Third Eye Detective Agency 1x1

[Pascal]

Shit Anna thought to herself as she woke up; she knew right away that beneath her was a much softer bed then she had in her apartment. Anna opened her eyes and saw cream-colored walls, and a white bedspread. She began to look around, wondering where she was, and how back of a hangover she had, when she saw a tall, fit man sleeping beside her. At least he doesn’t snore. She thought to herself as she tried to place his features. Anna knew she had seen him somewhere, but couldn’t place it.

Anna crawled out of bed and saw she had very little clothing on. She cursed to herself silently and began to search around the room for her clothes. She found pieces of them on the floor going towards the door of the bedroom. She picked up the scraps and opened the door to the bedroom. She found a trail of her clothes, and presumably this guy’s clothes, leading to the door. Right by the front door, she found her shirt, and picked it up triumphantly. As she turned to go back to the bedroom, she saw a pair of men’s slacks, and something shiny was sticking out of a pocket. Anna bent down and pulled it out. She cursed to herself again and dropped the badge. Shit, I just fucked a cop, she thought to herself, and sighed.

Preoccupied in her own thoughts, she didn’t hear the door open. She did hear the jingling keys as someone tried to pull them out of the lock. As she turned around, still naked, she saw the keys drop to the floor. Another guy, who looked somewhat similar to the one in the bedroom, stood looking very surprised, and a little embarrassed. Anna put on a big smile. “Sorry, I will be out your hair in just a minute. What time is it?” She was holding her clothes in front of her, but knew she appeared far from modest. Still, it was a little late now to be conservative.

The man gathered himself and looked at the stove to his right. “9:17” he said, and Anna cursed aloud. She didn’t bother to apologize to the ma, she went quickly into the bedroom, got changed, and cleaned up her hair and makeup in the bathroom that was attached to the bedroom. The man she had slept with was still asleep, and she didn’t quite remember his name, but she was late, and no longer cared.

The man was in the kitchen making coffee and Anna reappeared, wearing black slacks and a blue-button down blouse. It was 9:21. Luckily, she had gone out the previous night in her work clothes, and so could reappear in those today without having to go to her own apartment. She was putting on her shoes as she walked towards the door. “Hey, can you tell uh…” she paused, still unsure of his name.

The man laughed, “Jake,” he said, and she continued, “Yea, can you tell Jake uhhh… Bye,” she said, and pulled the door shut behind her. She say the man shaking his head as she spoke, but she didn’t really care about leaving a great impression. He probably wouldn’t remember her when he woke up either.
Anna stepped outside and saw her car. Finally, something was going right.

She turned on her GPS, and realized she was only fifteen minutes from the office. Anna drove like a madwoman, and arrived at 9:32, only thirty minutes late to work, that wasn’t her worst time. It wasn’t her best either, but last night she had been celebrating. They closed a case. True she probably should have left the bar at midnight, but it was already done, and Anna made out just fine in the end. Anna walked into the office knowing her partner would be there. She just wasn’t sure how annoyed he would be about her being just a tad hungover.

[Mimosa]

The little girl's name was Christine. She was twelve years old and until the previous night, she'd been an orphan. Today, she woke up with a proper home and a guardian, her neck stiff from sleeping on a beanbag chair in Aleksandr Celovech's basement-apartment-turned-makeshift-alchemy-lab. Aleks would have put her in his bed and taken the floor, but it wouldn't have felt right. He'd had hookers over recently and hadn't yet washed the sheets.

"How'd you sleep, princess?" asked Aleks as he trudged into the kitchen in his pajamas, unshaven, his brown hair a right mess.

"Alright," Christine lied. "It's weird not seeing the sun, though."

"Yeah, the basement will do that. I just didn't want to risk melting through someone else's ceiling with some of my work. Plus, there's no draft here. I'm not sure my arthritis could take it." He was a little young for arthritis, but his eating habits were also rather poor, so the self-abuse took its toll. With his diet consisting of mostly candy and potato chips, his coworkers liked to joke that one day he'd drop dead on the job from malnutrition.

As Aleks poured something out of a bubbling glass beaker and used the same receptacle for his coffee, Christine wandered into the kitchen and checked the fridge. She laughed at its contents: no fewer than fifteen different kinds of dip, a stack of boxed chardonnay, a can of whipped cream, and absolutely nothing else. "Fridge full of condiments and no real food?"

