Jessica was just… Bemused by it all now. "And all this will be done in only five hours?"

The head of the construction crew looked to John, who gave a nod (Because why WOULDN'T the eight year old be in the position of power?), and then back at her. "Maybe six, if it rains in a few minutes. Sorry about the delay, but certain measures have to be taken due to 'Super Secrecy' being a priority."

She looked at the half blocked street, the numerous trucks, the strangely advanced technology being used to move material and structures around while solidifying concrete at concerning speeds…

Thank goodness John went with the 'discrete' options. What would they have done otherwise, organize a parade and spotlights with a musical number?

Still, it wasn't like being subtle and secret was an option now anyway, and the service was beyond amazing. "I'm just impressed you can construct a multilevel structure in less time than it takes me to watch a few movies."

The guy chuckled. "Oh, this is fairly basic stuff really. No advanced materials requiring radiation resistance, no compressed metals that can withstand a vacuum, only the standard number of escape tunnels and secret entrances and such… Although I admit, it is the first job of this type that DIDN'T go for the self destruct system."

John shrugged, missing her concern and shock. "I didn't see the point. If I needed to destroy the place, I can do better than a few explosives or self collapsing structures."

The man winced. "Yeah? Good to know… Please don't do that though. Our self destruction methods are tested and certified: No fuss, no muss, no collateral damage. Vaporizing a single property without harming the people within the area is not as easy as some think!"

John blinked, humming. "Oh yeah, good point. Meh, I won't bother then… Maybe someone else can use it after we move on anyway! I mean, it's going to have an underground pool!"

A loud BANG had the foreman wince. "Right, back to work for me. Call me if you need anything, and we should be out of your hair in no time." And he was stomping off! "What'd you smash NOW you idjits!?"

Jessica and John watched the group bustle and move tons of material, the 'Yes Boss!' and 'Sorry Boss!' echoing in the otherwise surprisingly quiet neighborhood while materials came in and debris went out.

This was the WORST undercover operation she had ever heard of. Fast though.

She glanced at the kid. "You want to go find some breakfast? Maybe wander around a bit? By the time we go get lunch or something later we should have a place to stay."

John blinked, a familiar pinecone vanishing back to somewhere. "Yeah! Can we try one of those Mexican muffins for lunch?"

A what now? "Haven't heard of them. Is it a dessert?"

He shook his head as the pair began walking to the bus stop. "It's a cornbread muffin but they slice off the top, carve a hole in the middle, fill it with taco stuff and cover it in melted cheese to seal it back up. The juices from a taco soak into the cornbread, while the toppings are sealed by the gooey goodness on top! It was on TV yesterday."

Well, she had eaten far stranger before. Hell, she had been EATEN by stranger foods than that in the past! "Sure, why not? Sounds like it could be good."

Now to endure the bus trip again. How could public transportation be this fast, reliable, and CLEAN anyway!? This dimension was so weird!

~~~Pocket System~~~

In an underground base, a teal colored platypus in a fedora was launched from a hidden tube into a comfortable chair… Facing a massive screen with a clearly distracted man. "I don't CARE if the budget is tight, fighting evil can't be done when we are forced to drink decaf! Human resources keeps trying to pull this… Who's the REAL evil organization around here!?"

Perry snapped his fingers.

Major Monogram awkwardly paused and focused on the animal agent. "Agent P! I uh… I didn't see you come in… Uh. Ahem."

Suddenly his superior officer was all business and bravado. "Agent P., a few days ago a suspiciously unknown energy signature was detected within the territory of the nefarious Dr. Doofenshmirtz… Now, honestly we have no evidence he is involved with anything recently other than a rather large and suspiciously varied amount of Christmas stocking being shipped from his headquarters around the world, but I'm sure he is up to SOMETHING!"

The platypus blinked, trying to absorb that logic.

The man focused. "GO! Investigate Dr. Doofenshmirtz and whatever crazy, potentially Christmas related plot is behind such an unknown and bewildering energy signature!"

Then he… Forgot to turn off his camera feed. Again. "Honestly Carl, it's early May… Why do Evil Scientists never organize their evil schemes during more seasonally appropriate periods?"

A slightly nasally voice off screen seemed hesitant. "Maybe he's full of the Christmas spirit, sir?"

Perry huffed as he began exiting the lab, the Major continuing to snark behind him. "That man is full of SOMETHING, that's for sure!"

~~~Pocket System~~~

John grinned as he poked his taco toy! "Spike is probably so jealous! I mean, apple slices and pinecones are awesome, don't get me wrong, but this plastic taco trooper has marketing!"

A military themed Mexican restaurant was a tad odd, assuredly, but the food was fine and fairly cheap and it came with TOYS! Truly, 'Military Mexico' was like the McDonalds of this reality.

There had been some argument online about how this place stacked up against classics like Mr. Slushy Dawg and Mr. Slushy Burger, and those strange shops that show up and vanish out of nowhere like Chez Platypus… But in John's opinion? Military Mexico's Mexican Muffins were number one!

