SG: Subtler Than Light #3 (1/2): What Are You

[Gary W. Olson]

The world was an endlessly giving place. In Agent Lemon Rydell's thirty-one
years of experience, it offered beauty, heartbreak, intrigue, danger, and
wonder, often in the most unexpected places. It had given him miles of
empty desert to walk while thinking of his mistakes and the ones they had
cost him. It had given him mystery and revelation in a slightly seedy park
in Ohio. It had given him a racing heart on the Autobahn, escaping from a
wave of chasing cars and jetpack-wearing spiders. It had given him an
awareness of his limits, and a need to exceed them.

At the moment, all it was giving him was a splitting headache.

"Could you say that again, Agent Chim-Chim," said Lemon, betraying none of
his pain in his voice. "You... lost... ki Kazza Malissk?"

The demon monkey in the black-and-white three-piece business suit before
him--before his legs, at least--took a long drag from his cigarette,
frowned, and shrugged. "Oook eek ook aaaahk. Ook? Ahhk."

"The trackers should... damn it." Lemon looked around at the aftermath of
the brief but chaotic battleground he and his diminutive agents of the new
Mega Intelligence Bureau had been part of that morning. The street that
separated the Pacific Ocean and Ventura Beach from a row of shops and a
bronze-gold battleship from another dimension was filled with a number of
superguys, a handful of his (demon monkey) agents, and a milling-about
assortment of civilians. "Talk to the team. Kazza can't have gotten far,
the way she was injured. And she thinks... *probably* thinks... we don't
know where she was holed up in the days before the steal. Check there
first, but be careful. And contact me before making any moves to take her.
She may have the Heart, but the Heart has *her*, too. Especially if she
takes it out of the bag."

("And what effect has the awakened Heart had on *you,* Agent?" Kazza's
question came back to him. He hadn't answered, then. He wondered if he ever
would... or that he even could.)

Chim-Chim puffed on his cigarette a little more, then tossed it to the
asphalt.

"Eek ooook ahk *ook ook*."

"You're telling me," Lemon said, resisting the urge to rub his temples.
"Get going."

Chim-Chim looked toward a group of agents fifty feet away, approximately
where the utahraptor known as ki Kazza Malissk had last been seen before a
surprise attack by a Hawaiian-shirt-wearing faction of demon monkeys gave
her cover to escape. He blipped away from Lemon and immediately appeared
next to them, ooking instructions at them before they could say anything.
Several looked at Lemon and back at Chim-Chim. One made a disrespectful
sign by shaking a curled-finger hand up and down.

"What's it like," growled a deep voice to his left, "working with
pint-sizers even shadier than you?"

"Miguel," said Lemon, saying the name in the languid way he knew Miguel
Veracruz hated. "What brings you out of the gutter this fine morning?"

The muscular werewolf who looked back on (and down at) him went through
several expressions, none of them even remotely in the area of 'pleased to
see you.' His claws were still out, as they had been in the recently-ended
skirmish, and Lemon got the sense Miguel was actively contemplating how
they would look buried in his neck. The wise thing to do would've been to
be conciliatory. Or at least shut up.

"Let me guess," he said instead. "Paying an early morning visit to my
sister. Upstairs, little toke, little poke, while your daughter reads
comics downstairs? Nice. Some things don't change, huh?"

Miguel breathed heavily for several moments, giving Lemon an uncomfortable
opportunity to guess how far he'd stepped over the line this time. Reading
a werewolf's expressions and body language wasn't as easy as reading a
human's, but having been around both growing up, it wasn't difficult to
bridge the gap. A hell of a lot of water had gone under an amazing
assortment of bridges seven years ago, exposing infidelities and wrecking
friendships and romances along the way. Lemon could sense those memories in
the curve of Miguel's snarl, and read how long he'd nursed thoughts on them
in the narrowing of his eyes. Miguel had been waiting for this moment.
Waiting a long time.

