2 - Ayla - Losing Dogs

Link to article: 2 - Ayla - Losing Dogs.

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Your name is Ayla Lancaster, or at least that’s what people call you, and you were twelve years old when you watched your sister get snapped in half. Your sister was twice your age at the time, and your sole guardian. In an effort to bring you outside more, she brought you on a hiking trail.

It was a beautiful day, the sun high in the sky, just enough clouds to offer a bit of shade, the sound of the wind blowing through the trees was wonderful. She held your little hand in her own and led you down a rock lined path. You wandered off the beaten trail and, being a good sister, she followed you. You dropped to the ground to watch a beatle crawl over a pinecone; you heard the trees creek and felt a shadow pass overhead.

You turned back around just in time to see a //tree// stand up straight with the top half of your sister in what was unmistakably a mouth. She didn’t even get a chance to scream, and neither did you. The creature’s many eyes passed right over you. It chewed, swallowed, and disappeared among the trees, leaving you alone with a pair of disembodied legs.

For the next fourteen hours you stayed there, frozen to the spot. You didn’t cry, you didn’t sob, you didn’t scream, too afraid even the slightest squeak would attract that monster back to your position. Even when the sun setted and the air grew so cold you could see your breath turn white before your eyes, you remained.

That’s where //they// found you, curled up in a bush, next to a puddle of blood, soaked in every fluid imaginable.

Ten, or maybe twelve people in black armor appeared out of the woodworks. All of them wore heavy black helmets, obscuring any human features. They were halfway through shoveling your sister’s remains into a bag when one of them noticed you. You couldn’t understand their muffled words through their helmets, but you recognized when one of them pointed right at you.

They approached you slowly, hands outstretched, careful not to frighten the scared little animal you are. They formed a wall around you and, once they deemed you were not a threat, one reached out and took your hand. Your tiny pale fingers slotted between the thick padded gloves. Once freed from the forest’s grasp, they wiped the dirt off your cheeks and feed you into the back of a black van.

The seats in the van were stiff, designed for capacity not comfort. The weighted blanket draped over your shoulders does little to help. Forcing the words, you asked if they’re the //Men in Black//. One of them laughed and another humored you by saying yes.

After a bumpy ride sandwiched between two adults, you’re brought inside and put in a room somehow even stuffier than the van. The first face you saw, after seeing your sister lose her’s, is a charming older woman in a lab coat. She slid into the seat across from you, notebook in one hand, pen in the other, and asked you some questions. Once satisfied with your answers, you’re finally offered a glass of fresh water.

You woke up in your bed, feeling like you’ve hardly slept at all. You remember being told your sister died in a car crash. You remember a closed casket funeral. You remember wondering why you didn’t cry, even as the coffin was lowered into the ground, even as you returned to an empty home to pack your stuff, even as you felt the last of her drift from your life. These days you barely remember her at all.

You don’t remember a thing about a hike or strange beast hidden among the trees or men and women in black helmets. But, as your hand yanks down the fire alarm, you turn your head just enough to see Cord bound out of her seat. On instinct, every muscle in your body tenses at once. Anything to keep you still, to keep you quiet, to keep you from being noticed.

For just a second you are a twelve year old kid again, and Cord has the top half of your sister in her mouth.

It’s an effort to shake yourself out of it. You have a job to do, and by God are you going to do it. You’ve been in the care of the //Men in Black// for years now, none of this is new to you. Even if your body feels nothing but terror, //you’re better than this//.

As you stumble out of the //hole in the wall// Cord created, your heart races. You dig your fingers into your chest until it hurts, as if you could grab your heart hard enough to calm it down. Behind you the //Spicy Crust Pizza that never was// disappears and in front of you lays the bestial form of your colleague and you feel nothing but //fear//.

Your sister died in a car crash, you’re sure of that. Even now, with everything you’ve learned since being a scared little kid, you’ve never thought to question that belief.

Through the sound of your blood rushing in your ears you can make out Barry’s shouts. You watch her throw a sobbing Polly onto the ground and your dignity sparks up. Filling your aching lungs with much needed air, you speak up.

“Hey! Lighten up!”

Barry turns her gaze onto you sharp enough to make your knees buckle. That small prey animal feeling consumes you once again. Your gaze falls to the concrete, your body begging you to cower and shrink.

“Lighten up?” Barry asks, the corner of her eye twitching. She takes a heavy step toward you and, involuntarily, you take a step back. “You want me to //lighten up?//”

Any words you could say to defend yourself choke you. You’re out in the open and yet you’re cornered. You back up until the back of your foot hits the sidewalk and you trip. Everything around you turns into one blur of color and motion. Your lungs burn, every breath sharp and painful. Looking into the empty space where you assume there must’ve been a restaurant once, doesn’t make you feel any better.

“And you!” You flinch even though the shout isn’t directed at you. “Turn back to normal! I know I //did not// give you permission to do anything!”

The beast groans, a sharp, pained howl. Ruth stands up straight, taking her weight off of Cord as she begins to compress. The sound of snapping bones and ripping sinew echo around the empty parking lot. She’s back to a form that’s familiar.

A form that’s //safe//.

