PPC Mission Two: Every You, Every Me
Jan. 17th, 2012 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
astra_aurora-----
The jukebox, it was agreed, looked very good. Found by Grace in a back corner of DoSAT, she had carefully repaired it over a matter of weeks. Finally, it was finished.
Grace looked at Ally. “What do you think?”
“It looks good,” her partner encouraged. “Go ahead, give it a try.”
Grace nodded and leaned forward.
Ally crossed her fingers.
Grace hit the on button.
The jukebox exploded with light and sound. Beams of rainbow light shot out from it, playing over the walls and swapping from colour to colour by the second. A robot unicorn, its mane and tail streaming rainbows, burst from the jukebox and galloped out of the RC and into the corridor. Hundreds of cats were expelled from the depths of the jukebox. Some immediately ran to certain areas of the RC, others made a grab for certain objects, and one in particular somehow managed to end up on the ceiling, where it watched the agents with penetrating eyes.
It didn’t end there. Three owls hung above the agents. A peculiarly pink pony stuck her head out of Grace’s computer screen and screamed ‘And I said, ‘Oatmeal? Are you crazy?!’ before vanishing. And a cat that appeared to be held together with a piece of bread ran over the walls continually while a voice chanted something that sounded like ‘nyan nyan nyan nyan nyan’ behind it.
The agents froze, staring at the chaos, until Ally managed to unfreeze and screamed ‘Turn it the fuck off!’
The shout managed to jolt Grace back into focus. She hit the off switch and the RC returned to normal. The cats vanished, the chant stopped, and the rainbow light died away.
“Grace,” Ally asked finally, “what the fuck was that?”
“I don’t have a clue,” Grace managed to respond.
“Who was that pony?”
“That was Pinkie Pie,” Grace replied, still shocked. “From My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.”
“That saccharine piece of shit everyone likes for some reason?”
“That’s it.”
“What about the cats?”
“They were LOLcats,” Grace explained. “From the Internet.”
“The bread-cat? The chanting?”
“Oh, that was the nyan-cat. Another meme.”
“What about the unicorn?”
“From Robot Unicorn Attack. It’s a videogame.”
Ally sank down onto the couch and was immediately assaulted by the Thereah, who strenuously objected to having his personal space invaded by LOLcats and was making his objections clearly heard. And felt.
Ally picked up the angry rabbit and said clearly, “Look, it wasn’t my fault, I totally agree with you and it won’t happen again- or, if it does, we’ll warn you first. Or do it somewhere else. Can you please stop trying to kill me?”
She set the mini-Woundwort down and he hopped away, looking in the other direction in a deliberate snub.
Ally looked down at her torn pants ruefully and sighed. “Oh well. Grace, are you telling me that your jukebox channelled memes?”
“I think so,” the inventor managed. “But I don’t have a clue how.”
The console chose that moment to speak up.
[AND IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII, WILL ALWAYS LOOOOOOOVE YOOOOOOOOU!!!!!]
“Is that… is that a mission?” Grace asked.
“Not sure.” Ally went to her partner’s laptop and looked. “No, it’s a letter from the Floating Hyacinth demanding our presence, ASAP.”
“Does she say why?”
“No, but I have a feeling we’re about to find out,” Ally said.
Agent Leon, would you care to explain why a robot unicorn was running around Headquarters just now?
The Floating Hyacinth, as Ally would have put it, looked royally pissed off, inasmuch as a Flower can look pissed off.
Grace’s shoulders slumped. “I tried out my jukebox and instead of playing music, it channelled memes. The robot unicorn just turned up. I thought it had vanished like the others when I turned the jukebox off, but evidently it didn’t.”
Why did it do this?
“I don’t know, I swear. Everything was working just fine until I turned it on.”
The Floating Hyacinth considered this.
“What happened to the unicorn?” Ally asked.
It was captured and released back to its continuum, the Flower replied.
“You’re not going to punish Grace, are you?” Ally asked, folding her arms. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”
Some might argue otherwise, Agent Malet.
“I don’t care what they argue. I care what you argue. What do you argue?”
