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“The thing is, we’ve been working on rebranding the department.” The speaker - Phil Coulson, director of SHIELD Safety Department - adjusts his tie. He stares into the camera as he speaks, awkward and earnest. “That’s why I invited you here. To showcase the community’s new and improved Safety department. We’re not a big bad private security firm anymore. We’re part of the community, your friends and neighbors who just want to keep you safe, and we all work really really hard.”
*
The SHIELD Safety Department is located directly above the Golf Pro Shop. A creaky back stairwell behind the cart washing station leads up to a yellow door that used to say Security, but has since then had a piece of cardstock taped over the sign to correctly label it as the Safety department.
The office inside is in a state of disarray.
Two lumpy couches line the back wall, one of which is occupied by a Safety officer - Lance Hunter - in a wrinkled orange polo, fast asleep. The rest of the room is a mess of over stuffed file cabinets, keys in the wrong places, and various items that belonged to the impromptu lost and found.
Sitting in a swirly chair in front of the various monitors that meant to make up the community's security feed is a young woman - Daisy Johnson - her eyes are not however on the screen in front of her, but instead glued to her cell phone.
Two other Safety officers occupy the room, Alphonso Mackenzie and Leopold Fitz, neither of which are paying much attention, too caught up in a video game that is being played on the office’s antique desktop.
*
“It’s not that we do nothing here,” Daisy insists, “It’s just that we get paid a dollar above minimum and there’s free wifi.”
*
Fitz looks up from his game for a brief moment, “There’s old people complaining about their neighbors, and then there’s zombies. Which one would you choose?”
He waits a moment for an answer that never comes, his eyes already moving to the game in front of him.
“The answer is zombies.”
*
A phone rings interrupting the tranquility of the office space. Three heads jerk up at once, turning to the offending machine with looks akin to horror on their features. The fourth head is more delayed, rising from his sleep to glare at the phone.
“Nose goes.”
“Not it.”
“Nope.”
“Ah, bloody hell, I just woke up.”
*
“We take nose goes very seriously around here,” Mack admits. “I’d figure it accounts for eighty percent of the department decisions.”
*
“SHIELD Safety Department, how may I assist you” Hunter, having lost the game of nose goes , says as he picks up the phone in the overly cheerful customer service voice required of all employees. “Yes, I mean the Security Department. We’re the same thing.”
He nods his head in response to something he hears on the other end of the phone line. “Yes ma’am, I know, it’s very confusing for me too.”
Another nod. This time with a longer delay.
The hand not holding the phone waves out in the air, a silent symbol that Fitz understands, rushing forward to grab a pen and a paper, while Hunter scrawls illegible words down on the paper.
“And what does precious Fido look like?”
Daisy lets out a curse, finally setting her cell phone down, to pull up the security feeds.
“Sorry - I mean, Franceska, which may I say, is a lovely name for a dog,” he rolls his eyes as he says this, the customer service tone never faltering. “Brown. A wonderful dog color. What about size?” Another pause. “Like a labrador?” A longer pause. “Bigger than a labrador?”
*
Hunter holds up his piece of paper triumphantly for the camera, his writing is mostly indecipherable. The only word that can clearly be read is big written in block letters.
He tucks the paper back in his pocket.
“This is why I’m a cat person.”
*
“Normally we just get old people complaining about their neighbors being too loud, or high schoolers trying to have golf cart races,” Daisy explains. “It’s nice to get some real action.”
*
“No, no, we don’t leave the office. We’ve got the field teams for that, and radios.” Fitz gestures triumphantly with his radio. “We have technology!”
*
Two women - Barbara Morse and Jemma Simmons - sit inside a golf cart, aviator shades covering their eyes, bright orange Safety polos marking them out from the golfers within the community. They’re supposed to be patrolling the course, but have been stopped at the driving range for the better part of the hour.
Currently they are in the midst of critiquing the form of an off duty Safety employee - Melinda May - when their radio goes off.
Jemma’s hand flies up to her face, “Nose goes.”
“Nose,” Bobbi echoes her own hand flying up.
May hits the ball beautifully down the center of the green, and ignores the radio.
*
“I’m off duty. Go away.”
*
“Jem. Barb. One of you pick up the radio, it’s a code blue.”
Bobbi curses.
Since May is not playing this means technically she lost the game of nose goes , though she will later insist that nose goes cannot be played when there are only two people present, for in that case it is basically ordering the other person to take the call which is against SHIELD Safety procedure.
“Go for Morse.”
Fitz’s voice crackles over the radio. “We’ve got a lost dog. Brown, sort of large, comes to the name Franceska.”
“Oh that is an unfortunate dog name,” Jemma pulls a face. “Like the porn star.”
“I’m not going to even question your knowledge of porn stars,” Bobbi says, narrowing her eyes at her companion.
“Well Fitz and I were watching this -”
Bobbi shakes her head to silently signal that she doesn’t want to know the whole story, before pressing the button on the side of the radio to respond to Fitz. “10-4.”
*
“Mr. Coulson used to be a real police officer. It was only once he became head of the department that we started using the ten and eleven codes,” Jemma explains. “My favorite is 11-44, because I have this handy rhyme to remember it.”
She pauses for dramatic affect.
“11-44, subject is no more.”
A triumphant smile spill across her features.
