Fellowship & Fairydust

GRACIE’S POV

“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.” I tried to regain my composure as I brought Professor Yeller his tea for the day. The old man tensed up as I entered his private lab, leaning protectively over his devices while I came to his main computer. I did pause in my venture forward as he held his hand up because, well, that’s universal. 

Shaking his head, he told me, “Don’t come any closer. I don’t want any of this equipment to get damaged. I remember what happened the last time you spilled synthetic energy in here.” 

“I-I’m still sorry about that.” I apologized again as I set the tea on one of the tables. “I guess your devices can’t run on energy drinks.”

“No, they can’t. I thank you for bringing me my tea, but please go before you break something.” 

“O-okay, Professor.” But I wasn’t going to give up that easily. Spinning around as if I was about to leave, I made sure the edge of the tray caught my skirt to put my plan into action. Just as I predicted the tray spilled over coating me with hot scalding liquid and crashing against the floor. To sell the act I made sure my foot caught against a table leg, sending me falling forward over the spilled utensils. “Ow!” 

With a growl, the elderly man grabbed his cane and came over to me. Annoyance and mild frustration were replaced by the wide eyes of concern as he noticed that I landed on the kettle and tray as well. “What happened? Are you alright?” As he knelt to look over me I had to fight my revulsion of that man showing concern. “Is anything broken? Do you need the medical room?
“N-no. The stupid tray caught my skirt and… oh, no. This was my favorite one. Now it’s ruined.” 

“You’d better go change.” 

Change. That’s what he needed to do, and I’m not talking about the retro lab coat and space uniform mixture he had on. But I needed him out of this room. “I… oh, I can’t. I think it tore open my pants too. Yeah, it did. Oh, phooey.” With a few sniffles, I began to make it seem like I was on the verge of tears. “Th-this was the last thing my g-grandmother got me before sh-she passed away. N-now I’ve destroyed the last gift she e-ever gave m-me, and I have nothing else to remember her by!”
“… wait here. I’ll find you my prototype fabric restorer. Why did I have to let Herod borrow it to work out the bugs? No matter. But stay right there and don’t touch anything. I’ll be back before you know it.” Walking to the entrance he left his lab to help me with my ‘problem’. 

Perfect. Just as I wanted. Getting up, I moved over to his personal computer and pulled out my microbot. “Okay, Spinster. Do your thing.” As my partner activated, some wires moved out of him like tendrils and hacked into the professor’s system. Smiling, I rubbed my hands together. “Okay, doc. Let’s see what you don’t want people to know you’re working on. Spinster, make sure to patch this to HQ.” 

As the amounts of data passed by on the computer, I smiled as now my associates would be getting their hands on it. All in the name of the cause. I still can’t believe I got chosen by Professor Anton Yeller to be part of his space program. My Gracie Goodheart identity must be the best disguise I ever went with. 

Huh? Project Draugr? What was that? Why would Professor Yeller make a project named after a corpse? Experiment successful? What does that mean? Pulling it back up I dared to open it, and what I found made my eyes widen. “A disease that would reanimate a corpse and repurpose it to destroy any life within Animalia? Why would someone make something so horrible?” 

Spinster then started beeping. A transmission from HQ. Tapping the microbot’s head, I answered, “Agent 1-3-7 here. Infiltration was successful. Data being transferred now.”
“We’re getting it. This is worse than we thought. If some of these items were to get out it would spell the end of the Downtrod.” My superior said from the other end. “Any word on the fate of the two from the station?”
“Some of the students have found them, against all odds.” Taking a breath, I added, “They were sent to what they claim is a parallel world.”
“A parallel world?”

“Yes. I see them popping up in some of these other projects. There are too many to get a clear picture. We’ll have to analyze them to get a clear sense.” I explained as crazy as it was, but the Downtrod needed to know. 

My superior then told me this: “We’ll get the best agents to study these files. We’ll know what Yeller is up to soon.”
“I sense it has something to do with this Mortem Contingency I see in a few files.”

“We’ll analyze it, and get back to you. Maintain your cover, find those two, and make sure they find their way to us. They might have knowledge that can aid us in our fight.”

“There’s more. We talked with Clair, and she claims that Jason believes there’s a traitor on board.”
“To Yeller or the station?”

“Unclear. But someone they fought seemed to suggest something bigger is going on, and I believe the answer is somewhere in Yeller’s files.”
“Repeat, maintain cover. We’ll contact you when we have something.”

Nodding, I said, “Copy that. Agent 1-3-7, out.” As communications ended, I gathered up Spinster once the last of the files had been sent. Still, I felt uneasy about some of the stuff I read. Project Draugr, the Mortem Contingency, and all the old data recordings of the reemergence of the kaiju. What does all this mean? I had a feeling this was not going to be good for anyone on Harthyn, so that means we have to stop it.

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