Strangerville Mystery - Ch 8 - Of Names and Cats

Rangerville Trailer Park, Wednesday, May 12, 2021, 9:05PM

"'Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home,'" Lucius said with a grin.

"I've stayed in worse," Molly said with an answering smile.

"As have I," Lucius said. "I recall nights sleeping under the stars, resting my head on tree roots and rocks, with only a threadbare cloak for a blanket."

"Well, that's taking LARPing a little far, even for me," Molly chuckled.

"What's LARPing?"

"So, you're saying people dress up and play act at being heroes or wizards or monsters," Lucius mused. "That sounds very interesting."

"It can be fun," Molly said. She always felt slightly embarrassed explaining some of the odder hobbies she'd gotten involved with over the years. "I guess, being a real witch, you think it's silly."

"You know, I've never understood why people seem to think 'silly' is a bad thing," Lucius smiled. "As if being dour and grim were somehow virtues. Much better to take joy in life, I assure you. Now, you should get some sleep. We have much to do and you'll need to be clear headed."

"About that," Molly said, feeling a little worried. "You only have the one small bed and um..."

"It's yours," Lucius said without hesitation. "I don't need as much sleep as mortals. Get some rest and I'll see you in the morning."

"Right," Molly said. "Thanks."

Mortals?

Rangerville Trailer Park, Thursday, May 13, 2021, 7:40AM

"I'm going to need some clean clothes," Molly said. "After hiking out to the lab and back last night, these are dusty and a little ripe."

"You're my Guest," Lucius said. Molly got the sense the word carried more weight to him than she was used to. "You are quite welcome to take whatever will suit you from my clothes. Later I'll venture a brief visit to your house to pick up some your own clothes."

"What will the Men in Black staking out my house think if they see you coming out the front door carrying my suitcase?" Molly asked.

"I won't use the doors, but still it would be best if I waited until after dark," Lucius smiled. "For today, as I said, you're welcome to whatever you can find among my things that suits you."

"Meanwhile, I am hoping you have some ideas concerning that rather impressive door," Lucius continued. "I'm afraid the lock proved quite resistant to my magic. All my other ideas for removing it risk bringing down large parts of the surrounding building."

"Wait, you're telling me it's a magic-resistant security door?" Molly blinked.

"Not, I suspect, intentionally," Lucius smiled. "Magic does have limits. I can't use a spell to open the door because I don't understand it... the mechanisms of it and how they form the whole."

"So, if you had diagrams of the workings of the door, you could open it?" Molly asked.

"Simply seeing the diagrams wouldn't be enough. I would need to truly understand them and the door itself," Lucius nodded. "Witches often speak of needing to know the Name of a thing... by which we mean understanding its essence, and how that essence exists in relation to the greater harmony of the Realm around it. By understanding a Name and the Words of Power associated with it, we can use our magic to influence it."

"So, to magic open the door you would need the blueprints and, what, an engineering degree?" Molly asked, shocked.

"Just so," Lucius smiled back. "By the same token, I am unable to use magic on these strange plants, or on the zombies, as you call them. I don't understand them and so they are beyond the reach of my power."

"Well, that sucks," Molly sighed. "I was kind of hoping you could just... you know... magic all this. Like open the door or even just magic Dylan and Jess free of... whatever."

"Sadly, it is very the 'whatever' of it that makes that impossible," Lucius explained. "For now, the Sigworth parents must remain under the influence of the 'whatever.'"

"Parents... oh God, Christie!" Molly gasped. "If this got Dylan..."

"Christie is free and will remain so," Lucius said reassuringly. "I sent Huntress to look after her while you slept."

"You sent your cat to protect Christie?" Molly blinked.

"I assure you, Huntress is more than capable of keeping young Christie safe," Lucius smiled. "In fact, I'm more worried about our safety in her absence." 

"Right," Molly said, slowly processing. "Huntress isn't just a cat, is she?"

"She is most assuredly a cat," Lucius smiled. "Though I have never known one who was just a cat."

"Well, that's not even close to the strangest thing I've heard lately," Molly said. "So, I'm just going to go with it."

"Very wise," Lucius nodded. "Still, even with that settled, we are left with a rather large door to deal with."

"To open that door, we need a keycard," Molly said. "I don't know any other way around it. Unfortunately, you can't buy keycards for MoD secret lab security doors at S-Mart. Maybe at Spy Gear and More..."

"I don't know that store," Lucius said.

"I was... joking," Molly said slowly, as a thought formed. "... and More. No one ever asks about the 'and More.'"

"You have an idea," Lucius smiled.

"One person we can talk to who might know more about all this than either of us," Molly said. "Eccentric Erwin!"

Strangerville Mystery - Ch 7 - Too Strange

Classified Ministry of Defense Research Facility, Rangerville Crater, Wednesday, May 12, 2021, 7:20PM

Molly felt she was usually pretty good with strange. In high school, she and her friends - Carmilla, Cas and Gwen - had been the weird girls who dressed in black (except Gwen who always wore white), listened to strange music and talked about the occult. Cas and Gwen had been genuine witches. Most of the engineers she'd ever worked with were at least quirky. Clients were always a little odd, and the MoD could be downright bizarre at times. Sinister government agents at her door... well, Molly had dated Yuki 'Snow' Behr for years, so that was almost the most normal thing about her day.