I agree. Agent Leon did not directly do anything wrong, and will receive no punishment. However, the jukebox has been confiscated and taken to DoSAT, where it will be thoroughly analysed.
“That’s fair,” Grace conceded, her tone quiet. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry this happened.”
Agent Leon, you could not have foreseen this and you did not directly cause it, therefore you have nothing to apologise for. Now, you both should return to your RC. There is a mission waiting for you.
“I thought you said she wasn’t being punished.”
Agent Malet, you are correct. I am not punishing Agent Leon. I am punishing you. Do remember who’s in charge, will you? The Floating Hyacinth turned away from the agents and back to her computer in a way that clearly told the pair that they were dismissed.
All through the walk back to their RC, Grace remained silent. Once they arrived and found that the jukebox had been removed, Ally asked, “You’re not upset that your jukebox fucked up, are you?”
Grace looked up and blinked. “What? Oh, right. Sorry. No, I was just trying to think of how this could happen. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Could you have used the wrong part by accident?”
“No, it’s not that simple. Most parts are too distinctive to mistake one for another, and the ones you can mistake wouldn’t have had that kind of effect.” She sighed. “I just don’t know.”
“Well, DoSAT should be able to find the problem,” Ally encouraged.
“I suppose so.” Grace paused. “Why is everyone being so nice to me today?”
“Sorry?”
“You’re supposed to be a crazy, axe-wielding psychopath, not all friendly and helpful.”
“I keep that for morons,” Ally shrugged. “And Sues, of course.”
“The Floating Hyacinth was nice to me,” Grace said in wonder. “Why would she be nice to me?”
“Maybe she had a good day?” Ally suggested. “We’ve got that mission to do, we can discuss this later.”
“Good point,” Grace agreed. She walked over to the console.
Ally gave her a minute and asked, “So, what’s the fic?”
“Looks like a straight Sue-fic, only I guess in this case it’s a Stu-fic. The fandom’s Dragonriders of Pern. Do you know it?”
“I’ve read Dragonflight, Dragonquest, The White Dragon and Dragonsong. You?”
“I’ve read all the books,” Grace replied. “Excepting the ones by Todd McCaffrey. That should do us for canon knowledge, I think.” She glanced over the bookshelves until she found the books she wanted- Dragonflight and All the Weyrs of Pern. “This fic is set in an uncanonical location.”
“It is? Where?”
“Apparently, ‘Margo Weyr’.”
“Hmmm,” the younger agent replied.
“In fact,” Grace said, scanning the text, “none of these places are canonical. We need to bring along some punctuation, too. I’ll pack my bag.”
As Grace packed, Ally pulled her boots out from underneath the Thereah, who glowered at her, pulled them on and packed her own bag.
Once the agents were ready, Ally picked up her axe and waited for Grace to open a portal. A thought struck her. “Grace?”
“Yes?”
“You have weapons, right?”
“Why?”
“Because if we end up having to fight a dragon, I’d rather not find out at the last minute that you don’t have anything.”
“Ah. Well, I’ve got a tranquilliser gun-”
“Remind me to stay out of your way, then,” Ally muttered.
“The darts are very sharp and coated with a very strong tranquilliser for continua like Dragonriders of Pern or Jurassic Park, places where you’ve got huge, angry canon creatures who could kill you if you make a wrong move.”
“OK, that’s good,” Ally conceded.
“And this,” Grace continued, pulling a gun with an odd muzzle out of her bag. The muzzle looked like a ping-pong ball that had been cut in half. “I invented it. It fires a burst of light that stuns but doesn’t otherwise harm the targets.”
“All your weapons are non-lethal?”
“Of course. You’ve seen season two, episode one of Primeval, you know how terrible I am at shooting things,” Grace admitted.
Ally winced. “Remind me to stay out of the way, then.” She glanced at the open portal. “Shall we go?”
They headed through the portal.
The agents emerged in a Generic Weyr, inside a large, nondescript room, clad in wherhide clothes. Without warning, the Words hit them.
