Disclaimer: The PPC was originally created by Jay and Acacia. StarCraft is the property of Blizzard Entertainment, My Little Pony belongs to Hasbro, Discworld to Sir Terry Pratchett, Harry Potter to J. K. Rowling, The Edge Chronicles to Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, and World One to itself. All agents referenced in this spinoff belong to their respective authors. The Rainbow Factory belongs to Aurora Dawn, who is more than welcome to keep it to xirself.

I’d like to thank ThatOne and Ponystar17 for beta-reading this piece.

Another day, another badfic

Angus MacFarlane began his day as he did any other day: by stubbing his fingers on his bedside table when trying to silence his alarm clock. Since timekeeping in HQ was difficult for several different reasons (one being that PPC HQ was the favourite target of the Laws of Narrative Comedy), the alarm clock sometimes woke him very “early”, very “late”, or not at all. Angus blearily opened an eye and checked the time. 7:14 shone in the dark, with a little sticky note labelled “-ish” stuck on the display. A faint light came from a tiny frosted glass window near the top of the room, but by experience Angus found that the amount of light never really seemed to correspond to the time indicated by the clock: one time there was a noon sun at around “3 am”. Angus sometimes wondered where the window opened to but it always refused to budge no matter how hard he pushed. Besides, he was convinced that he recently heard several somethings growl behind it at night.

He sleepily slapped his clock into silence and glanced at a picture frame on his bedside table. A round-faced woman with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes smiled back at him. Angus spent almost a minute staring at the picture of his late wife then rolled out of bed and began dressing himself. He always did so in the dark since turning on the bedside lamp would mean illuminating the room, which meant that he’d see himself in the mirror, which meant that he’d realize that yes, he’s still overweight and no, his diet isn’t working. Once he had affixed the DoI’s sage frond flash patch on his shirt’s left arm, he felt his way to the door and quietly shuffled out into the common area that combined kitchen, dining room, and living room into some sort of all-purpose space. A little blonde five-year-old girl was sitting at the dining room table, busy smoothing her pink dress and fiddling with her white velcro shoes. She stopped and looked at Angus as he walked into the room, then slid off her seat and ran over to the spy to give him a hug.

“Good morning Daddy!” she squeaked, and pointed at a mop of red-orange hair sitting at the table. “Flashie makes funny noises when she sleeps,” said the five-year-old.

“Morning, Sophie,” whispered Angus. “Quiet now, you might wake her up.” The tubby man looked at the gently snoring (read: snorting) lump. It was Fire Flash all right, asleep where he last saw her after putting Sophie to bed. Angus had invited the Earth pony and her partner, a protoss warrior named Taldaris, over last night to discuss recent events over some Bleeprinated drinks. The visit had lasted so long that it turned into an impromptu sleepover. Taldaris was nowhere to be seen, but his large black cloak was wrapped around his partner. A bowl of gruel lay beside the mare’s head, along with a note written in a strange alien script. As Angus approached the table, the writing blurred and shifted to form English words:

Agent Fire Flash,

Please return to the Response Centre as soon as you finish eating. I understand that we have not been getting enough sleep recently, but we cannot rest easy as long as the Worlds are in peril. I suspect the console will have a mission queued up for us when I arrive at the RC. Please hasten so that we do not keep a World waiting.

Remember to thank Agent MacFarlane for his hospitality. I regret not being there in person to thank him again, but I absolutely had to check up on the console, lest its beeping wake the dead.

I also ask of you to return my cloak in one piece. I know what happened last time with the giant killer acid platypuses was a complete accident but this is the twenty-third mishap in a month and I am starting to get suspicious.

Taldaris  

“What’s it say?” asked Sophie, eyeing the note.

“Her partner wants her to come back when she’s done,” paraphrased Angus. “It’s funny though. These two are always at each other’s throats. Frankly, I’m surprised that Taldaris did this for her,” he said, pointing at the cloak and gruel. “And speaking of surprises, you’re already dressed! Are you that excited to start school? Well, you should have something to eat first...”

