Warehouse 13

We Have a Ping

"Jenksie, you sure about this? I'm not happy sending her out on an assignment like this without backup."

The young man at the desk sighed and rubbed his temples. "Claudia, you know as well as I do that she's not going to move past this unless we push her. We're down an agent, and you can't keep picking up the slack."

Claudia grinned at Jenks and shook her head. "But Steeeeve, I miss the action. All I do these days is appease the Regents and paperwork. You know how much I hate paperwork." She slumped petulantly beside her long-time friend and pouted. "I'm not ever going to be Mrs. Frederick. I've only been doing this for thirty years! I've still got that youthful glow." She batted her eyelashes at Steve, causing him to snort.

"Claud, knock it off. We may look young and pretty, me being the pretty one, but we're not in our twenties anymore. Hell, Pete and Micah just retired, for heaven's sake! Their twins are teenagers!"

Claudia jumped up, as though zapped by her seat. Knowing the Warehouse, she may have been. "That reminds me, I have a gift for the little rascals. I finally got the VR device to work without the teapot, and the game is definitely better than when Fargo tried to make it a medieval Warehouse." She placed a hand on Steve's shoulder and smiled down at him. "Besides, she's a Warehouse agent. She's not going to really be alone. We're both only a phone call away. I miss Ellory too, but the pings aren't going to stop. We've mourned, now we move on. Agent Lacy would kick our asses if she saw us moping about."

Steve nodded and turned to reply, only to find an empty room. He looked up to the ceiling and shouted. "You know, Claudia, you're more and more like Mrs. Frederick every day!"

When he didn't receive a reply, he pulled out his Farnsworth and placed it on the stand. After three buzzes, a petite face appeared in the screen.

"Is there something I could do for you, Agent Jenks?"

He sighed and rolled his eyes. She'd worked there for three years, but he couldn't crack the guard she kept up around herself.

"Yes. Agent Sorensen." He decided to stick with her formality for the time being. "We have a ping. Grab your gear and meet me in half an hour. You'll be flying out on the red-eye tonight."

She pressed her lips tightly together and nodded. "I'll be ready in ten, sir."

He disconnected the line and laced his fingers behind his head. He wasn't sure what to do about Sang, but he knew it needed to be soon. Her partner, Ellory Lacy, died in an incident involving an artifact only nine months after Miss Sorensen had been brought on. It wasn't really an accident. A kid was being consumed by a malevolent artifact, and though there may have been a way to get the kid out unharmed, by the time they'd arrived, there were really only three options.

He closed his eyes, trying not to remember the way she'd looked when he arrived on the scene. It was one of the rare occasions that an artifact didn't respond to the purple goo, and time had been running out for the kid.

All of the options that day sucked. One, destroy the artifact and hope it didn't kill the kid. Two, take the artifact out of the little boy's hand and let it consume you instead. Or three, do nothing and let it have the kid.

One and three hadn't really been options, and Sang had been about to sacrifice herself when Agent Lacy pushed her out of the way and grabbed the locket instead. It immediately released the kid, but Agent Lacy moved quicker than her partner and smashed the artifact, killing it and herself in the process.

That was two years ago. He and Claudia still couldn't find a solution to that day that didn't end in him losing one, if not both, of his agents. Steve had tried to bring in half a dozen new prospective partners for Agent Sorenson since then, but Sang summarily dismissed each of them within hours of meeting. Actually, if he was being honest, she ran them off. She was a petite little thing with gentle features and wide green eyes, and she was easy to underestimate. So when she recklessly dove into situations while simultaneously blocking her prospective partners from doing much of anything, they hightailed it out of there. Even the Marine, who Steve had been certain could handle their little Miss Sorenson left within hours.