The moment held... then broke. Was broken, with visible effort from Miguel.
He retracted his claws and shrank, his fur pulling back into him, along
with his snout and his ears, accompanied by a rapid and liquid-laced
crackling sound. When his transformation to human was complete, Miguel
Veracruz crossed his arms and fixed an exasperated glare on Lemon.

As a human, Miguel Veracruz was nearly as imposing as his were self. He had
sun-deepened brown skin and sleek muscles from the ground on up, a tight
pair of cargo shorts and a few scraps of what had been a stained red
t-shirt the only clothing to break up the view. Long black hair, a brick of
a jawline darkened with stubble, a wide mouth pressed into a grim line, a
nose that had seen a few more than its share of fists... and eyes as tired
as they were wide.

"What are you doing here?" Miguel asked. "Ain't seen you since... that
time... and that hasn't been long enough."

"Here for work, that's all," Lemon replied. "Wasn't looking to stir up old
hurts."

"Pity. Since you're so good at it."

Lemon's headache pulsed. A bit of it must have shown on his face, as Miguel
let out an amused snort. "Come on," Miguel said, reluctance creeping in.
"We can piss one another off later. Cendra wants to talk to you."

"I love it when people want to talk to me," said Lemon. "Lead on, Wolf Guy."

Miguel scowled, but didn't respond. Instead, he waved Lemon in the general
direction he wanted to go. Cendra Seconds was in that direction, Lemon
could see, apparently speaking to empty air. He fell in beside Miguel as
they walked closer.

Briefly... so briefly... he closed his eyes and looked inwards. Deep
within, in the part of his head that currently hurt the most, he could hear
the songs doing their work. Muted, nearly inaudible even to him,
compartmentalized from his conscious thoughts by long hours and days of
effort, yet ready to blare at full volume against anyone who might want to
take a peek inside his head. Though he doubted Cendra would telepathically
invade his mind without strong reason--she was appallingly moral in that
respect--she could catch stray thoughts and images as they were broadcast
by an unshielded mind. The songs helped with that as well... but only to a
point. He would have to be careful.

It took an effort to remember he and Cendra Seconds were only six years
apart in age. Physical age, anyway. Emotionally, Cendra had always seemed
leagues older to him, and whenever she fixed an eye on him for things in
the past he'd thoughtlessly done, it held him fast and made him squirm.
She'd been through things in her youth--including but scarcely limited to
being made the tool of a malevolent ex-empress in an attempt to devastate
the galaxy--that had given her a steel behind her eyes that never went
away. A simple silver-tongued snow-job would get him nowhere with her.

It was all right. He could lie just as easily with the truth.

"--told you," said Cendra, as they got into range. "This was a goddamn
cluster. Demon monkeys everywhere. Some dressed like tourists, some like
agents." She paused, then met Lemon's eyes. "I'll ask. If he says yes, do
you... hello?" She scowled. "Like the day can get any worse. Hi, Lemon."

"Cendra," said Lemon, as his head pulsed again. "You look like a mammal
again. What did you want to ask me?"

"I look... what?"

"No longer like a dragon," Lemon corrected. "When'd you add that to your
repertoire, by the way?"

"Six years back," said Miguel. "During the Monsta Island invasion."

"It just came to me," Cendra said, giving her ex-husband what Lemon
instantly identified as *a look.* "And that's not what I wanted to talk to
you about." She looked him up and down. "Don't take this the wrong way, the
wrong way meaning I'm well-disposed to seeing you, but you look good. Being
an agent of a reconstituted morally-oblivious disavowed secret agency suits
you."

"Thanks."

"Now," said Cendra, holding up a hand with two fingers curled up. "Do you
tell me why you're after the Heart, or do my fingers and your nose have
some elevating to do?"

"I appreciate we have to talk," said Lemon, refusing to flinch in memory of
how easily she'd snagged him just earlier that morning, "but I'd rather do
it somewhere private... especially if you're going to ask what I think."

"Miguel," said Cendra. "Take care of Camila. She's over with Johnny and...
Bonnie."

Lemon caught the whiff of frustration in how Cendra said his sister's name.
The corners of his mouth curled up.

