Subject: Semi-response ficlet.
Author:
Posted on: 2015-08-25 10:52:00 UTC
(Because it's only halfway to being a response.)
Nita Kerys prodded vaguely at her meal. The schedule at Building Maintenance had been a bit hectic recently, so her breaks were coming at essentially random times. Two hours after breakfast was far too early for lunch, even when those hours had been occupied pumping out floodwaters from Implausible Crossovers (something about an unbalanced pressure differential, apparently). But if she didn't eat, she knew she'd be starving by the end of her shift.
A commotion across the Courtyard drew her attention. A bunch of small animals - no, those were Pokemon - seemed to be squabbling. As Nita watched, two of them fled into the grass - and then the third slammed its hands into the ground.
The tremour wasn't enough to throw Nita from her bench, but did roll her tomatoes off her plate. "Oh, come on," she muttered. "Those were the only thing I was looking forward to!"
There was a blaze of light as the fourth Pokemon shot a bolt of electricity at the third, then leapt for its throat, teeth glittering with lightning. Nita winced as the Pokemon's opponent went down.
"Sometimes," she murmured, "I wonder if we had the right idea after all. Powers like that... how can we even know whether an agent's Suvian or not, if they can throw lightning around like confetti?" She paused, chuckled. "Or like coriandoli, as that Italian guy would be quick to point out."
One of the runaways had returned, and was now rooting frantically through an armoured vest of some kind. Nita's eyes narrowed. "Wait... that dog-thing is from the DIA?"
She watched as the returning Pokemon fed the dog-thing something from the vest - then as the dog leapt up and punched the lightning-one clear across the lawn.
"That's not right," she said, half-rising from her seat. "Internal Affairs aren't meant to... even we would never have beaten up an agent in public like that! That's..." She stopped herself just before saying it, but the words hung in the air in front of her: That's what the DIS did.
Nita watched the rest of the abortive fight: the arrival of the human DIA Agent, his care for the fallen electric Pokemon, the portal out. Then, very slowly, she bent down and picked up one of her tomatoes from the floor, dusted it off, and bit into it.
Her radio crackled. "Hey, Nita," came the voice from another member of her team, "did you decide to take the day off or something? We've got krakens coming out of our ears down here; get a move on!"
Nita snorted and tapped the button. "We can sell 'em to the Cafeteria as calamari," she said. "Give me a minute, I'll be right down."
Um, yeah. Having written Internal Security to highlight exactly what Internal Affairs should never do, it's a bit alarming to see members of the DIA... doing exactly what they did.
hS