"…Okay," you say after a while. "You have fun with that, I guess."
Madrigal doesn't move. You have little idea why this interests her so much, unless she's looking for a distraction just as badly as you are. But why would she— wait, you don't care. You have bigger priorities.
"I'm going to go OVER HERE. And READ some IMPORTANT NOTICES."
Nothing. She doesn't blink. You fold your arms and march over to the far wall, where three pieces of crisp white paper cover a poster about… wage theft? The smallest is neatly typewritten, with flowers around the margin:
"Hi Ms. Villalovez ! Congratulations on achieving Clearance 1 ! We here at 'Namway Co.' are immensely grateful for your s-years of dedicated service !
As you adjust to your new Clearance, you are advised to keep these tips in mind !
* Don't touch your face before it's cured ! This can take upwards of 24-48 s-hours !
* For up to an s-week after curing, you may experience limited/restricted range of expression ! DON'T PANIC ! Be patient until full integration ! Your range of expression will be a LOT bigger than it used to be after :-)
* You can always stop by HR if you need support :-)
Cheers !
Dierdre
(And all your friends at 'Namway Co.' !)"
The second is in short, severe handwriting— you've seen this before, back at the maintenance room.
"Guppy—
We're keeping the snake in the basement— KEEP THE LIGHTS ON
Anyone who tells you otherwise is fucking with you (the boys don't like this gig but I keep telling them it's not my problem)
The goal is to dupe the thing, not invite it in
Also in general keep an eye on it, sound the alarm if there's anything fishy
Thanks
Lester F."
The third is… um, the third is… oh dear. You shift back and forth to get a good angle on it, but the good angle never arises. You can tell there's text on it, certainly, but it's all… blurred. In the middle lies a large wax seal, stamped with an odd spiral. At the bottom is a curving signature, the only legible thing on the paper: "— The Management."
"Madr-," you start, but she's already off to the races: "Oh, shit! Here it— Charlotte, the— oh, it's gone."
You nod in half-hearted commiseration. "Ghosts do that."
"Don't fucking patronize me."
"Look, I don't— I don't know what you want." You've stuffed your hands in your pockets. "Would you just look at this? Please? I need to know if it's just me."
Madrigal works her jaw, but does as she's asked. She cocks her head. "Geez. Goddamn. I didn't know something could look like that in real life."
"I mean," you say, "it's not real life, so that would—"
"Stop fucking patronizing me."
You rub your nose. "No. You wager the seal's doing it? But it's still attached, I doubt the memo's just been hanging here unread—"
"Maybe it's above our clearance," Madrigal says, scraping at her gums. "Sort of a 'for your eyes only' thing."
This is plausible. You have to change the subject. "I… I guess so. What did you say the ghost looked like?"
"Um, I didn't."
"Oh."
"But it was a man in a black suit."
"Oh." Your exhaustion hits you all at once. "Sunglasses?"
"Yeah. Wait, how did you—"
"Doesn't matter." You leave the notices hanging and make your way back over to the swivel chair. "Did you look at the body any more?"
"N…o, I was distracted— how did you know? Have you seen the ghost, Charlotte?"
"Every single day," you mumble. The body hasn't twitched, as far as you can tell. Is it breathing? You can't tell, under the jumpsuit, and you're loath to touch it. It might be dead. Worse, it might be alive.
"What? I didn't hear…" Madrigal peers over your shoulder. "What the fuck's up with this, anyhow? No face? That's weird, right? Or is that normal in not-real land?"
"It's weird," you say shortly. "I think it's… a procedure. I don't know if it's supposed to go this way, or if it went wrong, but—"
"Hey, an ID." Madrigal extracts a laminated tag from the folds of the jumpsuit and holds it up to the light. "Lookit that. 'GUPPY'— oh, they scratched her real name out. 'GUPPY VILLALOVEZ. SEX F, EYES'— scratched that out too. 'HAIR BRN, HGT 5'5"'— , right?"
You scowl. Madrigal smirks. "Scratched her face out, too, stamped a big 'CLEARANCE' over the thing. Wow, that's rough."
You're unimpressed. "Nothing we didn't know before. I don't suppose she's carrying a map to the snake? A placard explaining why her face is off?"
"N-o… oh, here's something." She fishes out a ring of little metal objects. "Keys. Fancy that."
You're like 90% certain those aren't keys, but whatever. "She is the guard, I suppose."
?Those are keys.?
"Yep. Probably got the maintenance room on there, god knows what else." Madrigal rubs her forehead. "Just gonna pocket these—"
"I'll take them," you say quickly. "That's okay."
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
"Um." Madrigal fixes you with a quizzical look. "Sure, whatever." She hands you the ring of keys(?). The body— the guard reaches up and grasps her wrist.
"Um," Madrigal says. She jingles the keys(?); you take them swiftly and tuck them into the pocket of your slacks. "Um, let's just…" She pries the fingers off her wrist, and they fall limply back down. "There we go."
You exchange glances. "…Hello?" you say tentatively, in the direction of the swivel chair.
No response.
>[1] Ooookay. Let's just… how about you just… leave. Snake's in the basement. Gotcha. You'll be fine.
>[2] Take a good look at the monitors, just in case.
>[3] Have a talking-to with Richard about the whole "ghost" situation. You mean, really. That's not funny.
>[4] You do kind of want to figure out the whole no-face situation. Have a chat with Guppy Villalovez.
You twiddle your thumbs and stare down at the unfortunate Guppy Villalovez. You're trying to imagine having no flesh on your face. Is it cold? Does it hurt? Would you receive pity handouts in the street, or would you drive off even the bleedingest of hearts?
