- romilly died in 2015. in 2017, she lived again. now working as a government agent alongside the itching desire known as "bloodlust", she's in crossroads.
- adrian chase is a busboy at fennel fields. on his off nights, he's vigilante. with his bes...
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ADRIAN held the door open from Romy, and they walked into the H.Q. Leota and Harcourt stopped what they were doing, yet John, Murn, and Chris were oblivious. Romy went to her desk, starting up her work day while Adrian greeted Chris.
"Holy shit," Leota said, still exchanging glances between the couple, the door, and Harcourt.
"What?" Romy asked her, and Chris and Adrian turned to look at her as well.
"Did nobody else just see what I saw?"
"I saw it," Harcourt spoke, an amused smile on her face.
"What?" Chris asked, also oblivious.
"Rome and Adrian walked in together and got out of the same car," Harcourt informed him.
"So? Maybe Romy just picked him up," Chris scoffed. Adrian and Romy looked at each other, amused.
"Oh my god, Chris! Rome and Adrian are dating!" Leota said. Chris looked between the two agents, shaking his head.
"Bull-fucking-shit." Chris denied.
"Oh, really?" Leota turned to Adrian and Romy, "I'm giving you one free pass on PDA. There better not be some frenching or anything nasty." Adrian grinned excitedly, doing a happy dance before kissing her cheek tenderly.
"You mean like the sexting you do with your wife, Leota?" Romy bit back.
Chris watched them, confused. "This is the guy you're going out with it? Adrian? Adrian Chase? This is your boyfriend?"
"Yeah. We met at the restaurant, he gave me his sweater when he spilled water all over me. Things got started from there," Romy said, pushing her own swivel chair to the big table they all huddled around.
"Holy shit! No, I said find someone good, and you chose him?" Chris asked, making Romy laugh. "Oh my gosh," He exclaimed. "Jesus."
Adrian and Romy exchanged a look, shaking their heads.
Murn walked up to the front, starting the meeting, "A year ago, Alan Kupperberg, the billionaire CEO of Waresoft, and pop singer Vandalia perished in a plane crash. During their autopsies, small insect-like winged creatures, presumably extraterrestrial, were found in their skulls. This is when we first became aware of butterflies. Since then, we found the creatures in a handful of high-profile politicians, celebrities, and titans of industry."
Murn continued, "They enter the human body through one of its orifices and burrow through to the brain." Romy laughed when she saw the animatic that John had put on display.
"They go through the butt?" Chris was disgusted by the thought.
"I think that's just some, uh... creativity on whomever did the animation." Murn looked at John pointedly.
"The butt is an orifice, okay?"
"That means they'd have to crawl through poop," Adrian argued. "Just 'cause they're aliens doesn't make them gross. Bigotry!"
"Superman's an alien. He's got a poop fetish,"
"What!?" Adrian exclaimed.
"Get the fuck outta here," Leota denied.
Romy put her hands on her head, exhausted from the conversation. "Where do you get this nonsense?" Harcourt shouted.
"Google."
"Well, it's not true!"
"You know more than Google? Congratulations," Chris told her.
"No, it's not true, Jesus." Romy sighed.
"And how would you know?" Chris retorted to her.
"I'm friends with his wife, for Christ's sake." She sighed.
Murn cut them all off, "The butterflies' unique genetic structure and chemistry interact with the hosts' bodies, giving them strength far beyond that of a human being."
"And what's the chimp for?" Leota asked, and Romy seconded her question.
"Chimpanzees have four times the strength of a human beings, so they're both strong."
"Yeah, and we're supposed to get that just by lookin' at this, dye-beard?" Romy knew how much John loathed that nickname.
"I thought that man and the chimp were friends," Adrian spoke. "I was thinking they were about to go on an adventure together." Everybody turned to Adrian, but Romy's was an endearing one.
"This vicious amber fluid has been found on the premises of all the dead butterflies. Lab study shows that the fluid's genetic structure is dissimilar to anything on this planet. The fluid seems to be the butterflies' only food source. Which makes what, Leota discovered last night, potentially significant."
"This was on the bulletin board of the Goff home. Leota noticed that this is also where Annie Sturphausen was employed." An explosion transition was put up, and Chris snapped at John for putting his dad in prison.
He began listing a plethora of both celebrities and fictional characters, and Romy placed her head in her hands once more. Murn snapped, and she jumped when she felt a hand touch her back. "Barlowe, are you still up for this? You've been twitchy," Murn noted. "Do I need to give you another target?"
"I'm fine." She eyed where Harcourt hovered over her gun, "I'm not gonna snap, Murn. Not unless you provoke me," Romy said.
"Great," He clapped his hands, "The point is... the raw amber fluid is potentially processed and bottled at the Glan Tai bottling company. Glan Tai is in Little Cork, which is about two hours northwest of here, so you guys are going to go on a little field trip and see what you can find. I'm going to stay back and deal with the White Dragon situation."
Chris held up his journal, which wrote 'EAT A DICK DYE BEARD!' and Adrian looked, laughing.
"Nice penmanship, asshole. And Fargo's not on till tomorrow night, you fuckin' nerd." John stood up from his seat, walking off and fuming.
Murn walked up to Romy, and she turned to face him. "In case you need another target, here's two. One here and one in Little Cork. Relieve your tension by any means necessary."
"Listen, Murn. I get that the blood lust is a bit of a tricky thing to deal with, but your off switch has always been that." She pointed at his pistol, "Chris still has my word," Romy nodded to Chris, who nodded back.
"Wait, what word?" Leota asked.
"If I even get romotely twitchy, or get a happy trigger finger, he shoots me. And this time, don't contact Waller to resurrect me. It fucking sucks, it's like post-full body workout paralyzed."
Leota nodded silently, and Adrian watched as Romy went back to her desk, sighing. He followed her, looking a little like a lost puppy. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Romy nodded, "Let's just get this piece of shit mission over with."