You do nothing as Barry strikes Cord across the face. What could you do? You were always too much of a coward to speak up. You rub your cheek, imagining a bruise spreading across your fair skin. Ruth is the one to charge valiantly forward, but she’s not exactly in fighting gear. She loses her balance on her heels, giving Barry a chance to shove her aside.

“As for the rest of you!” Barry turns, her eyes scanning across the scene. “I can’t fucking believe you guys! You couldn’t even coordinate for //two fucking seconds//! Do you want to end up like- to end up like…?”

You recognize the sort of fear that spreads across her features. She stumbles back, as if shoved. Sweat runs down her forehead, her eyes dart around, and her cheeks puff like she’s holding back vomit. For a moment her face is pale with pure terror.

From her pockets she produces a device, the //Amnestics Baton//, as you’ve come to know it. An experimental sort of contraption the Foundation would only hand out to people like you. She jams it in her forehead, making an audible pained noise. You suck in a sharp gasp.

You don’t trust those things. They’re too new, too rough, not as clean or as trustworthy as the pills and liquids your employers usually use. Sure, you understand the need for new sources of amnestics, but that doesn’t stop your personal discomfort.

Barry lowers the device, a glassy look in her eyes. A shiver runs down your spine. It is… unfortunately rather common for long time agents to use amnestics for personal use, Barry being no exception.

“Phew, what a night, huh?” She says. “Cord, my keys?” Silently, Cord reaches into her dress pocket, and hands Barry her keys. “Let’s go home, alright? It’s too late for work.” She approaches her car, expecting everyone to follow suit.

You stand and brush the dust off yourself. Every part of you feels weak, rung dry, and you struggle to fill your lungs. You’re hungry, you can’t remember but you doubt you got to eat dinner. There’s nothing to do but get up and get out of this parking lot.

Cord sits between you and Ruth, you’re very careful to make sure Cord isn’t touching you. Ruth wipes blood off her face with a wad of tissues, Cord keeps her eyes forward, expression blank. The seat belt digs into your chest just a little too tightly.

As you pass by residential neighborhoods, you consider asking Barry to drop you off at your house, but the tension is so high the thought of speaking makes you feel ill. Tensions are always high after a run in with those //Chaos Insurgency freaks//, but the air in here is different.

Polly is the most shaken, the sole member of your team that really knows what’s just happened. While everyone else shuffles back into the headquarters, Polly stands frozen in the parking lot. You glance between the abandoned laundromat and Polly’s pale face, noticing the slight tremor in her legs. After a moment of deliberation, you approach, careful not to startle her.

“Hey? Are you okay?”

“Huh? Uh, yes I- I think so…” She won’t look at you.

“You don’t have to be. Okay- I mean. You don’t have to be okay.” You scratch the back of your neck. “No one’s breach past the veil is easy.”

She looks at you and it occurs to you everything you just said sounded dumb. “Veil?”

“You know-” you say, knowing she doesn’t, “the line between the normal and the screwy. I mean, you didn’t believe in memory erasing holes before today, did you” She doesn’t answer, stuck staring at her own shaky hands. You clear your throat. “Anyway, you’re gonna help us make sure no one has to experience what you did.”

A very generous and very false way of putting her job, but it seems to calm her down. You try to offer her a smile, which is not an expression you’re used to. Something important strikes you. You pat your pockets and find them devoid of what you need.

“Shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I had something for you. I left it in my office.” You really hoped that you wouldn’t have to go back to your office tonight, but you think you should. “I’m going to go get it. Don’t- don’t go anywhere.”

Polly looks at you and gazes across the empty parking lot surrounding you. “Alright.”

You turn tail and trek down into headquarters. It’s not uncommon for a Foundation outpost to be hidden under abandoned or otherwise inconspicuous places, but being buried under this place just feels like a slap in the face on top of the other slap that was being assigned here. It wasn’t that the Foundation couldn’t afford to put you up somewhere nicer, it’s that the Foundation doesn’t care to.

The //Foundation//, the mysterious presence that decided it was too unethical to let a town get eaten but it was totally fine if a few hundred people went missing as long as no one remembered them. The //Foundation//, who burst into your college dorm when you were nineteen and offered you a job. The //Foundation//, who once found you crying in the middle of the forest covered in your sister’s blood.

Barry’s office door is cracked open. You sneak a peek inside as you pass. Her chair is swiveled around, you can’t see her face but she isn't moving. It feels like you should say something, ask if she’s okay, but you can’t bring yourself to.

It’s hard to separate //Barry Tone//, the funny, often even charming person who could’ve been your friend in another life, with //Baritone//, the person who is currently your boss. You move on, past her office and the makeshift dorms.

In your office, fresh off your 3D printer, is a little badge. An outlined circle with three arrows crossing its contour and pointing to the center. Below that the letters S-C-P. Secure, Contain, Protect. The Foundation’s supposed motto, a motto that never seems to apply to anything. Usually these would be made of medal, not resin and plastic, but the Foundation isn’t going to keep sending you badges for every sad woman Barry dragged up to fill in.

You flip it over, checking to make sure the engraving on the back printed correctly, taking a moment also to pick off the extra resin. Satisfied, you pocket it, and for good measure you also remember to pocket your walkie talkie. Barry insists that phones are much safer and more efficient, but you try to make use of everything you have.