"…the, well, you know," Madrigal finishes lamely. "Can it hear us?"
"I doubt it. And she certainly can't see us, what with the… no eyes."
"Yep."
"So, uh, shall we—"
"Use your sorcery to forgeth a link betwixt your twin souls? Great plan, Charlotte."
Is she offended? Is that what it is? She thinks you're lying (nevermind that you are), and she's lashing out like a child? Pathetic! Despicable! And what a massive pain in your—
"I don't think that'll be necessary," you sniff. "I was going to say handsign."
"Interesting. You're going to use a visual language." Madrigal puts her hands on her hips. "To talk to someone who can't see."
You brush a strand of hair out of your face and lean over the unmoving shoulder of Guppy Villalovez. "Um, yes. Look." You gingerly turn her wrist palm-side up. "If I just sign so she can feel it…"
Guppy's other hand rises out of nowhere to seize your shoulder. You do your best not to yelp as it roughly prods its way up to your face, which it pats all over (Madrigal stares in part-horror part-amusement) before, finally, letting go. You rub your cheek in indignation.
"Who the HELL are you?" says Guppy's hands— you're having trouble reconciling them to the thing in the swivel chair. "Do you have ID?"
You exchange glances with Madrigal. "N-no," you stammer, before remembering it does no good. "Um…"
?Of course you have ID.?
Oh, God, is this a— you're just— look, you're sick and tired of believing things that squarely aren't true. You don't care if it's effective, or if you're good at it, you just like— well, you'd prefer some things to be real, for once, and for things to, just, you don't know, matter. And is that so wrong?
?Er, Charlie.?
?You picked up an ID in the other room. The woman's eyes are gone; she's not going to know the difference.?
You knew that. You were kidding.
Anyways, you pull out the ID card of Harold P. Stenniker and press it into Guppy's hand. She feels it for a moment, then hands it back to you. "Good enough. SO? What do you want?"
You exchange glances with Madrigal, again. What do you want? You don't particularly need information— this is more to satiate your curiosity than anything, but you can't just say that in polite company. "Give me an excuse," you mouth to Madrigal. "What?" she mouths back, shrugging.
You shake your head in disapproval and return to Guppy. "Um," you sign into her open palm, "my… associate, and I, wanted to, um—" Your eyes land on the balloons. "—wish you a happy birthday?"
"What MONTH is it?"
You bite your bottom lip. "…It's the Madman?"
"Birthday's in the SMUGGLER." Guppy's skull manages to look withering. "THANKS for remembering."
"Um, sure." You're a little distracted, actually, by your stunning genius. You just need to coax her a little… "It's not your birthday? We just thought, um, with all the decorations…"
"Party for clearance," Guppy's hand says. "Obviously."
>[+1 ID: 3/11]
There! There you go! Booyah. Ace in the hole. You didn't even have to broach the subject! You intended this from the very beginning, naturally. "Oh? Clearance?"
"You SURE you work here?" is her response. You cough. "Um, we're, uh, new."
"Didn't know Lester was hiring. Temps?"
"…Yes?"
"Ooh. Grab your check and get out before you get—" Guppy makes a garrote motion. "Or worse, promoted. But you DIDN'T hear that from me. Capiche?"
Is this a good time to broach the topic? Is there ever? "Have you, um, been promoted?"
Her chest heaves in, you hope, silent laughter. "You noticed? Is it that obvious?"
"Uh…" You attempt to plead with Madrigal for help, but she's wandered off to stare at the monitors again. "…maybe…?"
"Well, it's NOT supposed to be obvious. If it were obvious, there'd be no damn point."
Does she not know? A decade of etiquette lessons has not prepared you for this. "Um…"
"Good thing I botched it, huh?" Her chest heaves again.
Reason has long since fled you. "W-what?"
"Botched it! Tore my damn face off! 'Course, it wasn't my face any longer, not really— easy come, easy go— but same RESULT, yeah?"
Madrigal has abandoned you. But Richard— Richard has your back, right? He'll provide you a rock and a, a lighthouse in this swirling ocean of… wrong faces, and impossible diplomatic situations, and—
Right? Please?
?I think this is a rather good learning experience, Charlotte.?
You're alone. "Yeah," you sign morosely. "I'm sorry, um, I'm not sure I was ever… briefed… on this process. What do you mean by—"
"It's classified," Guppy Villalovez's hand says.
"Oh."
"I don't give a damn, though, I'm dying."
"You're—"
"This is all VERY secret, you know. Hence the security. I'm sure you were told all that. Um, you don't know the half of it, though— they tell the temps JACK all. They wait to see if they like you first. Takes YEARS. S-years. And then you get clearance."
"I saw the—"
"The banner. Deirdre put that up, bless her soul. So, the thing about clearance is, it means you're in DEEP. Officially deep. And they want you to— they can't have you backing out after you know things, right? So they, um—"
Guppy's hand freezes just above her face. "—um, they take, they take, um, your— your face. And they REPLACE it. With a— and it can look like anything. So that's how you dodge suspicion, you just change your— but you're stuck, right? With the company? You're ride or die. Um… I guess I died."
Is that a joke? Is that funny? You're kind of paralyzed here, your face gaping and rigid, like a skull, haha, that's a joke, that's funny. Except it isn't, and you're really not— you're not equipped for this. Not right now. You need a nap. It's because you've just been staring at a skull for unbroken minutes on end, that's the issue, the eye sockets just burn into you— she needs sunglasses. You might be serious about this. You'll come back to it later. You've got to make conversation, Charlotte.
