Marie leaned forward and rested a hand on the desk in front of her. "Just splatfests and the news, right?" She knew what the answer was, but she let him talk anyway.

Across the table, Roddy, their manager, frowned. "Well--" he pulled a few papers from his shirt pocket, fanning them out and reading them over— "We were looking at some interviews, some hosting opportunities - You've heard of the Squid's Choice Awards right? Some charity venues and a good handful of private concerts..." He trailed off as he looked up from his lists.

Marie stared back, her posture straight and her face completely neutral. Her fingers drummed along a copy of their newest contract. Roddy turned his attention towards Callie, who was sitting next to Marie, just as politely as she was. If you're looking for solace from her, you're not going to find it Rod. We've got a system in place, and I cleared this contract myself. We're due the next WHILE off the hook. (Cod, man, can you just let us have our break?)

Sensing that Callie wasn't going to budge, he relented with a sigh. "Ah, well." Roddy. He folded his papers up and pushed them back into his pocket. "Just splatfests and the news then."

Marie relaxed, letting an easy smile over her face as she stood up. "Thanks, Roddy. We'll let you know if we come up with anything new during our break." Marie gathered their copy of the contract under her arms as she pushed her chair in.

Callie hopped out of her chair much more energetically, joining Marie in the doorway. "Send us the details on the charity concerts, please?"

"With advanced warning." Marie stressed, sending him a flat look. "I'm not scrambling halfway across the country on two day’s notice again."

"At least one week's notice," he agreed with a nod. "I'll stay out of your tentacles."

"Yeah." Without another word, Marie turned and walked out into the hallway. (You'd better.)

"Bye Roddy! We'll see you around!" Callie followed her cousin out the door.

"Enjoy your break!" He called down the hallway to them.

Marie strode through the narrow hallways of the news station, Callie right on her heels. There really wasn't much room to spare within the building, especially when a third of the floorspace was taken up by the broadcasting room. Their break room unfortunately suffered from the building's cramped nature, but it was cozy in its own way. There was enough space for a couch, recliner, and a little kitchenette in the back, which was really all they needed.

There were still a few loose snacks scattered on the back counter left for the temporary news hosts that had covered for them, but otherwise the room was clean. Neither celebrity gave them any thought beyond a quick glance, each one honing in on their fourth favorite chairs in the world. Marie carefully sat down in the recliner, while Callie hurled herself at the back of the couch. Finally, the duo let themselves relax. The seemingly endless onslaught of singing, dancing, practicing, signing, smiling, and so many other verbs she couldn't be bothered to name, finally came to a stop. Six consecutive months of touring, finally done.

"That. SUCKED!" Callie threw her arms in the air.

Marie massaged her forehead. "Tell me about it. I can't BELIEVE we almost signed a year contract. I was ready to give up after the second week."

"Oh cod, a YEAR would kill me. Forget the domes, I'd drop dead on stage halfway through month ten. You'd have to finish without me."

"Pfff. You think I'd make it to ten? I'd drop halfway through month seven." She took a moment to push back on the recliner, popping the footrest out. "And what a show it'd be, too. Walk up to the mic like, 'Thank you all for coming! That was The Calamari Inkantation! I'm so stressed out, I think all three of my hearts are going to fail! Stay Fresh!' and then just fall over while clutching my chest."

"What?" Callie asked, stifling a giggle. "Do you want me to kick you off the stage to finish the show by myself?"

"Try to send me as deep into the crowd as you can."

"Smart. Then I get to keep the spotlight all to myself!"

That got Marie to chuckle. "I dunno... Squid Sister doesn't have the same ring if there's just one of them."

There was a moment's pause as they both collected themselves. "Can you imagine the scandal though?" Callie asked. "Once the public got over the obvious 'argh, it was Callie!' idea, There'd be conspiracy theories the world over. Not ONE person would look at the situation and go 'Yup. She got too stressed.' No one! They'd concoct some crazy story about, like, Ink Theory poisoning us or something."

"Right." Marie rolled her eyes. "Ignoring the fact you massively implicated yourself by kicking me off the stage, Why Ink Theory?"

"You remember that one Squidmas event we were invited to, where we all ended up doing some stupid Squiddy Kart challenge?