Chapter 1
Stanor woke up with a chill as a heavy wind blew into the candidate sleeping cavern. He stood up slowly so not to wake up the sleeping bodies around him.
The world shifted, eventually coming to a compromise between the words ‘Weyr’, ‘sleeping’ and ‘cavern’, turning the room around them into a large cave with thick mats on the floor. Unfortunately, the use of the phrase ‘sleeping bodies’ had created a number of sleeping, Generic zombies around the Weyr, excepting the Stu, who was a vaguely-masculine Generic Man.
Grace shuddered, backing away from the closest zombies and toward Ally, who hefted the axe, looking for any movement.
“I’ll do the charges,” Grace said finally. “Can we get out of here?”
“Fuck, yes,” Ally agreed nervously.
Grabbing his sandals he headed out into the weyr bowl. It was nice and quiet Stanor loved it when it was night and the stars were out shining bright like a dragon's eye over the Margo weyr it was a large weyr housing many dragons and riders and soon it will house more, the weyr has was close to the sea which he loved since he was born near the sea. He walked to the hatching grounds were golden Printh was sound asleep curled around the two golden eggs under her care. Stanor stood on the edge of the warm sand its tempting warmth made Stanor want to stick his feet in the sand but he wouldn't dare for fear of disturbing the sleeping queen was to great.
The agents followed the Stu into the ‘weyr bowl’, which momentarily appeared as a very large porcelain bowl before transforming into a dry caldera.
Ally started hammering punctuation from Grace’s bag into the Words as the other agent scribbled down charges.
“OK, charge for ‘sleeping bodies’. The only story to be clear about where candidates sleep was Ever the Twain from the short story collection, and that stated that the candidates had their own rooms… then again, I don’t suppose we can expect the customs of Ista Weyr to apply to every Weyr. Charge for that partial tense shift in the middle, for overly long sentences and for misuse of grammar.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Ally said, looking up from where she was hammering a stray full stop into place, “but didn’t Dragonflight state that the sands of the Hatching Ground were too hot to stand on for long without thick boots?”
“No, that’s right,” Grace agreed. “And the Stu didn’t capitalise ‘Hatching Ground’, either.”
Printh opened one eye she looked at him oddly she knew it was him again. Because every night since the eggs were laid he came and looked at them happily. She didn't mind him she liked him he had the makings of a bronze rider. Slowly she placed her head on the sand and returned to sleep.
Stanor smiled at the queen and the eggs they were due to hatch anytime now and soon he could become a dragon rider and fight the evil thread that attacked the planet Pern.
Stanor sighed and headed back into the cavern to dream of dragon's bronzes, browns, blues and greens fling in the sky.
“Wait, what? A queen dragon who actually accepts random strangers getting close to her eggs? And is happy about it?” Grace exclaimed.
“I haven’t read all the books, but from what I recall, queens weren’t happy about anyone getting close to the eggs. I suppose a candidate who just looked could be acceptable if you had a good-natured queen… and he got the terms mixed up. You capitalise Thread and put between in italics.”
“That was meant to be ‘flying’, right?” Grace asked as the Stu returned to the cavern and a dream bubble appeared over his head of a giant trebuchet flinging dragons into the sky.
Both agents watched for a moment, and Grace took a picture with her phone. The Words hit them before they remembered to pay attention.
Chapter 2
Stanor was woken up with a shake well it was much of a shake but a loud rumble.
A pair of hands appeared out of nowhere and shook the Stu until he woke up, before offering him a milkshake that had appeared spontaneously and vanishing. A loud rumble sounded, one that appeared to be coming from the shake.
Grace picked it up and eyed it suspiciously. Finally, she took a sip.
“Well?” Ally asked.
“Strawberry,” Grace replied, apparently not noticing that there was pink foam around her mouth. “Quite good, too. Could you pick the list up and charge him for poor phrasing of sentences, please?”
Ally duly noted the charge while Grace finished the shake.
As they were talking, the story had progressed. Dragons all over the Weyr were roaring for an as yet unknown reason, and the story introduced the Weyrwoman and Weyrleader.
