The DTE agents visit OFUCI!
In the first part of this inter-mission time for Mara and Isaiah, the intrepid PPCers tour the Official Fanfiction University of the Caribbean Islands, where fangirls learn, through pain, to be better authors. Tomorrow, I'll post the second half: the Sue smiting. Questions, comments, criticism welcome!
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The tattered sign on the door to the Department of Personnel shifted askew as Isaiah knocked on the door briskly. He blinked twice at the sign, then carefully inched it back to where it belonged. There was no answer, so after a moment’s hesitation, he surreptitiously opened the door.
“Hi, 'tis Isaiah. Just popping in. I thought, well, it might be difficult to talk in the corridors.”
He paused. Apparently, he had spoken too quietly.
“Quen?” he ventured, louder this time.
Quen looked up from her paperwork. “Hey! I’ve just finished confirming the recruitment of your head of Linguistics Division. He had to be hired out, since he’s now a worker at the Official Fanfiction University of the Caribbean Islands, but I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“You sure?” Isaiah countered with a slight smirk. “The last time you found us personnel, I became subordinate to a giant piece of punctuation and a grandma who’s slightly off her rocker.”
Quen blushed, taking the comment more seriously than it had been intended. “If you have any complaints, I can-“
Isaiah held up his hand, laughing. “Don’t fret. I’ve never had so interesting a time in my life.”
The secretary matched his smile. “HQ is an eventful place, however uncomfortable and perilous it might also be.”
Isaiah nodded, thinking back to the other day and Techno Dann’s squirting of a Sue’d Agent Ginger with a water gun filled with an anti-Sue serum. The PPC lounge in particular was an interesting place to be. It was too bad that he and Quen barely saw each other there, even though he had often stopped by to see if she was relaxing. The last time they had talked together had been several days ago. Isaiah had given her a quick embrace on their way out. He hadn’t told Mara; it was a very private affection. He wasn’t sure if she would laugh at him or not.
When Quen had summoned him here via a memo left under his door, he assumed that it was business related, but he couldn’t help wondering. Now that he knew it was certainly official, he wasn’t sure what to say.
“Um...so...” Isaiah tried to collect his thoughts.
“Yes?” prodded Quen.
“I’ve come to return my profile. Everything looks great.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
Agent Quen neatly slipped an ID card into a file folder. “I hope you and Mara haven't had troubles with the recent Sue invasion?”
“No, we've been fine.” Isaiah pounced on the subject. “It's funny, but the PotC section doesn't seem to be affected.”
“Good, good,” said Agent Quen in relief. “I found Her name in the files, but
other than that, I've been all right. Jaycacia, that is. The Sue outbreak probably stays in Lotrverse.”
“You can come to our division if you need sanctuary,” Isaiah offered.
Agent Quen smiled. “Thanks. By the way, I did get a copy of that book we were talking about. Could I could bring it by the DTE some time?”
Isaiah’s heart leaped. “Sure! Do you like reading indoors or outdoors?”
“Depends if it's sunny or not!” Quen grinned. “...Wait...outdoors? Does the PPC have an outdoors?” she frowned.
An idea dawned on him. “Since I need to go to OFUCI to pick up staffing for Linguistics Division, we might read there,” Isaiah elaborated. “There's a lovely view of the Atlantic from the bow of the newly-resurrected Interceptor.”
“Ahh!” Quen said, understanding. She tapped her chin with a pencil. “If Bleeprin has Gravol-like properties, I'm good to go. Otherwise, I get seasick easily.”
“Don't worry,” Isaiah said quickly. “I think it's moored. Unlike the Black Pearl, it's small enough to fit into the harbor. Miss Merc resurrected it, I believe, after some fangirls tried to commandeer the Dauntless...it didn’t go over well. I'll see about renting a fainting couch for us to sit on. The deck's not a terribly comfortable place.”
“That sounds great,” said Quen wistfully. “I haven't seen the sun in quite some time, not since I gave up field work.”
“So...you’ll come?”
“Of course!”
The male agent took a deep breath.
“I'll see you there, then...around what time? Sunset is rather late...”
“We could have dinner aboard the ship,” the secretary suggested.
“Lovely.”
Quen carefully sealed an envelope. “All right, shall I meet you at your office, or should I try to find my way to OFUCI?”
“No, come to the office,” said Isaiah in a detached voice. He felt very odd, as if he had drunk a large quantity of Bleepka. “I'll meet you there. If Mara's around, I'll tell her to bugger off. Politely, of course.”
It must be admitted that the DTE agent, normally unpretentious except during PPCing, swaggered quite a bit on the way to his office. His ecstatic mood last all the way until dinnertime, when he found out that the cafeteria was serving tofu and ketchup with black pears on the side, in honor of the mini-fruit from Pirates of the Caribbean. Isaiah pursed his lips and hoped that the other agents didn’t hate him too much for bringing that cursed technical error to their attention.
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“Even the mini-Balrogs were fed better today-Beef Stu was their soup du jour,” Mara complained as soon as Isaiah walked in the door. She had not been expecting him; consequently she was busily cleaning her pistol.