"Can we do this now?" he asked, as Miguel moved off without a word. "I've
got people to spy on."

"Hold on," said Cendra. She tapped behind her ear. "What is it, Esteban?"

Lemon felt something inside him go very still.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

"Not yet," Cendra went on. "Yeah, Galaxy Hunter and that woman... she
called herself 'Psywave'... they took off as soon as the Hawaiian-shirt
demon monkeys ooked off. Probably looking for Kazza Malissk, too." She
listened. "I don't know." Pause. "Don't know that, either. Someone may have
to side quest to Malaga to check." Another pause. This time, Cendra focused
on Lemon. "We've got it in hand. Priority is finding Kazza Malissk and the
Heart of Mu, not necessarily in that order. Do your sweep, but if you can't
find them in an hour, I doubt anyone can." Pause. "Good luck."

She tapped behind her ear, then raised an eyebrow at Lemon.

"Thanks," he said, letting out a breath. "I... wasn't looking to stir up
old hurts."

"Pity," she said. "Since--"

"I'm so good at it," he finished. "I was just reminded."

"Come on," said Cendra. "We can have our chat in the Doc's room."

Lemon frowned. "Your new dude?"

"Other Doc."

"Right," said Lemon, placing who she was talking about. "This should be...
something."

Cendra gave him a look, equal parts rueful and tired.

"When isn't it?"

***

SUBTLER THAN LIGHT
Episode 3
[Hidden Hearts, Part Three]
"What Are You Doing Here?"
by
Gary W. Olson

***

The world kept on taking. Time, thought, energy, self. Even in the quiet
times, Cendra Seconds thought, it was *there,* pulling from all directions.
The _Subtler Than Light,_ with its mysteries and dangers, kept contained
through monitoring and careful determination. Miguel Veracruz, her
ex-husband, who'd helped endlessly that morning, then reminded her without
a word of the infidelities that had torn her heart out. The battle that
morning and the transformations she'd willed as part of ending it, leaving
her exhausted and ready to murder a plate of cheeseburgers.

Agent Lemon Rydell of the M.I.B., who at that moment was taking her entire
willpower not to grab by the collar and throttle.

"Can I feed him?" Lemon asked, as he tapped on the glass tube.

Within the tube, a red-and-pink haze flashed and coiled. Cendra wasn't sure
exactly what that communicated--the body language of sentient, flesh-hungry
spore clouds was not known to her, a fact she was grateful for--but decided
it probably wasn't good.

"You're welcome to jump right in," she said. "I don't think he's had
breakfast yet."

"Oh, right," said Lemon, pulling back his hand. "Sorry, Tony! Maybe we can
talk sometime? Love your billowing. Very scary."

If this assuaged Tony, it was hard to tell. Cendra sighed, then looked
about the large, chaotic space that was the Science Lab of the _Subtler
Than Light._ Though the bronze-gold walls were lined with tanks, screens,
beaker-filled tables, baroque machines of uncertain purpose, and metallic
arches that periodically spat electricity, it felt surprisingly spacious.
Bhossi and Cla'rabhelle, the superintelligent cows from the
transdimensionally sunken island of Mu who were currently employed as the
heads (and, to be honest, a good part of the body) of the _Subtler Than
Light's_ science division, had long since demonstrated that strange science
and sensible feng shui went hoof-in-hoof.

Speaking of whom...

"Bhossi?" she called. "Cla'rabhelle? Anyone else?"

The partly-open door to her left became a fully-open one, admitting a
six-foot tall lab-coat-and-black-jeans-clad violet-scaled humanoid with a
pteradon's wings and head to the chamber. Atop the head was a trilby, which
its owner tipped while giving them a welcoming nod.

"Mmmmmmammals," the creature said.

"Hello, Shelby," Cendra said. "This is Agent Lemon Rydell of the M.I.B.
Lemon, this is Bhossi and Cla'rabhelle's chief lab assistant, Shelby
d'Rodang."

Lemon cocked his head. "A Rodang, working here?"

