xviiI. in action

 Helena fumed as she ran up the grand staircase in her heels as best as she could without attracting the attention of other people, dodging the other diplomats and heads of state hustling around her. The moment the songstress onstage had started singing, and Daehyun's eyes glazed over, she had grabbed a pair of cork earplugs - tradition had always prevailed in the case of myths - and plugged their ears, effectively shutting off the sound. Though they had tried to chase the Seelie agent down, they were eventually noticed. Instantly the songstress stopped her song, and immediately made the people come back to life.

  The enemy definitely had a good chain of command, Helena noticed, and it was obvious that there were people operating behind the scenes, along with the two out on the battlefield now. There was no way either of them could have relayed orders to the other without stopping their actions. 

  Right now she had requested Daehyun to keep the songstress busy - whatever way it may be. Keeping the two away from each other would definitely be the best course of action, and Helena was fairly sure that both Daehyun and her would be able to handle one of the two Gemini agents on their own if things went astray - they weren't Generals for no reason. 

  Dodging a waiter, Helena ducked into a corridor on the foyer, the lush carpet muffling her shoes. The meeting rooms are usually occupied by heads of state talking serious business, but at the cocktail reception, people were mostly milling around in the ballroom - at least from her experience. She had seen the two making their way up to this section of the room, so she would guess that they were in one of the rooms, doing what the people do best in such summit meetings - talk business.

   Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and started a leisurely yet authoritative stride through the corridor that wouldn't betray her intentions. Just one of the diplomats wanderingg in the wrong way - or looking for the bathroom. Nothing unnatural. She distinctly remembered that her earpiece enabled communication with HQ, which could track Seelie frequencies for her, but she didn't trust them. Not this once. 

  Helena swallowed the lump as she passed the rooms one by one, door swung open to reveal their empty contents. As she walked deeper through the corridor, the sounds of people from the ballroom faded, and despite the hot summer sun outside, she could feel a shiver down her spine. There was definitely strong Fey - and Unseelie too, from her experience - presence here. 

  Finally, at the end of the long corridor, there was a closed door. While she hadn't been inside, Helena knew from experience that other rooms at the end of corridors were usually bigger than most. The windows were also taller - providing an easy escape when needed. 

  She checked the sides of the door before making her next action; as expected, there was a security camera glaring at her point-blank in the eye. It would be helpful in case of certain incidents, but definitely extremely unhelpful when she was planning her certain incident at the moment. Rummaging in her purse (and making sure her back was to the camera), Helena pulled out a small expandable rectangle frame, the perfect size for fitting around the dark orb swirling around in the distance. She hated magic of all kinds with a vengance, especially those associated with the Fey, but she had to admit, the way CARDS combined technology with magic was useful. Tapping the frame once, it immediately sprung to life, and attached itself onto the camera. Now the security guards would be seeing an alternative reality. 

  It was really just basic Unseelie magic that warped reality and manipulated illusions (according to what Alex told her, anyways), but it was infinitely useful in situations like these, where it'll be best not to be seen in a compromising situation. The frame provided an alibi for her; it would depict her walking out of the situation and some other agent or person walking past this precise location, where a, ah, minor accident would be initiated. 

  Helena bit her lip. Now, what to do? The voices on the other side of the door were muffled, but there was nonetheless talking or negotiation going on. Her first instinct would be to attach a few (harmless) of CARDS' version of dynamite sticks and blast the door open, but it would be too distracting and would obviously arouse unwanted attention. 

  And besides, it was highly likely Khiana would suspend her if she did that. So, not feasible.

  The other only situation would involve her acting skills, and honestly she wasn't the best in that department, but she had no choice. Squaring her shoulders again, Helena slipped the switchblade hidden in her coat up to the inside of her sleeve, just in case.

  Taking a deep breath, she brought her knuckles up to the wooden surface, and knocked. 

CARDS Headquarters - Private Quarters 
—  turkey; 27.7.2017

   Saebin stared at the new notification that just popped up on her communication device - just like a phone really, but she still struggled with modern technology because vampire problems - that showed Alex calling her to the Wonderland-designated area of the infirmary. Piles of documents were sprawled across the desk in front of her, while her laptop was propped up in the midst of the sea of paper. She had always hated the stupid holoscreens that CARDS had started using; they claimed that holoscreens made filing and searching for documents much easier. She usually didn't have strong opinions on things, but Saebin had to stand her ground on that issue. At this rate of technological change, she would have to use her powers on herself to heal from the headaches everytime she had to use CARDS technology.