Isaiah tossed the sheaf of paperwork Mara’s way. The papers fluttered near her tin of polish. She wiped her hands on the cleaning rag and shuffled the papers back into order. While Isaiah mulled over what to wear to his first real date in PPC Headquarters, his partner gave the papers a cursory glance and leaned on her elbows thoughtfully.
“I suppose I should fetch him,” Mara said at last. “OFUCI is a hazardous place to be if you don’t know your way around. You could get caught in a fangirl stampede, trying to get Barbosa out.”
Isaiah was puzzled. “You’ve visited before?”
“Not exactly.” Mara stood up and slid the papers into her backpack. “I’ve been to OFUM twice, and I assume this fanfiction university has a similar layout. Once you’ve been to a fanfiction university, you get to recognize the warning signs of stampedes fast. Also, I’ve heard the Misspelled Monkeys are vicious, attacking even the canonicals.”
“I can manage,” said Isaiah, on the defensive before he realized that if Mara went to OFUCI separately, he could spend more time alone with Quen. “But if you really think you should go, I’m not stopping you,” he added quickly.
Mara stared hard at Isaiah. Her younger partner was not one to admit that he wasn’t up to a task. Always playing the hero, he usually insisted that he could handle any dire situation as well as the next PPCer. Sometimes, he was right. Sometimes. She decided to let the matter rest.
“No sense delaying,” she said brightly. It probably involves Quen; nearly everything involves her when Isaiah acts, well, out of character, as it were.
Part of Mara’s cheerfulness was forced, but there was an undercurrent of real excitement that she could not quite quench. She might get to see one of the canonicals-the real canon characters, and not the twisted souls to which she had become accustomed.
This did not escape Isaiah’s notice, for he read into her mind almost as easily as she had guessed his. When you’ve been through a considerable amount of horror and brain damage with another agent, you’re able to see her thoughts more clearly than most.
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Arm resolutely around Quen’s shoulder, Isaiah strolled into the boundaries of the Official Fanfiction University of the Caribbean Islands. The guard at the door, who happened to be Bo’sun, frowned at his claim to be a PPC agent, and for a moment Isaiah felt Quen tense as he contemplated reaching for his grapnel hook. Isaiah’s ID card made no difference to a pirate who couldn’t read. Then a tremor had run through Bo’sun at the ghost of a memory of being talked down to by Lauren, the insolent fangirl. It was Isaiah who had helped him get rid of the girl and revert back to his old self. The PPCers were allowed in without a word.
“I couldn’t think of a better way to spend an evening,” Quen reassured him. “It’ll be wonderful, you just wait. Besides,” and she nudged him in the ribs, “it was nice to know that your credentials are acceptable here. I wonder if any other canonicals remember you?”
“Probably not,” Isaiah said frankly. It occurred to him that perhaps Elizabeth Swann had. He squashed that thought and hugged Quen closer.
Isaiah had always thought that the Caribbean sea depicted on all the travel brochures was digitally enhanced somehow. No water could be that clear, fading into turquoise and then into the deepest sapphire blue, lapping over soft white sands. Now that he was sure that he was under no illusion, Isaiah sighed contentedly. It was grace embodied, sparkling and multihued and beautiful and dangerous...and he simply loved it, because it was just what it was, with no pretense of any power that it did not possess.
It was some time before he could compel himself to break away and delve into the Well of Lost Plots, which he found thoroughly enjoyable once he got into it. It was, as Quen had said, startlingly PPCish: the heroine, Thursday Next, sought to stop her archenemy from meddling with the plotlines of books. Books were alive in this world, and needed to be protected. He had smiled when he had read the Kirkus review’s assessment: “Like anchovies, Wagner, and Helmut Newton: will greatly appeal to people with unusual tastes--and befuddle everyone else.” That sounded like the PPC all right.
They had progressed to around page thirty, with Quen reading one chapter and Isaiah the next, when the female agent’s voice faltered. She stood up, rather shakily on the rocking ship it must be admitted, and gripped the larboard railing. The sun dropped lower on the horizon, and the ocean at once lost its fathoms. The colors swam so brightly across his vision that Isaiah almost expected a sheet of blue flame to join the brilliant golden light. Now the sun had sunk and the whole world was golden for a moment before fading into grey and mauve. Night fell-abruptly, since they were now closer to the equator. Isaiah was loath to go inside, now that he had enjoyed the fresh sea air as distinct from the stifling and stale Headquarters’.
“I’m getting a bit seasick,” Quen confessed at last, after a few stars had studded the sky. Isaiah nodded wordlessly, realized that Quen couldn’t see him in the dark, and said, “That’s all right; I’m ready for a tour of the below decks OFUCI. You?”
“Quite.” Quen sounded like she was smothering amusement. “Um, Isaiah, that’s a really nice shirt you have on, you know.”
That was an odd thing to say in the midst of near-blackness. Isaiah let go his hold on Quen and faced her. “It’s just my PPC shirt. Can you see well at night, then?”
A few fingers tugged at his right sleeve. Isaiah looked down at where his departmental logo would have been. It was still visible. Radiantly so.
“The he-ck?” Isaiah pulled at his shirt in astonishment and disguised his near-swear with a cough-he was with Quen, after all. “They sent me a glow-in-the-dark shirt?”
