Number All my Bones: There and Back and There Again

chapter four: a few

It's only a taser; I know. I know the basics about these types of guns, although violence isn't my main research preference. Still, I duck inside, my heartbeat still somewhat yelling at me, my head definitely yelling at me to get back to my work, that it's probably just some sort of census. But the doorbell rang, and Papyrus immediately sprang out of his seat, with that golly-gee smile impressioned all over his face, and sprinted towards the door. Sans sprinted after him, and I after Sans, all of us except Papyrus seeming to remember the rule that no one was supposed to answer the door except for me. But the door opened before I could say anything, and there stood the one woman I would cry over just a few weeks later.
Her name tag read "Ica Rutrow, Head of the Anti-Monster Department", the "Jess" part obscured by a shadow for a little while, but I knew who she was. The streak of grey hair, the crossed arms, the badges on her blue dress told me everything. She was the one who had started the "MF" tag, the one who had started the monsters coming home without any sort of occupation, the one who had started the monster children not allowed to take the same classes as humans, the monsters being denied from the hospitals.
The dehumanization process didn't need to be done; it simply was, and it was since when we were born.
My smile stretches until it turns taut. "Hello, Miss."
Her hand settles on her taser for a moment, but it stutters just before it settles by her side. "Hello, Doctor. I've heard a lot about you."
I nodded. "I can say the same. Especially with your 'MF' endeavors. What does it stand for, though? I'll take a wild guess. 'Monsters Forbidden.'"
She nodded back, although I could practically see her teeth gritting.
Her hand moved closer to the gun.
Betty whimpered a little, and Sans and Papyrus hushed the other children away before they could get embroiled in the grown-up soup of politics and science. In another world, maybe I would have gone with them. But that world is faraway, much too far from now to even think of existing.
Miss Rutrow put her hand by her hip. "Are we conducting the meeting or not?"
I nodded, although I didn't even think about giving her any more than that. I was prepared to send all of the children upstairs, thinking they went into the living room, but it was only Betty there, reading a history book for her tutoring program, no doubt. I was about to say something, but one look at the scary lady behind me all in blue sent her tiptoeing away and making her way up the stairs.
As we sat on the couches, the coffee in the pot cold by now after my morning cup, I made my move, even though I knew it wouldn't work by a long shot. "Do you mind putting the gun away? I have four little kids here, and I don't want them getting-"
She laughed, ran her long fingernails through her hair once or twice. "Of course not. You're the scientist, aren't you? You should know by now that it's only a safety precaution. Not that I'd willy-nilly fire at one of your kiddos, right?"
I sighed, went into a conversation about geothermics I wouldn't give to my students until it was May and the graduation caps were being shipped. I counted myself using the words "entropy", "enthalpy," "quasistatic", "Carnot cycle", and "calorimetry" at least twice each before she started to nod off before nearly bumping her nose on the edge of the couch. Science that would have gone over her head even if she had a fifty-foot mitt to catch it. She jerked herself up so quickly that she started falling forwards, and I almost stretched out my hands to catch her before she could regain her composure."Well, Dr. Gaster, this was all very, very informative, but can you please focus on the effectiveness of your project?"
I went into a slight smile. Finally. "Alright, Miss. The expansion of the Core will help to power our city by-"
She put a hand over her mouth in mock shock, but I knew she was yawning underneath. A professor tends to notice these things easier. "So it basically makes our gas bills cheaper?"
I laughed, and I almost put a hand over my own mouth. I shifted into a different language, one that politicians love to speak. "What-?! No. No, not at all. If the expansion is complete, you won't even have to pay for electricity at all. Ever. And thanks to it, we're starting to see a big change. Not only in the bills-" I stopped. I was getting a little preachy. I laughed again. Even if I was preachy, it wouldn't ever stop me from loving the feeling.
So I gave in when she asked how the Core worked. Just this once.
"Well, it converts geothermal energy from the mountain to-"
I couldn't say "magical", but there was another word for that. A word I could use.
"-idiopathic energy by using the underground chambers. These chambers have magnets with turbines that allow the electricity to be transformed from idiopathic to-"
She put her hand over her eyes, although I know they were closed underneath.
"It converts electricity to heat."
"Oh, I see." Huh. So she wasn't asleep after all.
"A non-polluting, unlimited, self-sustaining power source. Of course..."
I stand up, and she puts her weight on her toes as if she'll follow, but she stays right there where she is. People say I'm a good judge, even though I'm a better scientist, but in cases such as this, I can't always pull out a clear verdict about someone.
"...none of this would happen if you don't sign the agreement tomorrow."
She nods, but puts her hand closer to her taser just in case.
"Yes, but that doesn't mean anything."
"What do you mean that doesn't mean anything? I've just explained an energy agenda that I doubt you'll find anywhere else, and-"
"That still doesn't explain the rest of your kind."
"Are you-?!"
"Yes, Doctor. I am. You think that just because you've made energy out of the dirt means that you haven't come from it. You come up here and steal our jobs, steal our money, all because you think you're better than the rest of us. You-"
I stretched out my hand, reach for anything looking vaguely like a door handle to push. "Miss Rutrow, I didn't say any of that-"
"Oh, just because you didn't say it doesn't mean it isn't-"
I saw her in the corner before I heard her. Betty had come back from upstairs, probably because of all the fuss we made down here, and was looking at me with some of the most terrified two eyes I've ever seen.
"Excuse me, ma'am."
She didn't bother me as I went over and patted Betty's shoulder. Poor girl. Only a few minutes here, and already we've escalated beyond what I would ever think of doing if Jessica wasn't... Jessica.
"Betty, it's alright. The both of us were just having a discussion, alright? It's very important. So what I need for you to do is to go back upstairs and-"
"Doctor."
"Just a minute. What I need for you to do is go back upstairs and tell the others that everything is fine. And even if it does escalate, I'm stronger than I look, huh?" I patted her shoulder again for good measure.
"Doctor, please. You're not talking to anyone."
"Miss, what do you mean I'm not talking to anyone? Betty's right here, isn't she?"
Chara and Asriel have come back down, too. I suppose the conversation died just enough. "Isn't she?"
Chara shakes his head, while Asriel shrugs his shoulders. "She's still upstairs playing puzzles with Papyrus. An' I think she's learning how to play chess, too."
I look to my right, and Betty's gone.
Anxiety can do more than you could ever imagine, I suppose. If it can keep me staying awake at night after a dream that only mildly alarmed me, it can do what it just did.
Anxiety also kept me heading towards my room after Jessica left, after calling down the kids and getting Papyrus to help me fix a pizza and some chicken, telling them that dinner was probably right around the corner.
And just as anxiety foretold, something's wrong.
One of my books on human-monster history has fallen on the floor, but even without any sort of education in physics, I can tell it doesn't fall like that. It's at least halfway across the room, my bookshelf still in place right next to the door, and when I picked it up, another eerie fact sent a chill down my spine, and I almost felt my coat shaking along with it.
It was open only a few pages in towards the end. Experience has taught me otherwise. If books don't fall flat on the covers, front or backs, it normally falls with the middle pages open and spread out. Meaning if it didn't fall, someone had to have taken it. Was it Sans or Asriel or Betty or anyone being tutored by him, forgetting to pick it up after they'd left? Or was it Papyrus, who was trying to get his own little revenge for me not getting him the book at the library?
Alright. Focus.
It's probably one of them.
I put back the book, and I sighed, going out to fix myself another cup of coffee.
Anxiety can do everything, I suppose.