The Real Job

“Oh… ‘kay… ahhh…”

Osric murmured drearily, suddenly on his knees with Evony holding tightly onto him, his hands coiling around her arms, taking a deep breath and trying to remain steady.

“I did warn you,” Oliver said tonelessly.

“Aha… m’yeah… point taken,” Osric exhaled, nodding and trying to stand.

Evony slowly reached her feet and guided him over to the bed, and he sat down on it, lying back on it crookedly and huffing out an exasperated breath, his hat falling halfway off his head.

Oliver hovered down and stared at the inventor. “ Now do you want to consult your doctor…?”

Osric made a sarcastic face and pushed him away, practically shoving him out of the air.

Evony opened the cabinets, searching around until she found a first-aid kit tucked behind a canister of coffee, then marched over to the bed and sat there, popping it open while Osric tiredly unfastened the buttons around his neck, peeling his undershirt back. Oliver glided over to the tiny sink beside the mini-fridge and grabbed a rag, wetting it and handing it off to Evony, who took it and pulled the open collar of his shirt back slightly more, wiping the blood away before disinfecting the puncture wounds and packing them tightly thereafter.

While Evony and Osric succeeded in stopping the bleeding—Oliver was faced away from them now, his glass face showing what looked like a dark dialing screen. A faint ringing noise echoed from his metal shell—the same noise one might hear when calling someone on a phone—and moments later, the robot’s phone call was answered.

“Good evening, Oliver,” a low, clear voice said, another British one. It was emitting from Oliver’s speakers, though it was not Oliver’s voice at all. “Is everything all right this evening?”

The second the voice echoed from the robot—Osric’s head snapped upright in alarm.

“Don’t tell him anything ,” the inventor ordered.

“Quite the opposite, actually,” Oliver replied to whomever he was talking to on his inner phone system, completely ignoring his master. “We’ve had a bit of an exciting night. Two rogue reptilians attacked us out by the shore. We’ve broken away from them now, but… Master Azarias is a bit wounded.”

There was a pause.

Inside of the Silver Peaks Lodge, and up on the top floor, where few rooms were, and where no guests walked—this man, Osric’s personal doctor, stood alone in his office behind his desk, sighing in silence for a moment and gently tapping his fingers to the top of his clipboard. He was an older gentleman with a serious visage, white hairs slicked back, and a nice, clean-cut outfit comprised of blacks and navy blues, complete with suit pants, a neatly-buttoned vest, and shiny black shoes.

This older British man—Levi Walker—swallowed another sigh, adjusting his grasp on his phone.

“Wounded in what way?” he inquired.

“Three small stab wounds from the reptilian’s claws, sir,” Oliver answered.

“Were either of them alpha males?” the doctor asked.

“No, sir.”

“Have you run a scan?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Has he stopped the bleeding?”

“Er…” Oliver swiveled around, facing Evony and Osric. “Well… someone has.”

Levi blinked, his dark, shiny eyes narrowing a bit, and he made an odd face. “Who else is there…?”

“My… new… assistant ,” Osric stated, lumbering up to his feet and quickly snatching up his cane. “And yes, I did interview her. No, I didn’t need Oliver to call you. And yes, everything has been handled perfectly well, thank you very much.”

“Don’t get snippy with me, boy,” Levi said, his voice rising, echoing louder out of the bot butler. “Oliver is under strict orders to report these things to me—and there is a reason. You need some bloody supervision, you overgrown child.”

“You know… I never get tired of your patronizing diatribes,” Osric quipped sarcastically. “It just warms my heart.”

“None of it would sound patronizing if your methods and means weren’t so thoughtless and questionable from go,” Levi stated. “And whomever this new assistant is… you are certainly not being fair to her. You hiring a personal assistant would be like a dying man hiring a nursing assistant to perform a complex surgery. Does this person have any idea what this job would truly entail? Because it would be rather rude and potentially even dangerous to simply blindside her with it.”

“I…” Osric uttered, glancing back at Evony, then facing Oliver again. “I think… so… well, some… somewhat…”

“How is that possible?” Levi replied with a dry little laugh. “Given the amount of extra work you do, and all these little mysteries you run around trying to solve… does she have any clue how much she’d be helping you with?”

