Chapter 14: More Trouble Than It's Worth

When Altin left the Organization HQ a few nights later, he had yet another unwelcome surprise waiting for him.

At least he didn't get handcuffed this time.

The officer said little as she drove, but a few miles from Altin's workplace, she unhooked the cruiser's radio handheld and reported to whoever was at the other end, "He's here."

The radio crackled. "Ahh, Mr. Snickerson, how good of you to join us."

Damn it. "Agent Ryans. Did you change your mind about arresting me?"

"Of course not. We just needed to make a few preparations. For instance, Officer Tomsin there will be decking you out with a recording device and transmitter. I suggest you be cooperative."

Altin sighed. He had realized there was no good way out of this that night at the farmhouse, but that didn't make it any more enjoyable.

"Now listen up, Snickerson. The Empress of Evil has been very careful, so we can't get any of our usual tricks to stick. You know, tax evasion, broken taillight, that kind of thing. It hasn't worked. And you'd know better than we would that she doesn't actually need to do her own robberies and heists with all of you lot working for her."

"Just tell me what I'm doing."

"What you're doing is getting Kanzler to admit she hired you for the diamond job. You get her to say that while wearing the microphone, it gets transmitted back to us, she goes down for grand conspiracy, we convince some judge that poor innocent little you were just following orders, you go home a free man. You don't get her to say that, and we have no one else to go after but you. Clear?"

Altin threw the door open as the cruiser pulled up in front of his house. "Clear."

Altin was supposed to have the next day off, but that lasted all of ten minutes after he led the fourlegged family members to the horse ranch for some exercise. 

His phone buzzed. Email. Great: the boss had heard about his ride last night and believed, reasonably enough, that he had been arrested. Presuming he wasn't currently in prison, she wanted him to report in for an explanation. 

She didn't say as much, of course. If he was in jail, the police would have his phone. Instead she invited him to meet her for drinks that evening at a local bar, which happened to owe the Organization quite a bit of protection money and wouldn't mind looking the other way as they handled business.

This was his chance. But he wasn't particularly thrilled.

When Altin arrived at the Brick House, a particularly disreputable local establishment, he found Erika staring thoughtfully into a surprisingly pink drink. He caught her eye and she gestured him over.

"Well?" she asked, getting to the point immediately.

He improvised. "It was nothing. Noise violation complaint from my neighbors. I have a lot of horses."

The boss frowned, but seemed to accept the excuse. After a moment of sipping her drink -- really, how could she stand to drink something that frilly? -- she asked out of the blue, "You grew up in the system, correct?"

Altin blinked. "That's in my file?" he wondered. "I'm impressed." 

"I'll take that as a yes." She paused, long enough that he thought she had dropped the subject, and he jumped when she started again. "So did I, actually." Oh man, since when did she have sharing moods? How strong was that drink? "Not a particularly nice family. Do they make nice foster homes? I've never come across any. " Altin decided remaining silent was probably his best option. "Mine was particularly irritating, though. Constant fighting. It was very...crass. Yes. Crass. That's why I asked him to take me away with him."

Wait, what? Altin had been distracted by the site of Agent Jenning slipping into the bar. He must have missed something.

"They talk inside your head, you know." Erika sampled the pink concoction again. "I thought I had lost my mind, but no, there he was, horn and all. I must have been twelve or so. He refused, something about mortal beings and our proper place in the world. I wasn't having any of that though. That's why I called you in for the diamond grab--" Oh. That was easy. "--because I never did take rejection well. So really, that's why I knew the legend had to be real, and that it had to be possible to use the stone to control that glorified mule. I've already met a unicorn. I knew it was true."

Huh. Altin muttered something noncommittal when Erika glanced over at him. She waved her glass at the bartender. "You're going to blow my cover, Snickerson. We're supposed to be drinking." 

The bartender came back with two of the pink drinks. Ewwww. But a familiar SCIA agent shifted in his peripheral vision, and he decided maybe he was done with being serious for the evening. 

"Eh, why not?"

The rest of the night would be nothing but a blurred memory for years. He could only remember bits and pieces where he felt particularly warm and fuzzy, and he didn't think it was the special effects machine. All he knew was that he was pretty sure his last drink of the night and his first drink of the night had about a million drinks in between them.

As this floated through his mind the next morning, Altin pondered the unexpected discovery that the walls around him were not purple with western accents.  He was pretty sure he had seen them before, but in his dazed state, he couldn't immediately place them.

....Oh. That's where he knew them from.

"Seriously, Altin? Seriously? Seriously?" he berated himself quietly, as he veeeery slowly slipped out of the bed. Why were his clothes in the shower? Did he really want to know? He paused, considering. No, he really didn't. He just wanted to get out of the cottage without waking the sleeping dragon.

A horrible thought occurred to him. After a momentary minute of sheer panic, though, he was relieved to discover he had somehow misplaced the SCIA microphone at the bar. That could have been awkward on so many levels.

