Isaac Cotta led Goro and Cammie down in the opposite direction from Cody’s group. It was a shorter route to the offices. He took point, but didn’t give instructions for any particular marching order. Despite the slight breach of protocol, he did leave his visor up off his face. Removing that barrier was somewhat more personable than making them look through the red glass to see him. He hoped that at least one of his candidates would initiate conversation, but he still took time to point out the different containment units as they passed.
“Most of the anomalies we store at this facility are those we label as ‘household’-class. As stated in the presentation Dr. Redd sent out, our focuses are on containing and studying anomalies for as long as they remain unknowns to either the standard sciences or the focuses of magic. In the cases of household-classes, this is mostly for their protection, not the public’s, though there’ve been a lot of cases where a household-class anomaly became more dangerous after damage from an outside source. Most of our researchers try to avoid those kinds of incidents.”
He spoke flatly, in as much of a tour-guide tone of voice as someone raised in New England could manage. Unlike Codes, who’d had the benefit of being raised in the American Southwest, Isaac retained a ghost of his accent even when speaking normally. It was getting easier to hide, with time.
For security reasons, of course. Not like he was self-conscious about it or anything.
He paused in front of one of the old storefronts, its front now a pane of glass that revealed a large gray dog – a hound mix, of some kind – pacing the space. It was furnished about as well as anyone could ask, for a dog. The concrete floor had been spread with a layer of soil and grass, and even 49 itself seemed to like it. The lights in the room were pretty close to emulating sunlight, almost like a plant heater. There were toys scattered around, and a handful of obstacles were set up like a dog park’s agility course. Right now the anomaly paced back and forth, but its tail was wagging a bit.
“Access Containment File Twenty-Eight-Fifty-Eight. The researchers call him ‘Pluto,’ which isn’t trademarked or anything. Not that it would matter, given the secrecy with which we do things.” As he spoke, the dog passed by one of his tennis balls, which rolled toward it. Then, it levitated off the ground, and began orbiting vertically around the dog’s middle. Pluto didn’t even seem to notice. “He has a minor gravitational field that doesn’t quite match up with his mass. It doesn’t seem to affect his mobility at all, but sometimes he does… that. We don’t have a zoophysicist on-site to study him at the moment, but sometimes Dr. Florence’s people come up and play what they call advanced fetch with him. It’s good for just about everyone.”
To Isaac, sharing these tidbits of information about the anomalies he was containing and protecting was as natural as talking about the weather. He looked to his two candidates, searching their reactions. He hadn’t quite taken his mind off the task at hand, but given Cammie’s general quiet and the general understanding she’d be on-site as researcher, he was mostly checking her reactions.
Though, as a fellow agent, any insight Goro might have would be appreciated as well.
“Most of the anomalies we store at this facility are those we label as ‘household’-class. As stated in the presentation Dr. Redd sent out, our focuses are on containing and studying anomalies for as long as they remain unknowns to either the standard sciences or the focuses of magic. In the cases of household-classes, this is mostly for their protection, not the public’s, though there’ve been a lot of cases where a household-class anomaly became more dangerous after damage from an outside source. Most of our researchers try to avoid those kinds of incidents.”
He spoke flatly, in as much of a tour-guide tone of voice as someone raised in New England could manage. Unlike Codes, who’d had the benefit of being raised in the American Southwest, Isaac retained a ghost of his accent even when speaking normally. It was getting easier to hide, with time.
For security reasons, of course. Not like he was self-conscious about it or anything.
He paused in front of one of the old storefronts, its front now a pane of glass that revealed a large gray dog – a hound mix, of some kind – pacing the space. It was furnished about as well as anyone could ask, for a dog. The concrete floor had been spread with a layer of soil and grass, and even 49 itself seemed to like it. The lights in the room were pretty close to emulating sunlight, almost like a plant heater. There were toys scattered around, and a handful of obstacles were set up like a dog park’s agility course. Right now the anomaly paced back and forth, but its tail was wagging a bit.
“Access Containment File Twenty-Eight-Fifty-Eight. The researchers call him ‘Pluto,’ which isn’t trademarked or anything. Not that it would matter, given the secrecy with which we do things.” As he spoke, the dog passed by one of his tennis balls, which rolled toward it. Then, it levitated off the ground, and began orbiting vertically around the dog’s middle. Pluto didn’t even seem to notice. “He has a minor gravitational field that doesn’t quite match up with his mass. It doesn’t seem to affect his mobility at all, but sometimes he does… that. We don’t have a zoophysicist on-site to study him at the moment, but sometimes Dr. Florence’s people come up and play what they call advanced fetch with him. It’s good for just about everyone.”
To Isaac, sharing these tidbits of information about the anomalies he was containing and protecting was as natural as talking about the weather. He looked to his two candidates, searching their reactions. He hadn’t quite taken his mind off the task at hand, but given Cammie’s general quiet and the general understanding she’d be on-site as researcher, he was mostly checking her reactions.
Though, as a fellow agent, any insight Goro might have would be appreciated as well.