“Must be a new feature,” Quen suggested.
“But why would they test it on our emblem?” Isaiah wondered. “Our symbol’s the red pen. Red. This thing glows whitish green. Ah, well. They probably wanted to experiment on mine, with me being a new agent and all.”
“Well, if that’s true, I suppose that’s mild compared to what some organizations have recruits go through. You glow, anyway, in the daytime,” she said, “with that hair of yours. I’m afraid you’re destined to be visible.”
“Oh, am I?”
“It’s not a bad trait on you,” she said, half-seriously.
He laughed giddily, wondering if there were even a dozen Mary Sues that could erase this evening from his memory.
Hand in hand, they walked toward the stairwell, realized that they couldn’t step side by side down the narrow opening, and broke apart reluctantly. Isaiah had reached the fourth step from the bottom when his stomach growled.
“Aww, Quen! We forgot to have dinner!”
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Mara was met at the entrance to OFUCI by the canonical harbormaster, who was now sitting at a writing desk perched on the dock near the Interceptor. His quill quivered as he hurriedly jotted down the information for an incoming student, who grabbed her paper in a huff and hurried off. Mara was reminded oddly of Isaiah reading his parchment to exasperated Sues.
“Your application, if you please?” he said neutrally, upon hearing Mara’s footstep.
“Oh, I’m not applying to be a student, I just need to-”
The harbormaster looked up with a face that brooked no arguments. He was apparently used to reluctant applicants. “In case you didn’t hear or comprehend me the first time, I require your entry papers.”
Mara sighed, took out her red pen, and filled out a form.
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Name: Agent Mara
Gender: Female
Age: 20
Lust Object: Canon
Favorite Ship: Black Pearl
Favorite 'ship: Captain Jack/Black Pearl
Affiliation: PPC agent. Disguise generator will supply whatever uniform is necessary. (Default disguise is a serving girl outfit.)
Recreational Clubs (please select just one): Apple Fanciers Anonymous, Yes We Are Fetishists Thank You Very Much
Have you ever written a Mary Sue: Not in published fanfiction and not since I became a PPCer.
Have you ever written a slash fanfic: No
Canonical Beverage of Choice: Other (please specify) Ale or “rhum” -the mini-beverage that makes one talk like Captain Jack
What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen Sparrow: If shot out of the Canon Cannon, 83 mph. If sprouting wings as the result of an unfortunate Sue-ish metaphor (see Agent Jira and Agent Shmuckleigh’s PPC log, chapter one), 24 mph.
Fear of (select all that apply): Other (please specify)
Emerald green eyes, multiple exclamation points, “Grammer,” and unnaturally heaving bosoms
One word to describe yourself: Nitpicking
Why do you wish to attend this university I don’t. I’m simply trying to get by Mr. Easily Influenced at the front desk here. I’ve come to retrieve Barbosa, our new head of Linguistics Division.
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The harbormaster looked it over. He settled his glasses more firmly on his nose in bewilderment.
“PPC?” he said in disbelief. “We haven’t had any PPC visits here. Miss Merc told us about the assassins, but some of us aren’t convinced they exist. If they do, they must be slow about their jobs.”
Mara lost her grip on her temper. She hadn’t the time for this! “For your information, there are eight PPCers for this entire fandom, which, as I believe you know, consists of 6000 stories, conservatively. Of those eight, two are on hiatus, two are still in training, and two are newbies. They’ve PPC’d only one fic so far, and though it was a very good start, Isaiah and I are the only active, experienced PPCers for Pirates of the Caribbean.”
“Open your bag,” he said stiffly in reply.
The female agent pulled out her bag, realizing that she truly should have sent Isaiah. Being male, he would never have had this much hassle entering OFUCI at all, let alone the Staff Section.
Mara reached in her bag and pulled out her Canon Analysis Device, a variation of the regular CADs. She had taken it to OFUCI as a useful tool for discerning between the students who applied to be pirates and the actual pirates themselves.
[Harbormaster. Canon. Male. OFUCI staff,] the Canon Analysis Device flashed. The gentleman stared at the device.
Mara then took out her stack of correction pens, her clipboard with paper, five bottles of Bleeprin, a small flask of Pink Stuff that she had managed to garner from GreyLadyBast, her dictionary (Isaiah had borrow the thesaurus), a pair of newly-acquired Glopsnerch earmuffs, a bar of chocolate, a small compass, a sachet of doubloons, and the replica of Captain Jack’s gun, which she had stowed in there so as not to arouse suspicion.
The man blinked.
“ExCUSE me,” a sweetly stinging voice barged in from behind Mara. “I think you’d better hurry up. I forgot to fill something in on my application, and Dictatress Thalia said that I had to change it.”
Mara looked behind her. To the impartial eye, there stood a student who had most likely been informed by a friend that you became whatever affiliation you put down on your application. She was dressed in the ballooning skirt of a fine lady, though it was now quite bedraggled from lessons. Her hair was silver with golden streaks in it, and her eyes flashed violet threateningly.
In that instant, Mara forgot that she was at OFUCI, forgot that she was supposed to act composed so that she could get her application through, and ignored the notion that the figure behind her was a student and not-
“MARY SUE!”
