Prompt: Basic

Thoth opened the door to RC #65536+3i for the first time. It was a mess. Stacks of books rested on every available surface, and bits of random electrical equipment were scattered across the floor. There was a desk with a computer on it in one corner, and an overstuffed chair in another. Neither corner was exempt from the mess. It was, suffice to say, not the best living quarters Thoth had ever seen. On the other hand, it was far from the worst.

The sole inhabitant was currently lying on the floor, reading a very large book and frowning in concentration. He was tall and rather pale, with messy brown hair and the general appearance of someone who hadn’t been paying too much attention to himself of late.

He looked up at the sound of the door, smiling happily. This smile quickly contorted into a horrified stare as he realized what had entered. Two meters high, bald head, piercing green eyes, blue and gold power armor with an ouroboros symbol on the pauldrons… he could identify what this figure was, although he was still new enough that he was having trouble believing it.  He scrambled to his feet, trembling. “W-what do you want?”

“I was told to report here to meet my new partner. I assume you would be him.” The Space Marine (for that was what Thoth was) inclined his head. “You may call me Thoth, Tom Andrews. I do not intend to hurt you.” Tom’s eyes grew even wider, and Thoth spoke again. “Yes, I was trained as a telepath.”

Tom made an incoherently terrified noise. He pulled a portable camera out of his pocket, his entire body still trembling. Tom wasn’t exactly trained in any sort of combat, but his prior place of employment hadn’t left him entirely defenseless. “G-gah! Get out of my head!”

Thoth frowned. This was not exactly how he’d expected things to go. He cursed himself silently: no matter what he might have hoped, this was an outcome he should have considered. “I was warned that the mortals here are especially particular about this sort of thing. I can see that I should have given those warnings more weight. I shall cease: I would not wish to be reprimanded.” His eyes darkened. “However, I did read enough of your thoughts to know that you just drew a weapon on me. I believe that you call it a ‘basilisk gun.’”

The insanity of threatening someone who could probably crush your skull in their palm chose this moment to come crashing down on Tom. “... Please don’t hurt me,” he squeaked.

“You need not fear that: I see no need to cause you harm, and I believe it may well upset the Flowers.” As he spoke Thoth continued to observe Tom, watching how he responded. Yes, he was hunched, nervous, trying to make himself smaller… but he also continued to hold a weapon on Thoth (both of them knew that was no mere camera). It was an interesting contradiction in terms. All-in-all, he’d seen worse reactions. Then again, he had been trying to kill those people at the time... 

Tom breathed slowly, calming himself. Thoth’s statements seemed to have some truth to them: despite ample opportunity, he hadn’t yet harmed Tom, or manipulated his mind—well, not recognizably. “I know what you are. Adeptus Astartes. Space Marine. Warhammer 40k, right? Thousand Son. I read the history of your Legion. It was fascinating, but it doesn’t exactly make me want to extend my trust to you. I mean, you’re kind of… evil.”

Thoth inclined his head. “Not unreasonable. However, I ask you to consider this: here, at the PPC, I am free from the Changer of Ways. I believe this is adequate motivation for me to do my job correctly, and to not do anything that would threaten my position. Such as attacking my partner.”

Tom relaxed a bit more, but the camera was still up. “Changer of Ways… you mean Tzeentch, right? God of change, ambition, magic, hope… You guys serve him, don’t you?”

“Indeed,” said Thoth. “You may recall that not all of us do so willingly. This is, perhaps, a chance for me to escape my eternal servitude.”

Tom thought for a moment. That did make sense, but... “I still don’t trust you.”

“You would be a fool to do so. However, I think I have demonstrated, at least for now, that it is not in my best interests to harm you.”

“What if you’re lying?”

This, Thoth had prepared for: he knew he wasn’t trustworthy in the eyes of… okay, he was just outright untrustworthy. It came with the colors. “If I were lying, then assaulting you would reveal the lie. And there are, as I understand it, many in FicPsych who would be able to detect any mental tampering. If you doubt my honesty, I suggest scheduling a monthly examination.”

“Okay,” Tom sighed, “I guess I can work with that.”  He took a few more deep breaths before lowering the camera, giving a nervous smile. He had, after all, seen scarier—only once or twice, and he’d promptly thrown up afterwards, but that was beside the point. “I mean, if you’re not actively trying to kill me, this can’t be worse than my last job.”

Thoth decided to ignore the comment on Tom’s previous job for now. There would be plenty of time to ask later. “I am glad we could come to an understanding. Despite your subsequent cowardice, you seem have a modicum of courage. You might just be an acceptable partner. By mortal standards, of course. But I digress. What will serve as my quarters?”

Tom glanced around the room. “Weell… I suppose this is your RC as well, now. Will we have to divide it? I can probably move my stuff over…”

Thoth nodded. “That would be acceptable. I have few possessions.”

“Right.” He moved to clear off a corner. “We don’t have any beds…” He pointed to the chair in the corner. “I sleep on that. Cozy, and it even reclines. We can probably find a sofa or something for you.” He glanced back at Thoth’s impressive frame. “... Okay, maybe not. But we can try?”

