Blake couldn't say what she'd expected from the PSI unit.
No, if she was being honest with herself, she'd had a few images in mind. Something like the NCIS that had investigated a few of the weirder things on the USS Ramage, or something like the Navy itself. Order, organization, sharp suits.
The job offer had come via someone like that - a sharp-suited woman with even sharper eyes, backed up by someone who seemed to not be able to stop standing at attention. They'd visited Blake two months ago.
It had taken Blake a month to take the job. Not because she didn't want it - ever since she'd been forced into retirement from the Navy, she'd been itching to get back into something productive, something more than carving and lapidary or reading to the kids at the local libraries.
But she'd called in every marker she was owed and some she probably wasn't really owed to check out this new organization. She could do the job. She had absolutely no question about that.
The question was going to be if the rest of the team could.
But whatever Blake expected, she had to walk in to what was there. Expectations was what had gotten her the bum leg and the retirement in the first place.
The Pencatte Supernatural Investigation team was housed in an old brick factory building perched on the Pencatte River. The parking lot currently held two cars and a bicycle and had room for maybe twice that. The sign was stenciled onto a quarter-sheet of plywood, hooked over the old sign.
Catteton Shoes. Blake had researched that, too.
She parked her car - a rental; she'd been living in a walkable neighborhood for the last five years - to the right of the bike and walked up the stairs, refusing to wince at the 8 steps she'd just committed to climbing every day. She took a couple deep breaths and pushed the door open.
The lobby of the shoe factory had been given a bare nod to renovation. Walls painted the same blue as the river outside cupped four desks to the right; a door led to an office walled in glass to the left, and in between, straight forward, a kitchenette was framed by a water cooler and a full-size fridge.
There was a kid sitting at one of the desks, long hair and a scowl aimed at the computer, not at Blake. That would be Ky, kid genius and disciplinary problem. The soldier - Drew Gonzalez, had made it to staff sergeant and then chosen not to re-enlist, big blank after that - was poking at his own computer in the back corner.
The desk closest to the door, angled to greet guests, was occupied by a young woman who was looking straight at Blake, her whole body language saying I am waiting for you to notice me. Her curly brown hair was coiffed into a 1920's style and the glasses she was wearing were non-prescription. Sunita Nadja Sitko. Official title: Receptionist, Office Manager, Purchasing Manager, and HR Associate.
"Hello." Blake nodded politely at Sunita. Sunny, she had a name sign on her desk. "I'm-"
"Blake, right? Hi, welcome to Pee-Ess-Aye. Thanks for getting all the paperwork filled out so quickly. I've got the
supplies you wanted right over here at your desk, if you want it moved, we can work something out but-"
"Oh, good, you're here." The last - the first - member of the team burst out of her office. Del. Delorian Espinosa, chief of the PSI team. She wasn't wearing a suit today; she was wearing a fluffy ruffled skirt and a sweater set with red patent-leather Mary Janes. "Blake, Sunny, Ky, Drew. Sunny, Ky, Drew, Blake. Blake's our expert in all things that go bump in the night. Which is not our current case."
"We have a case?" Blake did her best not to lean forward. She'd expected she'd have to ride a desk for weeks before she got to something.
"Oh, yeah. It's nothing particularly deep, but over in Wickraw. Just over the state border. Wickraw's a smallish city, big town., Known for its research lab, but this isn't in their wheelhouse.
"People there have started farting rainbows. Not just farting, burping, sometimes speaking rainbows. Local police ruled out something in the water or something chemical in the air. So they're calling us in."
Farting rainbows didn't trigger a memory, but speaking rainbows did. It hadn't been on the USS Ramage, years before that. A little patrol ship had run into a German ship that had run off course.
Does She Say:
[ ] Nothing, see how the team does for now.
[ ] "Well, of course, that's Icelandic Devil Butterflies." (Direct info dump)
[ ] "Oh, that reminds me of something I saw in the North Sea..." (Indirect Info Dump)
[ ] "As bump-in-the-night expert, how do you want me to proceed?" (ask the boss)
[ ] Write-in
Note: This is meant to set the tone, not just be the starting line.
This will remain open for 72 hours or until 5 answers have been received