SOCK DUTY - PART I

“I didn’t expect the Department’s name to be quite so… literal!” 

How many i-sock-ai’s does that make it now? A baker’s dozen? Probably. Fitting that I’ve retrieved an odd number of socks across an even number of missions.

The static fizz of a signal being slightly interfered with comes through the old vacuum tube radio in the large mechanic’s workshop. A strapping youth claps the top of it, fiddles with the dials, and shrugs before getting back to work. Evidently uncertain as to the disruption to the waves. I lean into the engine block of a factory new 1929 Crystalline convertible coupe and pick out an only marginally oil stained, fully polyester, calico cat print bed sock, before he comes back over.

I know my way around a bike from working in a repair shop for a bit, but vintage cars are too sacred for my uninitiated hands. At least they don’t have all the electronics that get in the way with modern ones... easier for getting obstructions out of timing belts.

“We don’t only deal with socks,” Meganie’s soft voice comes through clear as silk from the nanobot transceiver she’d trickled into my ear canal back at the Returns Agency, “but there are a lot of them in every universe.”

She’s definitely more confident over radio.

“Gee, Mister! Thanks for letting me have a look at this fancy car! It’s a real beaut!” Beaming my best innocent grin. 

The young mechanic blushes a bit and wipes at his brow, leaving a little smudge of grease where there hadn’t been any before. “Aww, shucks! Ain’t no bother. Oppie’s proud of his coupe, so gotta keep it running smooth.” 

Oppie… Oppie? That Oppie!

“H-hey, uhm, Daemahken, you’re having an emotional spike, w-what happened?” I can hear uncertainty in my supervisor’s voice – no discernable concern though – but all I can do is keep grinning and grip the kid’s sock behind my back. 

Maybe if I can get another signal disruption I can put the sock back, or wait till the mechanic goes on break, or…

An ache runs deep into my soul upon realizing I’m saving the life of the ‘Destroyer of Worlds’ himself. The only thing holding me back from the intrusive thoughts is my professionalism. Well… that’s only a part of it. 

…does it really matter?

The truth is, it’s been a bit of a pain getting my head around the Returns Agency. We stop some timelines deviating from the history I learned in school, while in others we let them go crazy because the isekai'd object was a canon event, or simply by our intervening it nudges them along in a minutely alternative direction. The issue is that there just isn't any rhyme or reason to any of it. 

“Well fella,” the grease monkey heaves his shoulders in faux resignation, “I gotta get back to it. Thanks for droppin’ by. You have a nice day now, y’hear!” 

He’s such a chipper guy, I almost feel sorry for the little charade. That and if I went through with my spiteful inclinations, he’d probably get fired, and he doesn’t deserve that.

I bow and wave and make my exit with the right level of apologetic enthusiasm you see from real petrol-heads when they swing by an open garage or custom shop. Still a little eaten up inside, professional courtesy be damned.

“Sorry about that, Meganie.” I kick a stone on the roadside.

I know this isn’t my Earth, and making it so the Father of Nukes here wraps himself round a tree won’t change the past I grew up with, but it’s still not sitting right with me doing nothing having been given the chance.

“It’s OK, Daemahken…” After an elongated pause, she says the most I’ve ever heard from her, even in mission briefings, “…we all get anxious dealing with things in dimensions close to our originals…” I understand what she means, it helps to hear someone else verbalize it for me, I just didn’t expect it to be Meganie, “…that’s why you had to experience it yourself. Well done on getting through.” 

Was that a compliment?

I stroll down the high street, browsing shop windows, until it’s time to slip down an alleyway and open a door that was never there. Disappearing unseen from the picturesque pre-war Americana. Surprised to have had a bit of a heart to heart with my supervisor.

Maybe things won’t be so bad after all…

* * *

 “Can-”

Meganie takes the carriage clock out of my hands, puts a wax tablet and toga into them, then flicks the switch on the teleporter.

I race around a Roman estate, picking up scattered vials of nerve agent, chased by an ever growing crowd of centurions, before diving into an aqueduct and using an underground section to cover my portal home.

“You-”

This time I’m sprayed down with a hose, handed a towel, jumpsuit, and data shard, then a giant mirror is pressed against me so that I am forced through into the next world.

It’s a labyrinth of steel and concrete, a bunker complex bigger than a city, maybe even a country. On an insane deadline I locate a magic wand and a cursed pendant - rare to get a two for one mission - while evading the auspices of a near omniscient dictatorship.

