Chapter II — The Institute of Anomalous Studies

Instructions

           Ꮯꮋꭺꮲꭲꭼꭱ II                    ―――――――   It wasn’t his eyeliner Aurelia disliked—it was the eyes. Something about them felt off, and in this business that meant trouble. She didn’t know Agent Simon Beaufort very well—had she worked with /him/ on that haunted house in 2016, or was that his cousin?—but he never stirred up drama and Quinn said he was thoroughly polite.   When Dr. Lavenza got around to Aurelia's side of the body, her eyes as well were immediately drawn to the face. She knelt down and gently widened one of his eyes with her fingers. She hmphed, then stared into the eye for a moment, probably to confirm whatever it was she’d seen.   Aurelia desperately wanted to know what it was, whether the doctor’s suspicions matched her own, but she stepped back and held her tongue. More accurately, she bit it. It was a nervous habit she’d had since childhood, when she’d developed it maintaining a low-grade protection curse over her older brother and, later, herself.   She watched Dr. Lavenza for a few seconds more, before someone tapped her—Aurelia—on the shoulder and asked her to explain what was happening. It took her a few seconds and an irritated glance from the doctor to place the voice, which even as it spoke disappeared from her memory.   It was Zeta, the one nobody could remember. The Institute had assumed they were an Agent, since they had—to the best of anyone’s recollection, anyway— appeared from nothing during one of Team GBR-07's training exercises in the Shifting Room and wandered around in a daze. It bore mentioning that they were in full body armor at the time, and most often since. (Aurelia belatedly realized that /this,/ not the location of their appearance, was why they had been assumed to be an Agent.)   Zeta tapped her shoulder again. “Ma’am? What’s happening?”   Her saliva tasted odd and felt sticky. Her tongue must be bleeding. Less than excellent.   A jolt passed through Dr. Lavenza's body. Her shoulders slumped and her body bent in, then went rigid. Aurelia knew what had happened—her suspicions confirmed, in the worst way. She pulled the doctor away from Agent Beaufort, careful to never touch her skin.   "What's wrong with her?" asked a voice to Aurelia's right. She turned to answer it and found herself face-to-faceplate with Zeta. She had forgotten they were here.   "Not quite sure," she said, "but it looks to be a traveling spell of some kind. I saw something like it in New York—"   "You've been to New York?"   "Yes, but—"   "What's it like there?"   "They're really bitter about the Khanate. Still call it the 'NME' in parts of Manhattan. Can we talk about this later?"   "Why?"   "There are two people in a semi-dead faint on the floor and it was probably caused by a curse." She felt bad being so short with Zeta, almost like she was telling them to shut up. They had a grand total of three weeks' worth of memories; they probably thought this /was/ an appropriate time to ask about the United States.   She looked away from Zeta, eyes scanning the room until her gaze landed on someone more competent, if thoroughly disagreeable.   "Aye!" she shouted, to get his attention. "Director Temoin! Order a lockdown and quarantine; we've got a traveling spell!"   Reno Temoin dropped his briefcase on his foot and swore. Then he ran off. Aurelia hoped it meant he was doing what she asked; interpreting Reno sometimes felt an awful lot like Kremlinology.   She returned her attention to Dr. Lavenza and Agent Beaufort. The latter appeared better, making bored faces at the ceiling and seemingly waiting for something. Maybe a response team. (She should've asked Director Temoin to call for one.)   Dr. Lavenza seemed less conscious of her surroundings than Agent Beaufort had been. Perhaps this traveling spell became more dangerous the farther it progressed from its original source. That was generally a characteristic of curses, spells which needed a condition met for their effect to take place—could this be one?   If it wasn't a curse, she didn't understand why the spell hadn't spread the first time someone had touched Agent Beaufort. That would've been Aurelia herself, taking his pulse. If it was a curse, what was the trigger? What was it that made Dr. Lavenza, or how she'd come into contact with him, different?   In lieu of a hypothesis, she came up with a course of action. She stood up to see about that quarantine—   And that was when the alarms went off and everything went to hell.              ***