"You seem surprised," Shelby said. "The Monsta Island invasion was six
years ago."

"Rodang... the big Rodang, I mean," said Lemon, "before he got turned into
thousands of human-size mini-Rodangs in the end of the invasion... the
other kaiju always blamed him for setting up the invasion. I mean, we
learned late that it was the Venusians behind it, but they were working
with Rodang and making it look like Godziller'd done a heel turn..."

"That as may be," said Shelby. "My memory of those times is vague at best.
While I hardly consider myself to have been 'born' six years ago--I retain
the intelligence, maturity, and... ahem... stamina... of a full adult
Rodang... the time before the final stroke that ended the invasion and
transformed my life is a virtual black box to me, at least in the
specifics, as it is with most human-size kaiju in this city. And with
Monsta Island now permanently sunk..." He trailed off, then waved his
clawed hands. "Ah. I do exposit on. Never mind... I take it you're here to
see the Doc? Don't worry, we got him calmed down and back in pants again."
He paused. "Underpants, anyway. He tore up the rest of his clothes because
of... well, you'll see."

Cendra and Lemon followed Shelby into the room from which he'd entered. She
looked about, trying to see if anything new had been added. It was not an
easy task, as the bronze-gold walls were covered with post-it notes,
scribbled words, large question marks, photographs of blurry figures, maps
of places not found on Earth's surface, a signed glossy 8x10" picture of
Giorgio Tsoukalos, a sketch of a loaf of Symmes Whole Grain Bread... and
enough yarn stretching from one spot to the next to stock a hobby shop for
years to come. Random scrawled words and phrases jumped out at her --
"Smokey?", "Hidden from whom?", "engines in the earth," "fate of the
Agarthans," "Ohio? Really?", "ancient Reptiloid conspiracy," and "1 loaf of
bread, 1 jam, 2 ham sandwich" among them.

An open access panel at the wall to her left revealed a small passage that
was similarly lacquered with conspiratorial notes, images, and yarn loci.
She hadn't been in the maintenance passages in a long time, and could only
imagine to what extent Gigawatt had used them to physically replicate his
labyrinthine theories and hypotheses. She hoped he had kept away from the
buzzier parts of the ship's energy systems, or at least hadn't yarned-over
the fire prevention pipes.

Some of the yarn connecting seemingly random pieces of this chaotic puzzle
were, on further inspection, strips of fabric. She now understood what
Shelby meant about what became of the Doc's clothes, and immediately ceased
further inspection.

Bhossi and Cla'rabhelle hovered past her field of view, floating from one
point to another. The labcoat-wearing cows were followed by
telekinetically-held tablets, on which notes were being recorded. Their
exposed brains, which went a full foot above their bovine heads and were
protected by translucent helmets, pulsed blue and red in what Cendra
recognized as 'annoyed deep thought.'

"I'm sorry, Doctor," Bhossi said. Though her bovine jaw didn't move, the
words reached Cendra's ears as ordinary speech, though they'd originated as
telepathic speech--a function of the highly scientific pearl necklaces they
both wore. "I can't believe this utahraptor, this ki Kazza Malissk... is
beholden to Lady Capella Ookanaptra. What records we have from our deep
sources indicate Malissk was acting at the behest of Erasmus Fancy when she
attacked Sol Selegna's ruling council. Lady Capella is *on* the Council, at
least as of our last intelligence, and she wouldn't make herself a target."

"Oh, wouldn't she?" asked a rough voice from behind a map-bearing table.
"You heard the audio saying that Malissk referred to a 'Lady' during the
battle out on the street. The only being on the Council with the noble
title of 'Lady' as of our last intelligence was Capella. Moreover, we know
Lady Capella often contracts the mercenary services of Demon Monkeys, and
it is unlikely any faction controlled by Fancy would make use of them at
any price. Therefore, they must have been hers, set as a decoy to allow
Malissk to escape."

"Hi, Doc," said Lemon. "Fascinating theory. Wrong as hell, but I'm glad
you're still plugging away at it."