“He’s described them, but he hasn’t given their names. And he still hasn’t described himself. That’s a charge, right?”
Grace nodded and kept writing.
The story introduced the Stu’s love interest, a woman called Lesa, who was apparently Stanor’s first friend at the Weyr.
"The eggs are ready to hatch.'' She said as the Weyrwoman came out of the ground she said loudly for everyone to hear "Mor'to get the candidates ready. She said before disappearing into the cavern.
“The words don’t specify whether it’s Lesa or the Weyrwoman speaking,” Grace objected. “Also, dragons hum when eggs hatch, they don’t roar.”
“And Mor’to? Shouldn’t it be M’to?” Ally asked.
“Exactly,” Grace agreed.
Marya entered the grounds calmly as her queen shook her head side to side over her eggs Marya reaching for her queen asked What is wrong my dear sweet queen? Printh roared to her rider The eggs are going to hatch this afternoon
“Apart from not stating that the Weyrwoman’s name is Marya,” Ally said, “I can see one rather big problem. Dragons are telepathic, so Printh shouldn’t be roaring anything to Marya.”
“That, and while I can see a queen telling her rider that the eggs were ready to hatch, I can’t see her making such a fuss about it, at least until the eggs were actually going to,” Grace agreed. “It’s the little details that are making this fic so irritating, ‘cause they’re the ones you pick up on.”
The Stu returned to his ‘courters’ before dressing himself in a white robe which quickly became a white tunic, before a friend entered.
“Wasn’t the candidate uniform more like a shapeless dress?”
“So I thought.”
"Are you hoping to impress a bronze like He'tl?'' Said, his friend Mack as he brushed his pretty blonde boy hair back.
Mack’s hair changed, now looking as though someone with too much time on their hands had carefully shaved his hair into a number of male symbols.
“Somehow, I can’t see that catching on. That, and ‘blonde’ is female, ‘blond’ is male.”
"I hope I do but it doesn't matter I just want to impress.'' He said honestly he really didn't care who he impressed as long as he did.
“That’s a fair attitude,” Grace admitted. “Though he needs to capitalise ‘Impress’. But it should be ‘he really didn’t care what he Impressed’.”
“Apart from the grammar,” Ally commented, “I can’t see anything really wrong with this Stu, you know.”
“That’s because he’s got so little character, he’s flatter than a piece of paper,” Grace replied viciously.
Mack pulling on loose string on his robe said "Well that's good you've got a better chance at impression then most of us being weyrbred and all.'' He said with envy it was true that Stanor's farther and mother were weyrbred his mother was junior Weyrwoman at Cove Weyr while his farther He'tl was wing leader at Benden both became weyr mates when she had her first mating flight opened. They were in love but couldn't be together because they came from to different Weyrs and it was even more trouble when Stanor was born unexpectedly his mother Nasa new she couldn't take care of him and her duties to the weyr so she gave him to He'tl when he turned one turn.
"That bit about his father and mother is bullshit," Grace commented. "I don’t believe any Weyr would keep them separate- if his bronze flew her queen, then he should stay with her, or her with him. That was the whole freaking point of open mating flights.”
“Besides,” Ally commented, “if his mother’s a junior Weyrwoman at Cove Weyr and his father’s a wingleader at Benden, then what the fuck is this guy doing at Margo Weyr?”
“Good question,” Grace agreed.
Mack and Lesa both came from two different holds Mack from KeyMine hold known for its runner beast and sheep so he had been told. Lesa came from a Major Beastcraft hall that breeds the sheep for KeyMine hold. Both were Searched and brought her at the same time.
Mack rubbed his head "Well I think I'll go talk to the weyrmaster about impression.'' He headed to the door "I'll see you later.'' And he headed out the door Stanor glanced at him before he left.
“No hold had a name like ‘KeyMine’,” Grace said acidly. “And it shouldn’t be known for its sheep if they didn’t breed the sheep. That, and I don’t remember there being any sheep on Pern in the first place.”
“Why would Mack want to talk to the Weyrmaster- hang on, Weyr what?”