Mara picked up the nearest heavy object-her CAD, in this case-and hurled it.
“Begone!”
Thwock!
“AAAH!”
“What in God’s name are you-”
Mara reached for her pistol, but the harbormaster had retrieved it first. He cocked the weapon and pointed it at Mara, who ignored him and flew at the student in a tackle.
“Heeelp!”
The middle-aged man pressed the trigger and found that the weapon wasn’t loaded. “Damn and blast!”
“WHAT is going on?!” cried the outraged voice of Dictatress Thalia. Seeing only a flurry of arms, legs and cumbersome skirts, the Dictatress decided to sic the Misspelled Monkeys on the two combatants, whom she assumed were students having a catfight.
Chattering deviously, the monkeys leaped in the direction of the scuffle. One of them, having jumped from Miss Thalia’s shoulder to the counter upon which sat the PPC possessions, halted and screeched something to its fellow monkeys. They paused just as Commodore Norrington entered, looking slightly put out.
“Jeanine, I expected you in my class five minutes ag-”
The spat stopped abruptly. Mara, having pinned the sparkly-eyed maiden to the dock, looked up at Norrington.
“Jeanine?” she asked, the truth dawning on her.
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry,” she said to Norrington, letting the hapless fangirl up. “This is a student?”
“I’m afraid so,” Norrington answered regretfully. He furrowed his brows. “And who might you be?” he queried peremptorily.
The Misspelled Monkey who seemed to be in charge chattered something to Norrington, who looked confused until the monkey pointed to the items on the writing desk. He took a small bottle from the pile and examined it.
“Bleeprin?”
“She’s PPC,” Thalia explained. “Mara, welcome. I hope she didn’t damage your uniform.”
Mara dusted herself off. “Nothing that can’t be mended, rather sloppily, between missions.” She inclined her head briefly in Norrington’s direction. “Agent Mara, Protectors of the Plot Continuum, Department of Technical Errors. I’m honored to meet you, sir.”
He looked faintly astonished. “I was wondering if you were working in our story. I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of you in any fic involving myself.”
“I did tell all of the sailors that I didn’t believe they existed,” the harbormaster put in triumphantly.
“The PPC is real enough,” Norrington informed him crisply. “Just a bit overworked, I surmise. I’ve met agents Jira and Shmuckleigh on two occasions. They helped rid me of two female parasites who claimed to be my sisters.”
Mara nodded. “We’ve a badfic coming up for you, but we can’t get to it now because we’re swamped with other work. Not only are we understaffed in the PotC section, but we’re altering those PPCings with the odd fic from another world-Middle Earth. In fact, I’ll be on my way to the smiting of one such Sue after I get this business sorted out.” She gestured to the desk and her pack, which wore an odd, shriveled look now that it was, for the first time, empty. Mara was not one to come unprepared to her assassinations.
“Ahem!” announced a young woman with a bullhorn, whom Mara recognized as Miss Merc.
“I’ve just come for Barbosa,” the agent explained.
“What happened?” Mercuria asked, raising an eyebrow at Mara, the somewhat rumpled Jeanine, Norrington, and the chattering monkeys.
“I mistook this student for a Sue.” Mara shoved Jeanine none too gently in Norrington’s direction and stepped forward impatiently. “I was told that I could hire my head of Linguistics Division for the Department of Technical Errors.”
“Why would Barbossa agree to work for you?” Norrington asked. “Much less lead a...linguistics department, did you say?”
“Not the pirate captain,” Mara corrected. “The Misspelled Monkey.” At that, the lead monkey capered about, making for Mara in a somewhat roundabout way. He halted in front of her and stared up at her, scrutinizing the agent. All at once, he leapt onto her shoulder, then onto the desk, and began to collect all of the items strewn about on top. He deposited them rapidly into her backpack.
“He’s been a bit antsy the last two weeks,” Merc explained. “He loves biting the fangirls, but being one of the oldest minis, he’s been on duty guarding Captain Jack, and the stress is a bit much.”
“I understand,” said Mara sincerely, both to Miss Merc and to Barbosa. Addressing the monkey, she said, “I’ve had to guard Captain Jack for a while, too. Maybe you can give me some pointers, hey?” She fastened the flap of her backpack, saluted the headmistresses and the canonicals, and was about to walk off when she realized that her backpack felt oddly light. Dropping it swiftly and opening the top flap, she discovered that the ample bag of doubloons she had carried to the university was missing.
Mara folded her arms across her chest and frowned at the corrupt official manning the desk, who sheepishly surrendered the bag.
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Mercuria, eyeing the filched property. “The job form will require Captain Jack’s signature as well, since Barbosa is his bodyguard.”
Mara blinked. “Will he allow me to deprive him of protection against the fangirl hordes?”
“Not without compensation, of course...” Miss Merc took Mara’s papers from her and signed them. “...but he’ll be receiving aid from ‘Luitennet Norrington’ and ‘Govenner Swann’ any day now, which I think he’ll approve of. Barbosa, being a mini of Jack’s worst enemy, wasn’t too fond of the captain, proficient though he was at foiling the fangirls’ plots.”
