Chapter Text
On an ordinary day, when agents got called into Ms. O’s office, they would ask her why she had called them in, and she or Oscar would tell them.
This, however, was not an ordinary day, and both Olive and Otto already knew exactly why Ms. O had called them in. The reason was Oscar himself. The scientist had gone missing three months prior, and almost all operations had been redirected to locating him. But even with this, things had only gotten worse from there. Two more agents, who’d been sent to look for him, had gone missing in that time, with no trace of them left. Of course, Olive and Otto were worried sick about their friends, and by the looks of Ms. O, she was too. But on this day, she seemed slightly more hopeful than she’d been for the past weeks.
“Did we get a new lead, Ms. O?” Olive asked.
“Actually, we did,” she replied. “A girl named Olympia Wilson— not one of our agents, a civilian— never made it home from school. Her parents reported her missing yesterday, and some bystanders reported a girl who fit her description entering what appeared to be an abandoned office building on the outskirts of town. I know it’s not much, but it’s near the area where Oscar was investigating when he… disappeared.”
“I still don’t get how he could’ve vanished like that,” Olive said, frustrated. “Even his watch tablet stopped sending data, but if an interdimensional portal had opened, we should’ve gotten notice of it.”
“Regardless, we have a lead now, and we have to act as quickly as possible!” Ms. O snapped. “We never know what could be happening to him– and Ms. Gruelle as well– while we’re all just standing around. I’m sending you two out there, along with Owen, to check it out. But be. Careful.”
Otto tried to appear calm while they were walking to the tubes, but really, he was feeling super anxious. Oscar may have been a little goofy, but he was also super smart; he should’ve been able to keep himself out of serious trouble.
And there was a chance that this trouble was extremely serious indeed. Before Oscar had disappeared, Odd Todd, who’d been keeping silent for some time —looking back, they should’ve known it was a sign— had suddenly been seen around town again, making threats. Otto wanted to tell himself it was just a coincidence, but there was no way that Todd wasn’t connected in some way to Oscar’s disappearance.
They made it to the tubes, where O’Malley sent them off with a grave nod. Otto was so preoccupied, he didn’t even remember to be scared before the tube spat them out again on a desolate street, Owen immediately tripping over Otto’s feet and sending both of them tumbling to the ground.
Ignoring them, Olive sprang to her feet, brushing off her suit. “This is the place,” she said, gesturing at the sidewalk.
Ms. O had said the building was “abandoned,” but that had done little to prepare Otto for how decrepit the place actually was. Vines of ivy had grown across the front of the building so thickly that Otto couldn’t even make out the address— only the letters C and A. Both windows were smashed in, and the boards over the doorway had collapsed, so they both had to duck down to get inside.
Based on the outside, Otto had assumed the building was quite small, but once they were inside, he realized his mistake. The main facade of the building merely made up a small entry room, but this had a doorway which led to a long, long hallway with doors branching off of it on either side. As they continued walking, it got darker and darker, so that they both had to pull out flashlights just to see where they were going. Owen seemed more and more apprehensive about being there, and Otto was sure he was trying to think of some excuse to leave, but couldn’t think of a convincing one.
Nearly all the doors seemed to be locked, and Olive pointed out that if Oscar was actually here, he would more likely have gone into a room with an unlocked door than an unlocked one. But even the doors that could open only seemed to lead to empty storage rooms and closets, which the agents quickly scanned with their flashlights and then left.
“Do you think we should split up to cover more ground?” Olive asked. It was telling enough that she was asking him; ordinarily, she would’ve said that was what they should do without a moment's thought. But this place was already scary enough without the three of them separated, and Otto said as much.
Finally, after they had been walking for what seemed to Otto like miles, the hallway ended at a shut door. Olive reached out to try it and Otto held his breath, if this didn’t open, there was a chance they’d have to rethink their entire strategy. On the other hand, they might be able to leave the building, which he’d very much like. This entire place was making him claustrophobic, despite the fact that as they’d walked, the hallway had ever-so-slightly been growing larger.
But the doorknob did turn, and after a brief glance at the two of them, Olive pushed the door forward. Otto held his breath, not knowing whether it would reveal Oscar, in whatever state he could be in, or Odd Todd, or something even more horrible that none of them could even imagine.
Instead, what the three of them saw was… a fairly normal office? The space, which was only about the size of a classroom, contained nothing more than a few desks, covered with papers, and chairs. Here and there, computers sat on the desks, but they all seemed to be unplugged. It seemed so ordinary, yet something felt off to Otto, he couldn’t put his finger on it.
He was about to sigh in disappointment (but maybe also relief) when, almost simultaneously, the three of them saw the glow. It was in the corner, faint and flickering, but emitting just the same from a computer that sat innocently on a desk just like all the others. And now, Otto finally figured out what had been bugging him about the room. All the computers were extremely old models. He’d guess early 90s at least.
Lying next to the computer was what seemed to be a clunky VR headset, which Olive picked up. The computer itself, though it emitted light, didn’t seem to be displaying anything on the screen except for static, so maybe it was broken.
“Do you guys think Oscar was actually here?” Olive whispered.
Otto considered, it seemed impossible, yet possible at the same time, after all, if they had made it here, he could’ve too. “If he was really here, what’s the first thing he would do?”
They both knew at the same time. There was no way a scientist like Oscar would’ve been in a room like this without investigating more, especially the technology. He would’ve put on the headset.
Olive lifted it towards her head.
“Wait!” Otto reached out, but before he could tell her to be careful, or wait until they reported back to Ms. O, or say anything else at all, she had slipped it over her eyes.
In the very next second, the air around her shimmered strangely, and Olive disappeared.
…
Day after day after day after day…
The pixels of the circus seemed to warp, and there was a loud pop sound as a very short girl appeared, seemingly out of thin air. Fittingly for the bright surroundings, she was dressed in a jester outfit, complete with a comically large hat with red and blue stripes. In fact, everything about her seemed to be either red, blue, or yellow, save for her black hair, and her and eyes, which were pinwheels of green and brown. These eyes now looked about in a wild frenzy, and the girl frantically tugged first at her hat, then at her eyeballs themselves, which stretched cartoonishly out of their sockets.
“H- how do I— get this— headset off?!?”