Summary: Natalia suffers the consequences of helping child fugitives, Ellie goes to the opticians and the team investigate strange puddles across town.
Natalia's third eye was shut tight as she ran swiftly towards her apartment. The sun was setting off in the distance and the void sky was beginning to close around the town. She held tightly to the young girl's hand in her own as she ran and questioned every reason she had done this in the first place.
She should have considered more rationally running towards the helicopter as it crashed a block from hers and Ellie's apartment. The biochemist had gone out to Big Rico's with Dave for the evening. She had assured Natalia it wasn't a date when she'd inquired. Just that the two of them hadn't had their mandatory Rico's slice that week so had decided to go together. Still, it nagged at the back of her mind for some reason that she couldn't quite put her finger on. She considered that it could be that she didn't like Dave, but then rebuffed the idea. Dave was nice.
So she had had no-one to stop her running to help when a yellow helicopter fell out of the sky. When she arrived at the scene, people wearing yellow polo shirts with the StrexCorp logo and smiling far too much given their situation were stumbling from the wreckage of the helicopter towards a group of children carrying various weapons. Natalia was 70% sure that one of the young girls was carrying a set of sai swords. But every single one of the children had a slingshot and a makeshift satchel of some kind filled with heavy books.
The leader of the children had what appeared to be a scaled hand around her neck and her black hair was sticking out in many a strange direction. The polo shirt StrexCorp employees had began to draw weapons as they advanced towards the children. As Natalia came closer, the children began to run away with only a few staying behind to fend off the attackers.
"Book club, good work. But we didn't anticipate the enemy to retaliate so quickly. I'm ordering a temporary retreat. We need a place to lay low." The leader whispered to to the others.
"We're too far away from the library." One of the others said.
"What do we do, Tamika?!" Another chipped in.
"Psst." Natalia hissed at them from around the corner. A few jumped and turned around. "This way."
"We don't need help from you adult-"
"There they are! Get them!" One of the Strex employees yelled.
Thus, that was how Natalia had ended up grabbing Tamika's hand, albeit against the 12 year old's will, and rushing towards her apartment with about 20 children running behind her in hot pursuit. Natalia glanced backwards at the Strex workers as the group approached the apartment. She unlocked the door quickly before looking at the scarily still smiling pursuers.
"Use the back door, it leads straight out to the Sand Wastes. Go!"
Tamika nodded to Natalia respectfully and silently before the children filed through the door. Natalia shut the door behind them, locking it again before facing the StrexCorp workers.
"Now, now, miss..." One of the men in the polo shirts said. "It's really not a great idea to help missing children, is it?"
"Leave them alone. They're just kids!" Natalia replied shakily.
"Say, are you a StrexCorp member?" One asked.
"I wouldn't say she is." The other observed. "She doesn't smile! Not smiling doesn't please the Smiling God, now does it?"
Before Natalia could react, they ran forward and grabbed hold of her tightly, with a surprising amount of strength given her size.
"Mmm!" She struggled against them but there was already a hand over her mouth and her wrists firmly restrained.
"Hush, now. Don't worry, you're going to be alright. Everyone knows that the Smiling God is the way forward! Productivity and smiles will be coming your way very soon."
"El....mm! Mmmm, mmmmm!!!" Natalia screamed uselessly into the hand covering her mouth and kicked against the tight grips as she was carted off by the two men. Soon, all was quiet on the street, apart from the few pacings of a woman walking along the street, whose facial structure placed her from somewhere in Italy.
~
"Good morning, good morning!" Dr Green sang in her usual cheerful manner as she ran into the lab frantically.
"Mornin'!" Jeffries grinned at her. Ellie returned his smile and gave him a high five.
"I take it Nat's already here?" Ellie addressed Carlos, who was fiddling with his hair and the radio simultaneously.
"No, she didn't come in this morning. I tried her phone, but she didn't answer."
"She wasn't in when I got home. Was she with you, Rochelle?"
"No, she wasn't. What's wrong?"
"She hasn't been heard from by anyone?" Carlos said in confusion. "Scientifically-"
"It's not like her." Ellie interrupted. "Nat texts someone where she is even if she has to pop to Target for five minutes, for goodness' sake." The biochemist recalled in her mind when she's first noticed that the young physicist did that. Dr Johnson had replied that she used to do it as habit growing up, as her adopted parents worried about her, then the habit stuck.
"You....you don't think something could be wrong, do you?" Rochelle said, chewing on her lip slightly.
"She's probably just running a little late, is all." Dave shrugged. "She'll call, I'm sure."
Rochelle looked a little comforted by his answer, but Ellie was shifting from foot to foot, deep in thought.
"Hey, guys, listen to this." Jeffries raised his voice and turned up the volume of the radio.
