Work Text:
Surprisingly enough, Claudia muses as she speeds through Aisle 2248-Ze, inventory duty gets less boring with time. It must be a combination of getting to know the Warehouse and knowing that she might someday soon end up spending her life connected to it. Or it could be that she's learned more about history, geography, politics, chemistry and even computers since she's been here than she had in the six different schools she'd attended previously. She isn't quite sure about that.
Regardless, she's been here long enough that she's allowed to use a certain pair of ancient winged sandals to get around, and those things are just plain fun. They take the boring parts out of the job.
Everything she can see in this aisle is in place, but something's off. She checks the computer terminal at the end of the aisle; it says everything is present. Still, something just feels different, so she slips the sandals off her feet and steps carefully through the aisle, noting the placement of everything and making a mental note to dust the area later.
And that's when she sees it. Somebody's taken one of the artifacts off a shelf and replaced it. It's not very recent -- there's still a sheen of dust around it -- but the dust is much thinner here. She checks the computer screen in front of it. Giacomo Rizzolatti's lab goggles, allow the wearer to share the sensory input of people near them, last accessed April 22, 2012 by Helena G. Wells.
On a hunch, she goes back to the main terminal and pulls up H.G.'s artifact access record for the six months between April 22nd and today. There are a lot of them -- as far as the computers can tell, all of it's been returned -- and most of the artifacts are listed as having been checked out for missions. But there's the goggles, the original recording of "Moments in Love," and Mae West's diamond necklace, among other things. She bets if she goes farther back in the history, she'll find more.
Claudia doesn't need very long to figure out what each of these artifacts can be used for. What disturbs her is that there's no indication that any of these artifacts has left the Warehouse during their time off-shelf, which means that somebody is going to have to have a talk with Myka and H.G. about what exactly constitutes appropriate behavior within the Warehouse.
She's only twenty-one, and even with the sandals and the infinite ice-cream machine in Aisle 94-Phi, she doesn't get paid enough for this.
Maybe she can find all the pervertible artifacts and put sticky notes under them asking the two of them to take it to Leena's. Maybe they'll get the message that way and she won't have to talk to anyone. That's got to be less humiliating than confronting them about this. Or worse, confronting Artie and getting him to do it. She's pretty sure that if she did that, nobody would be happy.
Of course, there's also the option of forgetting any of this ever happened. Or turnabout: she's been counting down the days until Fargo comes to visit for Thanksgiving, and she's pretty sure he'd be open to the idea of a little in-warehouse making out.
Yes, Claudia thinks. That has possibilities.