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Elysia wished she could have been doing something secret-agent-like when Claire rang her. She at least wished that she could lie and say she had been, oh, at the firing range or doing intricate tumbling acts down in the gym, but she suspected that there were either hidden cameras watching her every movement, a tracking system in her "company" cellphone, or both.

The suspicion about hidden cameras didn't phase her when it came to taking a nice cold bath, though.

Unfortunately, she didn't think that "taking a bath" fell into the secret agent activities drawer.

"Yeah? Mm. Office? Uh-huh. Some sort of possibly life-threatening assignment? Fuuuun. You okay this with Aric, to- Oh, right. We don't give a damn about Aric around here. I'll be up in a few minutes." Smirking, she hung up the cell phone and got out of the bath. Elysia wouldn't have minded a few more minutes of cold water in place of running up to her boss's office, seeing how she had a rather nasty ear infection at the moment and was running a slight ear infection.

No matter. Those ear drops would just have to wait.

She wrung out her hair, got dressed, and tied back her hair only once she was halfway down the hall to the elevator.


By the time the elevator opened on the correct floor and in Claire's office (she'd missed the mark a few times. Purely accidental, of course.), Elysia had her hair relatively dry. She waved to Claire.

"Just go on in?"

"Oooh, fire. Just have to make sure he doesn't chuck a burning envelope at my head like he threatened to do last time..."

Ah, yes, last time. When she had brought up He-Whose-Name-Shall-Not-Be-Mentioned, otherwise known as Aric when people were drunk, tired, or just didn't give a crap.

Aric wasn't liking this whole cold-shoulder bit. Pun obviously and completely intended.

Elysia knocked out of formality... but moreso out of habit. Then she just opened the door and sauntered on in, trying to look as professional as possible when her hair was damp and limp like a wet dog's (A dog with light blue fur, of course. What other sort is there?), her shirt was half-untucked, and she'd forgotten that water plus white clothing equals sheer. Well, at least she had the consolation that it was only her shoulder and back.

Joseph dropped another letter into the quickly growing pile of ash in his ashtray. He looked to his two employees as they entered.

"Elysia, looking classy as usual." He said through his sarcastic grin, "And Chuck, your fly's down."

"Anyway," He put down the lighter, "There may be some work for you fellows to do. Tonnes of technology for the taking, from a well known company too."

"I'm sure you've all heard about Carter City. Unfortunate really." The glint in Joseph's eyes betrayed the fact he was ecstatic about it, "Its just recently been announced that the Cat's Cradle company was to blame. Sources say it was a competition gone wrong, freaky deeky robots going batshit insane. Everybody up top, and nearly everybody in line to get up top, died because of it. Old wasshisface controlling the company now panicked and put out a bounty for the cores of them there robots. Least that's what it looks like, the bastards in hiding now."

"This gives us the perfect opportunity." Joseph leaned forward on his desk, "When the city was crawling with robots and vigilantes it was too much of a risk for A~E. Course the gov' nuked the place before we could sweep in to raid the Manabu Seido building. There's still the potential of extracting the structure of the robots from the cores with the bounties on them. Lucky for us we're located in the adventurer capital of the world."

"If the CPUs are all that remain, then there somewhere in this area." He had a certain pride in his team, "And before they get cashed into Cat's Cradle I know you guys will find them."

"Intelligence is still looking for hints, and our clients are keeping us informed when people coming from Carter make suspicious purchases." The CEO was thinking in overdrive, "I'ma gonna make some calls too."

"While we look for information you two will act independently from each other. When we do find something we'll meet up as a team. Keep an eye out for any guns for hire we can lure into A~E's employment. That being said, be careful of any of the people coming from carter. They want those cores as bad as we do." There was the dramatic pause, "Any questions?"

The buzz on the intercom went off, Joseph slammed the button.

"Joseph," It was Lester in his british voice, "I prepared the AC you wanted. It's officially loaded with weapons: Rifles, pistols, ammunition, grenades, bombs, couple of gizmos. You name it. I also hooked it up with a strongbox as requested."

"Great work." Joseph was thinking about where he could take said vehicles.

"You know," He had a glimmer of an idea, "I bet those fools at that temple place have some idea what's going on. Hell, knowing them they dragged their assess to that doomed city."

"Well, the Temple of Phallus," Joseph comically mispronounced the name, "Is this place that the weirdest group of people hang out..."

The phone rang. Without any regards to to Elysia's feelings Joseph picked it up.

"Hello... Yeah... Yeah.... You're ******** kidding me... DeSaul? That junk heap... Ok, ******** it. I'm going."

He slammed the phone down.

"We're going now." He shot out of his chair, "There's an armoured car in the parking garage, I suggest you hop in. If not you're gonna be stuck here."

With that he burst out of the room.

Claire, as always, was rubbing her temples from overwork. For once Joseph had disappeared legitimately and the emergency 'oh shi-' plan had gone into place. She never liked the name of that plan. What she did like was delicious coffee, and nothing would stop her from a nice sip right about...

Ding!

Visitor. That was a change of pace. Either this person knew Joseph came in all of five seconds ago or was someone the boss picked up along the way. Guess Claire would find out when she introduced herself.

"Ah Miss Browning." the introduction suggested business, the dress suggested 'boss picked up along the way'. The 'necessary evils' finisher suggested she at least had heard how A~E does business at the top. Slack.

"Mr. Brown will be a few moments," She smiled for perhaps a half second before the effort became unbearable. What she didn't stop doing was working, something was being managed even as she spoke, "I'm positive that you have important business with Mr. Brown since you knew he was in. He's been on... Vacation for a few days."

She, of course, was not sure Sam had important business.

"But that ruins all the fun." At A~E sarcasm practically had to be on your resume, "I'd love to use it, really would. But I couldn't use it if I wanted to. We have a strict policy to have everything we use looked over for potential dangers."

Correction: Claire employed that policy. Joseph didn't exactly have the same stringent safety standards. Once was sick for a week after a dozen of shady dives new cocktail. Apparently the distinct blue colour came from windex.

"Well," She paused and then made a few clicks on her computer, "Depending on if he goes through his mail or not, he should be done soon."

"Actually. It won't take long either way."

Joseph made more paper aeroplanes out of his mail than he read it.