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The Multinational Aligned Specialist Task Force (MAST) was certainly a place to be, not the best, not the worst, but certainly the most unique. At least, that’s what they told you when you were assigned there. They hired and managed all people and events that no one else could, or wanted to, deal with. MAST hired people from all walks of life, but, despite the name, not necessarily all over the world. It’s not that they wouldn’t hire people from all over. It’s that they didn’t really have much of a choice in who they hired. They’d get ex-law enforcement, professors, scientists, artists, teachers, grocery store baggers, and even soccer moms. Again, it wasn’t their choice who they got, whoever joined was whoever became involved in their special activities.
“Pollyanna Smith?” The clerk read the young woman’s freshly made, yet already beginning to peel, ID. The MAST HQ’s reception office had certainly seen better days. The dusty room looked like it hadn’t been updated since the 80s or maybe even the 70s. It was blatantly obvious that not a penny had been spent on updating or maintaining the office in over a decade, outside of rudimentary cleaning. The reception desk had visible cracks in its faux-mahogany woodgrain, the waiting chairs squeaked and squealed as if they were days away from collapse, and the reading material on offer was a musty stack of issues of a TIME magazine knockoff from the early 90s.
“That’s my name,” the blonde beamed, “I studied five years of experimental and natural sciences at—”
“No need to go into your spiel, this isn’t an interview,” the clerk shook his head. “What matters is that you had an encounter last year. An unusual one?”
“Well, yes,” Pollyanna tried to hide her disappointment, “I still don’t know what that old man wanted, but—”
“Old man is right, but what’s important is you survi…navigated that encounter successfully without outside aid. That’s why you’re here,” the clerk explained. “And with your science background, the Colonel wants you working upstairs in Lab A with…her.”
“Her?” Pollyanna cocked her head.
“Well, someone has to,” the clerk handed her a letter. “Here’s your marching orders from the Colonel. Hand them to Dr. Vermillion upstairs in Lab A.”
“Alright,” Pollyanna accepted the letter. “So, since the boss is a Colonel, is this place military?”
“Not really,” the clerk shrugged.
“Shouldn’t I go through an orientation, sign paperwork, and all that?” Pollyanna asked.
“We’ll wait till after you meet Dr. Vermillion for that,” the clerk looked aside.
“Okay,” Pollyanna knew she wasn’t the most perceptive person in the world, but even she was getting a bad vibe. Not in the sense she was in danger, more that she was walking into a disaster of a situation. Wouldn’t be the first time someone dumped her with the assignment no one else wanted.
Navigating the building did nothing to improve Pollyanna’s impression of it. The further she went, the more outdated and poorly maintained it appeared. Offices with doors jammed open, closets with doors jammed closed, rips and stains in the carpet, and out-of-order water fountains marked every few feet. Worse yet, the closer she got to this ‘Lab A’, the more the building began to reek of something hard to place. It kind of smelled like a wet skunk, or maybe burning hair products.
“Lab A,” Pollyanna read the sign above the door as she prepared to face her future. Inside was a lab much like her high school science lab, but it was a complete disaster area. Not in the sense it wasn’t cleaned, more that someone was in the middle of a very messy experiment. Speaking of which, a pale, brunette woman in a white dress with a white hat lined with brown fleece was working inside, mixing some terrible concoction inside a massive pot on one of the lab tables. A huge white coat with brown fleece was thrown over a nearby chair, while a small silver cane rested on its side. As the brunette added some chemicals and a bizarre weed to her brew, the whole thing burst into flames.
“Oh dear,” Pollyanna looked around and spotted a nearby fire extinguisher. She snatched it from the cracked, unlocked cabinet and sprayed the fire hazard.
“Knock it off!” The woman yelled as the first went out and the concoction went inert. “That was six hours of work, gone in an instant, you damn fool!”
“It was on fire!” Pollyanna countered.
“It was supposed to do that. Besides, that fire extinguisher expired years ago,” the woman snapped. Pollyanna checked and, wouldn’t you know it, the tool had gone bad years ago. It was half a miracle that it still worked.
“I’m sorry,” Pollyanna held up her hands, “and why would you have an expired fire extinguisher?”
“Never got around to replacing it, now off with you,” the brunette shooed her away, “I don’t want any tea.”
“I’m not the tea lady,” Pollyanna huffed.
“That’s strange then,” the woman glared at her, “I had given them explicit instructions that the only people allowed in here are the Colonel and the tea lady. Since you aren’t the tea lady, and you’re definitely not the Colonel, get lost.”
