Something was going on.

Jessica moved to the next containment facility room, and… Yep. She HAD been here before, a month ago or so.

But now it had a NEW contained evil scientist invention, and all the documentation claimed it had been stored here for… Seven and a half years or so.

Which was just accepted by everyone around her. As if this room HADN'T contained that glowing tentacle Christmas tree last time, now replaced by this massive pencil sculpture that seemed to be five dimensional.

At least whatever was happening in the background didn't seem to be targeting her or her little brother, thank goodness… Or at least, not negatively.

After all, if they didn't scoot from this reality soon? She might get forced to take a third promotion.

Apparently having someone show up, safely contain and dispose of dangerous, deadly, and embarrassing creations with repeatable and reliable methods, AND not actually be a spy or implanted traitor working for some ongoing evil/mad scientist scheme?

Promotion material, right there.

After all, it costs money and resources to contain this stuff, no matter how necessary such actions may be. So each location and secured facility she visited, it almost DIRECTLY translated to departments having more room in their budget, better numbers on their quarterly reports, AND lower injury/mishap/casualty/vanishment rates.

Oh sure, whatever crazy stuff was going on in this world kept anyone from DYING due to these things, but it WAS possible to end up on the wrong planet or in the past or turned into a cabbage for a few weeks or whatever.

And that meant hazard pay and 'I was a cabbage' overtime compensation and blah blah blah.

So now Agent S. was getting called by ALL the groups for Jessica to make a quick stop and 'Maybe take care of this multi headed shark' or 'Collect the animated razor blades', and so forth.

Her boss found this all pretty hilarious… Maybe?

Honestly, it was a bit tricky sometimes to interpret snail facial expressions even WITH her history of working with non-humanoid species.

At least her performance reviews from him were glowing, if her other two promotions had anything to say about it.

Anyway.

[[Pocket.]]

There, another one nabbed.

No doubt this cell would be occupied by the NEXT creature/food/thing/onion that 'had been here for a few decades' in a month or so, but that meant more goodies for John's future recovery.

Still, it went against her training on a fundamental level.

What USE was OPSEC if Operation Security was both automatic and continuous? Anyone who shouldn't know something (Or couldn't handle it) just… Forgot. Or marked it as 'unimportant' and filed it away like a bad memory.

It meant that some companies and crews and personnel were FULLY AWARE of how crazy things actually were… But a coworker or family member would just wave off the inflatable chicken army and keep going to their shop for a fresh cup of coffee.

She felt her memory of the grid, of her portion of Pocket, and felt some of the thoughts vanish as they were processed for recycling. MOST of the memory was stuffed with things like that now, since the grid seemed to expand when nearly full and she was collecting a LOT of junk at a very fast rate.

That's not to say that she wasn't stockpiling a bunch of stuff for future missions/adventures/journeys, because 'be prepared' is not just a boy scout motto to MIB agents… But when she claimed she was collecting stuff?

It was a LOT of material. Both in scale, quantity, and material variety.

Theoretically, if she stopped collecting this junk and John focused solely on recovery (And not on further expanding his 'safe' Pocket space), they could have both left a month or so ago already!

…But she knew better than that.

First of all, they didn't know what the next destination would be. Safe, dangerous, deadly, pathetic? No clue.

Secondly? Resources. Right now Jessica ALONE was gathering materials that were far beyond the worth of diamonds or gold, at least to John's Pocket anyway… And building up a reserve of 'food' for her brother to use if he got injured in the future was just common sense.

Tied into that, HER personal Pocket storage was being supplied too during this period. Custom equipment, clothing for various circumstances, disguises and tools, food and water, various tents and foldable chairs and paper and pens and pencils and…

Well, if it wasn't just a thought in the back of her head? She'd already be considered a hoarder, no doubt, no question.

But in her defense? Who WOULDN'T want to collect things if it was trivial to store, never degraded in quality, and weight basically nothing?

Heck, it took active attention to not get into the habit of tossing leftovers and scraps and stuff into her Pocket when cooking or whatever, just because she didn't want to have a thousand or more half sliced tomatoes or partially grated ginger or whatever.

She had a roommate back in college like that… Would use a third of a tomato for a dish, save the rest for later… Then just use a new tomato instead, forgetting the other was there.

Sure, it meant that Jessica learned how to make a mean Roasted Tomato Linguine (And a dozen other tomato paste/sauce/etc dishes), but it was also a habit she herself didn't wish to encourage.

At least, unlike back then, it was trivial NOW to mark stuff like that for recycling and let it go to a better use than sitting around due to some unexplained dread instilled by her parents to never 'waste' anything.

Oh no, you can't throw away that $0.83 fraction of a head of lettuce! Much better to just never use it till it rots and mess up the refrigerator instead. Yep.

Sigh.

"Ma'am? Are you ready to move on to cell 382DI2?"

Huh? Oh, right. "Yes, lead on."

The order of 'collection' and 'disposal' was never the same in these places, made a hundred times worse since the memories of those working here shifted as the contents of the containment vaults got updated.

Despite having visited this place several times before, Jessica had NEVER traveled through the facility using the same route twice. At least, not yet… Though that time when they climbed up that hidden ladder in the wall had at least been interesting, if nothing else.