Polly is sitting on the sidewalk, rolling her faux-silver ring between her fingers. She perks up as you reappear.

“Welcome to the team.” You squat down and hand it off. She examines it, flipping it around in her hand.

“‘M-T-F’?” Her eyebrows furrow.

“Mobile Task Force. That’s us.” You jam a thumb towards yourself.

//MTF Gamma-86 aka “Losing Dogs”.// That’s the name Barry gave it, or, at least it’s the name it had when you joined on. A Mobile Task Force in title alone.

The thing about Mobile Task Forces, first and foremost, is that they’re respected. They’re disposable, yes, the Foundation loses at least five a year, but they’re respected. A group of highly trained elites willing to lay down their lives for the Foundation’s ideals. //The best of the best of the best, sir!//

Of //course// they’re respected.

You’re no trained elite, you’re not even a soldier. You’re a programmer, who, for as much loyalty as you possess, would not care to die, not even for a supposedly good cause. A quick glance at your last paycheck will show you how much //respect// someone like you garnered.

You don’t have some big threat to contain. No, the Foundation gave up on //containment// long before you ever washed up here. Your job was to make sure the Foundation //never// has to hear from you again. It doesn’t matter who dies, it doesn’t matter what //vital// teammates you lose. As long as no one knows about the problem and it costs the //Foundation// nothing, they could care less about you.

They could care less about anyone in this backwater middle of nowhere.

//A lot of losing dogs indeed.//

You have no reason to say any of that to her. Pretty soon she’ll come to understand her place in this group, just as you did. You reach into your pocket, running your finger over your own badge. Made of metal, back when the Foundation cared about things like that.

“Kinda funny acronym, though,” you say to no one in particular.

“I- I want to go home.” You can hear the pain in that statement. You swallow down your guilt, letting it settle down in your stomach with the rest of your feelings.

“It’s late out. I’ll walk you home.” She squints. “I mean- We were just attacked. It might not be safe for you to be out alone. Us ladies gotta stick together, you know.” You playfully punch her in the shoulder and immediately regret that action.

“Yeah… Alright.” She brushes the spot you just touched and puts her ring back on. Trailing behind her, you walk down lamp lit streets. A thick fog rolls in, obscuring everything in gray.

Her front door is laying out on her lawn, you can picture Cord doing that. Like she doesn’t even see it, Polly walks right past it into her home and immediately drops to her knees. You pick up the door and slide it back into place.

//Oh this is definitely not safe.//

“Hey, uh,” You kneel beside her, tentatively resting a hand on her side. She’s crying, you can’t blame her, you definitely cried on your first day on the job. “You’ve got a nice place here,” you say, glancing around the room. It’s certainly a lot more lived in than any place you’ve ever stayed.

Polly’s eyes slowly gaze around the room, as if seeing it for the very first time. Both of you are on a shaggy blue carpet, in front of you is the kitchen, to your right is the living room, and to your left is a staircase. You’re too focused on the door to see Polly stand up, drag her fingers across the wall, and pick up the two jackets on the floor.

You decide to wander around the living room, taking note of the interesting wooden carvings and weaved fabrics and photos hung up on the wall. A photo of a younger looking Polly next to an older woman with braided hair and an intricate tattoo below her mouth. Before you can examine this too closely, an interesting display of torture devices steals your attention.

//What else could these be?// You pick up a rusty looking tool of some sort and turn it around in your hand. It’s almost like a pair of scissors with curved blades. On the selves you see several oddly shaped utensils, some sort of icepick, and several jagged blades. Why would anyone have these?

“Oh, hey, I thought I lost you,” Polly says, flicking the lightswitch on. With a start, you drop the tool with a heavy clatter. “Do you like my collection?”

“Your uh- what is this?”

“Vintage surgery tools. I used to uh- frequent antique shops and I find them cool.” She picks up a pair of old tweezers and pinches them together. “I even have some old medical journals.” Dropping to the ground, she drags her knuckles across the books on the bottom two shelves.

“Cool,” you say, genuinely, though unsure what else to add. Unwittingly, your gaze keeps turning to the front door. A breeze might knock it open. When you look back at Polly she has tears running down her face. “H-hey! What’s wrong?” People don’t tend to come to you for their personal emotions, hell you barely deal with your own emotions as is. //Is it something you’re doing?//

“It’s just uh-” She chokes, rubbing her palm against the slightly fuzzy velvet cover of the old book. “I think there’s something important about this stuff, but I can’t remember. And think it’s because of- of…”

She drops the book, which hits the ground hard enough to rattle the shelf, her hands remain outstretched, Her fingers open and close, as if attempting to grasp something you just can’t see. Whatever is happening, it makes you deeply uncomfortable.

“I don’t think we should be here!” You announce, snapping Polly out of her trance. “It’s not safe, what with your door broken and the Chaos Insurgency out.”

She blinks away tears. “The who?”

“The uh-” you consider how best to explain this without freaking her out further. “So we work for the SCP Foundation, but then there’s also the Chaos Insurgency. They’re like… Um, terrorists who want to weaponize the anomaly here. They suck like that.”

Polly nods slowly. “They attacked us at the pizza place.”