A light-skinned head with tangled grey hair and wire-frame glasses popped
up from behind the table. The eyes behind the glasses squinted, pulling the
wrinkled, leathery skin around them a bit tighter. "Lemon Rydell? Here?" He
looked harshly at Cendra. "How could you? He'll see everything!" He jumped
up and rushed to one side, attempting with his slightly scrawny,
underpants-clad frame to obscure an assortment of what Cendra could only
guess were the most secretive of secret post-it notes. "The new M.I.B. is
in this up to its collective eyeballs!"

"Dr. Gigawatt," said Cendra, arms raised. "Giuseppe..." She sighed.
"Henri... calm down. If he is part of this conspiracy..." She gestured
broadly around the room, to indicate the scope of the word. "...he already
probably knows more than you. He's here to give *us* information, not the
other way around."

She peered carefully at Lemon, wondering what he thought of the
once-notorious Dr. Gigawatt now. Even when Giuseppe (sometimes 'Henri')
Gigawatt had been a supervillain, prior to reforming and becoming a top
scientific adviser for Harxxon--the nominal owner of the _Subtler Than
Light_ and the land it rested on--he hadn't looked so intense, or so about
to burst into maniacal laughter. She wondered if he already knew why.

"Besides," Cla'rabhelle added, as she floated up to Lemon and squinted at
him through her rhinestone glasses, "we can give him a scan while he's here
and see what the long term results were."

"Long-term results?" Lemon asked. "Of what?"

"Oh, you know," said Cla'rabhelle, as she waved her tablet in front of his
face and telekinetically tapped it a few times. "Things. Exposures. From
when you used to be here regularly, asking all your endless questions. You
haven't been hallucinating the head of Nick Cave, have you?"

"Uh, no..."

"Well, the counteragent we sprayed on you as you were storming out for the
last time must have worked, then," said Bhossi. "Hurrah, us!"

"Never mind that," said Gigawatt, sitting down on the table with legs
unfortunately splayed. "You know, then. Who is--or maybe 'was'--Malissk
working for?"

"Me," said Lemon. "On behalf of the M.I.B. I employed her to steal the
Heart. Not by the explosive force the other faction used, mind. She was
supposed to be gone with it before you even realized it was missing."

"And we both would've been spared each other's company," said Cendra. "But
why steal the Heart now? After so many years..."

"The Director gives the orders," Lemon answered. "I just do my duty."

He spread his hands, shrugged, and gave her his most innocent look. It only
put her more on her guard.

"This... Director," said Gigawatt, fixing a steely glare on the M.I.B.
agent while pushing a small handful of cheetos into his mouth. "We know it
can't be Robert O'Larson, Dave Ross's successor, though they never did find
out what became of him after he and his wife vanished, did they?"

"Mmmmmph mrmph," said Lemon, as he spit out cheetos. "Not... not as far as
I know. But as far as the current Director knows, I could tell you..."

"But then you'd have to kill me?" Gigawatt asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Worse than that," Lemon replied. "I'd have to fill out paperwork."

Cendra flexed her fingers. Lemon noticed her movement and edged away.

"His name is Richard Cartier," he said. "I'm sure that name means nothing
to you..."

"The Dweller in the Shades!" Gigawatt, Cendra, Bhossi, Cla'rabhelle, and
Shelby chorused.

"...besides... that?"

Cendra thought back on her conversation with Chalandra. This was a thread
she had to pull... no matter what unraveled.

"In addition to being the closest the surface world has to experts on the
Hidden Empire, Terra Subterrene, and any and all Hollow-Earth-adjacent
phenomena," she said, "these four have also investigated the Journals of
Richard Cartier extensively. The two missing journals aside, of course. And
while I haven't been into the details nearly so much, I knew that one."

"But Cartier died," said Gigawatt, wrinking his face at them. "He was
consumed by the Ravenousity, that extradimensional monster he was reported
to have thwarted in the final entry." He smiled. "Or, as I have long
hypothesized, can we not trust the postscript written by Erasmus Fancy?"