“I already ate, daddy! Taldaris made me some oatmeal too!”

“What, he didn’t wake me up?”

“He said he wanted you and Flashie to get more sleep,” said Sophie. “Can we go now?”

Angus looked at the bowl of oatmeal next to Fire Flash’s head. He put a finger on the side of the bowl. It was still warm. It couldn’t have been made too long ago.

“Er, Sophie? When did Taldaris leave?”

“Oh, just before you woke up.” She scrambled over to the table, grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, hurried back to Angus, and thrust the fruit into his hand. “Hurry up! I don’t wanna be late for school!”

So much for more sleep, thought Angus. “Sure thing, sweetheart. Just let daddy have a proper breakfast first.”

* * * * * *

Leaving behind a now-awake and rather stunned Fire Flash (“Quit pulling my leg, Gus. D’you honestly expect me to believe that Taldy did this for me?”), Angus and Sophie headed out. The father-daughter duo took a lot more time to reach the Nursery than expected. On second thought, it was to be expected: the more you wanted to get somewhere in PPC HQ, the less likely you’re going to get there anytime soon. Sophie, backpack in one hand and father in the other, strode at a brisk pace (for a five-year-old, that is) through the Generic Grey hallways, talking excitedly about what she was going to do at school. Fortunately, she was doing the one of the things that helped agents reach their destination: talking to someone else.

“An’ then, Andy told me that he started learning numbers! He can count stuff, daddy! He says it goes like: one, two, three, four, five, seven, elenventy, twenyenny an’ more! I’m gonna learn numbers too! An’ then, Patty said there was storytime an’... an’...”

Angus smiled. Sophie practically distracted herself with minimal input. All he needed to do was to listen to his daughter, prompt her every now and then, and listen some more. The little curly-haired girl continued to go on about the games and activities she used to participate in at the daycare, how she liked to play with a big wolf-man when he volunteered some of his spare time at the Nursery, and how she was looking forward to actual schoolwork.

After what seemed like an eternity, the doors to the Nursery loomed before the pair. Miss MacKinnon, a grey-haired lady clothed in a pink dress, stood at the door, ushering children inside. Angus and Sophie stopped in front of the doors.

“Have you got everything?” said Angus, checking Sophie’s backpack. “You’ve got your pencil case, your snacks, your juice box... You know you’re not heading into the daycare, right? You need to go to the classrooms...”

The girl gently tugged her backpack away from her father. “It’s okay, daddy. I have everything. I know what to do.” She gave Angus a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. “See you tonight!” said Sophie as she dashed past Miss MacKinnon into the room beyond.

Angus stood at the entrance, a little lost. She’s growing up so fast... He bid Miss MacKinnon goodbye and walked down the hallway. Now then, time to work. Don’t think about the Sorting Room, don’t think about- hey, lookit, it’s Gaspard waiting for class. I’d better say hello...

Further down the Generic Grey corridor, a group of agents in their late teens were lined up beside a classroom door. Many were sitting on the floor, surrounded by piles of books and crumpled study notes. Gaspard was standing near the classroom’s doorway, quietly studying a pack of notes while leaning forward to compensate for his comically overloaded backpack.

“Hey there, bud! How’s it going?” said Angus, ignoring the complaints from several agents as he waded through the sea of papers surrounding the junior agent.

Gaspard swiveled around to face Angus, drawing himself at attention. Several books fell out of his backpack following the sudden movement. “Yessir! Good, sir! How do you do, sir?”

The senior agent facepalmed. “Look buddy, you’re not in the military. Stop calling me ‘sir’ and standing to attention like that. You do know that we’re all equals here, right?”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Bah. So it looks like you’re in exam period, is that right?”