Mara made sure that the coins were situated snugly inside her backpack and stepped jauntily out of sight, Barbosa now playing with her curly hair.
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The tattered sign on the door to the Department of Personnel shifted askew as Isaiah knocked on the door briskly. He blinked twice at the sign, then carefully inched it back to where it belonged. There was no answer, so after a moment’s hesitation, he surreptitiously opened the door.
“Hi, 'tis Isaiah. Just popping in. I thought, well, it might be difficult to talk in the corridors.”
He paused. Apparently, he had spoken too quietly.
“Quen?” he ventured, louder this time.
Quen looked up from her paperwork. “Hey! I’ve just finished confirming the recruitment of your head of Linguistics Division. He had to be hired out, since he’s now a worker at the Official Fanfiction University of the Caribbean Islands, but I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“You sure?” Isaiah countered with a slight smirk. “The last time you found us personnel, I became subordinate to a giant piece of punctuation and a grandma who’s slightly off her rocker.”
Quen blushed, taking the comment more seriously than it had been intended. “If you have any complaints, I can-“
Isaiah held up his hand, laughing. “Don’t fret. I’ve never had so interesting a time in my life.”
The secretary matched his smile. “HQ is an eventful place, however uncomfortable and perilous it might also be.”
Isaiah nodded, thinking back to the other day and Techno Dann’s squirting of a Sue’d Agent Ginger with a water gun filled with an anti-Sue serum. The PPC lounge in particular was an interesting place to be. It was too bad that he and Quen barely saw each other there, even though he had often stopped by to see if she was relaxing. The last time they had talked together had been several days ago. Isaiah had given her a quick embrace on their way out. He hadn’t told Mara; it was a very private affection. He wasn’t sure if she would laugh at him or not.
When Quen had summoned him here via a memo left under his door, he assumed that it was business related, but he couldn’t help wondering. Now that he knew it was certainly official, he wasn’t sure what to say.
“Um...so...” Isaiah tried to collect his thoughts.
“Yes?” prodded Quen.
“I’ve come to return my profile. Everything looks great.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
Agent Quen neatly slipped an ID card into a file folder. “I hope you and Mara haven't had troubles with the recent Sue invasion?”
“No, we've been fine.” Isaiah pounced on the subject. “It's funny, but the PotC section doesn't seem to be affected.”
“Good, good,” said Agent Quen in relief. “I found Her name in the files, but
other than that, I've been all right. Jaycacia, that is. The Sue outbreak probably stays in Lotrverse.”
“You can come to our division if you need sanctuary,” Isaiah offered.
Agent Quen smiled. “Thanks. By the way, I did get a copy of that book we were talking about. Could I could bring it by the DTE some time?”
Isaiah’s heart leaped. “Sure! Do you like reading indoors or outdoors?”
“Depends if it's sunny or not!” Quen grinned. “...Wait...outdoors? Does the PPC have an outdoors?” she frowned.
An idea dawned on him. “Since I need to go to OFUCI to pick up staffing for Linguistics Division, we might read there,” Isaiah elaborated. “There's a lovely view of the Atlantic from the bow of the newly-resurrected Interceptor.”
“Ahh!” Quen said, understanding. She tapped her chin with a pencil. “If Bleeprin has Gravol-like properties, I'm good to go. Otherwise, I get seasick easily.”
“Don't worry,” Isaiah said quickly. “I think it's moored. Unlike the Black Pearl, it's small enough to fit into the harbor. Miss Merc resurrected it, I believe, after some fangirls tried to commandeer the Dauntless...it didn’t go over well. I'll see about renting a fainting couch for us to sit on. The deck's not a terribly comfortable place.”
“That sounds great,” said Quen wistfully. “I haven't seen the sun in quite some time, not since I gave up field work.”
“So...you’ll come?”
“Of course!”
The male agent took a deep breath.
“I'll see you there, then...around what time? Sunset is rather late...”
“We could have dinner aboard the ship,” the secretary suggested.
“Lovely.”
Quen carefully sealed an envelope. “All right, shall I meet you at your office, or should I try to find my way to OFUCI?”
“No, come to the office,” said Isaiah in a detached voice. He felt very odd, as if he had drunk a large quantity of Bleepka. “I'll meet you there. If Mara's around, I'll tell her to bugger off. Politely, of course.”
It must be admitted that the DTE agent, normally unpretentious except during PPCing, swaggered quite a bit on the way to his office. His ecstatic mood last all the way until dinnertime, when he found out that the cafeteria was serving tofu and ketchup with black pears on the side, in honor of the mini-fruit from Pirates of the Caribbean. Isaiah pursed his lips and hoped that the other agents didn’t hate him too much for bringing that cursed technical error to their attention.
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“Even the mini-Balrogs were fed better today-Beef Stu was their soup du jour,” Mara complained as soon as Isaiah walked in the door. She had not been expecting him; consequently she was busily cleaning her pistol.
Isaiah tossed the sheaf of paperwork Mara’s way. The papers fluttered near her tin of polish. She wiped her hands on the cleaning rag and shuffled the papers back into order. While Isaiah mulled over what to wear to his first real date in PPC Headquarters, his partner gave the papers a cursory glance and leaned on her elbows thoughtfully.