"Kinda? That was really early on, right?"

"Yeah. You beat Yoko pretty bad and she just gave you this look that became a meme for a few weeks."

"Ohhhh that thing. I do remember that, though I think it was a new years event."

"Oh yeah, you're right it was. That's why we were out so late."

"I think Yoko was a few drinks deep at that point, based on how hard she started laughing after the fact. I talked to her a few days later and she barely even remembered the night. No bad blood." Marie paused a moment, catching a stray thought. "I'm glad you said that though, I think some of the Ink Theory members want to have lunch now that we're not on tour."

"That sounds nice. It's been a while since we had the opportunity to catch up with anyone, really..." Callie trailed off as she finally found that really comfy spot on the couch.

They were both content to simply lay there, and bask in their lack of responsibilities. They didn't have to record any new news segments until Monday. The next splatfest wasn't for another month. There wasn't anything they had to do.

Well, nothing idol related at least. There was that whole crab's nest of problems the pair were trying their best to pretend wasn't looming over their heads. They had agreed not to talk about it, in fear of compromising the rest of their performances. They wouldn't be able to leave without suiciding their careers, so toughing it out was the only thing they could do.

"Are you ready to deal with this headache?" Marie finally asked, pulling her chair upright.

"Yeah." Callie scrambled into something resembling a sitting position. "But we should stop by Sheldon's first. Let him know we're back and might be needing his help soon."

"Good call." The recliner's footrest clicked into place as Marie pushed it in. "Heh, he's probably been really bored with the lack of activity. Plus, maybe he can tell us something about 'Agent Three' that'll make this next part a bit easier." She held out a hand to Callie. "C'mon."

Callie grabbed the hand, using Marie's help to get to her feet. She stumbled, nearly falling back onto the couch, but a tactical pull from Marie kept her on her feet. "Woah, sorry. My leg's asleep." Callie sheepishly admitted, tapping her foot against the ground a few times to try and wake it up.

Marie stepped into the back of the room and knelt down by one of the little cabinets. She fished a plain white mask out, a pink beanie, and a simple lime green hat. The hat always made her pause, remembering the cousin that had gifted it to her years ago. (I haven't talked to him in years at this point, I wonder how he's doing?)

Without a word, she tossed the beanie over to Callie, who caught it with a spare hand. Her other hand was fishing through the couch cushions for something. "Do you think-- Aha." She pulled a star-shaped button from between the cushions. "Do you think Agent 3 actually did the patrols like he said he would?"

"I don't know..." Marie slipped the mask's straps around her ears. "He stopped answering our check-in calls after the first week. I think it's more likely he did one or two, but got bored and just left the cabin all together.

"You don't think he's seeing it through?" Callie pinned the star onto the edge of her beanie, and then pulled it over her head. "He sounded pretty worked up that first night."

"That was probably just battle shock speaking, if what he said is true." Marie carefully wrapped her tentacles until they only fell down around her shoulders, bunching the rest up in a small ponytail she threaded through the hole in her cap.

Callie tilted her head as she pulled a pink cardigan over her shoulders. "You think we're going to have to hunt him down then?"

"We aren't going to have to peel him out of the domes at the very least." Marie fixed her own jacket, a simple lime windbreaker, matching her hat. "Hopefully Gramps left us some clues."

"We can probably stake it out from here, actually. Just chill in the newsroom till we see a kid we think is Agent Three."

"Hmm, it'll be a bit risky though. Grab the wrong guy and we'll have to explain why he's been singled out."

"Good point... We'll jump that gap when we get to it." Callie flicked the arms out on a pair of sunglasses and slid them over her eyes. "For now, let's go see our arms dealer!"

"Let's see what he's got to say." Marie pulled her mask up over her mouth, and followed Callie out the door.

They wound down a cramped staircase in the far back corner of the building, emerging in the cafe on the floor below their studio. They shared a wave with the jellyfish behind the counter before joining the mass of people in the street. It was still pretty early in the morning, but that didn't stop the Inkopolis locals from swarming the plaza. They had to battle the ever growing stream of inkfish eager to play turf. Without giving it any extra thought, the undercover cousins plunged into the crowd.