"ALL THE CHILDREN IN TOWN KNOW TO HIDE IN THEIR ROOMS. THE ADULTS HAVE FORGOTTEN - THEY'LL RECALL ALL TOO SOON. HER HANDS ARE LIKE STORM CLOUDS, WITH LIGHTNING-QUICK TALONS. ALL BEFORE IS A MURMUR, ALL AFTER IS SILENCE...and ate the last of her eggs. Nothing more to report on the woman at this time. I don't even know why I reported what I just did."
"What...what just happened to Cecil?" Carlos sweat dropped.
"Possessed, probably." Dave sipped his coffee. "In all fairness, if you need a message getting out, the Voice is the best way of doing it."
"But possessing people IS kind of rude." Rochelle added.
"Will he be okay?" Ellie inquired.
"He's Cecil." Dave stated, as if that settled the matter. "Hey, what time is your appointment, Ellie?"
"Hm? Oh, crap! It's in ten minutes! Gotta dash, guys. Text me if Nat comes in!" The biochemist yelled as she sped out of the door, leaving behind a bemused team of scientists.
"She's off to the opticians." Dave said after a few moments. ".....and she's left her car outside." He noted as the four watched Ellie run frantically up the road. The opticians was on the other side of town, but evidently using her car had not occurred to the woman.
"Ah well, she'll get a good run." Rochelle giggled.
~
"...news to all of you out there who adopted kittens from Khoshekh, the cat floating in our station bathroom. Well, it's been several months, and the kittens have just been growing like you wouldn't believe! They've moulted twice, and some of them are already getting their grownup kitty spine ridges!"
"Spine ridges?" Jeffries looked at Carlos in confusion as the team took readings from the strange puddle of water in front of them.
"Spine ridges." Carlos confirmed. Cecil had excitedly dragged him to the radio station when the first kitten had shown evidence of the spine ridges. Carlos had attempted to resist given a) his allergy to cats and b) Cecil had mentioned the possibility of venom outbursts. However, this had come to no avail, and he had observed Khoshekh with as much enthusiasm as he could muster whilst sneezing. Cecil had, luckily, noticed Carlos' eyes going red and blotchy so had promised to buy him Claratin for all future visits.
"This more purple patch of the water seems to be expelling higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, so try not to breathe it in." Rochelle warned as Dave put some of the water into a glass vial.
"It's erodin' the rocks around it, too. Mind if I take a sample, Carlos?" Jeffries gestured for Carlos to move his feet.
"Go ahead." He replied before looking closer. "Fascinating. You know, I-"
"Excuse me, what are you doing here?" A voice from behind the scientists said shrilly. Carlos turned around to see several people with clipboards bearing the StrexCorp logo.
"Science. We're doing science." Carlos replied bluntly. Jeffries' face screwed up as he suppressed a chuckle.
"You cannot be here. This area is the private property of StrexCorp."
Dave was confuddled. "This has always been part-"
"Oh, hush hush." The woman in the middle smiled even as she interrupted him. "Now, we would ask you to please leave immediately. It would be a shame to have to put you all in prison too. Especially after how you did such a number on our lovely orange juice campaign." She gritted her teeth angrily but her smile never wavered.
"What do you mean, in prison TOO?" Rochelle stepped forward.
"Oh, one of your wonderful friends was caught helping some fugitives last night, so we had to put her away. She's in the special care of StrexCorp! She'll be all smiles when she comes out! Well, if she comes out."
Carlos paled. "We'd better go then. Team, grab the equipment." He slipped the vial of liquid, now with stopper into his pocket and the four of them steadily gathered their gear and got into the van.
Jeffries gripped the wheel tightly as he drove. There was silence the entire drive back apart from Rochelle, who occasionally gave a small hiccup as she fought back tears.
The team walked through the door to find Dr Green admiring her new blue glasses in the mirror.
"Hey, guys! Check these out! This should help solve my partial blindness." She struck a pose that reminded Carlos of an anime that she'd made him watch, before putting the glasses on top of her curly blonde hair.
"H-Has anyone heard from Nat?" She asked hopefully.
Carlos put his hand on Ellie's shoulder and tugged her gently away from the group as Dave brought Rochelle a cup of tea. Jeffries had isolated himself in the corner, muttering to himself inaudibly.
"Usually, after the weather, I am here to tell you about how we have been saved from some world-ending danger – that, for whatever reason, has failed again to end our world..." Cecil's voice floated from the radio in the corner of the room. Carlos swallowed thickly. The world had not ended, but Carlos all the same felt like a policeman turning up at the doorstep of someone's house to deliver them news that would have the same emotional impact.
"We need to talk, Dr Green." He said gently, leading the confused biochemist into his office.