As he tiptoed his way out of the house, he happened to glance in an open doorway as he passed, then backtracked and took a closer look.

Aha. The famous Snickerson luck strikes again.

He knew instantly it was the Celestial Pink Diamond. Maybe it was the booze still coursing through his system, maybe it was his recent proximity to the unicorn, but he thought he could even almost feel it pulsing through the display at it. 

Two birds with one stone, then. He could get both the SCIA and the unicorn off his back today. He carefully slipped the glass case off the stand, watching for alarm wires -- he might be drunk, but damn it, no one around could do this better than he could -- and set it on the floor beside him. Then he glanced around nervously, grabbed the gem, and bolted from the house. 

Mission accomplished.

Chapter 12: Thingamajigs And Other Plots

(Z: mild language warning.)

Altin had gone for broke, literally, in planning Elsie's birthday present. Just one thing left to decide.

"So...what do you want as a theme for your bedroom?"

"Uhm...horses!" YES!

"Wait, no, even better, unicorns." Oh come on...

Unicorns it was.

Altin even moved the computer from the living room to Elsie's room, so it'd be easier for her to do her homework. Or something. 

And as an extra gift, he had gotten a matching painting easel, which Elsie broke in immediately in an effort to singlehandedly provide the house's wall decor. 

Wall decor on walls that were no longer orange, thanks to the rest of the renovations.

"That's great, Elsie, what a pretty girl!"

"It's a cow."

"...oh."

But for as pretty and as unicorn-filled as the new room was, Elsie didn't seem to want to sleep in it, as Altin discovered when he checked on her on his way to his own room. She was still wide awake, sitting on the floor and muttering to herself about lines of perspective and chemical analysis.

He sat down next to his daughter and peered over her should at a notebook that was impressively filled, considering less than a day ago she was still a Toddler. "What are you working on?"

"I have to get ready for school," she bemoaned. "And there's so much to learn! I'll never be ready in time!"

(Z: I said impressively filled, Elsie!)

Awww, she was nervous. 

"You know," Altin began, "You're going to be in class with kids your own age. They're all just starting school now too. You'll have a teacher to show you what you need to learn, you don't need to stay up late the day before school worrying about it..."

"If I don't make a comprehensive educational projection now, then I won't have the proper academic preparation I need, and then I won't be on track for a top-tier university, and then I'll never become the best criminal forensics investigator in the world!"

Oh, that's going to make for an awkward conversation in eighteen years...

"You're absolutely right. And of course, the first step in any comprehensive educational thingamajig--"

"Comprehensive educational projection."

"Right, like I said, comprehensive educational thingamajig. Anyway, of course the first step in any thingamajig is to make sure you get plenty of rest so you can be in peak mental condition the next day. For, uh, implementation something-or-other purposes."

For a minute Elsie looked horrified and shuffled through her papers, then penciled something in a margin, leapt to her feet, and hugged him, before practically throwing herself into bed.

He guessed that meant she agreed.

The next day, Elsie went to school...

And Altin went to work. Sort of. His only assignment for the day was to report to a quaint little cottage in the rural part of town, and that "he'd understand when he got there." Looks like they still didn't trust him to do any real work.

Oh, great, she's back in town.

(Z: I think we all have that moodlet when we talk to our bosses, Altin.)

"Is this where you--"

"Live? One of several places. It's conveniently low-profile."

"And floral..."

What was it with Grey Meadow people and orange?

"So, are you enjoying the fine world of thug work?"

"Uh, I don't know, I haven't actually done any thug work yet."

Uh oh, wrong answer. Altin tried to explain, but that just seemed to make her angrier.

"When I give an order I expect them to follow it," she hissed. "You, stay there, I need to go fix this immediately."

"Hey, wait, I didn't really mind..."

She rounded on him then. "I'm listening. Go on."

"I'm, uh, not really suited for being a thug, am I? I have these delicate thief hands, and I'm too nice...I'm sure there's some big scary guy you could find to do it instead..." Also, he didn't want to explain to Elsie why he'd be beating people up for a living, but he didn't really want to talk to the boss about his daughter.

Kanzler stared at him for a moment as if she was deciding whether to throw him to the sharks. Just as he was really starting to regret saying anything... "I'll consider it."

"What?"

"I'll look at the staff charts and I'll see whether I can rearrange anyone to better suit your delicate little conscience-- I'm sorry, I mean your 'thief hands', and I will consider it."

"Why?" Oh, Watcher, did he just say that out loud? He couldn't help it, she caught him offguard with the lack of immediate shark-feeding.

"Why?" She laughed. Altin was pretty sure that was a bad sign. "Oh, you really don't know, do you?"

"That's...why I asked." That and the fact that he never learned to bite his tongue.

"How did you escape from prison, Snickerson?"

Oh no, a trap. "I...there was a fight. I snuck outside in the commotion."

