Morning Meeting

So apparently, we have a meeting every Tuesday morning so Liza Jane can dole out assignments and see what everyone's working on and what their progress is. It was slightly nerve wracking for me, since I hadn't met everyone -- or, really, anyone other than Liza Jane and the receptionist. I had been working in the files room for the last day and nobody had really come in there.

Anyway, I walked in and sat down on a chair. Most of the others that sat down were men, although I did see some female agents.

After everyone had sat down, Liza Jane walked up to the desk in the end of the room. "As you probably heard, we had an incursion by a Nest a few days ago." There was a tension in the room. "Nobody was hurt, but there was a warning. We need to keep better track of the Convocation's territory." She looked around the room and then said, "We also have a new agent to help organize and bring everything up to date. This is Lady Grinning Soul." She pointed at me and I looked down.

Then she pointed at two other male agents - "Joe" and "Red" - and asked them about the new Timberwolves territory in South Carolina. They said that they were mapping out encounters, but it could take a while. Liza Jane pointed at two other agents, male and female - "Pablo" and "Pallas" - and asked about a Smiling Man sighting in Maryland. They responded that they didn't know if it was the Smiling Man or a run of the mill serial killer, in which case it would be turfed over to the regular FBI. She told them to go down to the site and check it out.

She went around the room like that, calling on various agents - each codename sounding strange to my ears, like "Wild-Eyed Boy" and "V-2 Schneider" and "China Girl." She heard everyone's progress and then gave them new assignments if they hadn't been making any headway into old ones.

Finally, she came to me. "Grinning Soul," she said. "I know you're new, but you still need a partner. I'm going to pair you up with Aladdin Sane." She pointed to another male agent - this one tall, with dark hair. He didn't seem to notice me, instead intent on writing notes in his notebook. The other agents seem to whisper at my assignment - one of them even patted me on the shoulder and said "Good luck."

"Finally," Liza Jane said, "the liaison to the General Ministry is arriving today, so everybody better be on their best behavior." Everyone in the room - minus Liza and Aladdin Sane, I noticed - groaned at that.

After the meeting, I asked Liza Jane what the "General Ministry" was. "Our UK counterpart," she said as she gathered up all her papers. "Except much, much more efficient. We just made a deal with them to exchange information, so we're getting a liaison to help." And with that, she went back to her office.

I turned around and looked for Aladdin Sane. If he was my partner, I should get to know him, right?

Finally, I tried asking someone where his desk was. Their nameplate said their codename was "Wood Jackson." "He has his own office," Jackson told me. He was a redheaded agent, kind of chubby. "Only one of us that does. Because he's special." He said the word 'special' like it was the punchline to a joke. When he saw that I didn't get it, he said, "He was Liza Jane's partner before she became the head agent. He hasn't had a partner since." I asked if Liza Jane was showing favoritism, but he said, "Nah, he just gets moody. Nobody really wants to be his partner, because it's like partnering with Edgar Allen Poe. And he gets his own office because he's the longest lasting agent. But we still like to tease him, you know?"

Okay, so I had a partner who was moody, yet was the 'longest lasting' of the agents? What had happened to the others?

"You're a rookie," Jackson told me. "You met, what, one Nest? Yeah, that's no biggie. Nests used to be human, they got emotions and motivations and things. You can understand Nests. Now, you meet an actual Fear, well, that's when you know if you can handle things here. Most of the time, most of the agents, they can't." And then he went back to his assignment, going through recent reports of viral outbreaks and looking for "OB or PD" involvement.

And that was my morning.

More later.