“They did?” That sounds about right, and yet you can’t quite scratch the itch in your brain.

“I think so,” Polly says, still nodding. “Where are we supposed to go?”

“My house, if you want? Or back to the base. Base would be safer.”

“Your house sounds good. I need to go check on something first.” Before you have much to say, Polly’s already halfway up the stairs. Like the dog you are, you consider standing guard at the door. Instead, you creep into her room behind her.

The room is a mess, papers and clothes and trinkets strewn across the floor. Cord’s work once again. From the doorway you watch her gather up and examine a collection of clown dolls. A few of them have broken or shattered, porcelain pieces littering the ground. With your help, she readjusts the bed and rights a shelf. She starts placing the clowns back on display.

“So… are you like a clown person?” you say, once again failing to make any form of conversation.

“You know, at this point I’m not even sure anymore.” She lets the shards spill out of the palm of her hand and stands up. “I thought I’d find some pictures, maybe a record of some kind, a journal maybe? Something to confirm my own memory.” She’s not looking at you.

Uncomfortable, you fidget with your hands and make a clicking sort of sound with your tongue. “Did you know clowns are real?”

“What?”

“Yeah, they’re like a species, not just people in costumes. Well, most are just people in costumes, but there’s also like… like a species.” You freeze, becoming self aware of the nonsensical hand motions you’ve been making.

She blinks very slowly. Suddenly your shoes become very fascinating to you. Once done with the clowns, she crosses the room to her desk. You make yourself useful by picking up all the papers and pens off the ground. When she opens up her laptop you catch a glimpse of the Parawatch logo at the top of her screen.

[[div class="blockquote"]]
##blue|**SunnyOrchid**## 2/18/2013 (Monday) 16:01:44 #39348719
------
Hi! My name is Apollo or Polly, 27, Māori, aspiring artist currently living with my girlfriend, V, in the Midwest. I started this thread to lay down some of the weird things I see in this town, because I need to keep a record of this stuff. I’ll start with something that’s been bothering me for ages: Every single company in this town has [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/pickman-blank-proposal the same initials].

I get my morning coffee from Sunny’s Creamy Pastries, I work as a waitress for Spicy Crust Pizza, I drop clean my clothes at the Soak Clean Plush and wash them with Sasha’s Cleaning Products, I get my groceries from Super Convenient Produce, which sells Soap Corpse Products, in the summer I take a dip at Super Cool Pools, I fill my gas at a place called Sales on Canadian Petrole, I pass by a neon bar sign reading Sakes Ciders Pallini, even most of the houses here are owned by Safe Community Protection. V tells me it’s all coincidence, but after this many times it goes way past coincidence!

(You could say I’m Suspicious about the Possibility it's all Coincidence. Wait, no that’s not quite right-)

I’ve tried to look into some of these companies and I can barely find records on half of them. A lot of the businesses here don’t last long, it’s pretty common for people to be fooled by the low property values only to realize no one lives here so there’s no one to buy their shit. Anything that survives can be abbreviated as SCP, and I swear up and down there’s one group that owns everything here. My biggest question is, well, why? How much can monopolizing this one backwater nowhere be worth?

I’ll try to update this soon with other weird things, this isn’t even scratching the surface!
[[/div]]

Polly scrolls through the years of forum posts on this thread, expressing a mix of baffled embarrassment, but you can’t help but let our mouth gape in awe. It’s been your job for quite some time now to keep records of strange happenings, to figure out what’s going missing, where, and how to cover it up. And here, right under your nose the entire time, Polly has been doing the exact same thing, where you’d never even think to look.

//How// did you miss this? And moreso, how did //I// miss this? Have I been too respectful of her privacy? Polly hits the bottom of the thread, pausing to stare at her most recent post from just three months ago.

[[div class="blockquote"]]
##blue|**SunnyOrchid**## 6/13/2019 (Thursday) 12:32:18 #39348719
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My co-worker is fucking gaslighting me over the stupidist thing. I asked her how her cat was doing, since I’ll pet sit for her occasionally, and she looked at me like I was crazy and said she doesn’t have a cat. I tried to pry for details, pointing out how she’d drop the little guy off at my house sometimes and she agreed that she did stop by my house during those days, but swore up and down that she just didn’t own a cat. When I pointed out that she had cat hair on her pants she seemed surprised. The worst part was when I went to complain about this to my wife and V insisted that my co-worker was right and that I’ve never pet sat for her.

This isn’t even the first time something like this has happened either. I used to go to this art workshop in town, back when I really thought I could make a full time living out of painting, and one day one of my friends called me and asked me for a ride. I told him yes of course, and then I asked what happened to his car, and he told me he doesn’t own a car. Did he sell his car? No, he’s just never owned one. I ask how he’s been getting to work or to the class all this time if he’s never owned a car, and he couldn’t answer me. Later he called me again to tell me he found a record from 2013 that detailed his purchase of a car (from Secure Car Place if you’d believe it). He remembers going to the car dealership, and surely he must’ve been getting places, but he doesn’t have this car. How do you lose a car???

