Spy In The Base, Pt. 2

“Well, for one,” Daisy said, tapping her finger against my forehead, “the dog kind of invited itself into the orphanage. But have you noticed it only shows up when we’re making Moonboxes? Nowhere else.”

“Wouldn’t he be out playing in the yard or something?” I said.

“Checked. Not in the yard, not in the kitchens, not even sneaking scraps from the dining hall. Who do you take me for, Cotter?”

“I d-didn’t mean anything by it!”

“And then—when I start explicitly looking for him for a few days—boom, there he is. Right back where I was watching. As if he knew.”

“…You sure Malmitres isn’t messing with you again?”

“I’ve dealt with her bloody hallucinations my whole life. Dark figures standing over my bed, whispering into my ear all the best ways they’re gonna torture me while I couldn’t move a muscle. I know what’s real.”

“But a dog though?”

Daisy nodded with terrifying confidence.

This world’s gone mad.

“Alright, then. Time to negotiate with a dog and get it to lead us to its master.”

“Cotter?”

“I said something stupid again, didn’t I?”

“The dog is the spy.”

“WHAT?!”

**CLATTER!**

Our heads snapped toward the corner where the sudden intrusion came from.

There he was. The orphanage dog.

By the looks of things, he had accidentally stepped on a fallen utensil. His beady eyes locked with ours and they looked utterly terrified.

Daisy’s smile turned incredibly toothy. “Speak of the devil!” She stood up slowly, cracking her knuckles. “GET HIM!”

The dog bolted.

So did Daisy.

I barely had time to react before her robes whipped past me like a thunderclap. “Daisy! Wait!”

“HE’S BEEN LURKING FOR WEEKS, COTTER! MONTHS! And I’m inching for some payback myself~!”

The way Daisy said it knocked something loose in my brain and made my heart pound. It messed with me more than I liked.

I looked away, forcing myself to focus. “No powers, remember? Not unless you really have to.”

Daisy rolled her eyes. “Ughhhhh, fine. I will keep it to a minimum!”

\\

Daisy did not keep it to a minimum.

Without warning, she fired a burst of magic that looked blood red. It sputtered across the floorboards, narrowly missing the dog as it juked and darted.

I looked at Daisy in horror.

“It’s just a little bit of magic! Probably the same amount I use when I heal people!” What the hell do you mean ‘probably’?!

Argh, no time to deliberate on her recklessness! I had a dog to catch!

The conditioning Uriel put me through was finally paying off… I was actually keeping pace with a dog as well as making sure Level 1 Daisy didn’t fall and trip over herself.

Said dog was fast. And smart.

The damn thing did its best furry torpedo impression when It dove headfirst into a wave of children minding their business. It weaved in and out almost flawlessly, barring a few children who got hit in the carnage.

Well, I didn’t have the luxury of being small and being a little shit.

I had to shove my way through.

My Japanese civic sense was screaming at me. “Sorry! Gomenasai! Urgent business!!”

Eventually, the dog broke free of the crowd and turned into a narrow, dust-choked hallway.

Unfortunately, we were too late. It’d slipped through the gap of a door that was chained shut. It was ajar enough that he could fit in but none of us could.

That’s when I remembered from my studies of the orphanage layout. It was an old habit brought over from my old workplace, okay?!

“The storage room?!” I gasped.

“Not anymore.”

With a swipe, Daisy conjured a massive crimson claw—the same kind I’d seen the day I first reincarnated—and shattered the rusted chains like twigs.

I stared at her, only to find the same half-lidded eyes staring back. “What? I have it handled.”

My heart skipped a beat, the treacherous thing.

When we entered, I let out a short gasp.

The room wasn’t filled with junk like a storage room should. Rather, it was quite neat.

A neat little nest of a room, complete with a folded blanket, a pile of cushions, and… was that a charging crystal in the corner? The resemblance to a solar panel was quite uncanny.

This wasn’t a hideout. It was a home. A very suspicious, technologically-inclined, clean-freak dog’s home.

I stared.

I was now convinced he was a spy for two reasons. One: his tech had a similar look to the one that controlled the lady dragon the other day. Two: no normal dog was capable of doing such feats of cleanliness!

Not only was he spying, he was freeloading?! We needed to put a stop to this! He needed to make a few Moonboxes to be able to live here at least!!

SSSSHRING!! 

The thing yelped just as Daisy’s claw slashed through the room. The poor dog’s pillow fort was shredded into confetti!

While Daisy did her thing, I did what I did best: tried to figure out what plan our opponent was trying to execute.

So it had backed itself into a corner… if so, then he must have been looking for his escape route!

And then I saw it. A gap in the wall: leading straight to the outside world!

The problem was, I needed to paralyze it somehow.

What better than a miniature taser? A little lightning spell I’d been cooking up during magical training day these past few weeks!

When it finished trashing the room, it finally worked up the courage to bolt through the gap.

Not on my watch!!

I pointed my hand at the exit.

Tiny sigils sparked to life around my wrist.

[MINOR ELECTRIC BOLT]!

I knew it connected when I heard the dog yelp. It had just wedged itself into the gap when I hit it.

It seemed to have the intended effect when it stopped moving.

He was down for the count.

But… there was more smoke coming off its body than I would’ve liked.

Was he… did I cook him?

Oh no!

I rushed toward the creature… only for Daisy to yank me back.

“What now?!” I cried.

“That thing… that thing’s not alive.”

“Oh no!!” I was a dog killer?! I was a monster!

“No, you dolt. I mean it was never alive to begin with,” Daisy said, calmly. “I don’t sense any of the bodily functions necessary to sustain life.”

I was not about to argue with a demigod of blood and murder or whatever over the semantics of what counts as ‘alive’. So I stepped back.

And lo and behold…

The dog began to change.

It was stuck halfway through the wall, legs kicking weakly, twitching where the spell had hit. The fur peeled back like burnt fabric, revealing cracked bronze and mottled ceramic underneath.

Its limbs bent wrong. Wires jerked.

The thing proceeded to whimper.

“I-I didn’t mean to intrude…”

It wasn’t a him, after all. It was a her. A her whose voice sounded tinny, as if speaking through a payphone.

“I just wanted… somewhere quiet…”

Her back leg slipped, and with a clatter, she tumbled fully out of the wall and onto the wooden tiles. The rest of the creature's outer layer peeled off, folding and flattening like an old costume, revealing the figure underneath.

She looked like a miniature girl made of bronze, couldn’t have been tall enough to reach our waists; or at least what was left of her. Her limbs were thin, some joints wrapped in cloth and twine. Rust crept along her arms, and one of her fingers was completely missing.

“I… I can’t do anything right,” the thing sniffled. “I just mess everything up…”

I took a step forward, guilt curling in my gut…

But Daisy stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

She wasn’t being rough, but her grip was firm. I turned to her and saw something I hadn’t expected.

Fear.

“She gives me the creeps,” Daisy muttered. “Something’s really wrong with her.”

“You don’t remember anything like this from Malmitres’ memories?” I asked. “No golems?”

Daisy shook her head slowly. “I’m drawing blanks. All I know is… that thing is an abomination to life itself.” She hesitated. “Even Malmitres had something. I could feel it. This girl… she’s just empty.”

The golem whimpered again, curling up on the floor and hugging a shredded cushion.

Daisy took a step back. That never happened.

“Gods, look at what it’s doing! It’s trying to trick you! This isn’t like those friendly robots you used to talk to on the… ‘internet’, Cotter!”

I stared at the girl again, unsure what I was supposed to be seeing.

But one thing was clear.

Daisy—someone who had stared down gods and worse—was genuinely afraid.

And that meant I had a decision to make.