“Get it, because that’s the code you use when you find a dead body.”
Her smile never falters.
“Isn’t that exciting?”
*
“Wanna go grab a pop?”
“Please,” Jemma replies, settling into her seat inside of the golf cart, after waving a quick farewell to May. “A Pepsi would really hit the spot.”
“Coke’s better,” Bobbi objects, before twisting the key on the golf cart. The white cart starts off at a snail's pace down the hill. “Maybe if we’re lucky the dog will be at the food court.”
“Oh wouldn’t that be lovely.”
*
“What you have to understand,” Bobbi says, twisting open her coke bottle, “Is that nine times out of ten these dogs end up going back home before we find them, and the other times some other member of the community will call and say that a strange dog is in their garden. So there’s really no need to waste our time looking for it.”
She takes a long drink, the reflection of the bottle showing in her tinted glasses.
When she lowers the drink she speaks again. “Plus we’ve got Yo-Yo and Joey on patrol, and they’re new enough to actually still go look for lost dogs.”
*
The siren lights turn on atop the Safety golf cart, the driver of the cart - Elena Rodriguez - has modified her personal golf cart to reach speeds that make it street legal, perfectly equipped to hunt down lost dogs with unfortunate names.
Her passenger - Joey Gutierrez - attempts to hang on to the side of the cart for dear life.
Joey vaguely once remembers what solid ground felt like.
Vaguely.
*
“Yo-Yo is the worst driver we have, I don’t know how she got her license..”
A voice from behind him shouts. “ Pero moriste?”
*
“So, I have good news and bad news,” Daisy announces to the office, setting her phone down on the table. “Which first?”
Hunter answers back with a reluctant, “Good.”
Mack and Fitz have returned to their video games and are too busy fighting zombies to properly respond. Daisy has learned to take what she can get.
“Yo-Yo found a lost dog.”
This does get a reaction out of the gaming duo, half-hearted noises of success which is admittedly better than nothing.
It’s Hunter that asks, “What’s the bad news?”
“Joey’s pretty sure it’s the wrong dog.”
*
“Franceska, here girl,” Joey says desperately to the dog.
His newfound canine companion does not respond.
*
A black labrador sits in the center of the office.
“She said it was brown.”
“Maybe it’s just dirty,” Daisy offers. “She could totally be a Franceska. She looks like a Franceska.”
“Not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the name,” Fitz mutters. If anybody notices the tips of his ears turning slightly red they don’t mention it. Fitz’s vast knowledge of porn stars is not as surprising as Jemma’s porn star knowledge.
“Uh, I’m pretty sure she’s a he,” Hunter says, gesturing to the dog.
Five heads tilt to the side to examine the dog from a different angle.
“ Mierda. ”
“You know whose dog this actually looks like-”
“Don’t say it,” Daisy warns.
Fitz ignores her. “Ward’s.”
*
“Ward used to work for the Safety department, or I guess we were the Security department back then, but he left us to join the one true evil on the planet,” Daisy’s face scrunches up into a scowl. “Highway Patrol.”
*
“One time Ward assigned me and Jemma a defective golf cart. I don’t think he knew it was defective, but it was and -” He pauses, a flush rising to his cheeks again. “We may or may not have crashed it into the pool. Which would’ve been fine, mostly except for the damaged golf cart, and pool…”
He trails off again. Looking away from the camera for a moment.
“I don’t know how to swim.”
*
“Ward’s basically a bag of dicks. I’m voting we keep the dog,” Hunter insists. “We could even rename him.”
*
“I’ve never met the guy,” Joey admits, “But uh… I haven’t heard nice things?”
*
A knock at the door interrupts any scheming going on in the Safety office regarding the requisition of a certain former team member’s dog. They all stare at the door in horror. Nobody ever knocks of the Safety door, and if they do it’s never for anything good.
Voices overlap each other in the desperate shouts of “Nose goes,” fingers flying to their faces in order to protect themselves from the wrath of whoever might be on the other side of the door.
Nobody's quite sure who lost.
In the end it doesn’t matter, as the person on the other side of the door shouts through the thin wood. “Hey, it’s just me, Lincoln.”
Lincoln Campbell - coordinator of the community's First Aid department and Daisy’s current friend with benefits - stands on the other side of the door, when Daisy finally opens the door up. A brown Great Dane beside him, the dog is so massive that standing beside it, Lincoln is smashed against the stairwell wall.
“Did anybody call about a lost dog? This one showed up over at the clinic and-” He trails off, eyes falling on the dog in the center of the room. “Wait, did you steal Ward’s dog again?”
“No,” Daisy says far too quickly.
Just as Mack voices a concerned, “Again?”
*
Lincoln stares at the camera, a resigned look on his face. “I should never have dropped out of med school.”
*
Outside of the Safety office, a old woman reunites with a dog almost twice her size.
There are smiles all around.
Daisy pulls out her cell phone to take a victory selfie which will later be posted on the SHIELD Safety Department facebook page.
If anybody notices Buddy the dog having a Safety orange bandana tied around his neck by an overly excited Hunter nobody mentions it.
*
“See,” Coulson says gesturing to the happy scene behind him. “Everyone’s safe and sound, just as your community will be with the SHIELD Safety Department looking out for you. So uh, please keep paying us, we really need the money.”