Lemon blinked. "You know he wrote that?"

"Suspected," said Gigawatt. "Thank you for confirming."

"It's too long a story to go into now," said Lemon. "But yes, he survived.
And he is the architect of the revived M.I.B. As to why he wants the Heart
of Mu now... if you had the first missing volume, you'd know."

"Do *you* have it?" Bhossi asked.

Lemon shook his head. "He summarized what was in it. It was the second
volume, so lots of early stuff. How he came to terms with his new occult
detective abilities as the Dweller in the Shades... how he came to adopt a
street youth known as 'Jimmy True' as his ward... and what happened at the
Charnel House."

"You know of..." Shelby started, before looking at Cendra. "Ms. Seconds!
Can we keep him?"

"He must be debriefed at once!" Gigawatt declared.

"As long as *you* stay briefed, Doc," Shelby said. Lemon snorted.

"Another time," said Cendra, focusing again on the too-smooth-by-half agent
she'd last dealt with a a too-smooth-by-full young adult. "I brought you up
here so we could talk about what the hell you were doing stealing the
Heart."

"Again, Director Cartier," said Lemon. "Per his wizened words, he was
approached by agents of the Hidden Empire. Said agents claimed they'd
learned that the Heart of Mu had been stolen from the transdimensional
engine that originally facilitated the _Subtler Than Light's_ travel to
above the surface of this dimension's Earth, and that that was likely how
Lady Capella had been able to succeed in highjacking said engine so she and
her crew of this vessel we're in could come across in the first place. It
was hidden beneath the floor in the ship's engine room, where she could
make best use of it, and she was forced to abandon it when the final battle
failed to go her way and she returned to Terra Subterrene without it."

Cendra frowned. The Hidden Empire was the power that ruled the distorted
globe-within-a-globe in the Aetheric Dimension's hollow earth. Factions,
including one lead by Capella Ookanaptra, and another led by a dangerous
gorilla-sized sentient bonobo named Erasmus Fancy, had been active in North
America in the late 1800s, as sketchily and inadequately revealed in
several entries from Richard Cartier's journals and equally sparse
intelligence from contacts they had in Terra Subterrene. But while some
from Terra Subterrene--the network of underground cities and highways miles
beneath the surface of the Earth in this dimension--sometimes came up to
the surface now, at least if there was an event like Burning M00se going
on, incursions by actual denizens of the Aetheric Dimension were rare. So
far as they knew. If they were coming around now...

"Now what was it you wanted to ask me?" said Lemon.

"It's what Chalandra Harkness wants me to ask you," Cendra replied. "I'd
just as soon punt you off the topside deck, but... would your Director
Cartier be willing to meet with us?"

"That... wasn't what I was expecting," said Lemon. "I thought you were
going to toss out an idea of us working together, temporarily, to--"

"Oh, fuck no," said Cendra. "I don't trust you any more than Esteban does."
She was pleased to see Lemon couldn't entirely hide a wince at hearing
Esteban's name. "But Chalandra wants to see him. She may overrule me on
alliance-forging."

She carefully watched his expression, though the smiling mask he had up
didn't waver. Nor did even a whisper of thought escape his head. Lemon had
always been good at guarding his thoughts--there was much that happened
that could've been prevented if he hadn't--but never *this* good. For the
first time in years, she felt a temptation to use the telepathic portion of
her abilities to go in and see what he was hiding. As they were not in the
middle of a violent struggle, nor was there anything else at the moment to
justify such an invasion, she held back.

But, if she was being honest with herself--and she always tried to be that,
even when it hurt--she wanted to. Badly.

"I do hope Mrs. Harkness overrules you," said Gigawatt, interrupting her
thoughts. "With apologies, Cendra. I really want to continue this
discussion."

She could almost see the wheels spinning behind Lemon's eyes.

"He doesn't travel much," Lemon began. "Mainly, on account of everybody
thinking he's been dead for a century-and-a-quarter, but also on the
account of being really really old."

