Miss Pauling took her seat with a sigh, tapping her clipboard. The mercenaries of RED team eyed her suspiciously.
"I know it's not ideal," she said. "But forewarned is forearmed. We know Merasmus has an artifact that will cause our worst nightmares to manifest on the physical plane, so the truth is going to come out whether or not you're ready. If we talk things over first, we can make preparations. OK?"
No one spoke; not even Scout. He was busy scribbling pictures of skulls on a spare piece of paper Miss Pauling had loaned him.
"I'll go first then." Miss Pauling took a deep breath. "When I have nightmares, I dream that everyone has been replaced with robots. A robot administrator, a robot for every mercenary, the originals are nowhere to be found... I'm the only human left. But I have to pretend I don't notice and continue my work like normal. But robots don't make mistakes, and they're looking to me to make sure I'm just as perfect as they are, and if I'm found out... it'll be over for me..."
"Oh, come on, we would never!" Scout said, before looking around the table. "Get replaced by robots, I mean."
"Or leave Miss Pauling behind," Heavy said.
Miss Pauling smiled. "Nightmares aren't based on what can happen in the real world. But... thank you. Anyway: Item one to be wary of." She wrote down 'robot impersonators' on her clipboard. "Ok... One of you has to go next."
For a beat, she was worried she'd have to start picking volunteers.
"Da, I go," Heavy said. "Heavy is no stranger to these nightmares. Where I am charging into battle with Herr Doktor, then I hear scream from behind. I turn, and Sniper has killed Doktor with one shot. There is nothing to be done." He looked down at the table, then up at the ceiling. "Sometimes it is Spy who kills Medic. Heavy sees red and hears Sascha spin. We turn together, raining metal, until we are only ones left alive."
"Sounds more like a nightmare for BLU, mate," Sniper said.
"Only ones left... what about your teammates?" Engineer said.
Heavy folded his giant hands together. "When Heavy is angry... there is no color." He shrugged. "Is not important. When awake, we have respawn."
"...What do I put down for that?" Miss Pauling scratched her head.
"Sniper and Spy," Heavy said.
"Robots, snipers, and spies." Spy sighed. "This Halloween is sounding no different to any other workday."
"Well, we have to start somewhere," Miss Pauling said. "Come on, guys. Anything else?"
"I have nightmares where I'm on fire," Sniper said with a shrug. "Go ahead and add Pyro to the list."
"Not Spy?" Heavy cocked his head.
"S'not about what kills you the most that makes things scary, mate," Sniper said. He tipped his chair back, staring at the lamp thoughtfully. "I don't have the kind of nightmares that shock you awake. They tend to be quiet, lowkey stuff..."
"Because you never get anywhere near REAL war, you coward!" Soldier shouted.
"Lowkey or not, any clue could help," Miss Pauling pressed.
"No, really, it's mundane stuff," Sniper said. "Sometimes I dream my van gets stolen and I walk out into the desert looking for it, and somehow I end up in a crowded city or somethin'. Sometimes I dream sniping is banned from combat and I hafta go home and get a normal job."
"Och, harsh stuff," Demoman said.
"But that's all the setup," Sniper continued. "Most of the dream is spent wandering around my hometown, talking to old mates, working at the market job I had as a teenager, watching my girlfriends get butchered and eaten, stuff I did as a kid-"
"Woah woah, what?" Scout shouted.
"Mmph mmriflph?" Pyro also sounded alarmed.
"Come again?" Medic was suddenly attentive.
Sniper rolled his eyes. "Yes, I actually had friends back in Aussie, shocking I know."
"No, son, wait, what happened to your girlfriends?" Engineer said.
"Sheep, guys," Miss Pauling said. "He's talking about sheep."
A few of the mercenaries laughed nervously.
"Oh like... the word for sheep in Australian is 'girlfriend'?" Scout said.
Sniper let his chair touch the ground again with a sigh. "No, mate. Sheep are better partners than a human could ever be. They're attentive, they're affectionate, they don't have a lot to say... but they don't stick around too long..." He sighed, pushing his hat back on his head. "But it was an important lesson for me to learn. Never get too attached." He smiled crookedly at his teammates.
"...Well, that was both useless and disturbing," Spy said. "Back to the topic at hand. Soldier! Tell us what keeps you up at night."