“Good point. You were saying?”
“Why would he want to talk to the Weyrleader about Impression? He should have been told all the pertinent details by now.”
“Well, the ones in Dragonflight weren’t, but Lessa and F’lar changed that. You’re right, though.”
“This fic seems like it was written by someone who read the books but hadn’t done so for a long time before writing this,” Ally decided.
They portalled to the next chapter.
The Stu went to talk to his father. After being picked up by his father’s bronze, who talked to him for some reason, and who apparently hadn’t ever caught a queen despite being the biggest bronze in the Weyr, he was taken to his father’s weyr.
“I can buy a father’s dragon wanting to look out for his son,” Grace conceded. “But the never catching a queen thing just doesn’t seem likely. If He’tl didn’t want Meteth to fly a queen, that would be OK, and if the queen couldn’t stand him, that’d work, but you’d think a huge bronze would fly a queen eventually.”
“That, and he apparently has ‘paws’. That might explain it.”
The Stu’s father, the story informed the agents, had a green ‘firelizad’
named Bark, who apparently acted like a gold fire-lizard in that she protected her clutches instead of neglecting them like most greens.
Grace read the misspelling, rubbed her forehead and sighed.
The Stu and his father talked about the ceremony, Meteth ‘purred’ in delight, and the Stu finally went to talk to Lesa.
The agents watched until a stray line attracted their notice.
She said still looking at the lake Stanor couldn't help but be attracted to the crystal glowing lake shining bright like the sun.
The lake transformed, its surface changing from liquid to solid- solid crystal, glowing and shining at the same time, with such force that the agents were forced to look away lest they be blinded.
“Argh!”
“Quite,” Grace muttered.
“I just thought of something,” Ally said. “Why are the candidates wearing their uniforms now, before the Hatching? What if they got ruined or dirty?”
“Good point,” Grace said, noting the charge.
The Hatching began, the candidates moving into the Hatching Ground. The agents portalled in after them.
Lesa joined the girls who were circling one of the golden eggs. It was shaking violently as it tried to escape its shell prison the golden egg was shaking too but not as violently as the other. Stanor watched the little egg oddly maybe it was not shaking so violently because it didn't belong to Printh it belonged to queen Proth from Volcanic Weyr she had laid three golden eggs already but she laid an unexpected fourth a week before the others hatched. No one could explain why she laid a fourth egg later then the others. Proth didn't explain she simple said ''it was its time to come''. They gave it to Margo Weyr since they had only one queen left after the last queen Perth went between when her rider died.
“That’s a stupid idea,” Ally said. “A queen should want to hatch no matter who her mother is.”
Grace nodded. “Also, a queen laying four queen eggs? No. Hell no. The only dragon to get close to that was freaking Faranth. And, if Margo Weyr is so big, why not give it two of the queen eggs? Four queens would be a good number for a big Weyr.”
“This is really getting annoying,” Ally said. “Not just the mistakes, but... it kinda feels like this Stu didn’t care about the mistakes he made.”
“I’m looking forward to blowing this place up,” Grace said.
“Blowing it up?”
“Well, yeah. We have to. I know the Department of Geographical Aberrations normally sets uncanon places on fire, but if they can set fire to stone, I’ll be surprised. No, I’ve got a prototype device in DoSAT I can test out that’ll fix this.”
Ally shrugged. “As long as it works, I guess.”
The agents stood, awed as the eggs began to hatch. Around them, dragons and candidates met, and they nearly forgot to take notice of Mack Impressing a bronze named Voth. Unusually, Stanor hadn’t Impressed, as the story noted. Instead, the queen eggs hatched.
Lesa standing on the side lines was quickly on her feet running to the little queens defense as the bigger queen was about to push the queen again not thinking she ran right between them before the big queen could hit. The queen roared in shock as Lesa gave her a sharp pop on the muzzle yelling "You leave her alone you big bully!''
“Did she just…”
“Apparently,” Ally replied.
“She just hit a queen. She freaking hit a queen dragon.”
“You’re stating the obvious, Grace.”