   Well, at least she had the hindsight to make someone teach her how the map worked. Switching base from Diamantes meant that she had to adapt to yet another huge base with no guidance whatsoever, and she already had to spend a whole damn year doing the same thing at Diamantes. Thank goodness they let her bring her dog along with her, because with the rate things were going, Saebin would've died of boredom long ago. 

  (Not literally, of course - vampires were usually very strong and immune to practically everything. If boredom could kill she was sure someone somewhere would've figured it out already and exploited that weakness.) 

  Stretching, Saebin got off her chair and immediately needed to stablise herself against the wall. The Internet was really bad for you, apparently. At the sound of her chair scrapping against the floor, her puppy immediately waked up and yapped at her heels. A small smile spread through her face. "Aww, someone misses me." She knelt against the floor, metal cold against her knees. Jae at her face, and she rubbed his coat affectionately. "Sorry baby, but I have to work. Do you think you can make your way back to my room?" Dutifully, Jae nodded, and as the doors opened, she went one way, while he ran off in the opposite direction. For some reason, her golden retriever was amazing at finding directions, and knew the locations of important places off heart. He was her pathfinder of sorts, so in a way she didn't really need the map. Besides, if he ever got lost, Saebin trusted that CARDS personnel would find it in their heart to get him back to her apartment. Humans were easily manipulated, after all. 

   While she badly wanted to bring Jae to the infirmary, Saebin knew it would be for the best to not do so. She might not be the person with the most medical information out there, but even she knew that one, people might be allergic to dog fur, and two, human immune systems, when vulnerable, could catch anything from Jae that he himself might be fine with. Vampire immunity really pays off sometimes, but Saebin knew to be careful herself as well.

  Loosening the plaid jacket around her waist, Saebin wrapped it around herself as she shivered in the cold corridor. Diamantes had the same problem, in that indoors was always colder than outside, no exceptions. Thank goodness she had packed enough clothes.

  Turning a corner, she attempted to navigate the CARDS maze through the communication device held in front of her. Saebin rubbed her eyes to get rid of the fatigue settling in; ever since someone, probably Alex, got wind of the fact she was mostly sitting around without much to do, they had decided to make her do research on the things they were meant to retrieve and find, to prevent falling into Gemini's hands. Saebin had thought Wonderland more smart than this, because research teams were usually the ones holding the most information. Well, no matter. The new position would just make her job much easier. 

   So far she had 'reported' back to Alex - who she was positive do not trust her in the slightest, despite putting her on the job - that the seven items that they needed to recover had a linkage with their enemies' name. Aside from being objects that represent each of the Underworld spheres, each of the objects' beginning letter also correspond to the name 'Gemini'. Alex was obviously skeptical when he heard this, but seemed to reserve judgement. "Well, at least we have a clue where to look now," He finally settled on, before giving her access to the CARDS archive. "Here are some objects that might be one of the seven. I'll leave it to you."

   And so, with the list on hand, Saebin was left in charge of research. Having positively identified the Seelie's object (the Glyph, obviously), they were trying to figure out what the others were. After hearing her report, Alex had been conflicted with whether to keep the Ankh and Larimar on the list - initially their top choices for the vampire's object and the mer-people's object - but decided to leave it up to her. Saebin herself was unsure, but she couldn't think of other representing objects. In the meantime, she would tap into her own treasury of connections to see if the Ankh really was the vampire's object, and if it was, well, that would just aid her teammates' effort.

  "Alex?" Pressing her Wonderland ID against the card scanner, the doors slid open to reveal the scientist bent over the emergency area of the room. At the sound of her hesitant voice, the man jumped, and turned to look at her. "Uh...hi. You, uh, called for me?"

   "Yes." He crossed the room to the only desk there, where a white coat was drapped over the chair. "Put this on." Alex tossed the coat at her, which she caught. "Medical staff get very touchy when people they don't know come in. I know you're the designated healer of Wonderland, but they don't know that. This would at least prevent you from being cursed from the more easily annoyed ones."

   "Oh, um, thanks." Shrugging the coat on top of her plaid immediately, Saebin looked around her. It was a simple set-up, similar to the emergency units she'd seen on television, except there was another area, separated from the main area with a curtain, that seemed to have more sophisticated tools in store. 

   "You're welcome." Alex handed her a face-mask, which she put on, following his actions. "Now, despite you being designated healer of this team, I know you have zero medical knowledge whatsoever, and only got the position because of your powers." Startled at this sudden revelation, Saebin whirled around to offer an excuse - any excuse, really, to regain his trust, or to pretend that it wasn't true, to stop the rush of nervousness through her system - before Alex waved it away dismissively. "I don't care what you have to say about that, about how you got into CARDS, or how you got the job. No, right now we're concerned about healing people and that's what we're dealing with. Other things can be dealt with later." A relieved sigh escaped from her nose, which Alex sent her a glance at. "That doesn't mean they won't be dealt with." 