“Well… I imagine all of that would be a lot easier than what she just did tonight,” Osric disclosed. “Levi. I need an extra pair of hands… an extra set of eyes… and, no offense, but someone who isn’t pushing eighty years old. And she’s still perfectly free to say no to it, too. But she did save my life tonight… before she even knew for sure who I was. That means I can already trust her character more than I can anyone else’s in most of our inner circles. So… I want to give it a shot. Therefore… can you please, please , for the love of all things holy… just get the hell off my back? Just this once?”

Levi let out a long, heavy sigh.

“One more thing before I leave you to it,” the doctor said. “Do not forget the sensitive nature of all the things you’re investigating. If anyone is going to help you with it… then they need to keep the information just as guarded as you do.”

“I know,” Osric muttered, glimpsing at Evony again. “I, um… I did plan to have that conversation… eventually…”

“Very well. Make your way back here soon,” Levi dismissed.

“I will. Goodnight.”

The two said their goodbyes, and the phone call ended, Oliver’s face returning to normal.

There was a long, thoughtful silence in the air of the cabin.

Osric gently thumped his palm to the top of his cane, sighing and turning to face Evony.

“Well,” he said. “I’m sure you have questions now if you didn’t before. And… seeing as we’ve got nothing but time to kill… I suppose we can have that conversation now.”

Evony gave him a hesitant look. “Can I… can I not just go home and sleep on it…?”

“Oh… well, sure, but the thing is… you don’t actually have all the information you need to sleep on,” Osric remarked. “And I did want us to kill just a little more time in here before we walked out… just in case that little duo is still sulking around out there, looking for us…”

Evony made a slow nod, turning and surveying everything on the wall to her right—images of blurry reptilian sightings slipped out of newspaper articles, headlines that read things like SPOTTED IN THE SOUTH, alongside a handwritten list of names, labeled People With Means , and the list was filled with several names she didn’t recognize.

After scanning over all of this, she turned back to him, slowly beginning to understand.

“One of the names on that list right there is Mayor Byers,” Evony said, motioning over to the sheet of notebook paper on the wall. “He’s the mayor here…?”

Osric nodded.

Evony glimpsed at the list again, sliding her hands into her pockets and wearing a thoughtful visage.

“M’kay,” she muttered. “I get it. A lot of the people in this town are possible suspects in whatever you’re investigating… so you want your partner in crime to be an outsider.”

Osric stared, his mouth drifting slightly agape, then he laughed and nodded again. “Well… yeah… you got me. Very good. You’re really very sharp, you know that?”

Evony shrugged, studying the wall again. “My dad thinks the same way. He taught me well.”

“Heh. I, um…” Osric walked over to her side and joined her in staring at the wall of information. “I can’t exactly pin everything I want to my office wall in the lodge, because I do see guests in there from time to time. But here… well… nobody ever sees it here. And… that’s how it needs to be.”

“Because some of your guests are suspects, too,” Evony suspected, her eyes landing on the newspaper headline that said REPTILIANS IN THE SNOW.

“Namely,” Osric affirmed.

“It looks like you’re trying to figure out why reptilians are being sighted here… because they shouldn’t be here, like… at all,” Evony said, giving him a curious look. “How are they all popping up down here in Silverhollow?”

“Well… that’s the question, isn’t it?” Osric exhaled, reaching forward and jabbing his finger to the headline. “That’s the great big impossibility. Reptilians are a coldblooded humanoid race, and they were never native to the coldest regions of this continent. They simply can’t survive here. Unless…”

He held up a finger.

“They have help ,” Osric said knowingly, extending his arm and tapping his finger onto the written list. “And those are the people with the most money, means, and motives to be able to do such a thing. It’s possible that they’re smuggling and housing members of Alazar’s Army here. I doubted that very much, up until now—but those two people who showed up tonight, they made me think differently. Alazar does have a plan here. Someone is smuggling his people here, and working with him—and if they’re doing that, then they have something very valuable to the extremists that they’re using as a bartering chip, because Alazar does not deal with human beings. He absolutely despises them. Not only that—but if someone is smuggling in terrorists, then that means they have an agenda that they want to set into motion, and it won’t be a good one, whatever it is.”

“What do you think it is…?” Evony mumbled.