Gaspard kneeled to recover his textbooks. “Yessir. I’ve got the physics final today, followed by a Potterverse Potions test, then the oral component of the French language exam. Crunch time, if you will, sir. I’m not too worried about that last final, but I’m afraid I’m a bit rusty on the nuclear physics equations. A week in FicPsych doesn’t leave much time for schoolwork, you see...”

“About that,” said Angus, lowering his voice, “You’re absolutely sure you’re okay now? We all know what happened to Robbie when he left FicPsych before he was fit for duty... One week isn’t a long treatment time. I’m not too sure if taking on a full workload is the best idea right now.”

Gaspard nodded slowly. “I understand your concern, but my father is a FicPsych nurse, sir. I get the follow-up every night, believe me. I find it helps a lot if I just talk about it. Don’t worry sir, I will be ready to go back on Sorting duty within several days.”

“Are you sure?”

The junior agent shuffled off to the side, dragging Angus with him. “To be completely honest with you sir, I’m still freaked out by the Factory,” he mumbled. “The grinder, sir. I’ve seen somebody torn to bits, sir. I can still see him, you know. In my dreams. Flailing. Screaming. I don’t think I’ll ever forget.”

Angus put a hand on Gaspard’s shoulder. “I can’t say I understand, because I’ve never been through that. I just wish there was something I could do to help, y’know. Are you sure you don’t want more time off? ‘Cause I can vouch for you if you need to talk to Upstairs, we don’t want another flamethrower incident...”

Gaspard smiled. “Ah, thanks but no thanks, sir. I have to keep working hard. For the sake of the multiverse.” He slipped his hand into one of the Adventure Pouches at his belt and withdrew a battered brown pegasus feather. “For his sake.”

“Look buddy, I understand you want to help, but... don’t push yourself too hard. A mad spy is a useless spy. Make sure you're good and ready before going back in there,” said Angus as he eyed the feather. It was covered in dried blood stains. “Besides, it’s not like we’re gonna run out of stuff to investigate, right?”

“Point taken, sir.”

The door opened and a stout man sporting a pair of square glasses motioned to the assembled students to come in. Gaspard nodded to Angus. “Upon further consideration, I think I’ll start off slowly before moving on to Sorting duty. I’ll see if I can’t secure a position in Assignments for a week or two. Have a good day, sir. Thanks for the advice!”

And with that Gaspard shuffled inside to write his exams.

* * * * * *

        The main entrance to the Department of Intelligence was a pair of plain black doors blending in with the doors of various Response Centres in an otherwise nondescript corridor. A little brass plaque bearing the caption “INTELLIGENCE” hung beside the entrance, with a little handwritten note glued under it reading: “you’ll find none of it here”. Angus smiled at the joke, pushed open a door, and slipped inside.

        Beyond the doors was the lobby. It was a large circular room furnished with couches, coffee tables, and bookshelves crammed with colourful books. Agents on break hung around the tables busy eating, resting, or finishing up reports. Pictures of infamous Sues hung on the walls, sometimes accompanied by the picture of the agents who were sent to fix the fic. Doors branched out from the lobby to places such as the Sub Rosa’s office, the Sorting and Action Rooms, and the DoI’s massive library (the fourth largest in HQ and home to a Discworld librarian able to navigate L-space). On his way to the back of the room, Angus passed a pair of Floaters discussing some of the material they saw during their Sorting trawl. Their waterlily flash patches stood out from the sage fronds that regular spies wore.

Members of the Department of Floaters now worked alongside the spies due to the DoI’s extremely low recruitment rates. Only twenty-three new spies had joined Intel in the past year (among them a little unicorn pony, of all things), so it had been necessary to pull some Floaters off of their regular duties to work part-time in the Sorting Room. Since Floaters was one of the largest and fastest growing departments in the PPC, it was reasoned that it could afford to allocate some of its agents to surveillance duties.

Angus stopped by a little desk placed in between the doors leading to the Action and Sorting rooms. A sleepy hylian woman was sitting behind it, hunched over some paperwork and occasionally falling asleep for short periods of time. The spy woke her up by clearing his throat.