Jessica chuckled. "So will Spike need to make some room for 'Tadeo Taco Trooper' in your Pocket?"

John froze.

Would… Would that be alright?

[[Estimated current growth of storage space verses available room…]]

Oh. Dang it. If only there was more capacity!

[[Storage capacity could greatly increased if the additional features of the Pocket were disabled…]]

NO! Spike needed to be safe!

[['Spike' the pinecone does not require temporal stasis, reality parallelism, destiny duplication, thermodynamic distortism, fate suspendment, causality inversion, ablative multidimensional multiconceptual superimposed armored plating, eldritch…]]

But his Pocket HAD to be S̸̛̜̪̤̖̹͈͎a̹̝̤̼͍͞f̛̗͎̞̼e̷͇̫̪̙͘͜!̛̬̩͠

[[...Additional storage could be gained if redundancy measures were reduced from (2^16) variants to (2^15) variants.]]

John bit his lip, still staring hard at the tiny plastic taco with googly eyes and a military uniform. Would… Would such high risk be worth it?

[[Reducing the variants from 65,536 to 32,768 would theoretically half the related protection capability, but in functional and practical reality the 'risk' difference between the two are negligible. Due to diminishing returns, any benefits or redundancy gained from utilizing beyond (2^4), or 16 variants can be considered minute and within the margin of error.]]

Huh?

[[...Nothing within Pocket will be at risk if System applies the current or proposed new settings. Not in the current branches of Reality occupied by HOST.]]

Oh.

John hesitated… But if his System said it would be fine, he should try and trust it. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am going to give Spike a roommate. Welcome to your new home, Tadeo Taco Trooper!"

[[Adjusting security variant deterrents to new levels, allocating freed resources.]]

[[Pocket.]]

John blinked at how… MASSIVE the space in his Pocket had suddenly become! Spike and his new best friend Tadeo Taco had so much room for activities!

He couldn't help but mumble. "Huh. If I had done this before, I could have probably saved Jessica AND Wedgie without hurting myself."

Jessica was distracted throwing away some trash from lunch. "What was that, John?"

He blinked. "Nothing." Right, new house to go see! "You think our new super secret base is done yet?" It should be awesome! There was an arcade room and a big TV and lots of those really cushy couches and…

She hummed. "Maybe? Honestly, I have a hard time telling with the technology level here. You got normal crane operators but with 'instant welding' attachments on the ends, or bog standard shovels that somehow dig through steel. If you don't have the right training, you could accidentally do a LOT of damage with this stuff… Or build an entire city in an hour."

Cool. "I asked for my room to be blue, because I like the color blue." Even though Wedgie made a good argument for red and green and Spike kept pushing brown. Inanimate objects could be a little pushy, since they couldn't change their features even if their opinions were wrong. "Your room is just white by default, but I thought… Maybe we could paint it? Together? I mean, once we get a color you like."

It would be a family activity! It would be AWESOME!

Jessica smiled softly. "Alright squirt, that sounds like a plan." Then her smile shifted into a wry grin. "I think, due to my profession, I'm almost contractually obligated to go with 'Black' though."

Huh!? "No, then it would be too dark at night! It would make it hard to see your night light and stuff!"

Her grin grew. "But don't they say black goes with everything?"

John's eyes grew wide! "Nuh uh! Because then it would be dark and creepy like you were a vampire or something!"

She hummed and tapped her chin. "True, I wouldn't want anyone to discover that I am a vampire after all."

He nodded rapidly! "Yeah! So we should pick a… Wait, what?"

He grew more concerned as she started to break down giggling. "Big sis, uh… You were just kidding about the vampire thing, right?" And now actual laughter!? "Right!?"

Oh no! What if his new sister was a VAMPIRE!?

Would he have to learn to drink blood too out of solidarity!? And what if he had to get a coffin too, he could get splinters!

[[High quality lumber utilized in caskets and 'coffin' related containers are processed to prevent molding, splitting, rotting, splintering, external damage…]]

Eeeh!? So it would be EXPENSIVE! And also maybe-but-not-likely splinters! And coffins sounded stuffy and… "No, you can't be a vampire sis! I don't want to sleep in a coffin!"

The blood thing on the other hand wasn't a huge issue. He himself enjoyed a bit of battery acid and rusted nails and stuff, he wouldn't judge someone for their eating habits.

Maybe he could get an open coffin bed frame or something? Or get a small hole and some fans installed to increase air flow!? "Sis, stop laughing and talk to me! What if I accidentally put garlic on your bread or something!?"

