//------------------------------// // Chapter 54 - "Double D Trouble" // Story: My Little Caboose II: Friendship is Fragmented! // by DarkWing //------------------------------// "What is this place?" Doc asked as he and the others walked down the corridors of the construct. "It's the Freelancer's storage facility," Wash said quietly. "It's where the Director put most of the armor enhancements and assorted weaponry." "Do you think he'll use them on us?" Doc inquired. "No. The Director isn't one for senseless acts of violence. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even have any training combat wise. He'll only attack us if we show ourselves to be a threat." "Play it again, F.I.L.S.S," a voice said in the distance. "Yes, sir," came F.I.L.S.S's voice from the same direction. "He's here," Wash said, excited that he had finally found him. "Come on, let's go." Washington quickly made his way down the corridors with Doc and Donut following close behind. Eventually he found himself in front of a room that seemed to have a light flickering inside. As he went to open the door, he found that it opened by itself. Looking inside, he saw a man sitting on a lone chair, eyes glued to a screen that displayed a beautiful woman with blonde hair. "Oh, what's he watching?" Donut asked. "Shh," Wash hissed as he held his finger up to his visor to silence them, knowing it was the Director. He glanced back inside, then to the two stooges behind him. "Wait here. I don't want you idiots saying something that might make him get angry at us." "But-" Doc began, but fell silent when Washington pointed to his gun. "Got it." "Glad to hear it," Wash said quietly. Turning around, Wash inhaled deeply and walked inside the room as silently as possible. "I heard the door open. Who is it?" the Director asked once Washington was a mere four feet away from him. "Hello, Director," Washington said, breaking the silence as the Director looked to him. "Why, hello, Agent Washington," the Director murmured, looking back to the computer screen. "Are you here to kill me?" "Not quite. I'm here to ask for your help." "Help?" he asked, shaking his head. "I'm afraid I can be of no use to you." "You have to help me," Wash argued, holding the Epsilon unit out towards the Director. "You're the only one I know who knows how to work this damned thing." "I apologize, but I do not have to do anything but sit around and think. I lost all interest in everything else long ago. Now, if you are not here to kill me, then I believe we have nothing to discuss." "Listen, a few months ago some simulation troops and I managed to take out the Meta. After that, Epsilon went into this thing to try and find Tex. When the unit failed, we had to go to a military base to get him out. But it wasn't just the sim troops that were with me. Carolina asked us to seek you out." "Carolina?" the Director asked softly, looking to Washington. "Yes, Carolina. After we brought Epsilon out of the unit, one of the sim troopers... well, one of them managed to go inside. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but they did." "You must have been seeing things, then," he suggested. "No, I wasn't. Because Epsilon went back into the unit to get him along with the other sim troopers. When they didn't come out, Carolina and I started to look for you. Granted, I was here to try and get you to get the idiots back, but Carolina was here to bring justice. But after a bit of searching, the unit started to work for a brief moment, and Carolina jumped at the chance to get them out," Wash said, placing the unit on the desk in front of the Director. "Now she, along with the others, are somehow in this thing, and I haven't had any luck in getting them out. And the only two people I had to help me with that was an annoying medic and an equally annoying, possibly pansexual soldier. I could have tried to bring a robot back into commission, but it only spoke Spanish, so I figured that wouldn't have done me much good." "I... see," he said hesitantly, pulling the Epsilon unit closer to him. "I'll see what I can do with the unit, but I do not promise anything." "That's all I could really ask for," Wash said with a heavy, relieved sigh. "F.I.L.S.S, pause the video recordings." "Very well, Director," the female-sounding synthesized voice said, and the screen stopped on the woman's face, showing a small, hopeful smile. "This may take a while and I will require silence, so you may sit outside with your companions." "Right," Wash said, then turned around and left the room to meet with the others, door automatically shutting behind him. "He's helping us, but it might take a while, so get ready for a small wait." "We could play I spy to pass the time," Doc suggested. The trio then looked around the cold, sterile looking hallway. "How about we just wait in silence and play the 'who can be quiet the longest' game?" Wash said. "Oh, that's a Red team favorite!" Donut said happily. "Glad to hear it." The three men remained silent for roughly three hours. In the third hour, the door slid open and Washington spun around to see the Director walking through the doorway, glasses up, the light above him giving his glasses an impenetrable glare. "Did you manage to open it up?" Wash asked, trying to look past him and into the room. "Yes, I did," the Director said with a nod, then looked to the men in purple and pink armor. "These are your friends?" "No, they're-" "You betcha!" Donut said, happily walking up to the old man. "Hi, I'm Donut. I have to say, I'm loving your club! I really want to be in it. Is there anywhere I can sign up to get a membership?" "Ignore him, sir," Wash sighed. "I'm just glad you managed to fix that thing. So where are the others?" "They are still in there, but I assure you it is working now," he said, strolling past the three men towards a teleporter. "You may seek them out in there if you wish, or you could wait for them to come back out. I wouldn't bet on them coming back out, however. Epsilon is... rather stubborn." "You don't have to tell me that. I'm the one that had to deal with him the most the past while," Wash grunted. "Don't forget, he was assigned to me." "Of course," the Director nodded as he examined the glowing green device. "Now that I have done that favor for you, I expect you to be on your way soon. I have business to attend to elsewhere. As I am recently recalling, I believe I owe a certain person something." "What do you mean?" Wash asked quietly, having thought that the Director had no interest in anything besides sitting in a room by his lonesome, watching videos from the past. "You're not making any sense." "Make sense?" the Director chuckled as he turned to the others, eyes glowing yellow, stepping into the teleporter. "Oh, what fun is there in making sense?"