#new weird

“Not to… disappoint,” Pasco said cautiously, as things had been going well so far, “but I don’t see how a rubber snake get me from Non-sentient Objects all the way to Special Containment. That’s a… very big leap. I haven’t even had any of the training past the basic standardization.”

Holy shit.

He hadn’t even had any of the training.

He was going to be dead in days.

(Maybe that was the point.)

“You haven’t?” Chief Carrasco asked. “I thought NOs got up tp at least Level Fives.”

“Budget cuts. We only go up to Level Three in containment now,” Pasco explained. “Which I think is a mistake given—sorry, ma’am, not my place.”

“Really it should be, you’re the one on the floor,” she said. She stood with a rocking sort of hitch and headed towards her desk. “We’ll get you scheduled. I’d like you up to Seven in containment and Five arms and armaments.”

“I was Six in A and A last tested, ma’am.” At her curious look he shrugged awkwardly. “Three older siblings, fourteen cousins, and ex-army. They had me in sniper training.”

She hummed and made a note in a rather robust looking planner. “What made you leave the army?”

“I was transferred here directly,” Pasco said. He bit the side of his tongue to leave off that he likely would have been discharged for insubordination anyways as soon as he had gotten into any action. Not that he liked either, but there was a difference between civilian casualties and office incompetence.

“Ah. That tracks,” she said, as if it did. “Well, I’ll give you the tour at lest, follow me, Argall.”

Pasco murmured a soft ‘yes ma’am’ before falling in step with her. It was still too easy to fall into the rhythm of someone else’s steps. Pasco didn’t know if he’d ever be rid of the habit or if boot camp had baked it into his soles and, well, soul.

“The first thing to understand about Special Containment, is that it isn’t all about actively dangerous entities. Sure, everything in the sector could kill you, but I could also kill you right now,” Carrasco explained (which Pasco had absolutely no doubt about). “The sector is more about the fact that everything here needs unusual levels of oversight. These types of oversight could be anything from unique means of containment to OOOs who take up too much time from other sectors or, yes, dangerous entities. We try to keep the first two separate from the third.”

Pasco nodded. That made sense. Trained agents had to be expensive to replace.

They had reached the atrium floor now. Pasco took a moment to admire the trees. The shade of purple did look different from down here. It also made the whole light of the space feel slightly… off.

“You get used to it,” Carrasco said, as if reading Pasco’s mind. “Just maybe don’t take your meals here for a bit, the purple makes food look… off.”

“Right, good tip, ma’am,” Pasco said. “We’re sure that those trees don’t lure people in?”

“That’s what the Books and Tubes say.”

Pasco tilted his head a little, glanced from the trees and back to Carrasco. She turned sharply on her heel. Pasco barely had enough time to stop before he ran into her.

“What does your gut say, Argall?” There was something too sharp about her gaze again. Something a little feral in her smile.

It made Pasco be a little more honest than he would normal be to someone above him (which was everyone, really). “I think they’re wrong. I mean, not wrong, maybe, but I think there’s something that they’re missing.”

“They’re the best,” Carrasco argued.

Pasco gave a little shrug. “The bureau's whole mission is dealing with the unknowable. I think it’s… unwise for us to assume that we already know everything to test for. Ma’am.”

Carrasco cracked a grin. “You mean stupid.”

Pasco cleared his throat and hoped that he wasn’t blushing. “Not the word I used, ma’am.”

With a little, hopefully amused snort, Carrasco turned back around and kept walking. “But it’s the word you meant.”

“But not what I said, ma’am.”

“Cutting some fine lines, Agent Argall?”

Pasco steps faulted just for a beat. She was teasing him, he was pretty sure, but she wasn’t wrong. His whole conversation had been cutting fine lines. Because… “That’s what the bureau does, ma’am.”

“That’s an interesting take, Argall,” she said. “You sound a little like a Trapper.”

And didn’t that make Pasco almost lose his rhythm again. Him, a Trapper? “No ma’am, I’m just a center agent through and through. I’ve never even been out on a ground zero.”

“Really? You have been wall bound, aren’t you? That’s interesting. Very interesting.”

“…is it, ma’am?” Pasco dared to ask.

“Yes it is. Now keep up, we have a lot to see.”