And the weirdest and most confusing time this has happened is my boss’s disappearing husband. I’m not super close to my boss, but I’d talk to her husband when he showed up at our job, until one day his appearances just stopped. I asked the others where they thought he was, and none of them knew who I was talking about. When I asked her directly I got the same response. Okay, I think, maybe they had a messy break up that I didn’t know about and no one wants to talk about it. But his picture is still up on the wall where my boss put it, and she still wears her wedding ring.

How does a person just disappear? And why am I the only one who’s noticed?
[[/div]]

“Oh wow,” Polly says, softly, hand reaching up to rest on her cheek. “it’s been right under my nose the whole time and I… I just couldn’t see it... I think that I’m… ready to leave.”

“Oh, yeah um, alright.”

You lead her back down the stairs and wait by the door. She pauses at the bottom of the stairs, looking down the hall. “One moment,” she says and steps into the bathroom. She comes out holding a pill bottle. //Estradiol//. “In case I don’t make it back here for a while.” By the door there’s a table with a drawer, from which Polly produces a keyring. “We should drive to your place.”

“Smart.” On your insistence, you take the driver’s seat. Polly packs in beside you, eyes glued to the window. In your detour the fog has only gotten heavier, even with the headlights on you can barely see a few feet in front of you. Carefully, you creep down the streets, with the hope you aren’t sweating too much.

For a while the only sound is the rumble of tires against the bumpy road. Turning on the radio might make you look weird, but if the silence goes on too long you feel awkward. You should say something, anything to distract from the situation. //Come on Ayla, just speak up!//

Right as you open your mouth, something in the rearview mirror catches your eyes. Just barely visible through the fog is the front of a car. They have their headlights off. A paranoid woman you are, you make a sharp turn away from your house, just in case it's a tail you want to throw off.

The turn is enough to jostle Polly. She looks at you with a frown, and as usual you choke on your words. You don’t want to say anything, she’s already had a hard enough day she doesn’t need more anxieties. But you definitely should say //something// right now.

You flick on the radio.

//“-me back to the Superstitious Conspiracy Podcast, late show addition. I am your humble host, Alicja Kondraki, back to you with the truth the Shadow Government doesn’t want you to know! Tonight I’ve got some very interesting reports on hundreds of inmates disappearing from prisons. Where are they going? And more importantly, what does the Shadow Government need all of them for?”//

The staticy conspiracy podcast fades into background noise. It sounds familiar, like the radio shows the Foundation funds for the spread of misinformation. Polly stares at you for a few seconds before returning to her own head. Situation haphazardly defused.

“So… are you into this sort of thing? Conspiracies?” you ask, drumming your fingers on the steering wheel. The woman on the podcast rambles on about her theories on shadow governments and missing people, all of which aren’t quite as unfounded as they sound. You can no longer see your supposed tail, but you make a few more zig-zags anyway.

“Not really… I- I remember tuning into this show a lot to make fun of it with…” She trails off, eyes glossing over. “It’s hard not to feel really bad for the lady who runs this show, and the sort of people who call in. She talks about how she started this show because she thinks the shadow government killed her brother.” She chokes on air, eyes glistening with tears. “And you know with what’s happened today, I’m not even sure if she’s wrong.”

“Yeah…” If you weren’t driving you’d slam your head into the wheel. Every single time you’ve opened your mouth tonight you’ve just made her more upset. You finally give into your impulses and shut your mouth until you reach your home.

Stepping out of the car, you creep towards the edge of the driveway to glance around. Unsurprisingly, the fog does not yield to your gaze, and you see nothing. You choose to believe that if someone was following you, they aren’t anymore.

“Ayla?” Polly calls out. You speed walk to your front door and unlock it for her, trying to hide your Winry Rockbell keychain in the palm of your hand.

“Sorry I- don’t usually have guests…” Normally you're perfectly fine sleeping on a cot back at headquarters, easier to get work done without a commute. You’re not used to having other people around, let alone a pretty girl in your house.

There’s a pair of plastic katana’s over your doorway, under which are the words //Here I Was//, written in sharpie. “My bedroom is through here.” You weave through your living room, past the kitchen, and into your bedroom. At least your bedroom has remained somewhat put together, if only because you haven’t been residing in it.

Hanging off your bed’s headboard is a checkerboard hat. Your walls are covered in posters. Misa Amane, Misato Katsuragi, Faye Valentine, and several other women I could not name. Propped up against your closet door is a real katana (//which you’ve named Spirit Albarn, even though that guy was a scythe not a sword//), or as real as you could get at the local mall. The Foundation doesn’t like the use of non-approved weapons, so it’s remained unused. And of course, you have your glass display case of collectable figures, some still carefully preserved in packaging for no clear reason whatsoever.

“Nice pillow,” Polly says, pinching the corner of a body pillow and lifting it up. Quickly and not suspiciously at all, you snatch the pillow, hugging the other side to your chest.

“Haha, yeah.” You back up into the door to your closet, knocking your katana over. In one fluid motion you open your closet and jam the pillow inside, next to the thousands of other things you’re too embarrassed to let yourself enjoy. “Uh, so here’s my bed. It's all yours.”

Polly sits down, sinking into the mattress. She looks hollow, tired, much like you did on your first day. You pick up your katana and sling it over your shoulder. You’re about to leave her to her thoughts when she calls out.