Marie was reminded why crowds like this overwhelmed her. Ignoring the sheer mass of people, the ability of a crowd to drag her with it, whether she wanted to follow it or not, always made her incredibly uncomfortable. With time, she had managed to get a handle on the feelings, and living in the city for so long definitely helped speed it along. The whole 'performing live in front of a hundred thousand people' thing definitely helped some too.

The other thing that helped was Callie. She wasn't afraid to push through the crowd if she needed too. Marie rode in her wake across the Plaza, taking the opportunity to glance around. Man, it's been a minute since I really got to look at this place. Something felt slightly off, like it wasn't as bright or colorful as it was supposed to be, but she simply choked it up to the approaching winter and turned her attention forwards. Callie finally broke out of the crowd and led Marie up the steps into Sheldon's store, Ammo Knights.

The shopfront was just as basic as she remembered. Display cases placed along the bare walls tried their hardest to hide the exposed pipes while showing off their wares. Hanging weapon racks tried to make up the difference, but more than anything all they did was serve to block out the two fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. Really, the place felt like a cramped mini-warehouse. The faint smell of scrap metal and oil didn't help.

Unlike the other shops in the Plaza, there was no call of greeting from the shopkeeper, wot when he was too busy terrorizing the customers at least. An Octoling boy awkwardly held an Aerospray MG while Sheldon bombarded him with enough information to pass a college history course on the weapon. The poor kid looked like he had gone into shellshock trying to keep up with the rambling.

Marie shared a smirk with her cousin. They both remembered the multiple hours of talk they had to ensure when they first got the Hero Weapons. This time though, Marie didn't feel like waiting out Sheldon's hour long rant, so she nudged Callie forward slightly.

"Excuse me, Mr. Shellendorf!" Callie called out, pushing her voice into her lower register in a flimsy attempt at staying incognito.

Sheldon paused his rant to look at the pair. "Ah, Ms. Aori! I see you've brought Ms. Hotaru along with you." He called out to them in his nasally voice. "Follow me. I have your next order in the back." Without another word, he stepped off the stool behind the counter, leaving just the top of his helmet visible. At least he used our disguise names this time.

Sensing his opportunity, the kid shot them a grateful look, and then scampered out of the store, new prize in hand.

Order? What order is he talking about? While Marie wondered, Sheldon pulled a massive ring of keys from his belt and grabbed a specific one. He walked over to a side door partially obscured by a rack of splat chargers, unlocked it, and walked through.

"Did you order anything?" Callie asked with a slight tilt of her head.

"No, and I take it you didn't either." Marie sighed as Callie shook her head. "That's what I was afraid of."

The pair ventured into the back end of the shop. Compared to the small, claustrophobic storefront, Sheldon's workshop in the back was cavernous, yet somehow just as cramped. If not for the sprawl of in-progress projects covering every visible horizontal, there'd be enough room to service both of their splatfest trucks with room to spare. Different ink weapons were left in various states of disrepair. Many of the weapons Marie could name down to the brand, some she only vaguely recognized, and several she'd never seen before. Most interestingly, there was an umbrella broken into several different parts on one of the far countertops. That's more out there than usual for him, I'll file that away for later. Good question to keep in my back pocket for when I need to tune him out.

"Sheldon, hey!" Callie called out, waving her arm.

Sheldon was a horseshoe crab. He was short— only coming up to about Marie's shoulder. He had a shell on his head that strongly resembled a helmet, and a massive pair of binoculars he wore at all times made up for his terrible eyesight. The cost of such powerful lenses was that his eyes appeared disproportionately large inside the lenses, making them by far his most prominent feature. He was dressed in a khaki military suit with a red belt and decorative scarf.

He paused right outside of the small office at the edge of the workshop, and turned to look at them. "Hmm?"

"What are you talking about? We didn't order anything."

Marie felt a pit open in her stomach. Oh cod, here it comes.

"Of course neither of you placed it, you were both on tour! Agent Three placed it, this is the 5th one. You're a bit early, but his pick up times have been so unpredictable that I thought it would be better to have it ready. I figured you were here to pick it up, saving trips and all, you have to be efficient with—"

"Sheldon." Marie tried to get his attention.