"I can take you into work with me," Aleks suggested. "They have a cafeteria there."

"No, I'm fine, Mr. Celovech, really."

"Nonsense! Get dressed." He ducked into the bathroom to shave and called through the closed door, "And you call me Uncle Aleks, okay, sweetie? And if anyone at work asks, you're my sister Liz's kid. I'm watching you while she takes a very long, extended business trip in Prague."

The reason the lie worked was because nobody Aleks knew from work knew Elizaveta. Hell, he hardly knew her. She'd run away at eighteen to escape the trials and tribulations of being raised by a mother with a violent personality disorder, and after that she'd fallen off the map. But if anyone bothered to check Aleks's record, they'd see he did indeed have a sister Liz, and the story would be plausible.

Even to his other sister, Miri, who worked in upper-level bureaucracy. True, her station meant she knew more than most, but Mirabelle was just like her mother, and if Aleks knew anything about Liz, he knew she would be taking extra measures to stay under Miri's radar. For all Miri knew, Liz could have a daughter, and was speaking to her brother, and Aleks hadn't, for his own purposes, gone and bought an orphan.

"You seem nervous, Uncle Aleks," said Christine as Aleks emerged from the bathroom, cleaned-up and fully dressed in business casual attire. "Are the people at your work going to be mad when they find out you've bought an orphan?"

He laughed. Nervously. Kneeled down so he was at eye level with her. "Okay, first off, I did not buy an orphan. I hired an apprentice."

"You mean you're going to teach me all of this magic madness?" Her eyes lit up, and she repeated, as if it had a nice ring to her, "Hired an apprentice."

"Yes, and they might be mad about that." He'd always disagreed with how highly regulated magic was, and knew he could get in trouble for passing on the knowledge without authorization, guidance, and loads and loads of paperwork, but come on, he was a genius! Who was the company to tell him what he could and couldn't do?

Just before pocketing his keys, he poured himself a generous measure of box wine into a red Solo cup. "Chardonnay?"

"I'm twelve," she reminded him. "And don't you have to drive?"

"C'mon. I'll show you something."

Keys? Check. Cigarettes? Check. Apprentice? Check. He led the girl up the steps to street level and unlocked a car parked along the curb. She got into the passenger's seat, fascinated with all the extra knobs and the various sparks they emitted. "This thing practically drives itself," said Aleks. "I made some minor alterations." He fiddled with a few knobs, programming his route.

Her eyes bugged. "It's a time manipulation!" she realized. "You're doing all the actual driving ahead of time. Still terribly risky if you're drinking, but it cuts out a lot of the room for error."

He started the machine and let go of the wheel, letting the car run its course. "You are smart. I bet I can turn you into a prodigy surpassing even myself...if the company doesn't kill me for it." Halfway to work, he finished his chardonnay and tossed the plastic cup out the window.

"You're killing the planet," said Christine.

"It's already dead. I'm just here to gather the evidence." He lit up a cigarette before getting out of the car and proceeded to lead the girl into the elevator and up to his floor.

[Pascal]

Anna worked in an office that her agency rented out. Of course, Third Eye was really less of an agency, and more of a collection of five individuals who were sick of how the Company treated magic users. The space they rented was in two sections. In one space, Anna and Aleks worked the cases. In the other space, one intern, Jules, one finance manager, Cole, and one "boss man," Gilson, did paperwork and other boring stuff, like kept the Company off Anna's back... or tried to at least.

The building was organized so that a company could rent out an entire floor, or just parts of it. There was room for six "businesses" on each floor, and Third Eye took up the space for two of them. The other companies... well Anna wasn't sure what they did, but it was boring enough for them to be in the employee lounge (which was very inconveniently set up to be shared among these companies, rather than within each cluster) during more work hours than Anna could imagine.

Still, Anna got up to her office with no problem. Most of the other employees of the building barely remembered she existed, let alone what she wore yesterday. In this world, she tried to keep a low profile, and almost always succeeded. Most of the time people remembered her, it was in relation to her sister, Nicole. Anna tried to shrug off the memories as she walked through the main office to her own.