"What?" Soldier looked around frantically. "I have no fear, maggots!"
"You wake up screaming, like, every week," Scout said.
"Those are screams of joy, private!" Soldier pounded the table. "At all the glorious killing and carnage I dream about causing!"
Pyro mumbled doubtfully.
"Nightmares aren't based on reality," Miss Pauling said gently. "Having them doesn't make you weak."
"Yes, they are meaningless flashes from our subconscious," Medic chimed in.
Soldier grunted thoughtfully. "Well... yes, they ARE absurd and meaningless..." He cleared his throat. "Sometimes, I have dreamed that I'm a Nazi."
A quiet "Oh?" from Miss Pauling was the only response. Soldier ground his teeth in irritation.
"Well!? Do you not see the TERROR in that, maggots? This raw, uncontrollable killing power-" he curled his hands like claws- "warped in service to German scum!? The very tide of war might have shifted!" He glared around the table. "And that's not all! I've had dreams where I've been a cursed COMMIE or a blasted HIPPIE. Sometimes I even..." He rubbed the back of his neck, his voice suddenly shifting. "I'm dreaming I'm in the middle of a glorious battle in World War 2, slaughtering men left and right with my bare hands and then... Something changes, and I look down, and all the dead bodies are just civilians, and I look at my uniform, and it's disappeared, because I am also just a civilian..."
Demoman winced. Medic chuckled nervously.
Soldier's head snapped up. "...in my NIGHTMARES. Which are a pile of NONSENSE. Still." He jabbed a finger in Miss Pauling's direction. "Take that down! Beware of Nazi soldiers, commie soldiers, hippie soldiers, and..."
"...got it," Miss Pauling said. She only wrote down the first two; she was pretty sure Soldier couldn't read her list even if he was sitting closer to her.
"And sometimes, I dream I am once again a child and I am kidnapped by Santa Claus," Soldier continued.
"Oh, sweet, do you think Old Nick's gonna show up?" Scout bounced in his seat. "I wanna try hitting his skull with a real bat!"
Soldier cackled excitedly. "I would relish such an opportunity. I would feed him his own antlered hat and rip out his lungs!"
"Santa Claus on Halloween... that just ain't right," Engineer muttered.
Miss Pauling wrote it down anyway.
"Would it be the real Old Nick, or just a mimic?" Spy asked.
"The artifact can't affect reality, can it? Just make copies?" Engineer gave Miss Pauling a curious look. "...You do know something about it, don'tcha?"
"Why would you assume that?" Miss Pauling said.
"Because you know something about everything," Sniper said.
"Why's it matter? Long as it feels real," Scout said.
"Well, if it affects reality... we might need to worry about our respawn," Engineer said.
"Oh..." Miss Pauling put a hand to her mouth.
Sobering silence reigned for two seconds before Scout's nervous laughter broke it. "That... that's not gonna happen right? That Merasmonkey always wants us to die over and over anyway, right?"
"Yeah but... we've all had that nightmare haven't we, mate?" Sniper looked around.
"Aye, sumthin' like tha," Demo muttered assent.
"Sometimes when Heavy dies... I have nightmare it is all over..." Heavy agreed.
Pyro nodded vigorously.
"I... don't think it works that way..." Miss Pauling clicked her pen nervously.
"Thinking isn't good enough, private!" Soldier rubbed his chin, gritting his teeth into a scowl.
"Perhaps... there is a workaround..." Spy folded his hands. "You see... in my nightmares, I am always immortal."
Scout burst out laughing. "That's your nightmare? What, do you also have nightmares you're a nicotine addict?"
"Respawn is not immortality, you smug simpleton," Spy growled. "You cannot respawn if you never die."
"He means like Ubercharge," Medic chimed in.
"I do not! That is invulnerability, not immortality, you imbeciles!" Spy put his head in his hands.
"How is that a nightmare?" Scout said. "That's a freaking superpower!"
"Your pathetic French mind cannot handle power!" Soldier shouted. "That is why your kind are always surrendering!"
"Guys, come on," Sniper said. "I've seen Spy shoot himself in the head rather than walk back to RED base."
"Oh, so you're just lazy? Is that it?" Scout apparently thought this was his cue to show off how fast he could run, because he got up and did a lap around the table.