"You walked out the front door of a county prison? And that doesn't seem the slightest bit odd to you?" She laughed again. He was really starting to hate that. "You walked out of that prison because the guards for Verona County Prison work for us. They were transferred to Bridgeport after that. Nice promotion, came with a highrise. And to answer your inevitable next question, because it occurred to me that you were still useful to me."

Wait, what? Still? He asked as much.

"You've worked for me before, on a very important job. That's why you had to be caught, you see. Loose ends and all that. But I changed my mind. It was a very good score, after all."

"...the Diamond." Oh. Oh, shit. That meant...

"Have you heard the legend about the Diamond, Snickerson? It's quite fascinating."

"Nope. Not at all. Not a word of it. Never heard of it before in my life."

"Unfortunate. Essentially, whoever controls the diamond can control a unicorn. And thanks to you, I control the diamond. So you see, I'd be happy to waste my time rearranging the Organization because you don't want to be mean to some target. I owe you a favor."

"Okay. Great. Unicorns. I'm going to go now."

Elsie, meanwhile, had decided she quite liked school. 

Especially the part where she had the house to herself all afternoon while her father was at work. She put a sandwich together for herself -- there were leftovers from dinner, but Daddy was a pretty bad cook -- and went to sit down.

"Hello, child."

Everything about the stranger screamed BAD MAN, from the fact that he was actually glowing, to the creepy eyes, to the fangs, to the fact that he was in her house. Elsie did the only thing she could think of, even though she had been very thoroughly told not to unless it was an emergency.

She called her father's work. A BAD MAN in the house uninvited counted as an emergency in her book.

It wasn't her dad that answered the phone, but the lady that did put her on hold -- with the BAD MAN still standing right there?! -- and transferred her to another lady, who listened to Elsie describe the BAD MAN for a moment, asked a few questions, and then disconnected.

A moment later, the BAD MAN's phone rang.

He stepped away to answer, and Elsie really didn't want to get close enough to him to hear what he was talking about, but after a second or two she saw him get nervous and speak faster into the phone. He paused a moment after hanging up, then nearly tiptoed back to her.

"How about we just agree this never happened?"

"Uhm...okay?

When Altin got home, after a particularly worrisome phonecall of his own, Elsie was already in bed, but woke up when he stepped inside the door.

"So...I heard you had kind of a weird moment today..."

"Yeah, but it's okay. I talked to some lady on the phone. At first I thought she sounded mean, but she said she'd take care of it and then the bad man answered his phone and freaked out and left. So I guess she did take care of it. That was nice of her."

Huh. So that favor Kanzler owed him extended far enough for her to want to keep her other goons from messing with Altin's family. That was almost sweet.

"Also, she said that you could have the bad man's job because he wouldn't be needing it anymore. So that's a good thing, right?"

Okay, still terrifying. But terrifying and sweet.

(Z: The "bad man" is Shaw Blightwood, one of the premade sims made for Grey Meadow. All credit for his general freakiness goes to Quailhogs.

And no, I have no idea how he got in the house.)

Chapter 8, part 1: Retirement Party

Oxendine wasn't in her office when Altin tried to hand in his resignation. Oxy was always in her office. Something strange was going on here.

"Ahh, Snickerson. The thief extraordinaire turned decoy."

Oh no. The boss.

Dozens of attempts had been made by underlings over the years to come up with a clever nickname for Erika Kanzler like everyone else in the Organization had, but only one had ever stuck. The boss. Head of the Organization. Rumor has it the codename the feds had for her was the "Empress of Evil."

And apparently, she knew who Altin was. This was either very good or very, very bad.

"So, Snickerson. The Ox is busy with some private work for me. What can I do for you today instead?"

Eeek. Now the throwing-things-at-his-head starts. "I had some paperwork for Oxendine," he said. "I'm tendering my resignation."

Kanzler seemed sincerely surprised. "Now why would you go and make a mistake like that," she joked (he hoped).  "You were just starting to show some promise. Why on earth would we want to let you go?"

"I'm moving. Family stuff. Or something like that," he muttered. "I need to leave for Grey Meadow immediately." 

"Well, then, we don't have a problem, do we?"

"What?"

His employer laughed. "You are new here, aren't you? We're a worldwide network. There are hubs of the Organization everywhere, and they're all headquartered out of one central location...Grey Meadow. You don't need to quit in order to move, Snickerson. If anything, you need a promotion."

"What?" Oh, yeah, he was sounding really clever to his boss today.

"Thanks to this nasty business with the banks, we have some openings on the Grey Meadow team. Pack a barbell or something when you leave, because they're in desperate need of some hired muscle over there while we work on getting the janitors out of prison."

And now he was even more confused. "I thought we lost two thugs--"

"We did. And when they get back to us, I assure you, they will be janitors who used to have wellpaying jobs as thugs. I don't appreciate needing to come all the way out to this...what is this, a village? Do they still have villages?" 

Got it. Don't piss off the boss. Duly noted.

"I hope you're ready to leave immediately, Snickerson. I'll tell Grey Meadow to expect you by the end of the week."

Altin wondered if Kirk had this much trouble retiring.