Since Anna worked with Aleks, and they were the only two in their cluster, they used the third office for meetings with clients, and kept their own offices as clean, (or as messy) as each of them wanted. Anna got into her lobby and saw the lights on. Trying to avoid Aleks for just a minute while she got settle, Anna quickly opened the door to her own office. Anna put her stuff down behind her desk, and closed the door. No one had noticed that she had worn the same thing the day before. Anna didn’t want to press her luck though, and opened up a coat closet in the office. In it she had a few spare outfits, usually in case there was some sort of accident in the field.

Anna usually kept spare clothes in her car too, but she wore them last time she was caught some kids trying to summon a demon. When she tackled them to stop them from finishing the incantation, she got her shirt singed in a rather unfortunate place, and she hadn’t gotten around to replenishing that stash. Anna stuck with the black slacks, they were a bit wrinkled but nothing terrible. She grabbed a black button down out of the closet. It wasn’t exactly fashionable, but most days like this were largely paperwork anyway, so she wasn’t worried.

Once she was redressed, Anna took another moment to check her appearance. She looked like most other days, actually. She had specially modified her make-up to stay on when she wanted it to, and come off cleanly when she chose. Anna opened up her office door and heard a small child’s voice. Wondering what was going on, she stepped out into the lobby and went towards Aleks’ office. She stood in the doorway, looking at a young girl, maybe eleven years old, and Aleks, who did not seem the slightest bit concerned by her presence.

Anna never liked kids. She wanted to, but they were very annoying, and thought they knew everything. Every time a child was right, Anna felt like a part of her happiness died forever. Still, Aleks was a friend to her, and she needed all of the friends she could get. If he liked the kid, she would put on a smile. Anna knocked on the door. Even though it was open, it was a matter of courtesy. “Morning,” she said to Aleks, choosing strategically not to bring up the fact that she was late.

[Mimosa]

"Huh. That's weird; my partner's late. I thought I was the lazy one," said Aleks as he settled into his desk. Brilliant, of course, he thought, but admittedly lazy.

He took out some paperwork, and Christine stood up on his extra chair so she could reach the whiteboard and doodle on it. "Does your partner know that your car could potentially shatter the time-space continuum, or did you lie to her about that, too?"

A vein pounded in Aleks's head. Of course he hadn't let Anna see the inside of his car; what would she say about him using so much experimental, not to mention illegal, magic, just so he could drink and drive? "You really are a nosy little know-it-all, aren't you?" he said. "Alright, tell me. How could it mess up time and space?"

"Well, you've got the acceleration mechanisms confined under the hood...I'm guessing in the engine...but whatever's generating that effect, if it were allowed to leak...if somebody cut your brakes or something..."

"Nobody's going to cut my brakes."

"How do you know?"

"Because if they were, I'd have deduced it a week ago and I'd have them handcuffed to an interrogation desk already." He hoped to soon get it into her mind that his line of work wasn't all about magic--mostly, it was about the science of deduction.

The girl was about to say something snarky, he just knew it, but about that time, Anna came a-knocking. "Good morning, Anna," said Aleks, cheerful from the glass of wine and ready to take on the day. "This is my niece, Christine. Liz's girl, of course. Not that I'd bring anything of Miri's in here," he added behind his hand. "Christine, this is my partner, Anna."

"It's nice to meet you, Miss Anna," said Christine, affecting a shy, demure disposition. She got down off the chair and sat with her ankles crossed and her hands in her lap. Before she was taken in by the orphanage, she'd spent a fair bit of time on the streets and knew how to get by. She knew how to play shy and avoid talking when she needed to, and right now she was not prepared for any conversation that might involve an 'Aunt Miri' she knew nothing about. She wished Aleks had better prepared her before delving headfirst into an elaborate lie.

"You're in a little later than usual," he commented offhand. "Late night? Am I to assume that means the paperwork from our last case is done? Because I really could use another one, I'm starved for adventure."

"That and protein," Christine snickered, noting the bag of cotton candy on the corner of his desk.

"Damnit, kid, I like candy, okay?"

[Pascal]

The kid, Anna learned her name was Christine, took on a very sweet disposition. Anna had seen her a moment before, acting like she knew everything. But damn, this kid could act. Anna chose not to point out that the kid was acting ridiculously innocent. No one was that innocent. She put on a smile and replied to the girl, “Nice to meet you too Christine.” Anna didn’t feel like conversing with the girl, which was good because she seemed to want to act shy anyway.