"—these kinds of things. Speaking of efficiency neither of you have seen the new bombs I've developed for you to use. They're quite a deal more efficient, needing both less ink for the same kinda bang, and less time to pressurize and pop too! I even have them configured so the pressurization module breaks itself so they can't be easily used against us! If you—"

"Hey, Sheldon!" She tried again.

"—manage to recover some of them. It's a really simple fix, but really all I'll do is just swap the mechanism out and scrap the parts later. The technology is simple enough I doubt the octavians would be able to make anything useful out of it. That was one of the core things I kept in mind while designing them, just like the newer revised version of the Hero Suit--"

"HEY!" Marie shouted, finally breaking through his wall of text. "Agent 3 ordered these?"

"That's what I said." Sheldon grabbed a random key from his ring and turned to unlock the door behind him. "Now, are you taking this from me or not?"

Marie met Callie's eyes. Do we take it?

"Sure..." Callie tentatively agreed, stepping forward into Sheldon's office.

Marie followed, peering into the room. It was just as cluttered as the rest of the store implied it would be. The large desk was covered with blueprints, paperwork, certifications, and a load of other documents Marie couldn't be bothered to identify. A workstation covered in boxes of parts took the left wall, with yet more disassembled weapons on top. Two large steel lockers were built into the back wall, meant for storing Sheldon's more down-low and secretive projects. It was mostly things intended for his job as part of the Turf Authority, though the NSS stuff was kept behind a false back in the left cabinet.

"How long has he been coming to you?" Marie asked from the doorway.

"I met Quinn the second day Mr. Cuttlefish took him on as his protégé."

What. "What."

"We've met and discussed the Hero Gear in depth. He's a novice when it comes to weapons and gear, but he's quite sharp! We may yet make a strong, knowledgeable soldier out of him."

"Sheldon, no." Marie pulled her mask off and rubbed her face with her hands. "When did he start coming to you for the bombs?"

Sheldon passed Callie a backpack, before pulling an unassuming cardboard box out from under his desk. "Just over five weeks ago."

Hey, wait a sec. That's--

"That's right after we made our first call to him!" Callie realized right as she did.

Sheldon paused halfway through opening the box. "You two didn't know he was doing this?"

"No!"

"Oh dear. I assumed he had your grace. Never said he didn't." With a shrug, Sheldon finished opening the box, revealing dozens of compacted bomb frames. Callie and Marie locked eyes, a million thoughts passing between them in the moment. Sheldon paid them no mind, moving Callie's hands so she was holding the backpack open, and dumping the bomb frames inside.

Marie's eyes narrowed. "Oh, I'm gonna kill him."

"Personally, I like Agent Three." Sheldon zipped up the bag and gave it a small pat. "You two never do anything fun. I'm getting so much new data from this kid! For instance—"

"Sheldon."

"Sorry. Anyway, he's been doing something underground for a while now, and I made sure he's had the best equipment I could make!"

Marie tilted her head and took several slow breaths. Of course he'd go against my orders. He doesn't know what he's doing! (He's going to get himself killed!)

Callie put her hand on Marie's shoulder. "Well, thank you for that at least. We're gonna go ahead and run and try to catch him. We've got some... things to talk about. With him."

"Alright! Bring me your weapons next time you have them, I have a new tank design I want to try that should increase your ink capacity by 22%!"

"Will do bud. Let's go, Cal."

"Bye Sheldon! See you around."

Callie tried her best not to focus on the pit in her stomach. It's just my nerves. That's perfectly normal, there's plenty of reasons why my nerves would be tight right now. Gramps is missing, for one. Don't know anything about that. There's a new agent we don't know anything about. Said Newbie has since gone rogue. He also might already hate us. And Marie wants to strangle him. That was a good summary of things.

"Cod, Callie, come on." Marie snapped at her. "Let's confront the kid and get this over with." Marie grabbed onto the ladder on the bunker's wall. "I already have a headache."

Callie jolted out of her thoughts and scrambled over to Marie. It's now or never. "Wait!" She grabbed her cousin's hand and tugged slightly. "Don't be mad."

Marie stopped climbing, and turned back to look at Callie, her face softening as their eyes met. "Sorry, Cal. I'm not mad at you."

"I know that Mar, thanks for clarifying. I'm talking about Three." Callie took a deep breath. "If you start at him angry, that's just going to put him on the defensive. That will only make things harder."