“But… attacking a dragon? A queen dragon? She’s just asking to get killed!”
“It’s a hatchling, how much damage could she do?”
“You read Dragonflight, remember how many candidates got hurt by the hatchlings?”
“OK, OK. I get it. Attacking queens is bad,” Ally agreed.
The little queen pushed her muzzle against Lesa's back her eyes shining a greenish blue Thank you for standing up for Majesth.
“That is a terrible pun,” Grace said.
“Pun?”
“Majesth, majesty, queen, queen dragon.”
“Oh. Ugh.”
“Exactly.”
Without warning or scene break, they were thrown into a new scene.
I'm cutting as fast as I can! Well cut faster I'm hungry. Caith said hungrily as St'anor cut a leg off the ewe and chopped it in half and threw in the bucket. Grabbing the handle he carried it out into the Weyr bowl Caith was waiting patiently near the lake his favorite feeding spot.
“Wait, where the hell did this come from? The story said the Stu didn’t Impress!” Ally said in surprise.
“And the names!” Grace exclaimed. “St’anor?” Did this Stu pick up anything about the dragonrider names? They’re supposed to be shortened versions of the originals, not names with random apostrophes!” She wrote down the charges angrily.
The Stu did his chores (“Wait, what chores?” Ally asked in confusion) and slept for a short time before being wakened by his father, who dragged him back to his weyr. In the weyr, he was joined by Mack, or M’ack, as the story called him, an OC called Emily, who had apparently Impressed the other queen, another OC called Zoey, who had Impressed a green, and He’tl. The fire-lizard eggs were hatching.
“Doubt it,” Grace said. “Fire-lizard eggs would be distributed to whoever the Weyrleader and Weyrwoman thought should have them. I suppose they could just say ‘OK, you can decide who has them’, but it just doesn’t seem likely when you consider how valued fire-lizards were.”
The agents watched as the riders named their fire-lizards and left, the tiny creatures sleeping in their arms.
“The names are a bit…” Grace said doubtfully. “I know Menolly named her fire-lizards standard words, but the majority of other riders gave them more… name-like, I suppose… names- like Sebell's Kimi, Robinton’s Zair, Piemur’s Farli and F’nor’s Grall. I don’t think it’s a charge.”
“I can think of one. The Stu named his fire-lizard ‘Sparks’ because of his eyes, but he didn’t say what about the fire-lizard’s eyes made him think of sparks.”
“Good point.”
The story ground to a halt and the OC’s froze in their places as they reached the end of the last chapter. Grace glanced over the charge list, nodded and walked up to the Stu.
“Stanor, also known as St’anor,” she said formally, “we are Protectors of the Plot Continuum and we are here to charge you with crimes against canon, specifically the Dragonriders of Pern canon.
“We charge you with constant and persistent misuse of grammar, spelling and punctuation. We charge you with the creation of the uncanonical locations ‘Margo Weyr’, ‘Volcanic Weyr’ and ‘Cove Weyr’. We charge you with continual lapses of Pernese culture- for instance, the candidate robe is a shapeless dress; dragonriders’ names are abbreviated, the apostrophe’s not just there for show; a bronze who flies a queen wouldn’t be separated from her- that’s the point of open mating flights, for God’s sake! You’ve given dragonriders one-syllable names when they can’t be abbreviated, you totally failed to describe yourself- you’re the protagonist, for the love of God- and you’ve…” she coughed, her throat dry. “Sorry. Ally, could you take over?”
Ally nodded. “You’re also charged with some pretty big plot holes. For instance, you never explained why a wingleader from Benden Weyr and his son ended up in Margo Weyr. Also, you said that St’anor never Impressed, and then suddenly he has a brown named Caith. And why would a fire-lizard clutch not get distributed by the Weyrleader? Fire-lizards are a valued asset. Not to mention, you also never stated where Margo Weyr is, or when this is set.” She shook her head. “Fucking hell. You could have reread the books. Or even just one of them. Anyway, for all this shit and more, we’re going to kill you. You don’t get last words because you’re frozen.”