However, Project Orchid, whatever it was, was messing with her friends, and that was too much. Sure, maybe she'd only known Dylan and Jess for a week, but they were still friends. Molly wasn't going to let this go. She wanted answers, and the only place she knew to look for them was the abandoned secret lab. 

On the not-so-unlikely chance the MiB were watching, she changed into something casual enough to say 'night out' (while still comfortable for walking the desert). Then she drove around for a bit, remembering Yuki's advice on spotting and throwing off a tail. If anyone was following her, they were better than she was (which, she admitted to herself, wasn't all that unlikely). 

After a bit of evasive driving, she headed out to the crater and made the dusty hike to the lab.

The trick, Molly thought, was going to be finding some meaningful clue without finding whatever might have 'infected' Dylan. Assuming he'd been infected here. Maybe Zombie Jess, and this mysterious Mother, had caught up with him later. That made sense. Zombie Jess and Dylan had wanted her to eat that strange fruit, and MiB Hunt had been going on about fruit... including pie, salad and salsa. Maybe Dylan had come home to find a bowl of strange zombie-making fruit salsa on the table.

Still, no reason to be careless, Molly thought. Let's avoid strange plants, menacing fruit and definitely not eat any pie, salad or salsa that might be lurking around the lab. 

Damn it, she thought, now I'm hungry.

Resisting the urge to go through to the breakroom fridge for a snack, Molly turned her attention back to searching for clues.

Nothing, nothing, more nothing, Molly thought. For a society trying to think of itself as paperless, people sure generated a lot of meaningless paper.

"Finding anything useful?" a man's voice said.

"AGH!" Molly shrieked. "I wasn't..."

"My apologies," the man said, suppressing a chuckle.

"OK, one, you do not sneak up on someone breaking into a classified government lab," Molly snapped. "Two... what the Hell are you doing here, Lucius?!"

"I am investigating a disruption in the Balance," Lucius replied with a slight grin. "Which, as I believe I've told you, is the reason I came to Rangerville in the first place. I confess, I am rather wondering what you are doing here."

"Trying to find out why Jess is sleepwalking," Molly snapped. "And why Jess and Dylan have turned into wacked out zombies who want me to eat strange fruit! And why the Men in Black are showing up at my door, confiscating the fruit and warning me not to eat any salsa! And does any of this have anything to do with those strange plants and the explosion here two weeks ago... and why that made the MoD move up its project deadlines... and what in the Hell is Project Orchid!"

"Oh, I see," Lucius said mildly.

The fact that he did, in fact, act as if her rant had made everything clear to him, annoyed the hell out Molly.

"Do you know what's going on?" Molly demanded.

"If I knew what was going on, I wouldn't be here investigating, much like you are," Lucius said. "In fact, I suspect you may already have a better grasp on the situation than I do."

"Yeah, but you know more than you're saying," Molly said. Deep down, she desperately hoped it was true. No matter how annoying it seemed, she really hoped this odd man, or witch or whatever he was, knew the answers.

"I suspect a great deal more than I'm saying," Lucius admitted. "It's rather an occupational hazard, you might say. However, the difference between what I suspect and what I know is both significant and important."

"Terrific," Molly sighed.

"Molly, it seems clear to me that you and I are both investigating the same mystery," Lucius said. "A mystery that, if I understood you correctly, has touched the Sigworth family. I believe we could better help them if we worked together on this... or at least shared what we know."

"Has anyone every told you, you talk funny?" Molly said.

"Constantly," Lucius smiled.

"OK, Obi-Wan, tell me what you know, or suspect," Molly said.

"Roughly three weeks ago there was a disruption in the Balance... the harmony of mystical forces that form the foundation of our Realms, our worlds," Lucius explained. "The disruption originated here, in the Great Western Desert, and coincided with the appearance of those strange plants. The Witches' Council sent me to investigate. 

"So far, I've been able to determine that those plants are clearly not from this Realm," he continued. "I have also observed several of these 'zombies' as you refer to them. They appear to be most active at night, while in the day they seem to behave normally. I believe the zombies and the plants to be connected, not merely in time but in fact. There is a bond between them.

"I was able to discover the rumors about this lab and the explosion here, which seems to have happened at the same time as the disruption. So, I came here to investigate, and found you here ahead of me," Lucius concluded. "Your turn."

"You're something holding back," Molly said.

"Correct," Lucius smiled. "Your turn."

"OK," Molly said. "Here's what I know..."

So, she laid it out for him... the FutureTech project she'd been called in on, how she thought it was related to the explosion of the lab, Jess's sleepwalking, what she and Dylan had found about Project Orchid during their first visit to the lab, and what had happened with Zombie Dylan and Jess and the MiB. 

She considered holding something back, just to be bitchy, but in the end, she told him everything. 

"So, what do you think?" Molly asked when she'd finished.

"I think we need to get through that giant door," Lucius replied.

"Yeah, if the MiB don't snatch me first," Molly sighed. 

"It might be best to avoid that," Lucius smiled. "I believe this may be an opportune moment for you to accept the offer of hospitality I extended earlier."

"You mean crash at your place, instead of going back to mine, in case they're waiting for me?" Molly smiled.

"Precisely," Lucius smiled back.

"Well, I've had worse invitations," Molly said. "Where are you parked? I'll follow you back."

"I don't drive," Lucius said mildly.

"How did you... you know what, never mind," Molly said. "I'm hungry and tired. Come on, Obi Wan. I'll drive."