“I suppose I should fetch him,” Mara said at last. “OFUCI is a hazardous place to be if you don’t know your way around. You could get caught in a fangirl stampede, trying to get Barbosa out.”
Isaiah was puzzled. “You’ve visited before?”
“Not exactly.” Mara stood up and slid the papers into her backpack. “I’ve been to OFUM twice, and I assume this fanfiction university has a similar layout. Once you’ve been to a fanfiction university, you get to recognize the warning signs of stampedes fast. Also, I’ve heard the Misspelled Monkeys are vicious, attacking even the canonicals.”
“I can manage,” said Isaiah, on the defensive before he realized that if Mara went to OFUCI separately, he could spend more time alone with Quen. “But if you really think you should go, I’m not stopping you,” he added quickly.
Mara stared hard at Isaiah. Her younger partner was not one to admit that he wasn’t up to a task. Always playing the hero, he usually insisted that he could handle any dire situation as well as the next PPCer. Sometimes, he was right. Sometimes. She decided to let the matter rest.
“No sense delaying,” she said brightly. It probably involves Quen; nearly everything involves her when Isaiah acts, well, out of character, as it were.
Part of Mara’s cheerfulness was forced, but there was an undercurrent of real excitement that she could not quite quench. She might get to see one of the canonicals-the real canon characters, and not the twisted souls to which she had become accustomed.
This did not escape Isaiah’s notice, for he read into her mind almost as easily as she had guessed his. When you’ve been through a considerable amount of horror and brain damage with another agent, you’re able to see her thoughts more clearly than most.
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Arm resolutely around Quen’s shoulder, Isaiah strolled into the boundaries of the Official Fanfiction University of the Caribbean Islands. The guard at the door, who happened to be Bo’sun, frowned at his claim to be a PPC agent, and for a moment Isaiah felt Quen tense as he contemplated reaching for his grapnel hook. Isaiah’s ID card made no difference to a pirate who couldn’t read. Then a tremor had run through Bo’sun at the ghost of a memory of being talked down to by Lauren, the insolent fangirl. It was Isaiah who had helped him get rid of the girl and revert back to his old self. The PPCers were allowed in without a word.
“I couldn’t think of a better way to spend an evening,” Quen reassured him. “It’ll be wonderful, you just wait. Besides,” and she nudged him in the ribs, “it was nice to know that your credentials are acceptable here. I wonder if any other canonicals remember you?”
“Probably not,” Isaiah said frankly. It occurred to him that perhaps Elizabeth Swann had. He squashed that thought and hugged Quen closer.
Isaiah had always thought that the Caribbean sea depicted on all the travel brochures was digitally enhanced somehow. No water could be that clear, fading into turquoise and then into the deepest sapphire blue, lapping over soft white sands. Now that he was sure that he was under no illusion, Isaiah sighed contentedly. It was grace embodied, sparkling and multihued and beautiful and dangerous...and he simply loved it, because it was just what it was, with no pretense of any power that it did not possess.
It was some time before he could compel himself to break away and delve into the Well of Lost Plots, which he found thoroughly enjoyable once he got into it. It was, as Quen had said, startlingly PPCish: the heroine, Thursday Next, sought to stop her archenemy from meddling with the plotlines of books. Books were alive in this world, and needed to be protected. He had smiled when he had read the Kirkus review’s assessment: “Like anchovies, Wagner, and Helmut Newton: will greatly appeal to people with unusual tastes--and befuddle everyone else.” That sounded like the PPC all right.
They had progressed to around page thirty, with Quen reading one chapter and Isaiah the next, when the female agent’s voice faltered. She stood up, rather shakily on the rocking ship it must be admitted, and gripped the larboard railing. The sun dropped lower on the horizon, and the ocean at once lost its fathoms. The colors swam so brightly across his vision that Isaiah almost expected a sheet of blue flame to join the brilliant golden light. Now the sun had sunk and the whole world was golden for a moment before fading into grey and mauve. Night fell-abruptly, since they were now closer to the equator. Isaiah was loath to go inside, now that he had enjoyed the fresh sea air as distinct from the stifling and stale Headquarters’.
“I’m getting a bit seasick,” Quen confessed at last, after a few stars had studded the sky. Isaiah nodded wordlessly, realized that Quen couldn’t see him in the dark, and said, “That’s all right; I’m ready for a tour of the below decks OFUCI. You?”
“Quite.” Quen sounded like she was smothering amusement. “Um, Isaiah, that’s a really nice shirt you have on, you know.”
That was an odd thing to say in the midst of near-blackness. Isaiah let go his hold on Quen and faced her. “It’s just my PPC shirt. Can you see well at night, then?”
A few fingers tugged at his right sleeve. Isaiah looked down at where his departmental logo would have been. It was still visible. Radiantly so.
“The he-ck?” Isaiah pulled at his shirt in astonishment and disguised his near-swear with a cough-he was with Quen, after all. “They sent me a glow-in-the-dark shirt?”
“Must be a new feature,” Quen suggested.