   He pointed at the normal emergency area. "This is where we'll treat non-magic related injuries. Which means this is also your area, because your ability helps close wounds, stop bleeding and everything related to that, but don't remove curses or bullets. There'll be a nurse coming along soon to help you with everything, who'll also be more familiar with the equipment we use. On the other side of the room," At this he pointed at the side where there were more equipment and tools. "Is where we'll treat magic-related injuries. I'll be in charge there, and woe betide the poor person who'll be there. Whatever you hear from that side of the room, don't be scared, or worried, know that they're in trusted hands. And when I'm done with them, I'll hand them to you. Any questions?" She shook her head. "Good. Now, your ability is an exhausting one, so there are rations in one of the cupboard if you need to replenish your energy. By the way, the other area has a protection shield placed around it, so don't be worried. It was set up in an emergency, which is why it's so crude." 

  "In the meantime," Alex continued, "I'll be here monitoring the situation on the battlefield." He planted himself on the chair where he had plucked her coat off of, and summoned a holoscreen. 

  "Wait, battlefield?" Saebin was confused; what was going on here?

  "Oh," Her question made him pause in his actions. "Sorry, I guess I forgot to tell you. Our Ace and Hel - Anastasia," He corrected hastily, as a nurse entered the room. "are on a mission in Cairo now. We're setting up this infirmary in case of any accidents. While they were technically stationed at Clubes, HQ has better medical facilities. It would be better to transport any injured persons here." 

  "...right." Daehyun and Helena fighting Gemini at Cairo? That was news to her. Or at least, it would have been if not for her...alternative source of information. "And we'll be at standby for the moment, then?" 

  "Yes. If you want to work, feel free to."

  Humming an affirmative, Saebin pulled her laptop onto her lap, which she had decided to take with her from the room she was in previously, and opened her email. Aside from her inability to navigate CARDS' technology, Saebin also preferred her laptop for another reason; using a VPN and building firewalls around her computer meant that HQ wouldn't be able to track all of her Internet activity. It was pretty embarrassing when she asked the technicians to do it for her since they thought she wanted to watch on her laptop, but it was worth it. Already a month in HQ with her laptop, and so far no one had caught her out. Aside from Carroll, of course, but that person had always given her the creeps. If anyone made it on her mother's blacklist, that was already enough for her radar to go off. The humans called it bad vibes, so yeah. Saebin got bad vibes from meeting Carroll. 

  She could feel Alex casting her a side glance, but otherwise saying nothing. He soon focused on the holoscreen in front of him, or rather, the host of holoscreens in front of him. As far as she could tell, it seemed to be a bunch of reports, live video feed of something, as well as audio, judging from the way he was frowning and had an earpiece in. Alex definitely had a one-man command centre set up in front of him. 

   Well, no matter. Or rather, all the better for her. Opening her email, she drew up the statistics and information files she got from the CARDS server on her fellow members, and attached it as a file. She wrote in the email of the addressee, and started typing in the body of her email; 

  Dear Celeste and Chess...

MASSIVE PLOT TWIST 

BOOM

Also yes I'm actually updating? Wow. 

Did I get all of the stuff I said I would do done? Nah. I'll...get to it. Like all of the other abandoned projects laying in my project pile

Anyways the only major thing that happened so far in my life is that I downloaded Plague Inc., and it was the single worst decision I have made in this week because 1) it's so inaccurate, like obviously infection rates are going to skyrocket in the USA because FrEeDoM and 2) it's so addictive??? 

Sorry for this super short chapter, but I decided to postpone Hyunwook's life story since it'll be unfair to have two of my OCs make an appearance at the same time. And it'll be even worse of me to dely talking about wtf happened with Helena so...yeah 

Gemini next! People who at least know how to cooperate with each other :) 

Okay, because I see people do this all the time, I'll attach a question below. You don't have to answer if you don't want to, this is just me trying the 'influencer life' (yike, cringe asf), but anyways

Do you prefer Gemini or Wonderland? Like, say, if you have to spend a weekend or even just a day with one of the teams, which would it be? Bonus points if you say the character as well (no, you can't choose your own character) 

For me, I prefer Gemini, but honestly Yongguk would be a better guy to hang out with. Sushi is the deal breaker for me. Nothing else matters. 

And yes. Alex is being overworked. Obviously, and painfully. He needs a pay raise.