Marie's eyes narrowed. "He's not done anything correctly! From what I can tell, he's only going to make this entire situation more difficult for us."

Callie tugged lightly on Marie's hand again. "He's not had anyone here to tell him what's right!"

"US! He had us! I gave him explicit directions over the phone!"

Mar, I don't think you get it. "But if what he's saying is true, then our instructions might be what would make things worse."

Marie stepped off of the ladder and pulled her hand away. "You can't possibly know that! Gramps DRILLED the rules into us. Don't be seen, prioritize safety, and avoid engaging if at all possible. I'm just supposed to accept that this random kid wasn't ever taught the same things we were? That for some reason, Gramps just decided they don't apply to him?"

"Maybe! I don't know!" Callie flicked her hands in place, unsure of what to do with them. "What I do know, is that we can't walk in ATTACKING him, or we'll never get him to work with us!"

"This isn't something I can just ignore. There's no telling what he's messed up. He might have lost or broken our equipment, or his sloppy stealth might of given away some of our pathways - hell, the military could know where the cabin is at this point!"

"Marie, you're spiraling." Callie reached out and carefully grabbed her cousin's arm, hoping contact would help her message get through.

Marie's spare hand pressed up against her forehead. "He's been engaging in combat! I can't let that go! He's been ACTIVELY engaging in the ONE THING Gramps told us to avoid at all costs!"

Callie reached with her other arm to grab Marie's shoulder, and gave it a small shake to try and get her attention. "Marie, please. Listen to me or I'm going to have to snap you out of this."

"This little bastard could ruin everything with his carelessness! He has to be—"

"You sound like your mom right now." Callie sighed and stepped back to give her cousin some space. I hate to do that to you Mar, but sometimes you need someone to pull out of your own head.

Marie just stood there with her eyes wide. Her arm was still hanging out from when Callie was holding it. She slowly brought it down, flexing her fingers as she digested what Callie had told her. "You're right," she finally breathed out, taking a step away from the ladder and pressing herself against the wall. "You're right, I'm sorry. I'm being angry and controlling and I just... Aagh! I don't know what to do!"

"That's simple! We're going to take a moment to collect ourselves, then we're going to climb out of the bunker and go meet our new Agent. We're going to take our time, be respectful, and try our best to smooth out any lingering bad blood from the phone calls." Callie smiled and held out her hand for Marie to take. "He knows things we don't, and I hate to say it but we're kinda flying blind right now. I'm not saying it'll be easy, but things will work so much better if we're all on the same team."

Marie took Callie's hand. "That sounds like a good plan." There was a moment's hesitation as she averted her eyes, before she sighed and squeezed her hand. "Could you lead? I don't know if I trust myself not to snap at him right away."

"Sure!" Callie returned the squeeze before pulling her hand away and stepping onto the ladder. "Well, might as well let him know we're here." She hauled herself up the rungs two at a time, before she grabbed the old grate cover and threw it upwards. The loud sound of metal screeching echoed around the valley as Callie hauled herself out of the bunker. Marie stepped up behind her a few moments later, as Callie was brushing nonexistent dust off her jacket to occupy her hands.

Neither of them said a word as they walked up to the porch. Callie hesitated just outside the door as her nerves flared up again. "Whew. It's crazy how nervous I got all of a sudden!"

"Last minute jitters?" Marie asked alongside one of her signature smirks. Callie could see the way it faltered though, betraying the doubts brewing inside her. I hate seeing her so self-conscious. Was there something else I could have tried other than pulling the mom card?

Callie shook her head and patted her cheeks with her hands. "Just a moment ago I was psyching you up, and now I gotta boost myself." She sighed, gently slapped her cheeks a few more times, and sucked in a sharp breath. "Ok, let's do this."

She knocked firmly on the door, giving it four solid raps, and waited about twenty seconds. Nothing. They shared an anxious chuckle at the anticlimax as Callie knocked on the door again. When this second hailing also went unanswered, Callie reached for the doorknob to see if it was unlocked. Much to her, it wasn't. Marie wordlessly handed over her key, which Callie used to quickly open the door. Maybe he's in the bathroom. Or he's asleep right now.