"Oh yes, Heavy has done that sometimes. Is long trip."
"Yes. My greatest nightmare is having to walk for a few extra minutes. You caught me." Spy massaged his temples.
"No, I... I get it," Engineer said. He looked at Miss Pauling. "My worst nightmare is one where... I'm strapped to this chair hooked up to all sorts of wires. Every few minutes, it gets harder to breathe, I close my eyes... and I die. But then the wires electrocute me, and I'm forced back to life. Again... and again... and again..."
Miss Pauling gave him a measured look. A reminder not to press his luck.
"I don't suppose you ever have nightmares about getting some random woman pregnant?" Miss Pauling asked Engineer, her tone icy.
"Beg pardon?" Engineer said over his comrades' confused nervous laughter.
"I'm just saying, that's a nightmare you could be having instead," Miss Pauling said. "Who knows, you could be having nightmares where YOU are the pregnant one."
"AHAHAHA!" Medic laughed far too loudly. "Pregnant men! Such nonsense! Ahahaha!"
"That's not what you told me, Medic!" Soldier shouted.
"What's the matter with you?" Heavy shouted. Maybe at Medic or at Miss Pauling; she wasn't sure.
Miss Pauling supposed she should be more sympathetic to Engineer. But at the same time, Redmond and the Admin were on edge. From what she understood, Radigan Connagher had immediately complied with pressure from his employers to either join them in immortality or raise an heir to take over for him; Mac, for his part, not only had children young, but died suddenly as well. And here was Dell, getting close to fifty, with no meaningful relationships with a woman in sight, never mind a child. The Administrator's hints had become more and more blunt with every year.
The Administrator of course understood that there was more than one smart person in the world. But she had to supply answers to the Mann brothers, and the Mann brothers only understood what had always worked for them before.
And the Connaghers had always worked for them.
"Just put the chair on your list," Engineer said darkly. His expression unreadable behind his goggles.
"Right." Miss Pauling added "Immortality" to the list.
"If you want to know what other nightmares I actually have, instead of that load of horse hooey you're going on about..." Engineer felt his right wrist with his left hand. "I've sometimes dreamed that I cut all my limbs off without preparing prosthetics first, and all I can do is lie on the ground and bleed out."
"Oh, I've done that to a patient before!" Medic chuckled.
"Should I put that nightmare down?" Miss Pauling said.
"Nightmare?" Medic blinked, visibly confused.
Miss Pauling rested her pen on the clipboard, debating asking more questions. Instead, she leaned over and muttered to Spy, "Ok, immortality... anything else happen to you?"
Spy muttered back, "Nothing that hasn't happened to me while awake." Then, louder, "Oh, yes, and I second Sniper about being on fire."
"Ja, all ze time," Medic said. "I dream I am on fire, or our base is on fire, or my home is on fire... sometimes I dream my entire team is on fire, screaming 'Medic! Medic!' but my medigun is not fast enough..." He furrowed his brows in frustration. "And zhen I wake up in respawn and everyone is still screaming 'Medic! Medic!' but no one is on fire, you are all just being babies."
"Lots of fire, ok, we've got that." Miss Pauling underlined Pyro some more. "Engie, how's our base's sprinkler system?"
Engineer scratched his chin. "It only really covers the barracks and... it's not exactly up to code. How much is RED willing to pay for an upgrade?"
"We have a Halloween budget prepared," Miss Pauling said. "But it'll have to cover all the preparations, so we'd better finish the list of nightmares first."
"There is nothing that can't be solved with good old American lead!" Soldier said. "Except fire. My vote is for all in on the sprinklers."
"Seconded," Sniper said. "We're good on ammo."
"Heavy agrees."
Pyro protested, waving his arms wildly as she muttered its objections.
"It's for the greater good, son," Engineer said, patting Pyro's shoulder.
"Ach, no, wait," Demoman said, lifting his bottle of scrumpy to signal for silence. "I ah... I think ya might be makin' a mistake on that..."
"Why?" Miss Pauling adjusted her glasses.
"Ah won't pretend ah'm not afraid of fire either, lads," Demoman said. "But if ya go too far the other way, weel... ya might be meetin' something much scarier than a Pyro..."
"What, the Loch Ness Monster?" Scout playfully poked Demo's head.
