The (Mis)Adventures of (Re)Becca Smellie

Chapter 7: Clair de Lune

Tensions were running high that day in Aliva. However, no one was more stressed out of their mind than Boye. After realizing that the briefing packet was missing, he resorted to decide his next course of action based on a few contingency plans:

1. Tell Gai the truth about losing the briefing packet, get scolded, fail the mission, and then have his head bit off

2. Figure out a way to sneak back in, look for the packet, sneak back out, and then do the extraction but be so late he was sure to get his head bit off

3. Jump in and wing it

Given that everyone departed House 1740 Villeneuve Street over an hour ago and didn't know when they would return, he was more inclined to follow the third plan. The only person he didn't see leave the house was the girl with the long purple pigtails he noticed earlier, and he could tell by the pod's heat ray map that there was at least one presence still there. And a half presence, a tiny one.

Thinking back on it, he noticed two other young girls earlier but knew that one was an alien, so she was certainly not the target. The other one was very...human-like. This gave him an inclination to think that she may be the one. Then again, the target was supposed to be very different and unique from other humans, or as Gai said, an 'ideal' given their research. That would mean she was surely very different from an average human...But then what did an average human even look like...

These were all the questions churning in Boye brain and belly, and ended up giving him a severe stomach ache. He took a look inside the house again and noticed there hadn't been any movement for some time, so he decided to start putting the plan in motion. The only way he could know for sure who Becca was by just asking her. As soon as he realized this, he began to regret the decision.

Boye hopped out of the pod and tried to lay low as he approached the back of the house. He fluttered over the fence and landed by making a little too much noise on the grass. He carefully stepped over the flower beds and approached the backdoor to bolt it shut with the small lock-gun tool.

As he did so, he saw a tiny cybernetic hot dog staring at him from the backdoor window. There was the mystery of the half presence heat map mystery. They locked eyes for a few uncomfortable seconds before it began to bark.

He heard footsteps approaching, so he fluttered in the air with all his might and lifted himself off the ground for a few feet above the doorframe. A startled squirrel ran from the side of the windowsill to the front of the door, then he heard a small female voice say something to the dog and move away.

As soon as he heard the retreating footsteps, he sighed in relief and immediately belly-flopped to the ground once his wings gave in.

Boye winced and picked himself back up with a groan. Though he wasn't expecting the mission to go smoothly, this was far from a good start.

With a deep breath of resolve, he activated his wings and begun to fly around the house using his lock-gun tool on the windows. The lock-gun emanated a green goo that stuck to the openings of doors and windows, and was meant to disappear within a few hours. Boye didn't have to use it often, but when he did he had trouble concentrating when using it given its pungent mossy smell. He held his breath as much as he could while flying around and scattered the goo messily before he fell back to the ground in exhaustion.

"Why do we even use this if we have the sleeping spray," Boye groaned to himself with his face in the grass.

With another deep breath, Boye stood up and walked back to the pod. He tossed the gun into the back and jumped in behind it to change into his costume. If he was going to play the part of the florist, he had to look the part. He put on a pair of overalls, a t-shirt, boots too large for his feet, a dark blue cap, and a facemask to cover his mouth and nose. His wings were hidden under the clothes but he shifted them around so they wouldn't chaff. After pouring some of the sleeping powder spray on the roses and pocketing the rest, he grabbed the large flowers from the bottom of their glass vase and walked back to the house.