As she followed the team in hazmat gear down the hallways, she idly began sorting her 'memory' of the Inventory. The more she played with it, the more flexible the memory became.

Tabs, folders, groups, rule sets, automatic filtering, bunching, gathering… Over time the features of her Pocket became more and more comfortable to use, like an old pair of shoes that one had worn down.

With a minor amount of effort, she had even created a 'document' Pocket space, one that collected not just the papers and such themselves but the CONTENTS of the material as well! The memory could even generate 'reports' about her collection, collect THOSE as well for future reference/searching/whatever, and more!

Though… Well, Her new brother didn't seem all that interested when she cheerfully shared all her new innovations with him.

Apparently, as the owner of this 'Pocket'? John could do FAR more than this.

Automatic stored item processing/manipulation/filtering and beyond, alerts and conditional modifiers and timed actions and…

When she tried to find out more and really get a grip on all the amazing things his ability could do though? She bumped into a wall.

To John, most of those abilities and features were inconsequential.

To him, there was only one feature he cared about, and it was the one he pursued to extremes.

Storage.

The most fundamental aspect of his ability, to a beyond excessive level.

Sure, he could do all those things she mentioned, or more… But there would be compromises required. One that to her seems trivial, but to him felt critical.

To gain flexibility and expanded features or abilities… He would have to reduce his grip on his personal Pocket's security levels.

At first, that seemed like a reasonable concern to her… But over the last few weeks, they had talked more.

Even at the most basic of levels, the Pocket was basically untouchable.

Only entities and creatures beyond mortal understanding were even theoretically capable of noticing its existence, only circumstances and locations above any reasonable scenario could put it at risk.

But in the end, John confided in her, it didn't matter.

Yes, he knew that his Pocket was secure and safe.

In his mind, he understood that he was not being efficient or logical, that he could drastically improve his own abilities AND her new skills with a negligible amount of 'security compromise' at risk.

But in his heart, he apparently remembered 'before.'

Before they had met, before he found her own world, a place he didn't like to talk about.

She suspected it was why he sometimes cried at night, when she checked in to make sure he was alright before going to bed. Why he woke her with his screams in the dark, and she had to rock him to sleep again while 'complaining' about all the antics her snail boss got up to throughout the day.

But with Spike the Pinecone, her brother was somehow holding it together. Somehow.

As they approached the next vault, she felt her frustration grow slightly.

WHY that pinecone though!? She had tried getting him other toys, dolls, plushies, but NO! It was ALWAYS that random pinecone she had found that first day back when he was having a panic attack in the woods!

After all, she knew about Wedgie the Apple Slice now. She knew how important some things could be, even if other people never were able to understand such things.

So she had intended to get him a REAL toy friend, like a teddy bear or a stuffed whale or something For that stupid random pinecone to be a sort of placeholder until she had money, documentation, an understanding of where the hell they both had ended up in, and a good night's rest.

But after getting everything settled away (And drinking a LOT of coffee), it was too late.

Her brother was now 5,234% on team Pinecone, forever and ever.

It made her feel silly with each new stuffed toy and what not she had followed up with… But whatever, as long as he had what he felt was needed.

Though on the NEXT jump on their journey, she'd know better and find something her brother could actually snuggle with FIRST, before random junk caught his eye. A toy that he could more easily sleep with, so that the night terrors and stuff would hopefully be kept at bay.

Her thoughts were derailed as the swinging vault door exposed the glowing blue room. Hang on. "Are those smurfs?"

The tiny blue creatures with white caps and pants turned glowing red eyes toward the door.

Her coworker on the right whimpered while her guide gulped. "No ma'am… Not in the end, anyway."

One of the nearest tiny blue creatures seemed to split in half as its torso exposed rows of teeth.

Shit. "That is MESSED up."

[[Pocket.]]

Suddenly the room, including a tiny vault of mushroom houses and half consumed creatures, vanished.

And she winced as the new memories in her Inventory seemed to unfold and untwist in horrific ways as her Pocket fully examined each one. "Ow."

Yeah, fuck that. "Guys, I'm calling it. Early day today, let's go home."

One of the more muscular guys in the heavy protection gear actually broke down in relieved tears, but no one felt like giving him a hard time over it… And the path back to her office happened to take a MUCH faster route than any of the other methods used before.

Even so, her mind flickered to the new 'Smurfs', a plant based ant hybrid colony hive mind species that felt suspiciously similar to certain fictional orks from that thing her nerdy coworker used to talk about back home.

Could these scary things procreate via spores too? Did she even want to know!?

She was likely overreacting and it was probably over nothing, but uh… Just in case…

Pocket, mark everything from that entire area for priority processing and destructive collection and recycling. Now. Like, RIGHT now. Please.

Feeling her memory start to shift slightly as certain things forever vanished… a weight lifted from her shoulders.

Good.

Just… Better to be safe, right?

It was probably not a big deal anyway. Totally! Yeah.

The next day, when the first four vaults in a row only contained big 'thank you' basket bundles (Written in dozens of languages) filled with chocolates and candies and flowers and fruit and stuff… Well, she wasn't so sure anymore.