Anna turned to Aleks. Before she had a chance to reply about her night, Aleks cursed in front of Christine after she snickered at his eating habits. Had Christine been a person, Anna might have joked with her about Aleks eating habits, but she was a kid, and they were dangerous, messy, annoying creatures. “Yea, I think his name was Jeff.” She paused, trying to remember if she had gotten his last name, “or Jake. Well that’s what his roommate said when I left this morning.” She added, more quietly.

Anna didn’t mind talking to Aleks about what she liked to do to relax. Now the others, they had to think she was all rules all the time, but she needed someone with whom she could actually by honest. Still, she had her secrets, and he had his. Their lack of caring for what wasn’t going to affect their jobs was what made their partnership work so well, at least in Anna’s opinion. Anna had gotten sidetracked, and shook her head slightly, “Anyway,” she continued a bit louder, “The paperwork was in by 4:45 yesterday. I swear I finished it faster once you left.” Anna chuckled. "I could be up for something too, after I get some coffee." she added. "Do you want any?" She asked Aleks, and looked at Christine too, figuring she might as well be polite and get some for the kid as well, to shut her up or something.

[Mimosa]

"You sly vixen." Aleks grinned in approval as he imagined Anna's faceless and very nearly nameless liaison. He enjoyed a night in with girls himself, but for him, it was always the paid ones. As a man, he felt bad about taking a willing stranger home from a bar knowing he'd never sleep with her again. Anna was different, but many women, they'd go chasing after a relationship, and he just didn't want to break their hearts. Whores, on the other hand, they knew exactly what they were getting. They did, after all, name their own prices. In Aleks's opinion, prostitution was the only way to make casual, emotionless sex ethical for a man.

"Excellent about the paperwork." He chuckled and flashed her a winning smirk. "Although, it's not my fault I'm so...shall we say, distracting?" Christine stifled a laugh. "Coffee would be great. Could you get me two sugars with that? Wait, no, three. Wait...maybe five or six, just to be safe. Y'want anything, Christine?"

"Is there soda?"

Aleks pulled a sticky-note out of his desk and scribbled a quick set of concentric circular runes on it. He pressed his hand over the design, and when he removed it a can of Sunkist was sitting overtop the circle. "Here ya go, kid." Christine's eyes darted from the minifridge in the corner to the desk.

"Couldn't have walked the three steps, Uncle Aleks?" she said. He grinned and clapped her on the shoulder as she retrieved the soda.

"Wouldja look at that!" he said to Anna. Most kids Christine's age would have mistaken the teleportation for conjuring, missing the simple fact that even with magic, matter couldn't be created or destroyed. "She gets her pretty face from her dad's side, but her smarts, they're all Celovech. Not to mention the snark. Give her a few years and she'll be able to pull it off as well as I do."

[Pascal]

Anna shook her head. Aleks was always doing the parlor tricks. She knew it probably helped keep him sharp, but she would have been slammed if she started using magic so openly. Even though Anna worked hard at being woefully uninteresting, when she began to cast, all of the upper-ups paid attention. She sighed at her own timidness. Anna did not take risks like Aleks did, at least not risks with magic.

Anna looked from Christine to Aleks after his explanation. He sounded like he was teaching her. She turned back to Christine, "Be careful, or he will turn you into his apprentice. Then he will make you teleport his candy to him so he doesn't have to walk three feet, or draw on the sticky notes," she said with a smile.

Anna left the offices and went to the coffee room. There, boring people were talking about their boring jobs. Anna nodded and smiled and made small talk. She spoke about her tedious paperwork, and lazy partner. Everyone nodded in agreement. It seems some things, Anna thought to herself, are universal,.

Anna returned with two coffees. Hers had a bit of cream, and one sugar. The other had a handful of cream and six sugars. Really, Aleks liked a dash of coffee in his sugar. Anna said as much when she went back into his office. "Here's your sugar with a side of coffee," she said, and put the coffee on his desk.

Anna began to wonder when they were going to get a new job, or at least some background to investigate. Anna was antsy when she didn't have anything to do, and she didn't have some kid to entertain with parlor tricks while they waited. Not that she wanted to entertain the kid, but her existence made Anna wonder what she was going to do while the children played.

[Mimosa]

"Apprentice?" Aleks repeated, with just the right amount of surprise. He was quite a better actor than a twelve-year-old girl. "I wish I had the nerve for that sort of undertaking. I mean, really, think about all the paperwork!" He shuddered.