“Wait!” You freeze in the doorway. “I- I need to know I’m making the right choice here. There’s no way I’m //qualified// for any of this. I mean- I mean I was an //art history// major.”

“You’d be surprised what the Foundation can make use of. I mean, there’s a whole group of people who make like-” you make some sort of sparkly hand gesture, “- magic artwork. And even then, the Foundation will pay to train you in anything.”

With some hesitation, Polly nods. “Like the military.”

“Except there’s no honor in this.”

She snorts. “I wouldn’t really say there’s honor in joining the military.”

“You wouldn’t?” A beat passes. “Some people think so, but no one would make that mistake here.”

A moment of silence, the two of you stare into each other's eyes. Polly nods again, expression even harder to gauge than before. “Okay.”

Under the impression that this conversation is over, you close the door. Down the hall you lock yourself in your bathroom. It’s been a while since you’ve used an actual shower, rather than the group showers. It feels nice after the day you’ve had, to pretend like all of your troubles are just washing down the drain. Stepping out, you wriggle back into the clothes you just took off, towel wrapped around your head. You grab a large quilt from the hallway closet and drag it to the couch.

You lay the katana on the ground next to you, where it’s slightly obscured by your coffee table. Engraved on the katana’s leather saya are the words //Here I Was//. You run your finger over the letters, pressing your thumb into the indent.

…

You’re in the woods again, walking the unfamiliar trail. Your feet seem to know where they’re supposed to be before you do. Even as you walk off the beaten path each step feels natural, like you’ve done it before.

Kneeling in the grass and pine needles is a little boy. In his small hand he holds a sharp rock. He hangs his head low, tongue stuck out between his lips in focus. Into the base of the tree he carves: //Here I Was//. Like a prayer- no, a plea. //Here I was, know this is where I used to be, please remember that I Was Here//.

He looks up over his shoulder and smiles, showing off the gap between his teeth. You want to reach out to him, tell him to leave this place before he gets hurt. A mouth descends and bisects you.

…

Something pulls you out of your hazy dreams, though in the darkness of your living room you can’t immediately parse what. The lightswitch is by the front door, you stand up to flip it. A strong gloved hand wraps around your mouth and grips your jaw closed. The sharp edge of a pocket knife is pressed against your throat. Your Adam's apple bobs as your mouth dries out.

“If you make a sound, I’ll gut you and then I’ll gut your little friend in the other room. Is that understood?” A husky voice hisses directly into your ear. A shiver runs down your spine. “Nod if you understand.”

You nod.

“You seem like a simple person, so I’ll make this very simple for you. Put your hands behind your back.” You obey and feel what is distinctly a zip tie tightening around your wrists. “That’s right.” She kicks you in the back of your knees, forcing you to drop to the ground.

With a good shove, she pushes you over and proceeds to zip tie your ankles together. You squirm onto your side, watching your mysterious attacker rise to her feet. She’s wearing a black jacket with the Chaos Insurgency’s logo on the back, a black chauffeur hat, and most notably to you, sunglasses.

She drops to one knee in front of you, her hand on your chin. “Let’s have a chat, why don’t we? A good woman to woman conversation. What’s your name?”

You swallow a lump in your throat, language coming back to you in pieces. “Ayla. L-lancaster.” You at least feel safe giving her that. Eight years ago someone named Allen Lancaster died, and Ayla Lancaster was born only into the Foundation’s database. There’s nothing the Insurgency can find of you.

The agent clicks her tongue and gives a curt nod. “You know, I had the most interesting dinner today. Well, it was hardly a dinner since I didn’t get to eat. I was sitting with my co-workers, all of us looking at the menus, when this other large group steps in and is seated. That was you in case I wasn’t clear. And we, me and my co-workers, got into a bit of an argument over the girl with blue-tips. Now we could all agree that we’ve never seen her before, but none of them would believe me when I swore up and down that you were missing a member.”

In your left pocket you can feel your walkie talkie digging into your thigh. If you’re willing to dislocate your wrist a little you could grab it. Definitely not when she’s looking right at you.

“And you know what, I couldn’t help but notice that it’s //her// that you’ve got in the other room. So tell me I’m right, that you’re missing someone.”

“She is a replacement,” you concede.

“Yes!” She fist-pumps. “You know I always think that if people would just listen to me they wouldn’t get themselves killed so often. Certainly true for my co-workers.” The agent stiffens, like a deer that’s noticed something. She tilts her head to the side, aiming her ear upwards. “Is there someone else here?”

“No? There’s Nobody else here!”

“Is that the truth?” Not looking at you, the agent stands and begins walking away from you. When she stands you see her pants rise up, revealing an MCD tattoo on her ankle. You don’t have time to consider what this means. Without wasting a second, you squirm and writhe, pushing the walkie out of your pocket. You jam the on button with your pinky finger hard.

//“Hello?”// says Barry.

You roll over and shout into the receiver, “Insurgent at my house now!”

In half a second, the agent flies across the room and stomps your walkie to bits. “You bitch!” She has her hands around your throat and shakes you. Your world spins around you.

The lights blind you for half a second. Like a falcon with a broken wing, Hatsune Miku flies across the air, completely misses the agent, and smashes against the floor. For half a second you’re more worried that it’s one of your expensive ones than you are about the fact you’re being strangled.