“I don’t know… but, as of tonight, I know for sure that Alazar is involved,” Osric replied, sighing deeply. “Because I happen to know what the bartering chip is now…”

Evony narrowed her eyes questioningly at him.

Osric let out another breath, thumping his palm to the palm of his cane again.

“Me,” he disclosed.

Evony blinked and shot him a look. “ You …?”

“Mhm,” Osric nodded. “Those two reptilians who arrived here tonight were not a part of Alazar’s Army… they were rebels of it. Not regular civilians, and not a part of the extremist sector. I imagine they’re dissidents from Alazar’s Army who decided to break away from it and act directly against his plans… and whatever his plans are involve obtaining me alive. That much, I know for sure now.”

Evony made a subtle shake of the head, eyeing him in confusion. “But what… I mean… why?”

“Oh… who knows,” Osric shrugged. “I imagine I’ll find that out at this year’s Christmas Convention. If ever there was a time for some kind of inside job to kick off… it’ll be then, when the lodge is seeing more guests than any other time of year. Every world leader in Concordia comes to spend the entire month of December here… and if Alazar’s Army are secretly being brought here right beforehand… then we may have a planned attack unraveling here before long.”

Evony remained very quiet for several seconds, taking a deep, calming breath and allowing all of this to sink in. She stared over at Osric, and he was simply gazing up at his wall.

“Do you not…” she uttered, giving him a strange look. “Do you not have… anyone on your side? Are you seriously trying to figure this out and resolve it by yourself…?”

“Well…” Osric made a sideways nod. “I do have a couple of friends here in town, but they aren’t exactly the people with all the money and power in the world. All my friends in the big circles happen to be the same ones I can’t trust… and I certainly can’t trust the local government or the law enforcement much, because they’re probably helping to cover up this little smuggling endeavor, here. There are very few people I can trust enough to work with or talk openly to in Silverhollow. Honestly… practically… none.”

There was another brief pause in the air, Evony staring over at him with a thoughtful, serious expression. And, the longer she did, and the deeper this intense, exciting, and terrifying information sank into her—the more she began to feel a spark inside, like a calling to act, a longing to get involved with things that she never could have before.

Perhaps she’d had it wrong all this time. It wasn’t that she didn’t care at all, or that she felt nothing—it was just that she never had a way of fighting back, so she always just shut off and pushed through her days without conviction or purpose. There was no point in feeling anything that would lead to inspiration to act during a time when acting was not possible.

But now—now, with all of this revealed to her, and with the famous inventor standing beside her, unveiling a grand, evil conspiracy and even planning to hire her as help to fight against it—her heart began to pound, emotions rising inside, and there was no doubt in her mind, no hesitance in her heart. She knew for certain what she was meant to do now.

“When do I start?” Evony asked him.

Osric turned away from the wall, staring at her for a second, and then, he revealed a smile.

“Ehe,” he breathed, suddenly looking and sounding giddy, almost in a childlike way. “You have no idea how much this is gonna help… believe me. And it’ll be a lot more fun than you think it will, too. Trust me. There will be shopping, and decorating, and eating, and celebrating, and leaving the property during work hours… well, you’ll get to leave during work hours, not so much me… but that’s the whole point , right there . I’ll have someone to go out and do things for me that I can’t just go out and do! Well, I mean… I can , but… not without a media circus blockading me, or apparently a reptilian hit squad bombarding me out of nowhere… oh, oh, you know what? I think I’m rambling. Pardon me.”

He faced her fully and offered his hand.

“Evony Ackerman. You are my first, last, and only assistant,” Osric stated. “Welcome aboard.”

Evony smirked and shook his hand—and as she did, for the first time in many, many years, she felt a flood of feelings coursing through her as she thought of all that was to come.

Osric let out a light laugh as he withdrew his hand, glancing down and realizing his collar was still unbuttoned. He quickly fastened it back, the dark undershirt buttoned up high.

“Silly thing,” he uttered, grasping around his neck and feeling that it was covered now. “No skin out on a cold night.”

He then grabbed his cane again and adjusted his hat, pausing and flashing a half-smile.

“Now. I believe we’ve been in here long enough… and I think, in this situation… it’s my job to walk you home,” Osric determined. “Where are you living now?”

