Well, here goes nothing. Presenting the first episode of my new series featuring the members of the Department of Intelligence. Google Doc is up on the DoI page on the Wiki.

Expect new episodes every two Valve weeks!

I’d like to thank Lily Winterwood, SingingTheThunder, firemagic, and TheMadHatteress for beta-reading this piece.

Episode 1

It was unusually peaceful in the Department of Intelligence’s Action Division room. The massive cubicle maze that filled the entire stadium-sized room was quite quiet. The spies working in the myriad cubicles diligently filed their Intelligence Reports, geared up to enter Word Worlds, or manned their consoles in search of the next badfic to investigate all in relative silence. A sense of purposefulness and pride could be felt by those in the room: this was their job, and nobody could match their speed or their efficiency.

In short, it was a very productive trawl for Green Team.

And that was why, in some other dimension, the Ironic Overpower stirred. If it had hands and a mouth, this would be the part where it would rub its hands together and cackle.

Agent Bulldog, a tall African man in charge of newbie orientation, led a young and aloof-looking recruit down the narrow passages of the cubicle maze. Bulldog outlined the average day for an Action division agent, explaining several basic dos and don'ts to the newbie. As the pair walked down Stupidity Lane on their way to Ponyville Plaza, Bulldog explained portal etiquette.

“Now remember Harris, while we do have access to a portal device that allows us to reach any point in time in space across the known multiverse, we do not use the portal generator on a whim. It’s for missions only, or access to New Caledonia if your shift overlaps the thirty-minute lunch break.”

Harris ran his fingers through his blonde hair. “I understand, mister Bulldog.” In his mind he added, That may be so, but I’m sure that a little peek at something I want to show Susie won’t hurt...

In its other dimension, the Ironic Overpower was (metaphorically) bent double, hooting with laughter.

An Arabic man poked his head out of cubicle 5294. Nasir Shafiq Beydoun watched the two men round the corner and leaned back into the cubicle. He sat back down on the storage chest and looked at the other person in the cubicle, Angus MacFarlane. “It’s just that Harris kid on his way to his cubicle. You know, the one who wouldn’t stop talking about Atlantis?”

Angus pulled a bottle of root beer from the mini-fridge he sat on. “Yeah, I saw him at lunch. Loopy fellow. He says he’s proved the existence of Atlantis and all that jazz. Doesn’t look like a bad guy, though. Say, when the shift is over we should go and say hello to him.”

Nasir went “Hmm.” and turned back to his work.

And so the day crept on without incident... at least until near the end of the shift. Angus and Nasir walked up and down the cubicle maze, asking around for where Harris worked. They found his cubicle all the way down Lothlórien Boulevard, hidden behind a large filing cabinet placed in the middle of the lane. Angus worked his way around the cabinet and glanced inside the cubicle. Agent Harris had his back to him and was talking to a bored-looking woman sitting at a writing desk. She looked past Harris at the newcomers and mouthed “Help me.”

Angus glanced from her to agent Harris, who was still spouting more facts about Atlantis. Poor Susie must have been the unlucky person chosen to accompany Harris on his first week in the DoI. The tubby man cleared his throat. “Ahem. Sorry, is this the cubicle of agent Harris? Hey there, buddy! How’s it going? I’m Angus MacFarlane and this here is Nasir Beydoun. We’re also part of Green Team, so we just wanted to stop by and say hello.”

Harris stopped monologuing long enough to notice the two senior spies that had entered his cubicle. “Oh! Oh, I say, thank you for the welcome. I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself, but have I told you where the lost city of Atlantis can be found?”

Angus and Nasir shook their heads. Susie buried her face in her arms, probably hearing this story for the millionth time today.

Harris smoothed his hair again. “Oh, well, it’s just that I was recently recruited from a fic where I was just an exposition device to point a Mary Sue towards the sunken city. I managed to determine the location of the city through the careful study of maps and old legends. It’s really quite clever of me if I do say so myself, hoho. Thanks to my studies the Sue set off on her adventure that took her across the ocean and through North America to finally reach a harbour where...”

Sensing a very long story ahead of him, Nasir decided to cut to the chase. “Yes, yes, we understand. Did the Sue find Atlantis?”

“No, she somehow crossed a portal in the back of a cave that led to a place called Hobbiton.”

“Well, I didn’t expect that. Travelling to one imaginary place and ending up in another,” said Angus. “That’s actually kinda funny--umph!”

“That’s enough, thank you Angus,” said Nasir, elbowing his friend in the ribs and hoping that the comment would go unnoticed. Unfortunately, it didn’t.

Harris’ eyes narrowed. “Not a real place, you say? Are you sure about that, gentlemen? I have spent two entire years of my life in search of the sunken city, and I’d be damned if it’s not where I think it is, smack-dab in the centre of the body of water underneath the polar ice cap. Have you even heard the Inuit legends describing the city?”

“Well, no... But it’s just a myth in World One, it’s not real...” started Angus.

“I come from World One,” said Harris.

“Like the real World One or World One-and-three-quarters? ‘Cause it’s quite common in certain fanfics to cross World One with--”

“No, I come from the real World One,” said Harris, rapidly losing patience. “Look, I can prove the existence of Atlantis in under ten seconds. Wanna see?”

Angus chuckled. “Yeah. Go ahead, surprise me.”

Harris turned on his heels and started typing commands into the console’s portal generator. It took several seconds for the three other agents to realize exactly how deep in trouble they were. Nasir leaped forward and tried to delete the lines Harris was typing.

“He was joking, Harris! Don’t open a portal; you’ll drown us all!”

“You said you wanted proof! Besides, portals here are one way only, right? Get off!”

“No, you shove off,” said Angus as he and Susie grabbed Harris around the waist and tried to pull him away from the console. “D’you know how much water pressure there is three kilometres below-- NO, DON’T!”

Too late. Harris had swung his feet upward and brought them down on the keyboard.

“BEHOLD, ATLANTIS!”

In accordance to the Laws of Comedy, his feet produced several lines of complete gibberish that promptly opened a huge portal somewhere below the sea. Fortunately for the Action room, the portal had opened a mere two metres underwater but that was still enough to blast away several cubicle walls and to prompt the complete evacuation of the room.

It would be quite some time until parts of the ceiling would be dry again.