“Oh-hoho,” says the agent, loosening her grip on your throat. Polly stands in the hallway, valiantly wielding Chie Satonaka. All of the sudden you wish you forced her to sleep on the couch.

“You let go of her! Or else- or else I’ll hit you!”

The agent laughs and extends her arm, making a firing motion with her finger. A bolt of lightning shoots out of her finger with a defining //crack!// //Damn those Thaumaturges!//

The lightning strikes Polly squarely in the chest and you //know// she’s dead and you //know// it’s your fault you immediately got the newest member killed. Except the lightning immediately dissipates upon making contact with her chest. It fizzles out, doing nothing more than making her hair frizzy.

“Interesting,” is all the agent can say before Polly barrels into her. Rest in pieces Chie Satonaka, I barely knew you.

From your very limited combat training, you recall a way to break a zip tie with a shoelace. You’re not wearing shoes or laces. The plastic is also easy to break with something sharp. You don’t have anything sharp on you except your own wits.

And the katana sitting right within your vision.

While Polly keeps the insurgent busy, you wriggle yourself between the couch and the coffee table. Your fingers wrap around the katana’s handle, pulling it up just enough to cut the zip tie and the palm of your hand. Licking the blood off your hand, you sit up and free up your legs.. The insurgent is backed into a corner, jabbing at Polly with a pocket knife. Polly is holding up a small side table like a shield.

Valiantly you point the katana at the insurgents chest, and it occurs to you that you have no idea how to use this thing. Turns out that encyclopedic knowledge of seasons one through seven of Naruto doesn’t actually translate to a practical skill, nor a willingness to kill.

“Nice sword,” says the insurgent, slowly raising her hands in surrender. “How about-”

The door slams open hard enough to rattle the whole house. In the other room you hear something fall over. Hopefully not more of your limited edition figures. Barry stands tall and imposing in the doorway. She stretches her arm out, pointing at the insurgent.

“Get!” She barks, and in charges Cord, teeth bared. Cord tackles the insurgent to the ground. You scramble out the front door, Polly behind you. “In! In! In!” Barry gestures to the van. The three of you pile in, you in the passenger seat and Polly in the back, leaving Cord to fight your battles. Barry struggles with her seatbelt before slamming on the gas out of your driveway.

“Thank God you’re here,” you say.

“Are we just going to leave her there?” Polly says, palms flat against the glass.

“Cord’s sturdy, she’ll be fine. It’d be better to get to safety when you’re unarmed- er-” she side-eyes the katana in your lap, “mostly unarmed.” Barry’s scowls, knocking herself in the forehead with her palm. “I shouldn’t have let you two go out! Especially after an Insurgency run in like that. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

You open your mouth to give some variation of //it’s not your fault//, but in this case it definitely is her fault.

“I thought we had it handled…” Polly mutters, arms crossed. “The woman back there… She shot me with something. It looked like it should’ve hurt me, but it didn’t do anything.”

Barry glances over her shoulder for half a second. “You look fine, but I’ll get you to Ruth.”

“She was wearing this uniform I saw before,” Polly continues, “Back at Spicy Crust. What did she want from us?”

“She had an MCD tattoo on her ankle,” you add. “Do we know if MCD knows about the anomaly?”

“MCD?”

“I can’t imagine what they’d want with this place, unless they’re looking to bulldoze this city for real estate.” Barry considers this. “I should get you two back to base before we do anything.”

“Sounds good.” You turn to Polly. “MCD is like… they buy and sell anomalies basically. If they’re here it means they think our, uh… //Hole// is valuable.” You turn pink at your own poor wording.

Barry lets out a sharp laugh. “If MCD is poking their noses in then the Foundation might send some real back-up.” She leans in and squints at the windshield. “Damn it’s foggy.”

“You should be careful, I thought the fog would throw off a tail but that insurgent still snuck up on us. It would be bad to lead them to our base.”

Polly perks up. “We were being followed earlier?”

Your back goes straight. “I mean- I mean uh- I didn’t want to freak you out!”

“I’ll take the extra long route if necessary,” Barry says, ignoring your floundering. “Though, hopefully if Cord can capture that agent then we can get some much needed information.”

//Speak of the devil//, Barry’s phone rings. She draws it out and answers.

//“Sir?”//

“What’s your status?” It’s hard for you not to latch onto the hope in Barry’s voice. This is the most //normal// you’ve seen Barry in a long time, a far cry from the rock bottom she hit only a few hours ago. It’s been a while since she’s seemed confident in her work.

//“I’m afraid I’ve lost track of the agent.”//

Barry’s expression drops and so does your spirit. “Are you sure you can’t track her? Get her scent in the air?”

//“She’s a dangerous thaumaturge. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring her in.”// There’s a crackle of static. //“Permission to retreat, sir?”//

You open your mouth to say something, once again before deciding what it is you want to say. Polly lurches forward from the backseat, grabbing Barry’s shoulders.

“Stop!” She shouts and everyone jumps. Barry hits the brakes hard enough to send everyone forward.

//“Is everything alright sir!?”//

Both of you look at Polly.

“There’s one of those //Nothings// in front of us,” Polly says, voice weak. Now that it’s been pointed out, you notice how the headlights don’t penetrate the fog after a certain point. It isn't like the usual fog, more like a wall your light can’t pass.