“Ahem. Sorry miss, but can you tell me what team is currently active in the Action Division?”

The woman’s head jerked upwards, nearly dislodging the reading glasses perched on her long nose. She rubbed her eyes and mumbled: “Uuuugh... Sorry. Purple team is on Action duty today. Yellow is handling Assignments and the other four teams are on Sorting detail. You’re in Green team if I remember correctly, so that means you’re in Action tomorrow.”

“Thank you, miss,” said Angus, moving to the Sorting Room’s doors. Purple team. Aha! So they were the ones that had trashed the place! Less than a week ago Angus had come back to his beloved cubicle on Stupidity Lane only to find junk littering the entire workspace, half-filled Intelligence reports stuffed into the storage chest, Nasir’s bag of Glaceon kibbles torn to shreds, coffee stains on the console, and--worst of all--his entire supply of root beer missing from the mini-fridge. It wouldn’t be too hard to ask around to learn who occupied cubicle 5294 during Purple’s shift and then... Well, Angus didn’t know what to do to the culprits. He’ll think about it over lunch. Yeah.

Lunch. Oh right, Nasir had invited him to eat in New Caledonia today. What was the name of the restaurant again? Sana’s café. Yes, that was it. It was a nice little shawarma place at the corner of Rue Acacia Byrd and Rue Tournesol. Truth be told, Angus didn’t really like going to New Caledonia even if it presented an opportunity to escape the featureless corridors of Headquarters. He had gotten hopelessly lost the last time he visited the city.

Not bad for a place about as big as a village.

The spy shouldered open the doors to the Sorting Room. The seemingly endless rows of computer monitors stretched out before him, occupied by thousands of agents busy frying their neurons over fanfiction. Every now and then some of them would get up to stretch their legs, pester their friends, and maybe go for a drink at the Bleeproduct vending machines lined up by the walls. The entire room had a library-like quietness only broken by the muted sound of clacking keyboards and the anguished moaning of people exposed to things that were not entirely brain-safe. Angus followed a faded brown line down the main aisle.

This had become routine. Take the brown line all the way down the aisle, follow it as it turns left. T-rated fics and under in these rows. Six new coloured lines on the floor. Follow the green one. Enter Green team’s section. Now, past Kyaris’ desk, hang a right at the place where the anthro-dog usually hung out, sit down at the seventh desk on the left. Look right and say hello to Nasir. Look left and say hello to Gasp-- oh, right. Never mind. Boot up the computer. Log into the Datanet. Sign into Sorting Duty.

Now came the fun stuff. The first fanfic of the day appeared on screen. Angus pulled the computer’s keyboard closer to him and fidgeted in his seat.

Let’s see now... Discworld five-chapter fic labelled as humourous, starring Rincewind and the ever-lovable Luggage. Angus scrolled down, reading carefully. No OOC in sight. Actually well-written and witty dialogue. Well-paced action. Minor SPaG errors were present but they didn’t impede comprehension. A bit short, but good nonetheless. Angus clicked on a drop-down menu and selected the “goodfic” button. A dialogue window popped up and Angus filled an Intelligence report. With another click, the fic disappeared and was replaced by another one.

        Okay, Harry Potter this time. Good heavens! Awful SPaG and a Sue right in the first three sentences. Angus skimmed through the rest of the fic. It looked like yet another My Immortal copycat. Why did people even bother writing this? Menu, “badfic” designation, file report, click, next.

Edge Chronicles fic. OC-centred and had some interaction with the canons. Hm. SPaG was okay, some plot was present, but... it just felt off. Angus read through the fic twice. It couldn’t really be considered badfic, but the spy had to look really hard for something good to say about the story. Menu, “sent to Action”, file report, click, next.  

Angus sighed and checked the countdown clock on the computer screen. Three hours and thirty-two minutes left until the lunch break. He’d been working for only twenty-eight minutes.

This was going to be another long day.