“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

Silence for about five seconds. Then, “Are we there yet?”

The winged girl turned round, scowling at the shorter girl. “No, we are not!” she snapped. “Will you please stop asking me that?”

Having been walking backwards while snapping at the other girl, the winged girl turned round, and blinked in surprise as she found her nose centimetres away from a wall. They had reached a dead end.

“This can’t be right,” the short girl muttered, staring at the blank wall in front of them. “Let me see those directions we have.” She made a grab for the piece of paper in the other’s hand.

The winged girl easily held the piece of paper away from the other. “No way,” she said. “I remember what happened when you were holding the piece of paper earlier. We almost lost it!”

“That was hardly my fault!” the other girl protested. “In any case, we didn’t lose it, did we? You managed to get the piece of paper all right.”

Are you coming in, or are you going to stand out there all day?

The two girls jerked. “Did you hear that?” the winged woman asked.

“I thought that was you!” the other girl protested.

Well?

The two glanced towards what had been a dead end.

There was now a door.

“Ok, that was definitely not there before,” the shorter girl said.

The winged woman just shook her head and sighed. “Let’s just go in,” she muttered.

They pushed open the door, and walked into an office-type room. Well, it would have been an office, but for one very important difference.

There was a sunflower wearing a suit sitting behind the desk.

Sitting? Sarah, the shorter of the two new agents for the PPC, shook her head. No way. Sunflowers didn’t sit. Sunflowers also didn’t wear suits. Someone was clearly playing a trick on them.

Light, who should have only existed inside Sarah’s mind, but who, due to a lightning strike, had been separated from her creator, stared at the sunflower with an expression of intense concentration on her face. Almost unconsciously, her hands started clenching and unclenching, giving anyone watching her the mental image of a cat sheathing and unsheathing its claws.

Apparently, anyone watching her also included the sunflower, who somehow managed to convey panic even with no face. The flower turned to stare at Sarah, rather disconcerting as it didn’t have any eyes.

Agents Sarah and Light, I presume?

Silence for about three seconds. Then, “Whee! A talking flower!” This, of course, came from Sarah, as Light still looked like she wanted to pounce on the sunflower and play with its petals and leaves… As a cat.

Yes, a talking flower, the sunflower sighed. It glanced worriedly at Light. Your partner is not about to pounce on me… Is she?

“It’s not very likely,” Sarah said. She should probably be surprised at meeting a talking plant, but, after being hit by a lightning strike that had somehow managed to drag one of her own characters out of her mind, not much surprised her.

Then please tell her to stop looking at me like she wants to eat me.

Sarah elbowed Light in the side. “You’re making it uncomfortable,” she told her. “I’ll get you some catnip when we get to wherever it is we’re staying, if you don’t try to maul the… sunflower. I think it’s going to be our… employer.”

The sunflower ruffled its feathers, looking annoyed. I am not an ‘it’, it said.

“Sorry,” Sarah responded.

Light’s face cleared, and she stopped clenching and unclenching her fists, though still continued to stare at the sunflower.

Thank you, the sunflower said. You will be working in the general Department of Mary Sues. There aren’t enough agents to go around, so you will be covering a number of different types of fandom.

“That sounds like it’s going to be a lot of work,” Sarah commented with a frown.

“Don’t look at me,” Light told Sarah. “You were the one who wanted to come and work here.”

“What about vacation time?” Sarah asked, turning back to the sunflower.

Vacation time? The sunflower looked blank.

“Never mind,” Sarah sighed.

“Can we get a map?” Light wanted to know. “We nearly got lost on our way here.”

No, the sunflower replied. It glanced down at a sheet of paper on its desk, though how it was able to read them was a complete mystery. The apartment you will have is room 414. Now please go away.

Sarah left the room, pulling Light along behind her, who had apparently not wanted to leave, having returned to staring at the plant with an almost manic gleam in her eyes.

“Please don’t kill our employer,” Sarah said. “The sunflower didn’t seem very polite, but I don’t think anyone would be too happy with us if it ended up dead.”

“I wasn’t going to kill it,” Light replied, relaxing considerably now that they were away from the sunflower. “I was just going to pounce on it.”

“You’d end up damaging it anyway,” Sarah muttered.

“Oh, we’re here,” Light said, staring at the door in front of them which said, ‘Room 414’.

“Wow. It must have been that we weren’t paying attention to be able to get lost,” Sarah said.

Light stared at her partner, then slowly shook her head. “Your logic really confuses me sometimes.” With those words, she pushed open the door, and walked into the apartment, Sarah following close behind her.

The Asian man working below the console yelped, and hit his head as he scrambled out of the small place.

“Hello,” Sarah said brightly as she moved to start unpacking the boxes that had already been brought up, leaving Light to talk to the man.

“Um… Who are you?” Light asked, feeling the need to say something, even if it came out sounding rude.

“I’m Makes-Things,” the man answered shortly. “I make all of the things you agents take with you. I also fix them when you break them.”

“We get cool gadgets?” Sarah exclaimed, looking up from where she was trying to cram the largest amount of books into the smallest amount of space.

“Yes, you do,” Makes-Things replied. “They’re in the backpacks in that corner of the room over there.” Without another word, the man all but ran out of the room.

Light blinked, staring after him, then turned to look at Sarah. “Did you get the feeling that he really didn’t want to see us any longer than really necessary?”

“Who cares?” Sarah was rooting around in one of the backpacks, taking out various things and looking at them. “Look! Cool electronic thingys. How do you think we’re supposed to use them?”

“I’m sure we’ll find out sooner or later,” Light replied.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!

“Probably sooner,” Light added.