Grace took out her Remote Activator. “You wait here, I’m going to go get the prototype.” She opened a portal, walked through it and emerged a few minutes later carrying a wooden crate with a fuse trailing from it.
“What’s that?” Ally asked, curious.
“A prototype we built for DoGA for situations like this,” Grace explained. “It’s a bomb that mainly uses powdered canon instead of explosives… a Canon Bomb, if you will. In theory, when set alight, it explodes, creating a wave of canon that wipes away the uncanon location, replacing it with a canon one. It’s only been tried a few times, so DoSAT’s keen for more tests.”
Ally shrugged. “OK, so we just set it down here and light the fuse?”
Grace sorted through her bag and pulled out a box of matches. “Open a portal to somewhere else first, then we light the fuse and go through it.”
Ally opened a portal, Grace lit the fuse and they went through.
About twenty seconds later, they heard the bang of an explosion and saw a ripple in the air, one that swept through Margo Weyr and left behind it the distinctive peaks of Benden Weyr.
A few second later, Grace let out a startled gasp.
“I know, it’s amazing,” Ally agreed, watching the ripple get closer and closer.
“No, give me that!” The older agent grabbed the RA from Ally, opened a portal and shoved her partner into it before diving in herself and hastily closing it.
The agents landed on the hot sands of the Benden Weyr Hatching Ground, which was otherwise deserted. Grace landed face-first on the sand with a thump and groaned slightly. “Ow.”
“And that,” Ally commented from a couple of metres away, “is why you don’t dive through portals.” She helped Grace up. “What were you so worried about, anyway?”
“I didn’t realise, but the Canon Bomb doesn’t discriminate. It was wiping out everything that isn’t canon- and we’re not canon, either…”
Ally blanched. “Grace, how is that thing going to get approved for general use if it could kill agents?”
“My pedantic side would like to argue that almost everything PPC agents use could kill them. But I know what you mean. Honestly, I don’t know. This might have to be filed under ‘Was A Good Idea At The Time, But Is Too Problematic To Be Implemented’.” Grace sighed. “It really did seem like a good idea.”
“Undoubtedly, but it’s too fucking dangerous,” Ally replied. “Anyway, we need to get out of here before someone comes in.”
Grace nodded and opened a portal back to their RC.
Three changes had occurred in their absence: the Thereah was sitting on the couch, glaring at the machine on Grace’s desk. Said machine was letting out a soft beep every five seconds. And finally, a note was sitting on Grace’s keyboard.
Ally sat down and stroked the Thereah while Grace read the note. “What does it say?”
“Basically, that DoSAT are still going over the jukebox, and it’ll take a while to find the problem.”
“Ah, OK.”
“Open the analyser, will you?”
“The say what?”
“The machine that goes beep.”
Ally got up and looked at the machine. “How?”
“Twist the knob.”
Ally twisted the knob, a hatch opened, and an orange ball rolled out.
“What the…”
Grace glanced over. “What?”
“Grace, before I tell you, could you please tell me what this thing is meant to do?”
“You put broken technology in it and it analyses the technology and prints out a report detailing exactly what went wrong with it.”
“What did you put in it?”
“A broken CAD. Why?”
Ally turned around, hands cupped. Sitting within them was a kitten made out of orange tulips. “That’s why.”
Grace stared at the kitten in disbelief. It seemed to be biologically perfect, and let out a petulant meow to prove it.
“Grace, how did this happen?”
“I don’t know,” Grace managed.
Ally set the kitten down on the desk, where it stretched and began to walk around. “Isn’t she gorgeous?”
Grace focused on the kitten, who was indeed beautiful- she was made of tulip petals in a variety of shades of orange. Had she been a flower, she would have been in a flower show somewhere with a blue ribbon.
Unfortunately, the Thereah was eyeing her with a look that was appreciation on a completely different level.
“I don’t think we can keep her,” Ally said mournfully. “We have a rabbit, we can’t keep a tulip-kitten.”
“No, definitely not,” Grace agreed. “We’ll have to find her a home somewhere else.”
The kitten meowed again.