“Please-”

A set of armour, sword, shield, and vellum scroll are already stacked in the transporter next to where I rematerialise out of the mirror. Finding a reflective enough surface to come back through was a pain, but I am near instantly catapulted off to a generic fantasy world.

I pick my way through a Dragon’s treasure horde, find the jet fighter it has somehow dragged in here and been using as a body pillow, then initiate the beacon for recall.

“Let me rest?”

It takes a moment to strip my last lot of equipment, so I get a few more words out, but Meganie ignores my plea. As soon as I am back in my business casuals, she sticks a post-it note to my shirt pocket, then a hole opens below me, and I am dropped into a whirlpool.

I have seconds to read the object and location before it dissolves in the water. ‘Hold your breath’ - barely legible, scribbled at the end - is not enough of a warning for the horrors I fall feet first into.

“THAT’S IT!!!”

I storm away from the pipe I am dumped back out of before she can run the decontamination protocol. “Slime world? SLIME WORLD?!.” I am shaking with anger and terror and disgust “I’m done! You can find someone else!” An alarm starts going as a I try to leave the inter-dimensional interchange.

“What now?” I turn back round.

My supervisor is armed with what looks like a double-barrelled fire extinguisher.

She blasts me in the face with it.

After my lungs run a de-clogging cycle – i.e. I cough up the delicing talc or whatever she just made me inhale – I collapse on the floor and try not to cry from fatigue.

My workwear, now dry, goes from looking like I was covered in flour dusted diarrhoea, to more pristine than when I treat myself to dry cleaning. The powder collects together and falls off in globules, taking the slime residue with it, then trundles across the floor into a grate.

“Microbes,” my supervisor, still clutching her weapon, stands in front of me menacingly, “They eat all the slime, then go back to the colony,” she doesn’t really move, but I pick up on some subtle hint that she’s referring to what’s under the gutter, “We can reuse them.”

I sigh in resignation, “Did you make them?” she is a scientist after all.

Meganie nods.

She may be treating me like a dogsbody, but I really don’t sense anything malicious from her, just this weird barrier to entry. “I need a break…” I push my way up the wall and the door lets me out this time, without screaming bloody murder.

Halfway down the corridor I notice I have a shadow.

There’s a little irritation at her not realising I mean from her as well as work, but I decide to not pick a fight. I still need to get through training and keep a low profile… if I survive.

And this was meant to be the safest Department?

In the kitchenette I brew up some coffee and sit down with a candy bar from the vending machine. I don’t know why they have one when we can literally print money for going on missions, but I guess it wouldn’t feel like an office if it were absent.

What is she…?

My supervisor has her tablet out.

She’s recording the electric coffee maker.

Her face lighting up in the first expression I’ve actually seen on her as the steam rises.

“Are you doing chemistry?” Meganie’s voice has a hint of excitement to it, childlike, and all my frustration with her melts away.

However, I am too tired to stand yet, so close my eyes and listen for the stages of the filter machine, “I’m making a rejuvenation potion.” The click of the temperature cap kicking in as the water boils and starts spurting onto the grounds.

Adorable ‘ooooohs’ and ‘aaaaahs’ punctuate the remaining steps.

Adorable? Guess it’s just nice to hear her have some emotions.

With the final fizzle of steam and clunk of the hotplate turning on to keep the coffee warm, I force myself to my feet and pour myself the first mug I’ve had on the job.

Messing about while I was in pre-access perdition to get the settings right doesn’t count.

It’s like every cup Kia made for me.

Don’t cry…

I have to force back a lump in my throat at the memory, focusing on the warmth and caffeine as they wash over me instead.

Meganie’s eyes, like scarlet saucers, capture my reactions, hammering notes into her data slate.

“Here,” I put a little in a small cup and hand it to her, “it’s better with company.”

The eagerness and apprehension tussle for supremacy in her features, as far as they are capable of emoting. Her eyes darting about for something... “Please?” She holds out the tablet to me, and I take a second to realise she wants me to record her first-hand exposure to something new. I put down my mug, take the tablet, and she exchanges it for the cup, “Like this?” Meganie imitates drinking from it like she’s never used a cup before in her life; I nod.

I press record, “Ready?”

She nods repeatedly – tiny movements like the twitching of a rodent’s whiskers – then sips.

“Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeergh!” Her face contorts.

It takes all my strength not to laugh.

Serves you right!