Once Anna had left for coffee, Aleks and his apprentice shared laughter stifled behind fingers. The moment ended, and then the kid asked, "Would you really make me do your dirty work?"

"'Course not. Who do I look like, the state?"

She cracked open her soda and looked to him for some explanation.

"I solve cases because it's fun, Christine, but society wants me to do it because it's right, or some bullsh--I mean, some bullcrap like that."

"Bored, eh? So what happens when you're happy, you just don't work?"

"Oh, I won't be ready to be happy for quite a long time."

"You're crazy."

"That's what my sister always said," he ended the conversation just as Anna arrived with the coffee. "Oh, thank you, Anna." He stirred the sugar in and pondered the lie he'd just slipped in as part of the act, pondered how very true it actually was.

He'd always been the freak of the family. Diagnosed antisocial at age fourteen, he'd struggled to maintain steady relationships and it was a wonder he could work with Anna. He respected her for her talent and enjoyed her quirks, but most other people just bored him. Miri was equally abnormal, but failed to recognize it, and was so good at faking functionality that nobody picked up on it. Meanwhile, she treated her brother as a freak just as everyone else did.

He wondered where Liz actually was now and if she'd think him as much a freak. He wondered if she could be a bit of a freak, too.

[Pascal]

Anna left the pair alone, and went to her own office. She went through some emails, and sorted through a bit more paperwork that Aleks had mucked up the week before. She was just beginning to get bored again when a knock came on her door. “Briefing room in ten,” Jules said. Anna hated how Jules acted like she was a big shot just because she was working in the other office, with the paper shufflers. Anna respected Gilson, he got her a job when the Company wouldn’t touch her, and actually gave her a chance.

Jules didn’t wait for a response, and did the same on Aleks’ door. The briefing room wasn’t really a briefing room, it was the spare office in Aleks’ and Anna’s half of their agency. The pair usually used it for when they had to talk with clients, but the paper shufflers seemed to think of their room as their briefing room as well. Anna didn’t really care, she just got annoyed when they left coffee cups and things in the room, because no one else but her seemed to understand what cleaning up was.

Anna passed Aleks’ and sat down at her usual set in the briefing room. She waited for the others to file in, so she could find out about a new job. When everyone had arrived, Jules began to pass out folders to Anna and Aleks.

Gilson began to talk, narrating the photos and papers that were in the folder. “An artifact, a gem, actually, was stolen from the Natural History Museum. As usual, the cops have no leads. There is no footage of the gem itself, but no one entered through the lobby during the time it disappeared. Sensors around the stand for the gem picked up nothing, and their reports indicate no signs of forced entry.”

Gilson paused for a moment. “As you know, the gem did not disappear, so it is your job to find it. We don’t know who took it, or why they would want the gem. It is a pretty straight-forward case.”

Anna hated when Gilson said that. Every time he said something was straight-forward, it was destined to be complicated and intricate. It was like saying a job was easy. They were both dooming statements. Anna didn’t realize she had outwardly sighed until Gilson looked over to her. “Too boring for you, Anna?” he asked her.

Anna shook her head and changed the subject. “What is the history of the Gem?” she asked.

Gilson flipped a few pages in his own folder, and read off the list of museums and things in which the Gem had been stored. He looked up at the end, “We have no evidence of any magical properties that the gem may hold, but that is never a definitive truth.” He added.

Gilson looked back and forth between Aleks and Anna, “Any other questions?”

[Mimosa]

"Stay here, princess, Uncle Aleks needs to see some big professional folks," Aleks said to the kid before dismissing himself into the 'briefing room'. He was a little more annoyed than Anna that the paper-pushers seemed to feel entitled to use the space--while she only minded the mess, he just didn't like entertaining guests. Aside from Anna, he hated having his solitude encroached upon.

He listened intently to the details of the case, and as soon as Gilson gave the detectives the floor, he declared, "Not interested."

He always did this. When a cliched, seemingly 'straightforward' case presented itself, he turned it down off the bat, only agreeing to cases that genuinely interested him. Only this time, he actually wanted the boring case. It would be a good teaching tool for Christine. But he couldn't make it look like he wanted it, that would be weird and out of character for him.

He hoped, and suspected, that Anna would try and change his mind, at which point he wouldn't argue with her. He never argued with her about which cases to take on; it bored the daylights out of him.