"Hello?" She shouted into the house, boosting her volume by cupping her hands around her mouth. There was still no answer. They stepped inside, Marie pulling the door shut as Callie passed the keys back. "Three? Hello! We're here to meet you!" She tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach as the cabin only answered her with silence.

A quick glance behind her made it obvious that Marie harbored many of the same worries she was. He's not here, is he? "Mar, we did tell him when we'd be back, right?"

"We left it on the answering machine. That's about all we could do since he stopped picking up our calls. He didn't give us his cell number or anything."

"I guess we didn't specify what time we'd be here?" Callie offered. "It is pretty late. It's, what..." she trailed off as she walked on into the living room to look at the clock. "Damn, it's already 5:00? He might have just gone home for the day."

"Maybe." Marie strode through the living room, her eyes set on the kitchen. "Let me check the answering machine, actually."

Callie nodded as Marie walked past, her attention momentarily swapping to looking over the living room. It's been rearranged slightly, but that's nothing new. Our gamesquids are still on the shelf where we left them, and our chairs weren't touched at all. She walked over to the entertainment center, and ran her finger across the wood. A very light layer of dust buildup on her finger; enough to show the place had been cleaned somewhere in the last two months.

She rubbed her fingers together to knock the dust off, then took the backpack of bomb frames and set them on the couch. "Well, if he was here, he helped Gramps keep the place clean at least."

"Oh, he's been here alright." Marie deadpanned from the kitchen, pointing to the wall near the front door. Right where it would be obscured by the door's opening was a basic, cheap turf tank and splattershot. They were cheaper than cheap actually; it was starter gear. It didn't paint a good picture of the boy's chances in the domes. "The messages were played, so it's safe to say he's heard them. Let's look everything over real quick, just for peace of mind."

"Sure." Callie agreed, walking to join Marie in the hallway. Signs of Three's presence were a lot more obvious once they left the living room. There were different soaps in the shower. Some supplies were missing from the hall cabinet. The pillows on the spare bed were laid out differently. Tiny things like that they could only spot because this was essentially their second home.

If Callie was being completely honest, she didn't like returning only to find all these changes neither of them made. It made the cabin seem a little bit alien; all of the small oddities silently bleeding their uncertainty into the air. It made her feel like she missed something, and Callie deeply hated that feeling.

"What do you think we should do if he doesn't show up?" Marie suddenly asked from behind her.

"Gah! You scared me." Callie pulled herself out of the guest bedroom and followed Marie back down the hall. "What'd you ask?"

"What's the plan if he's a no show?" Marie stopped in the living room to inspect the stack of boxes on the old piano in the corner.

"Oh, hmm. I think he'll show up tomorrow, then." Callie continued past her cousin, aiming for Gramps's study, the last room they hadn't checked, (not counting the storage closet in the back of the kitchen). "If you're really worried about things, one of us could maybe run surface recon while the other waited here. That way we'reeeeeee..." Callie trailed off as she opened the door.

"Huh? Cal you good?" Marie quickly crossed the room, joining her cousin in peering through the door. "What's... oh."

The study was a MESS. It was hard to even parse what was going on, things were so disorganized. The floors were covered in debris; pens, pencils, erasers, books, pages both blank and inked all left practically no room to maneuver around the central table. The bookshelves across from the doorway were just as much a disaster, with half of the books being haphazardly set on the shelf, if there were even there to begin with. Others were left face down and open to a specific page.

And things only got worse when Marie reached in to flip the lights on. The pin board on the far wall had been ransacked. Hundreds of notes were missing entirely, their tacks left dangling limply by the red string once cognitively tying them together. It wasn't hard to find where they went, as the colorful papers peppered the entire room as if they were scraps of confetti, rather than valuable intel painstakingly gathered over years.

Around the room, the framed maps had all been pulled off the walls, their absence loudly announced by the dust shadow outlining where each one should have been. The center table itself was probably the most baffling of the things left behind. Maps covered every exposed millimeter of the table. There was no discrimination between old, new, copy, or original. Even the framed maps were clustered together in the center. Yet more notes had been seemingly thrown over top of the maps, laid out in senseless clusters of color.

"I have to check something." Marie mumbled as she ducked out of the room.