“But why would they test it on our emblem?” Isaiah wondered. “Our symbol’s the red pen. Red. This thing glows whitish green. Ah, well. They probably wanted to experiment on mine, with me being a new agent and all.”
“Well, if that’s true, I suppose that’s mild compared to what some organizations have recruits go through. You glow, anyway, in the daytime,” she said, “with that hair of yours. I’m afraid you’re destined to be visible.”
“Oh, am I?”
“It’s not a bad trait on you,” she said, half-seriously.
He laughed giddily, wondering if there were even a dozen Mary Sues that could erase this evening from his memory.
Hand in hand, they walked toward the stairwell, realized that they couldn’t step side by side down the narrow opening, and broke apart reluctantly. Isaiah had reached the fourth step from the bottom when his stomach growled.
“Aww, Quen! We forgot to have dinner!”
_____________________________________________
Mara was met at the entrance to OFUCI by the canonical harbormaster, who was now sitting at a writing desk perched on the dock near the Interceptor. His quill quivered as he hurriedly jotted down the information for an incoming student, who grabbed her paper in a huff and hurried off. Mara was reminded oddly of Isaiah reading his parchment to exasperated Sues.
“Your application, if you please?” he said neutrally, upon hearing Mara’s footstep.
“Oh, I’m not applying to be a student, I just need to-”
The harbormaster looked up with a face that brooked no arguments. He was apparently used to reluctant applicants. “In case you didn’t hear or comprehend me the first time, I require your entry papers.”
Mara sighed, took out her red pen, and filled out a form.
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Name: Agent Mara
Gender: Female
Age: 20
Lust Object: Canon
Favorite Ship: Black Pearl
Favorite 'ship: Captain Jack/Black Pearl
Affiliation: PPC agent. Disguise generator will supply whatever uniform is necessary. (Default disguise is a serving girl outfit.)
Recreational Clubs (please select just one): Apple Fanciers Anonymous, Yes We Are Fetishists Thank You Very Much
Have you ever written a Mary Sue: Not in published fanfiction and not since I became a PPCer.
Have you ever written a slash fanfic: No
Canonical Beverage of Choice: Other (please specify) Ale or “rhum” -the mini-beverage that makes one talk like Captain Jack
What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen Sparrow: If shot out of the Canon Cannon, 83 mph. If sprouting wings as the result of an unfortunate Sue-ish metaphor (see Agent Jira and Agent Shmuckleigh’s PPC log, chapter one), 24 mph.
Fear of (select all that apply): Other (please specify)
Emerald green eyes, multiple exclamation points, “Grammer,” and unnaturally heaving bosoms
One word to describe yourself: Nitpicking
Why do you wish to attend this university I don’t. I’m simply trying to get by Mr. Easily Influenced at the front desk here. I’ve come to retrieve Barbosa, our new head of Linguistics Division.
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The harbormaster looked it over. He settled his glasses more firmly on his nose in bewilderment.
“PPC?” he said in disbelief. “We haven’t had any PPC visits here. Miss Merc told us about the assassins, but some of us aren’t convinced they exist. If they do, they must be slow about their jobs.”
Mara lost her grip on her temper. She hadn’t the time for this! “For your information, there are eight PPCers for this entire fandom, which, as I believe you know, consists of 6000 stories, conservatively. Of those eight, two are on hiatus, two are still in training, and two are newbies. They’ve PPC’d only one fic so far, and though it was a very good start, Isaiah and I are the only active, experienced PPCers for Pirates of the Caribbean.”
“Open your bag,” he said stiffly in reply.
The female agent pulled out her bag, realizing that she truly should have sent Isaiah. Being male, he would never have had this much hassle entering OFUCI at all, let alone the Staff Section.
Mara reached in her bag and pulled out her Canon Analysis Device, a variation of the regular CADs. She had taken it to OFUCI as a useful tool for discerning between the students who applied to be pirates and the actual pirates themselves.
[Harbormaster. Canon. Male. OFUCI staff,] the Canon Analysis Device flashed. The gentleman stared at the device.
Mara then took out her stack of correction pens, her clipboard with paper, five bottles of Bleeprin, a small flask of Pink Stuff that she had managed to garner from GreyLadyBast, her dictionary (Isaiah had borrow the thesaurus), a pair of newly-acquired Glopsnerch earmuffs, a bar of chocolate, a small compass, a sachet of doubloons, and the replica of Captain Jack’s gun, which she had stowed in there so as not to arouse suspicion.
The man blinked.
“ExCUSE me,” a sweetly stinging voice barged in from behind Mara. “I think you’d better hurry up. I forgot to fill something in on my application, and Dictatress Thalia said that I had to change it.”
Mara looked behind her. To the impartial eye, there stood a student who had most likely been informed by a friend that you became whatever affiliation you put down on your application. She was dressed in the ballooning skirt of a fine lady, though it was now quite bedraggled from lessons. Her hair was silver with golden streaks in it, and her eyes flashed violet threateningly.
In that instant, Mara forgot that she was at OFUCI, forgot that she was supposed to act composed so that she could get her application through, and ignored the notion that the figure behind her was a student and not-
“MARY SUE!”
Mara picked up the nearest heavy object-her CAD, in this case-and hurled it.