“They sent me up here, look see,” Pollyanna handed her the letter. “You’re Dr. Vermillion, aren’t you?”
“Doctor?” She took the letter, tore it open without grace, and read it with contempt. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. I don’t need an assistant.”
“Well, that’s my job, and I’ll do it to the best of my abilities, Dr. Vermillion,” Pollyanna assured.
“Listen, kid, I don’t know what they told you, probably nothing,” Vermillion shook her head, “but first off, I’m not a doctor, I don’t have an assistant, and I have a name, it’s Valencia. So, before you start calling me Ms. Vermillion, don’t, not even my mother or my grandmother went by that name.”
“Okay, Ms. Valencia,” Pollyanna nodded, earning her another sigh from Valencia.
“Just get lost, I have hours of work to redo, and I don’t need your stupid face around to remind me why,” Valencia glared.
“I’m not going anywhere. I refuse to be ping ponged around this organization because you’re in a foul mood,” Pollyanna stood up for herself.
“Fine, then go to the corner and count to 1 million. When you’re done, maybe I’ll learn your name. Until then, you’re spare blood,” Valencia snapped.
“Spare blood? What kind of job do you expect me to do?” Pollyanna was taken aback.
“Wow, they really told you nothing, didn’t they?” Valencia laughed. “Do you even know what MAST does?”
“Not really, they wouldn’t give me an orientation,” Pollyanna admitted.
“That’s because they don’t have one. People don’t last long enough for it to be worth it,” Valencia explained as she put on her coat and grabbed her cane. “Follow me, and I’ll show you why you don’t want to be here, and then you can run along back to whatever post-graduate dropout club they found you in.”
‘How rude, but at least she’s going to tell me something relevant,’ Pollyanna huffed again, but followed her new boss. Valencia was slow-moving as she had a terrible limp in her left leg. They walked down a flight of stairs hidden behind a door at the back of the lab. It took them straight to the basement, which had solid metal walls and a sinister chill in the air.
“I hope you didn’t eat breakfast this morning, because you’re about to lose it,” Valencia tapped her cane on one of the walls, revealing a hidden sliding peephole. “Look through there, but don’t look too long or you’ll have nightmares for decades instead of just years.”
“What could possibly be so—?” Pollyanna approached the peephole, took one brief look, and immediately wanted to jump back. She saw two things in the room, one was dead, the other was alive. The dead one was a person in a bloodied lab coat, disturbingly fresh, as if they had only been there a week. The other being was…well, it wasn’t a person, or an animal, that’s all she could discern. The room was well lit, yet the creature was in shadows, and while its claws were bloody, it wasn’t like it was eating the corpse. It was just tearing into it for the hell of it. It had quickly noticed Pollyanna’s presence and stared back at her with something that wasn’t eyes. Thankfully, there was a set of steel bars inside the room, keeping it separate from the peephole. Unfortunately, Pollyanna did start to lose her lunch. “What in heaven’s name is that?”
“It doesn’t have a name, we just found it stalking an apartment building a couple of months ago,” Valencia explained as she shut the peephole.
“Why is there a body in there!” Pollyanna nearly screamed. “Who were they?”
“That was the last person who wanted to be my assistant. I never got their name,” Valencia explained. “To prove they were worthy of me or whatever, they tried to study that thing. Then one day, it looked like it had escaped. The fool went inside to find out what happened and found that our nameless guest hadn’t gone anywhere. It took ten people to close the steel bars again, but we weren’t going to risk getting the corpse back.”
“Why do you keep that thing around if it’s so deadly? What even is it?” Pollyanna looked sick.
“Because we don’t know what it is. As soon as we do, we’ll decide what to do with it, and hopefully by then we’ll have figured out how to kill it,” Valencia explained. “And that, my dear, is what we do here at MAST,” the brunette leveled her gaze at Pollyanna, “now tell me, do you really still want to be my assistant?”
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A new job is always a confusing time. Sometimes they just don't want to teach you, and sometimes they don't want you at all, but most times neither of you have a choice.
Author's Note: I've been wanting to do a proper follow up to the Woman from Lochmere Lane for a long time, but this isn't quite that, it's more of a prequel. Think of this as an opening to a theoretical series following her adventures at MAST. While I do want to write more of this, I have other fish to fry, namely a maid in fantasy chapter (I promise I'm working on it, it's just slow going).
Until next time, Read, Comment and Enjoy.