Callie nodded as she slowly stepped further into the room. Something about it was nagging her. The room looked like the result of wanton destruction, but was it actually? There were too many seemingly deliberate things for this to just be destruction. Someone was looking for something. She walked around the table studying the maps. As she pondered, her eyes were continually drawn to maps at the center of everything. Why go through the effort of pulling the frames off the walls? Those things should have been nearly impossible to remove, especially after that prank a few years back. For him to have removed them without damaging the walls... I don't get it, what could you even want with the central maps...

Wait.

The oldest maps depicting the central domes were all in the center of the table. Encircling those were maps of the inner ring, the first 'collection' of domes outside of that central cluster. Outside of that, the outer ring, and the wings out from that. It dawned on her as she traced the trail of domes that made up the western wing perfectly, that this was something much bigger than she could have anticipated. Not a single map in this collage was misplaced. There were no duplicates either, the newest rendition of each map was the only version of that map on the table. There was no ill intent behind the state of this room, despite the initial impression. It wasn't a fit of rage, or a spiteful way to get back at them, or anything of the sort. It was a deliberate attempt to assemble that which, to her knowledge, hadn't ever been properly done before.

In front of her, laid out on the table, was the closest thing to a comprehensive map of the dome complex that had ever been seen on the surface. *And he managed to pull this all together in a matter of weeks by himself, when the idea hardly even crossed our minds... Maybe this kid does have something going for him.

"CALLIE!" Marie yelled from outside the study. "Cal this is bad!"

"Marie? What's wrong?"

"Right now!" Marie crashed into the study door, causing the maps at the end of the table to flutter. "He's in the domes, right now."

"HE'S WHAT?" Callie reared backwards.

"My suit and tank are missing. The Hero Shot is gone as well. There's a box of used bomb frames, but no prepared ones."

"Are you sure he didn't just, take it all and run?"

"You and I both know that Sheldon would have been on. Our. ASS. If those weapons weren't kept out here."

"Oh cod, he's in the domes." Callie rubbed her eyes, and then massaged her forehead with her palms. "What are we gonna do?"

"We gotta go get him."

"How?"

"I don't know! He could be anywhere in the complex! Cod knows we don't have time to search it up and down ourselves, he could be in combat right now!" Marie continued to mutter to herself as she paced in and out of the study.

Callie let her focus shift away from Marie's ranting. There was something still bugging her about the map. So I know what it is, but why did he make it in the first place? There was something she wasn't seeing, a method to the madness. A reason. Many of the sticky notes from the pin board were strewn across the table. Gramps's yellow notes, Marie's lime ones, her own pink ones, and now a collection of blue notes all penned in unfamiliar handwriting, all face up and plastered over parts of the map. She looked over them for patterns in the color, but couldn't find anything more than coincidences. She did pick up on the fact that the notes were roughly grouped together, but it still didn't tell her why.

Callie picked one to read at random. It was her own pink note color; just a basic description of a new outpost in one of the domes. It was written in Gramps's handwriting which meant she had dictated it over the radio, so she probably hadn't ever directly seen this note until now. Her eyes flicked to the map that the note was stuck too, where they caught something out of place. The map was one of Marie's, her cousin's naturally curly writing style translating into the markings and lines on the map. In direct contrast to that style, was a more blocky, blunt style of marking, directly where the guard post mentioned on the note should have been.

Are these-- Did he? Callie quickly looked over several other maps, and every single one of them had a marking of some kind. Missing features, dome wall exits, new building occupations, among others. Almost every single one could be traced back to a note. He updated them all? But why mark the dome wall exits? Almost none of those are even ones we'd ever consider using! And then out of the corner of her eye, Callie spotted the final missing piece. Two shoddy dome wall exits, lined up almost perfectly with one another. The traditional route between those two would have gone through two entire domes, and their own secretive routes weren't much faster. From that dome, two more exits lead further in either direction, essentially connecting the domes in ways they hadn’t ever considered.

Amid the massive nexus of paths, one particular marking kept appearing time and time again. It was always in a relatively central area with at least three or four exits out of the dome, and it was always in an abandoned section of the domes.

"I got it."

Marie stopped her pacing and looked at her, confused. "Got what?"

Callie met her cousin's eyes. "I know where he is."