"Dinnae laugh until ye've seen it for yerself," Demoman scowled. "Listen. My parents... me adoptive ones ah mean... they were fishermen. They'd send me out in me little boat with a fishing pole, while they kept watch from their ship with their harpoons."
"Some fishing trip," Sniper snorted.
"Ah'll tell you, lads... the things that lurk under the ocean... are affronts ta nature."
"Wait, ocean?" Miss Pauling said. "I thought we were talking about Loch Ness?"
Demo nodded. "Aye, that too. We travelled around the island, always hunting, sometimes in seas, sometimes rivers. Wherever we went we were always fishing, and ah was always finding something bigger than me pole could handle. I've felt the tentacles of a demon squid around me neck more times than I can count..."
"Demon squid only thrive in arctic climates," Sniper said. "You're making stuff up now, mate."
"Well maybe it was a devil squid then, I dinnae!" Demo gestured dramatically. "Does it matter?"
"Yes it bloody matters; one has toxic blood and the other doesn't!" Sniper snapped.
"What about the Loch Ness Monster?" Scout pressed.
"Classified, laddie, sorry," Demo said.
"He's right," Miss Pauling said.
"Oh come on!" Scout folded his arms sulkily.
"Weel you'll be meeting him tomorrow I reckon," Demoman said. "There's a reason ah work in the desert nowadays. But if ye wanna flood the place because yer all afraid of fire, be my guest."
Miss Pauling wrote down "Floods," "Squids," and "Plesiosaurs."
"Floods cover Pyro too, I presume?" Spy said.
Pyro put its hands to her head and shook it like he was trying to shake the thought out of her skull. Then, keeping one hand over its goggles, he reached over and grabbed the paper Scout was drawing on, scribbling her own picture of a four-legged creature with a tree on its head. He held up the picture, face turned away, tapping the page.
"Mmph mphoo," Pyro muttered.
"...Deer?" Miss Pauling guessed.
"Mmph mm mmphemph mmhophm."
"The... enemies of unicorns, you say?" Engineer looked intrigued.
"Gimme my pencil back," Scout said.
"I've never heard of deer and unicorns fighting," Miss Pauling said. Or of unicorns in general, but whatever. "Why do you say they're enemies?"
"Ach... don' think aboot it too much, lass," Demoman said. "Ah think Pyro read a comic book aboot it. It was trash; we set it on fire together."
"You were reading a comic book about unicorns?" Scout laughed.
"Aye, and ah said it was trash, so shut yer gob." Demoman flicked his bottle cap at Scout before taking a drink.
"Mmph mm mmfphmpfh mpho mpmh mphm mhpms," Pyro said, before lighting the deer drawing on fire.
Miss Pauling wrote down "Eco-terrorist deer." As mundane as that sounded to her, at least it was a more concrete concept than a lot of the other things on her list.
"Mmphow mm huddah huddah," Pyro said, waving the flaming paper up and down as it burned down to her fingers.
"What do you mean the rainbow doesn't work?" Engineer said. "What's a rainbow supposed to do?"
"Huddah Huddah." Pyro crumbled the now ashy paper, letting the flakes float onto the table. "Mmpho mmph... mmmmmmm..."
"So, when a rainbow hits a deer, it catches on fire... and that's a bad thing for you, somehow," Sniper said. "You're super confusing, mate."
Pyro hid its face in his hands.
"Hey, we've got the gist of it," Miss Pauling said. "Look at it this way: tomorrow the deer will manifest on the physical plane, and your teammates can help you kill them. OK buddy?"
Pyro hummed contentedly, lowering her hands and using them to frame its face in a 'beaming' expression. Then he tapped her fingers on its cheeks thoughtfully. "Mmpho... mmphmmm mpmh."
"Oh- naked dreams, zose are very common," Medic said. "Zhey come from suppressed sexual desires."
"Heheheh, is that a nightmare or a dream, amiright?" Scout attempted to elbow Miss Pauling but she slid out of his reach.
Pyro shook his head, motioning to her gas mask and its suit, mumbling to herself.
"Ohhh... Heavy sees problem now," Heavy said. "No suit means no fire."
"Or... would you set these fires anyway, and simply... endure?" Spy studied the burning end of his cigarette.