Cendra's eyes narrowed. Time to tug the thread hard.

"She asked for him by name."

This widened Lemon's eyes.

"She asked... does she know he's the... does she know *him?*"

"Chalandra Harkness is a centuries-old vampire," said Cendra. "I imagine
she could know anybody... and Cartier could keep it out of his journals, or
maybe just from you. Or maybe *her* information source is just good at
getting the goods on people who think they're unreachable."

She didn't say who she was thinking of, and he didn't ask. She expected he
already was thinking of the same person.

"I'll ask," Lemon finally said. He looked around, and then at his watch,
seeming relieved that only a half-hour had passed. "Anything else?"

"Not right now--"

"But there is!" Gigawatt exclaimed. "There is a crisis! A crisis only you,
Ms. Seconds, can address!"

Shelby, Bhossi, and Cla'rabhelle all sighed. Cendra didn't think they were
sighs that boded good things.

"What is it?"

"Look around! Around at what I have been able to decipher of the hidden
history of... all this! The Hidden Empire! The nectarisite that forms this
vessel! The conspiracies that work to keep all of this obscured! Do you not
see the crisis presaged by this morning's theft?"

Cendra looked around. No crisis made itself unmissable.

"Er... no..."

Gigawatt jumped on the table and waved his arms wide.

"WE'RE OUT OF YARN!"

Cendra blinked.

"Yarn?"

"We ran out late this morning, after I was connecting the theft of the
Heart of Mu to James Churchward's most radical unpublished theories about
the fate of Atlantis and the reasons the Reptiloids allied with a group of
Burrollans and a werewolf pack in the attempt to take down the Roburtron's
top secret airship, _The Albatross,_ in 1897, when suddenly... OUT OF YARN!"

"The usual nearby hobby shops have stopped returning our calls," Shelby
said, sounding mildly embarassed. "They have become rather ill-willed
toward us, ever since the last time the Doc ran out of yarn and then went
out and pillaged every Hobby Lobby in a six-mile radius."

Cendra fumed. "I wasn't... *informed*... about that, was I?"

"He took a vacation day for it," Bhossi said.

"That is why he started ripping up his clothes," said Cla'rabhelle. "Fabric
links, until a new supply can be secured."

Gigawatt narrowed his eyes.

"Agent Rydell, Ms. Seconds," he said, "partially, this crisis is one of
opportunity, where some or all of the underground civilizations of Terra
Subterrene could go to war with one another, or us, to possess the Heart of
Mu and its dimension-bridging capabilities. Partially it is a crisis of
need, as the Hidden Empire may be faced with an existential crisis that
only retrieving the Heart could begin--begin!--to mitigate, and they may be
desperate enough to take on Terra Subterrene *and* us for it. Partially it
is a crisis of historical galactic intrigue, involving the Reptiloids and
other spacefaring races and their meddling with our world in the ancient
past. Partially it is a crisis of deep time, and entities I have only
barely *begun* to fathom, but who are wound up in Earth's history and are
deeply invested in seeing that its future goes their way."

He hopped down from the desk, and stepped close to Cendra and Lemon. Both
eyes twitched, though they couldn't agree on a rhythm.

"But mostly..." he whispered. "It's about..."

"Yarn?" Lemon asked.

"YAAAAAAAAAARN!" Gigawatt yelled. He then scampered behind the desk, ducked
down, and peered over the top.

Cendra glared for several seconds, then smoothed her horizontalized hair.

"I'll have China put in a PhootDash order," she said, with an impression of
calm she wasn't even close to feeling. "Come on, Lemon... I've got to get
to the bridge, and you've got to get... someplace other than here."

"You got that right," said Lemon. "Hope to chat with you folks later."

YAAAAAAAAAARN!" Gigawatt cried.

(continued in part two, following...)
--
Subtler Than Light #3 (c) 2023 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.

For behind-the-scenes notes on this episode, visit my posting in
the Superguy List community on LiveJournal:
https://superguy-list.livejournal.com/41360.html

Gary W. Olson LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/gwox
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