“Don’t be like that, Aniseed,” Ally crooned to her. “We’ll find you a nice place with people who like plants, and no herbivores.”
“Aniseed? Why Aniseed?”
“It fits,” Ally said simply.
Grace didn’t bother arguing. “All right, she can be Aniseed for now.”
“Also, that tells us something else.”
“It does?”
“This is what, the third thing you’ve built since we started working together that’s gone wrong for no real reason, yeah?”
“Yeah, three sounds about right. Why?”
“Once is bad luck. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Could someone be sabotaging your machines?” Ally asked bluntly.
Grace’s jaw dropped. “Why on earth would someone do that?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me.”
“I can’t think of a reason anyone would. I don’t have any enemies. Unless there’s a Helen Cutter knockoff walking around HQ.”
“None that I know of,” Ally conceded.
“Besides, it might not be sabotage. PPC HQ is a weird place full of conflicting energies, it’s not inexplicable that it could be interfering with my technology.” Grace didn’t look like she believed it.
“Then why isn’t our technology exploding or having completely different effects every time we go in and out of HQ? Even CADs that break work for a little while. Usually.”
Grace bit her lip. “OK, maybe I used the wrong part.”
“Three times in a row? Bullshit. You’re too good an inventor for that. I’ve watched you triple-checking your parts and supplies before you used them.”
“It could be the Ironic Overpower?”
“I could buy that, but for one thing: the Ironic Overpower usually doesn’t have effects this complex. I mean, normally it’s just making things get worse or invoking the effects you didn’t want to happen. What these machines were meant to do and what they did do are so different that I can’t believe it isn’t sabotage- I just can’t think of how. Then again, this is the PPC.”
Grace sagged. “But… why would someone go to so much trouble? They could just break the machines or rig them to blow a fuse. These effects are just… silly.”
“I don’t know,” Ally sighed. “We’ll have to think about it.”
“And then?”
“And then, once we’ve found out who it is and why, I want a word with them,” Ally said firmly.
“Oh, fine,” Grace said glumly. “If you must.”
“I must,” Ally said.
“I’ll try to find Aniseed a new owner, then,” Grace said, heading to her computer.
Aniseed sat up at the sound of her name and preened. The Thereah glared.
“All right, then.” Ally said. “You do that.” She paused. “Why aren’t you angry? Someone’s doing their best to fuck you over, and you’re not even objecting?”
Grace flinched. “It’s just… I guess…”
Ally waited.
“If it’s sabotage… it means someone hates me. Really hates me. I don’t… I don’t like that idea. I don’t want to be hated.”
Ally shrugged. “Can’t blame you. This kind of sabotage means someone really wants to take you down. Do you really not know who it could be?”
“No! I can’t think of anyone who might hate me that much!”
Ally shrugged. “Well, no one said this was going to be easy.” She patted Grace on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll find out who it is.”
“Thanks, Ally,” Grace said gratefully.
Ally grinned. “You’re welcome.”
----
AV: Hi again! It's finally finished, and I hope it's greatly improved. I had the biggest problem trying to decide what to call this mission- I went with 'Every You, Every Me' on the spur of the moment. Good song, BTW. Go listen to it. For non-Primeval fans, Grace's reference to season 2 episode 1 concerns a scene where Connor and Abby are trying to catch a baby raptor. Connor fires a tranquilliser gun at it and hits Abby by mistake. Since Grace started out at a female Connor, it stands to reason that after that, she doesn't have much confidence in shooting things- even though it wasn't really Connor's fault (he was trying to hit a constantly-moving target, and Abby was an idiot for not getting the hell out of the way). Just FYI. The third mission will be coming soon- I need to add stuff to it. Then I've got the MST's to do, and then I get to tackle Fix and the Carver's stuff, which I'm not looking forward to. It'll be a while before I'm writing anything totally new, but the rewritten stuff is different enough from the originals (I hope) that it'll be enough. Anyway, that's all for now. Have fun!
P.S. I'd just like to add that Ally and I do not share similar opinions concerning MLP: FiM.