"mmpho mmow." Pyro was shivering again, muttering frantically to himself.
Miss Pauling added 'disappearing clothes' to the list, then mentally added it just below the respawn nightmares to her personal list of 'nightmares I least want to come true.'
"Little man still has not said anything," Heavy commented.
"What? Whaddaya mean? I just made that joke about naked people; weren't you paying attention? Classic!" Scout kicked his chair back, mimicking Sniper's casual motion from earlier in the conversation, but his legs were too short to catch himself in time and he tipped all the way over. "Ouch!"
"We can just assume sentries will be involved I think," Engineer said.
"MEDIC!" Scout shouted from the floor.
"Ja, I haven't told you my worst nightmare yet," Medic said, probably missing the point of Scout's cry on purpose.
"It's not fire?" Sniper asked.
"It's not babies shouting 'Medic!'?" Heavy asked.
"Nein." Medic looked a little too eager to tell his story. "In zis reoccurring nightmare of mine... I am in my operating room, und Heavy is on ze table, asleep, his ribcage open. All normal so far. I remove his heart to take a look, but zhen... it explodes!" He made a 'boom' gesture with his hands. "For no reason! But zhis is no cause for alarm."
"...is not...?" Heavy looked concerned.
"I simply go to my sample fridge to retrieve a replacement, only..." Medic's smile disappeared. "It is empty. Everything gone. Cleaned out..."
Heavy laughed in relief. "Oh, NOW is nightmare time."
Scout popped up from the floor, one hand clutching the back of his head. "An empty fridge? That's freaking it?"
"Oh, my friend, it's just ze beginning." Medic templed his fingers, staring into space in contemplation. "I search ze lab, but ze only thing I can find that will help me is my faithful bone saw. My one true assistant. So... we go to ze rec room. No one is zhere... except Scout. He is focused on ze television; he does not even glance in my direction as I approach from behind, knowing vhat I must do..."
SHWING! The Medic swings his arm across the table, somehow holding his bone saw, a manic grin on his face as mercenaries cry out in surprise.
"Ze spine- it is sawed half through with a single stroke, and zhen-"
"W-wait," Scout protested.
"-a few strokes later, the head rolls to ze floor, and I kick it aside-"
"Bloody waste," Demoman muttered.
"-und set the torso on ze floor, so zhat I may carve it open for zhat heart- zhat precious heart! I hear the sound of steel on bone as blood spills out, und inside I find it, still beating feebly, und with my bare hands-"
"Doc..." Scout slid back into his seat.
"I leave ze dead man on ze floor, und run back to my lab, nearly slipping on ze blood in my enthusiasm, und ze heart, it is still beating, und I enter my lab to realize-" Medic laughed, first wildly, then feebly. "Scout's heart is tiny! It will do nothing for Heavy! It... it... ahaha!"
Heavy also guffawed wildly, pounding the table. Scout, looking pale as a ghost, rested his head in his hands, groaning softly.
"Es war alles umsonst..." Medic muttered, barely audible under Heavy's laughter. He pushed his glasses up his nose. "So... Heavy still needs his new heart, yes? I take my bone saw once again-" he picked up the instrument as he spoke.
"Ok, enough," Heavy said, looking at the alarmed expressions some fellow mercs were adopting.
"Quite enough," Spy said.
Miss Pauling wrote down "Medic." Then someone started tapping her clipboard.
"Th... the bird." Scout still had one hand on his face, the other poking Miss Pauling's board. "...just... put down the bird."
"What bird?" Miss Pauling asked.
Scout violently pushed his chair back, throwing his arms wide. "Archimedes! I said it, all right? That bird freaks me out and it's my worst nightmare, ok? Are you all happy? Now you know!" He crossed his arms in front of his chest.
Medic glared at Scout; Spy barely held back a snort of laughter.
"Just the one bird, or birds in general...?" Miss Pauling asked.
"Just shoot 'em down like I do," Sniper said. Then he made eye contact with Medic and shouted "Birds in general! Birds in general! St-stop looking at me like that!"
"He's lying; he cannae tell them apart," Demoman said.
"We shoot each other to death all the time and have no hard feelings about it," Engineer said. "Archimedes's been with us for ten years and he's fine, so it's all good, right, Doc? ...Doc?"
