Time Factory equipment?' The sweeper looked at Blinx with a curious, yet skeptical face.
'Most of what any employee would need would be found in the library, in plain sight for anyone to stumble across.' Aniki's skepticism slowly began to wear off, returning him to his warmer demeanor 'But more detailed schematics, like programming instructions and exact blueprints for individual parts are mostly kept in the workshop for both myself, and the other mechanics to read from. It's more useful there than on a shelf.' Aniki began to speak in a playful, slightly mocking voice 'Why? Thinking of making some adjustments to your sweeper?'.
'Yeah.' Blinx immediately cut Aniki before he could respond. 'But if I don't do it myself, I won't ever learn, eh?' Blinx turned around, about to walk away, he finished with a simple 'Thanks Aniki!' Before taking his steps.
Aniki called out to Blinx one last time, Blinx turned on the spot to face him 'Be careful out there, yeah? I heard about your team mate.' Blinx calmly shrugged off Aniki's concern and continued walking back to his team. Aniki smiled, silently shaking his head at his old team mate.