Evony opened her mouth, trying to remember exactly where her uncles’ house was from here. “Ahm… you don’t… you don’t need to do that.”

“Oooh… yes I do,” Osric replied, wagging a finger at her. “Neither of us should walk home alone on a night like this… not with dangers lurking around the way they are.”

“I really don’t need anyone with me,” Evony assured, stepping past him and reaching for the door.

Osric quickly turned and planted his hand to the door firmly, raising his eyebrows at her.

“Evony,” he said, offering another smile. “These little precautions are gonna be a part of the job from here on… so you might as well get used to them now.”

Evony huffed out a sigh, wearing a caustic sort of expression.

“Are you gonna be like this all the time?” she snarked.

“I’m afraid you’ve signed your livelihood over to a lunatic, Madame,” Oliver answered.

“Lunatic?” Osric griped in a high voice, making Evony almost laugh and cover her mouth. “Am I a lunatic for wanting to take extra precautions directly after an attack? Oh, pardon me …”

“That is not what makes you a lunatic, sir. That’s actually the sanest thing you’ve done all night,” Oliver quipped in response.

Osric flicked him hard on the metal shell with an echoing ping , then turned to Evony again.

“Back to the lodge, at the very least?” he asked.

Evony paused, then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah… my place is a short walk from there.”

“All right, then.”

Osric turned, unlocked the door, and slowly pushed it open, allowing the freezing air of the night to waft into the cabin. He leaned outside, adjusted the knob on the side of his goggles, and scanned around the darkened woodlands before he stepped fully out of the cabin and waved for them to follow.

Evony and Oliver joined him outside, and Osric closed and covered the cabin door fully in its amazing invisible cloak, and then, the three of them marched down the dark path in silence, Evony repeatedly glancing back over her shoulder with wary vigilance, though nobody appeared to be nearby them at all.

Eventually—the window lights of the lodge grew visible between the trees and branches ahead, and before long, they all emerged at the edge of the woods, walking across the patch of snow in front of the lodge and heading around to the front of the wide stone stairway.

After all three of them were standing in front of the stairs, no people around any longer—Evony then sighed, giving Osric a definitive look.

“You never actually told me,” she recalled. “When do I start?”

“Tomorrow,” Osric replied simply.

“What time?” Evony asked.

“Whenever,” Osric smirked, making a shrug. “Oh—but just be sure you’re here around five in the evening, because I have somewhere important to be, and I’d like you to go with me.”

Evony blinked and squinted at him. “At five…?”

“It’s important. You’ll see why,” Osric promised. “Oh—one more thing. I think we should trade numbers.”

“Yeah,” Evony agreed, pulling out her phone. “We should…”

The two of them spared a moment to save one another’s phone numbers in their contacts before stuffing their phones away again, pausing and facing one another.

“Okay then,” Evony uttered, shivering and rolling her hands deeper into her jacket. “Um… I’m gonna head home now. I’ll seeya tomorrow.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you home…?” Osric asked her.

“I’m sure. I’m good,” she assured, turning on her heel and giving him a farewell wave. “Seeya tomorrow.”

“All right… see you tomorrow,” Osric disclosed, returning the wave. “Goodnight.”

Evony marched off, striding away from the stairway and heading into the still, quiet town beneath the night sky.

Osric watched her go, remaining silent for a moment, gently fidgeting with the rounded top of his cane. Then, he sighed and looked to Oliver.

“Engage primary mode as surveillance, secondary as combat,” he ordered, facing the snowy road again and nodding once at it. “And follow her home.”

Oliver turned and made a motion with his body that looked reminiscent of a person tilting their head.

“Stay out of sight. Don’t let her know you’re there,” Osric advised, his expression distant. “Just… make sure nothing happens to her on the way home. Just a precaution.”

“Oh, sir,” Oliver said lowly, sounding almost coy. “Do be careful. People are liable to call you a stalker if they ever catch wind of this behavior.”

Osric turned to him and made a caustic face with a flat smile, grabbing the back of the bot’s round body, reeling back, and practically throwing him into the open night.

Oliver launched forward, then regained his hovering balance in the air, slowly fading off into the darkness as the faintest echo of chuckles trailed along behind him.