"I'm not afraid of no flying birds!" Scout said. He put his hands over his heart. "It's birds being inside that's the nightmarish part, ok?"
"...What." Miss Pauling said.
"Ahahaha... Archimedes is a very adventurous dove, you see..." Medic said.
"Doctor shut dove inside Scout once. It was accident," Heavy said.
"Oh, I've done zat all ze time though," Medic said. "You're not zat special, Scout."
"What." Miss Pauling repeated.
"Mmph huddah..." Pyro said.
"Yeah, best not think about it," Engineer said.
"That's easy for you punks to say," Scout said. "Heavy could have a few monkeys inside him and not feel it; Engie just sits around all day and Spy walks slowly and... it's different when something's crushing your heart when you're trying to run around, all right? It hurts; it freaking hurts!" He started walking back and forth. "And I dream I respawn and I feel that fluttering in my chest and I just know something's wrong and it's only gonna get worse but what am I supposed to do, call a time out? No. Sit the battle out? Heck no- you guys would be lost without me! So yeah, I just grit my teeth and try to smile and pretend nothing is wrong when really every heartbeat just makes that stupid dove angrier and he starts scratching or pecking or something and I feel like I'm about to drop dead but the adrenaline pushes me forward anyway and then I REALLY tick Archie off and he starts eating my heart but my legs are still running but I can't stop and then I forget to look out for sentries and then bullets tear through me and I think it's all over but NO I respawn and clutch my chest and realize IT'S STILL THERE and it's just gonna happen all over again and I'm freaking out-"
"Ha! Told ya sentries were involved," Engineer said.
"Are you freaking kidding me?" Scout said.
"Archimedes doesn't eat hearts, dummkopf," Medic said.
"We previously established that nightmares are not informed by reality!" Soldier said. "Scout's dreams are as foolish as my own."
"No, hang on," Sniper said. "I thought I was crazy but... I swear I've seen a dove fly out of Scout's corpses sometimes."
"Wait, really?" Scout said.
"Oh, yeah, that's a respawn glitch," Engineer said. "Like... I don't pretend to know what that dove does in its free time, but I think it happens to die and get sent to respawn at the same time a new Scout is cooking, and the respawn just... thinks Archimedes belongs inside him."
"You freaking knew this?" Scout said. "And never fixed it?"
"Well, it... it's a fiddly thing, deleting respawn data, son," Engineer said. "I just figured a bird inside you once in a blue moon was a small price to pay for... y'know, immortality and all that."
"Not what that means..." Spy muttered bitterly.
"What is a dove doing respawning?!" Miss Pauling slammed her clipboard down. "You can't just log your pets into the respawn system without authorization!"
"I didn't," Engineer said. "I don't actually understand what happens! There's no save data for Archimedes by himself; he's just part of Scout's save data. But it only happens like... one time in every hundred, maybe? It's the middle of a battle; we're not stopping to collect notes."
"You can't, like... fix it in your off-time?" Miss Pauling said.
"Vell, zhat would require Archimedes to participate in ze procedure," Medic said. "Und he is not interested in such experiments."
"What, did you ask him?" Scout folded his arms. "Did you know about this too?"
"When I first noticed the respawn glitch I brought it to Medic's attention; it's his pet, after all," Engineer said.
"Und Archimedes informed me it's not a problem, so zat was ze end of zhat," Medic said.
"Freaking. Unbelievable." Scout threw his hands up in the air. "Well clearly no one cares what I have to say, so you know what? Have fun fighting Merasmus by yourselves, because I'm out, you hear me? I bet you'll be real sorry tomorrow, chuckleheads!" He spun on his heel and marched to the door of the meeting room.
"Scout," Miss Pauling said.
Scout froze, then glanced hopefully over his shoulder.
The thought of feeding Scout's ego made Miss Pauling feel physically ill, but it was for the greater good. "We have a lot of plumbing to update before tomorrow and we could really use your help to get everything done quickly. Please don't leave."
Scout smirked as he took his seat back. "Oh, yeah, I'm a plumbing master! I can beat up all the turtles and mushrooms and stuff..."
"Thank you," Miss Pauling said. She looked back at her list and started a new column for preparations. "Ok, we have an idea what we'll face tomorrow. Time to get organized..."