“//Shit//, that’s the worst possible place!” Barry lifts up her phone. “Try to track down the insurgent. If you can’t find her, then try to meet us one your way back to the base. And tread carefully, we ran into a //Hole// here.”

//“Understood.”// Click!

Barry pockets her phone and puts the car in reverse. “I’m gonna need your eyes here, sweetheart. I’m not keen on driving into sweet nonexistence. If you two could switch seats even…”

You don’t need more prompting to shuffle over the seats into the back. You put your hand on Polly’s shoulder, making her pause.

“I just wanted to thank you for thinking fast back there. Saving my skin and all.”

She smiles and pats your shoulder. “Any time.” Your face grows hot, your heart audible.

//Careful, Lancaster, that’s a married woman.//

Polly crawls into the front. You are now, without a single doubt in your mind, utterly sure that you are the most useless person in this car. You can’t even use the katana in your lap, the leather saya now stained with your blood.

Being useless has never particularly bothered you, if anything you considered it a skill. No one relied on you so you could never let anyone down. For the longest time, it was almost a game to you, to see just how little effort you could actually put in before someone called you out. You’ve always been a programmer at heart.

This is most certainly why you ended up here.

With a long hiss, the car stops dead in its tracks. Perking up, you lean over Barry’s shoulder. Brows furrowed, Barry slams her fist into the dashboard repeatedly while stomping on the pedal. The car only offers a few weak sputters in response.

“The fuck…?” Barry mutters.

“Are we out of gas?” Polly says, noticing the gauge before you do. “How the hell are you guys //government// and out of fucking gas!?”

“I’m //sorry// that keeping the //goddamn emergency backup car// in tip top fucking shape wasn’t my first priority! Fuck me!” Barry throws her hands in the air, smacking them against the car roof.

An opportunity presents itself, and uncharacteristically, you take it, craning your head around to look out the windows. While you can’t see any street signs, out of the back window you can see the sign for //Sunny’s Creamy Pastries// and you know exactly where you are.

“Tone, sir? I know where a gas station is. I could go while you two lay low here.”

“I like where your head's at, I don’t like the idea of splitting up here though, especially with the night we’ve been having. We’ll go as a group.” Barry hops out of the car and you follow suit.

“What, am I coming too?” Polly asks, sticking her head out the door. “Shouldn’t someone stick around and watch the car?”

“Yes, come on. I don’t need any more of my people stumbling head first into Nothing. The car will be fine.” She makes a swiping motion with her hand.

Circling around to the back, Barry opens the truck and pulls out two empty gas canisters. Both of them are promptly shoved into your arms. You struggle for a moment to get the katana around your back without putting anything down.

“Hey,” Barry nudges you. “Don’t be so tense, I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” She reaches her arms out, pauses mid motion, and settles on giving you a pat on the back.

The three of you shuffle forward, awkwardly standing shoulder to shoulder. Technically, you are the group leader, as you’re the only one who knows where the gas station is. Polly has to be standing towards the front of the brigade, lest you fall prey to an antimeme. And in her nature as MTF commander, Barry also feels the need to be in the front.

A real blind awkwardly bumping into the blind.

The bright, blindingly so, lights of the gas station cut through the fog. In the haze, the lights give it an oddly halo-like ring.

“Alright.” Barry turns on her heel, settling her hand on your shoulder and Polly’s. “Be quick about it. I’m going to make a scene inside.” She darts inside.

“Wait-” you slap your hand over Polly’s mouth before she can give away your position. With a frown, shove shoves your hand away. “Are we stealing?”

“Haven’t you ever?”

Through the stained windows you can see Barry approach the person inside. While you don’t read lips, you can tell by how she emotes with her hands that she’s really making a show of herself. Perfect for letting you sneak around unnoticed.

“Are you really telling me that you people can’t just afford to pay for gas?” Despite her complaints, Polly obediently jams the nozzle into the canister. You do the same at the pump next to hers.

“You’d be surprised by how often it’s quicker and necessary to resort to… well this.” Your eyes flick between Barry and the slowly filling canister. //If only it could go a little faster//.

You take out the katana, using it to puncture the gas tank. Gas spills out, quickly overfilling your canister. Picking up what you’re putting down. Polly butts up next to you and fills her canister too.

“Do we wait for her?” Polly asks.

You feel so exposed with your back facing the fog. //Fuck//, you think, //why’s she have to ask me what to do? I’ve never made an important decision in my life//.

“We should get back to the car, Tone will catch up.” Slowly, still crouching, you shift backwards, letting the fog obscure your vision. Into the darkness you retreat.

“Do you even know where we left the car? It’s so dark out?”

“Of course, it couldn’t be all that far-” A pair of headlights flick on before your eyes, leaving you momentarily blind. You cry out, dropping the canister of gas to shield your eyes. You hear Polly gasp beside you.

When your vision clears, you see the insurgent sitting on the hood of the Foundation vehicle. A grin splits for face, light shining off her pearly teeth.

“Evening ladies. I’d like to have a nice chat.”

//Oh Ayla. This never should’ve had to be your responsibility.//

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2 - Ayla - Losing Dogs

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