"Excuse me, sir, can you help me with this?"

Douglas looked up from his requisition work. He recognized that the newcomer was a rookie, and a newbuilt, in no time at all. He recognized the model in an instant. That didn't mean he knew who it was.

"I'll do my best," he told the rookie. "What's your name?"

"D-Class Hunter Third Rate Durand," the rookie replied. "I was working through my advanced weapon qualifications, and I hit a roadblock."

Douglas frowned. "I don't have any signature blocks on that qualification. I mean, I can sign the theory section, but almost any qualified Hunter can sign that."

"I know," said Durand, and his voice was pained. "I'm trying to get my Azzle's signature. I went to Cozumel to get it, but his first question was about seeing lasers."

"Seeing… lasers?" said Douglas with a frown. Lasers, he was pretty sure, traveled at light speed, and so couldn't be seen, except in their effects.

"Of course I flubbed it, but Cozumel said there was a technique to it, and I should go to Vertos and ask him about seeing lasers."

That didn't make sense to Douglas, either. He wasn't a reploid medic, he specialized in arms, armor, and vehicles, but he knew that Vertos' optics weren't any better or worse than Cozumel's. "What then?" he prompted.

"Well, Vertos said he'd love to teach me the technique," Durand went on, looking increasingly haggard. "But he was behind in his own work, and he needed me to help him with some other things first. He said he needed to do an inventory of our plasma bolts, and he sent me to Blue on the ops floor to get me started."

Douglas' frown deepened. Plasma bolts weren't something you kept lying around; they were the technical term for buster blasts. Douglas tracked and inventoried busters and buster power packs, but it was both impossible and pointless to track the bolts. For that matter, why would anyone go to an operator to inventory something in Douglas' arena?

"Blue said he could get me started, but he said he was way behind in a lot of his datawork, and he'd only help me…"

"If you helped him," said Douglas. "I'm starting to see where this is going. What'd he ask you to get?"

"A left-handed socket wrench," said Durand, pained.

"Yeah, I get it," said Douglas. "Okay, let's skip to the end. What am I supposed to get you, and who do I owe it to?"

"It went all the way back to Cozumel," said Durand. "And he sent me down here to get a bucket of steam."

"A bucket of steam," Douglas repeated.

"It doesn't make any sense to me, either," Durand said, looking like panic was overclocking his processors, "but they wouldn't make me get these things if they didn't have a good reason, right?"

Douglas' mouth quirked up in a wry smile. "Sure, they have a reason, but you won't like it."

"What?"

"Because it's funny."

Durand's hands shook. "Huh?"

"None of those things exist," said Douglas. "When a senior Hunter hears you're being sent for something ridiculous, they know it's a game, and they find some other thing that sounds almost plausible to shuffle you along. They could keep you running around forever like this. It wasn't even me you were supposed to find for the bucket of steam, was it?"

Durand shook his head. "It was Jonesy."

"That explains it. I'm a hugger, and Jonesy… isn't. You're just lucky I have him on an errand, or he'd be sending you to find some other blasted thing."

"Oh, great," said Durand, teetering on hysteria. "Lucky me!"

"I suppose it's not much comfort to know you've been sent on a run-around for the amusement of your seniors," Douglas admitted. "Could have been worse—they could have sent you down to get a Mechanic's Punch. Frankly, I don't know how to get you out of this. Some people are just jerks."

"Sounds like a systemic problem to me," came a voice from the side of the room. That's right, Douglas remembered—he'd come down here to work on a side project. He hadn't explained it to Douglas, but Douglas figured he had as much (or more) right to the Armory as anyone.

Durand, at the end of his wits, started at the intrusion. He frowned and peered closely at the brown-haired figure along the shop's periphery. "Sorry, who are…?"

X smiled and put his helmet back on. "Recognize me now?"

Durand staggered backwards in surprise. "S-sir, sorry, no, I didn't—why…"

"I didn't need it for what I was working on, this is a safe place," X said, "and I don't like being instantly recognizable all the time. But enough about me." He crossed his arms and put a hand on his chin. "You need some help, it sounds like, and the people who are supposed to be helping you aren't."

"You could help me, though," said Durand, looking relieved at last. "You're grandfathered in—you can sign any block on any qualification card. Can you sign this one for me?"

"The curse of writing most of our doctrine," X said wryly in Douglas' direction. "Zero wrote the rest, but I was his editor." He looked back to Durand. "You're right, I could sign it and get you out of this, but that wouldn't solve the problem. There's no reason to believe you're the first rookie to be treated like this, and unless we do something you won't be the last. I don't approve of hazing."

He tapped the side of his face as his mouth quirked up. "People are being petty. I think we can be petty right back. How'd you like to help me teach some folks a lesson?"

Durand's eyes lit up. "Yes, sir!"

X looked to Douglas. "I'll need your keys to the materials locker."

"They're yours," said Douglas. "Literally, as far as I'm concerned."

"I don't concur, but we can discuss that later." X smiled to himself. "This'll be fun."

"…So I tell him, Go get me a bucket of steam!"

"That's a good one," said Vertos approvingly. He and Cozumel were sitting in the Azzle common room. "I'll have to use that one some time."

"What do you have for next?" Cozumel asked.

"Hm… I was thinking a Mechanic's Punch."

"That's a classic," said Cozumel, knowing that this was code for the mechanic to actually punch whoever requested it, "but it gives the game away. I think we can keep him hopping a little longer…"

A chime sounded, signaling that a visitor was requesting entry to Azzle country. "Enter," called Cozumel loudly to be heard through the door.

The door opened, revealing Durand. "Sir, I have something for you, per your orders." He walked in, carrying…

Cozumel blinked, unable to believe his optics. He glanced at Vertos, who seemed similarly flabbergasted. In Durand's hands was a bucket, and billowing out of the bucket's open top was a cloud of rapidly-dissipating white-ish vapor.

"One bucket of steam, as requested," Durand said proudly.

(It was actually dry ice, retrieved from one of Douglas' many lockers and kept refrigerated by X until moments before Durand entered the room, but Cozumel and Vertos didn't need to know that.)

"Rust me," said Cozumel.

"Also," Durand continued, "Captain X asked me to deliver a message."

Cozumel blinked his vision clear and refocused on Durand. "Yeah?"

"'Stop it'."

Cozumel and Vertos shared a distressed look. Then Cozumel slumped his shoulders in defeat. "Hand me your qual card. I'll sign."

Durand smiled.