Thoth’s shoulders moved up and down quickly, his pauldrons reaching past his ears at the peak of the motion. “I am more than capable of sleeping anywhere. As you probably know: you’ve indicated some familiarity with my home continuum.”

“Quite a bit, yes. I had an army back home. And… did you just shrug?”

“Yes.”

Tom blinked very slowly. “It looks weird on you.”

“It may. I have not practiced it.” Thoth had had little reason to shrug since… well, since his early 20s, it would have been. And that had been millennia ago.

“Anyways, what’s your story? Details? Anything I don’t already—”

[[BEEP!]]

Tom cursed. “All right. I suppose we can take care of this later…”

Prompt: Random (hS’s October Friday the 13th Prompt)

Tom Andrews was not having a good day.

Picture, if you will, the inside of RC #65536+3i—a number that Tom was certain had been designed specifically to annoy him. Given that this was HQ, it was entirely possible.

The small room split right down the middle: One side was fanatically clean, with a carefully organized bookshelf and a neatly organized desk taking up most of the space. Well, most of the space that wasn’t taken up by a very large form that appeared to be sleeping on the floor. Tom was about 80% sure his partner wasn’t actually sleeping, but he was equally sure that making any deliberate effort to “wake” him was a bad idea.

The other side of the room was taken up by what was seemingly a swamp composed entirely of books, which seemed to have obtained their current placement when a hurricane blew through. There was an overstuffed chair and a supply of Coke in the corner, from which empty cans had been strewn about carelessly. A small desk held a laptop, two precariously stacked monitors, and a console. Not to be confused with the RC’s console, which was prominently positioned in the center of the room. This one was monochrome, text-only, and came straight from the ’80s. And it was currently showing no text at all and beeping quite loudly at Tom. Tom, in turn, decided to attempt Percussive Maintenance:

*SMACK. SMACK. SMACK.* “Work!”

The console refused to budge, even after being hit several times, which was surprising: this technique had been fairly effective in the past. Tom sighed and opened the thing up, jiggling about any components that might be loose. However, the console was still entirely nonfunctional.

And this was how Tom came to be carrying a very heavy piece of vintage hardware through the corridors of the PPC in a vaguely DoSAT-wards direction. Probably. It was hard not to think of your destination when you were lugging something this heavy. After his tenth break along the way, he briefly considered working out how to summon some demons to do it for him. After the twelfth, he was halfway through the equations before he remembered why this was a Bad Idea.

In the end, it took him around fifteen minutes to get to DoSAT, by which time he was panting like he’d run a marathon. He looked around for the nearest tech. “I’d like… this thing… repaired please…” he gasped.

The tech looked at him with a mixture of annoyance and bafflement. “That’s a Heathkit terminal from the 1980s. It’s ancient and not particularly good. You sure you don’t want to just chuck it?”

By this point, Tom had placed the console down, and was feeling a bit less winded. “I quite like it, myself. And I would like it repaired if you can do it.”

“Well, I guess I could try and find someone to—wait a minute. What continuum are you from?”

Tom glanced around awkwardly. “Weeell… um… you see… I can’t actually tell you that...”

The tech grabbed his CAD and pointed it at Tom:

[Tom Andrews. PPC Agent. Continuum of Origin: Laundryverse. OOC: 3.127%. Error Margin: 5%. Suggested Action: Nothing.]

“I knew it!” said the tech. He glared at Tom. “Look, I’m not touching that thing until you clear it first. I happen to value my life.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “There’s nothing in there. But if makes you feel better, I’ll run a scan on the thing just to make sure.” He ran his phone over the terminal.

His phone beeped.

Tom sighed. “Of course. Just my bloody luck today. Gloves?”

And so Tom wound up poking around the inside of his terminal, looking for and attempting to banish whatever minor demonic entity had taken up residence. His tools were a bin of electronic components, the scanner app on his phone, and a working knowledge of Old Enochian. After a few hours of careful work, he managed to trap the thing in an improvised circuit for examination or banishment. This circuit was placed in a ziplock, which itself was placed in another ziplock—touching it would be a Bad Idea. However, his terminal was clean of any sinister influences now, so he could finally hand the thing over to a technician for examination and repairs.

By the time he got back to his RC (once again lugging his terminal), it was significantly later. His partner sat at the cleaner desk, reading through the Horus Heresy novels at an alarming speed. “I trust that you have taken care of the issue with your terminal device?” he asked, gesturing at the terminal as Tom set it back down on his desk.

“Yes, Thoth,” Tom said, irritatedly. “I took it down to DoSAT and… wait a minute. How did you… You could have helped!”

Thoth shrugged, a gesture that looked strange on a Space Marine. “You should have checked to see if I was truly sleeping. Besides, I had more important things to do than aid you.”

“You—you—you—you—” At this point, Tom chose some shockingly creative words regarding what, precisely, Thoth was.

“I believe that was my original job in my home continuum, was it not? I am, after all, a Thousand Son.”

Tom sighed. “I’m not even going to try and argue.” He took a can of Coke. “I’m going out.”

“Where?”

He gathered up his laptop and some reading material (a tattered copy of Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools), and stepped out the door. “Rudi’s!”