John stared at Jessica as she broke into hearty laughter, clearly not fully comprehending the danger that she could have experienced if he had simply ordered the wrong Italian side dish!

~~~Pocket System~~~

Meanwhile, on the top floors of a very oddly designed skyscraper…

Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated!

A slightly odd shaped tall man in a lab coat (who was NOT a pharmacist) was pulling a large sack towards the door, his nasally voice frustrated. "You know, you wouldn't expect holiday stockings to be especially heavy, but when you cross a certain threshold… Herugh!"

Eugh, this was hefty. "I'm going to have to pay for more shipping at this rate… And where IS that moving company representative!?"

Ding dong!

Oh! "Well… That was convenient. I'M COMING! JUST…" Dr. Doofenshmirtz glanced at the messy room, filled with piles of sorted stockings and Christmas socks.

He'd deal with that in a minute. "JUST A MOMENT!"

With a quick tidy up of his clothing, he opened the door to the short teal colored, suspiciously furry man with a clipboard and a snazzy jacket. "Are you from the moving company Mr..." Glancing at the name tag, he hesitated. "...Carl?"

Carl nodded. "Gnarrg.g.g.g."

Oh thank goodness! "Well, you made it here just in time, Carl! Come in, come in! Let me show you the situation."

They both carefully strode through the odd piles of stockings. "Surprisingly, most of these will be donated to charity rather than shipped out… I first assumed that I'd have to return these to their owners, but at least my new Inator worked MOSTLY as designed, so it wasn't as big of an issue as I initially…"

He paused, feeling a heavy gaze from Carl. "Oh, right, you didn't get told by your company what exactly happened here, did you?"

The short man shook his head.

Ah. "I suppose I should explain… Maybe from the beginning? Alright, first a bit of my tragic backstory: When I was a small child in the village of Gimmelshtump, in the country of Drusselstein, every year there would be a Sock Hunting competition!"

Good times… "It was like an Easter egg hunt, except it wasn't Easter, we were looking for missing socks, and instead of everyone searching together… Well, everybody would take MY socks and hide them around the countryside and laugh while I attempted to retrieve them all."

The look from Carl was embarrassingly sympathetic. "Uh… Which was fine! It was fine. In fact, if I found ALL my socks then I would be allowed to make a new pair! Also I think it meant six more weeks of winter, which never made sense to me honestly but! Let me tell you, Carl, that an extra pair of socks were WELL welcomed then!"

Uh. "Where was I?"

Carl waved a hand. "Gnarrg.g.g.g."

Oh yes! "Right, so clearly it gets harder and harder to find your socks when you no longer actually LIVE in the village of Gimmelshtump, in the country of Drusselstein anymore... Although it is a bit touching that they put so much effort into each yearly robbery..."

Ah tradition. "Anyway, I decided to make a new Collect-Lost-Sockinator to retrieve ALL my socks without having to schedule time off from being an evil scientist and paying for travel and going by plane and boat and… You know, speed up the entire holiday with one simple to use press of a button!"

The tall evil scientist and small teal moving company employee glanced at the mounds of Christmas stockings. "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time?" A wall of colorful cloth collapsed, exposing ANOTHER room full of piled material. "Yeah, uh… It got a tad out of hand."

Dr. Doofenshmirtz slumped slightly. "First I only wanted to find LOST socks… Because otherwise, I'd fill up my whole LAB with socks and have to sort them and: WHOO boy, would that be a lot of work! But then I had to define what 'lost' meant to my equipment."

He absently kicked a pile. "So I decided to at least cut the yearly hunt in half by only searching for socks that were missing a partner… Like when you lose your left sock in the wash, you know? Then I would just run it twice! Once for my left foot and again for my right! Problem solved, tradition upheld, and… Well, I suppose another six weeks of winter, but the weather in Gimmelshtump always felt like winter most of the time anyway so I'm not sure how they would tell the difference honestly."

The man glared at the festive foot coverings. "I just didn't consider how lazy and commercialized Christmas had become! You were supposed to hang your OWN stockings or socks by the fire to get a festive turnip from Santa! Not just BUY a massive fake sock to hold as many root vegetables as possible! How greedy!"

That wasn't in the holiday spirit at ALL! "And since ALL Christmas stockings nowadays tend to be made without a matching pair, all the holiday socks within the Tri-State area were considered lost! My lab was STUFFED with holiday feelings!"

He huffed in frustration, kicking a pile. "A number of people buy new ones every year too, so half these people basically forgot about the old ones, making them DOUBLE lost socks and my Inator started piling them up in mass! My machine had only been on for a minute or less and LOOK at how many chimney stuffers I've become responsible for!"

The tiny person commiserated with his plight and pat his knee. "Thank you, Carl the package transportation porter. You know? Many people don't understand the difficulties that unexpected holiday festivities can enact on one's evil plans to disrupt a cultural tradition for a minor village in a remote country."

Some people just lack empathy, honestly.

Anyway, back to today's issues. "I had other plans before all this, but until I can get this holiday laundry all cleared away and sent back or donated there's no room for any of my brilliant evil schemes! If only I could warn my nemesis, Perry the Platypus, about my complicated circumstances… I know he has a busy schedule and I hate to waste his time when I am so far behind like this."

Carl the package transportation porter hesitated… And placed his clipboard aside while removing his snazzy jacket. GASP! "Carl! You're naked in public!" Oh. "Also, you're a platypus."

Then Carl put on a very nice looking fedora and… DOUBLE GASP! "PERRY the platypus!?"

WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED!?