“Begone!”
Thwock!
“AAAH!”
“What in God’s name are you-”
Mara reached for her pistol, but the harbormaster had retrieved it first. He cocked the weapon and pointed it at Mara, who ignored him and flew at the student in a tackle.
“Heeelp!”
The middle-aged man pressed the trigger and found that the weapon wasn’t loaded. “Damn and blast!”
“WHAT is going on?!” cried the outraged voice of Dictatress Thalia. Seeing only a flurry of arms, legs and cumbersome skirts, the Dictatress decided to sic the Misspelled Monkeys on the two combatants, whom she assumed were students having a catfight.
Chattering deviously, the monkeys leaped in the direction of the scuffle. One of them, having jumped from Miss Thalia’s shoulder to the counter upon which sat the PPC possessions, halted and screeched something to its fellow monkeys. They paused just as Commodore Norrington entered, looking slightly put out.
“Jeanine, I expected you in my class five minutes ag-”
The spat stopped abruptly. Mara, having pinned the sparkly-eyed maiden to the dock, looked up at Norrington.
“Jeanine?” she asked, the truth dawning on her.
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry,” she said to Norrington, letting the hapless fangirl up. “This is a student?”
“I’m afraid so,” Norrington answered regretfully. He furrowed his brows. “And who might you be?” he queried peremptorily.
The Misspelled Monkey who seemed to be in charge chattered something to Norrington, who looked confused until the monkey pointed to the items on the writing desk. He took a small bottle from the pile and examined it.
“Bleeprin?”
“She’s PPC,” Thalia explained. “Mara, welcome. I hope she didn’t damage your uniform.”
Mara dusted herself off. “Nothing that can’t be mended, rather sloppily, between missions.” She inclined her head briefly in Norrington’s direction. “Agent Mara, Protectors of the Plot Continuum, Department of Technical Errors. I’m honored to meet you, sir.”
He looked faintly astonished. “I was wondering if you were working in our story. I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of you in any fic involving myself.”
“I did tell all of the sailors that I didn’t believe they existed,” the harbormaster put in triumphantly.
“The PPC is real enough,” Norrington informed him crisply. “Just a bit overworked, I surmise. I’ve met agents Jira and Shmuckleigh on two occasions. They helped rid me of two female parasites who claimed to be my sisters.”
Mara nodded. “We’ve a badfic coming up for you, but we can’t get to it now because we’re swamped with other work. Not only are we understaffed in the PotC section, but we’re altering those PPCings with the odd fic from another world-Middle Earth. In fact, I’ll be on my way to the smiting of one such Sue after I get this business sorted out.” She gestured to the desk and her pack, which wore an odd, shriveled look now that it was, for the first time, empty. Mara was not one to come unprepared to her assassinations.
“Ahem!” announced a young woman with a bullhorn, whom Mara recognized as Miss Merc.
“I’ve just come for Barbosa,” the agent explained.
“What happened?” Mercuria asked, raising an eyebrow at Mara, the somewhat rumpled Jeanine, Norrington, and the chattering monkeys.
“I mistook this student for a Sue.” Mara shoved Jeanine none too gently in Norrington’s direction and stepped forward impatiently. “I was told that I could hire my head of Linguistics Division for the Department of Technical Errors.”
“Why would Barbossa agree to work for you?” Norrington asked. “Much less lead a...linguistics department, did you say?”
“Not the pirate captain,” Mara corrected. “The Misspelled Monkey.” At that, the lead monkey capered about, making for Mara in a somewhat roundabout way. He halted in front of her and stared up at her, scrutinizing the agent. All at once, he leapt onto her shoulder, then onto the desk, and began to collect all of the items strewn about on top. He deposited them rapidly into her backpack.
“He’s been a bit antsy the last two weeks,” Merc explained. “He loves biting the fangirls, but being one of the oldest minis, he’s been on duty guarding Captain Jack, and the stress is a bit much.”
“I understand,” said Mara sincerely, both to Miss Merc and to Barbosa. Addressing the monkey, she said, “I’ve had to guard Captain Jack for a while, too. Maybe you can give me some pointers, hey?” She fastened the flap of her backpack, saluted the headmistresses and the canonicals, and was about to walk off when she realized that her backpack felt oddly light. Dropping it swiftly and opening the top flap, she discovered that the ample bag of doubloons she had carried to the university was missing.
Mara folded her arms across her chest and frowned at the corrupt official manning the desk, who sheepishly surrendered the bag.
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Mercuria, eyeing the filched property. “The job form will require Captain Jack’s signature as well, since Barbosa is his bodyguard.”
Mara blinked. “Will he allow me to deprive him of protection against the fangirl hordes?”
“Not without compensation, of course...” Miss Merc took Mara’s papers from her and signed them. “...but he’ll be receiving aid from ‘Luitennet Norrington’ and ‘Govenner Swann’ any day now, which I think he’ll approve of. Barbosa, being a mini of Jack’s worst enemy, wasn’t too fond of the captain, proficient though he was at foiling the fangirls’ plots.”
Mara made sure that the coins were situated snugly inside her backpack and stepped jauntily out of sight, Barbosa now playing with her curly hair.