Maxine’s checklist.

1) Octosaurus Rex tricked inside of her fish tank, along with the paperclip minnows. Tank lid sealed. Strong magnets put on bottom.

Check.

2) Camera checked and double-checked for battery life and fresh cassette. It was an old one: it still took videos. Actual videos, as in, video tapes. She was still an intern, and this wasn’t exactly a career making interview: that was all the station had been willing to comp her. The techies promised it worked.

Check.

3) Dress shirt ironed. Black nylons inspected for any runs, any starts of runs, any snags, any snags waiting to happen. Suit coat and jacket hung up in the shower, to steam out wrinkles.

Check.

4) Song pens trained. A process that had started well over a two weeks ago, before she knew how she’d pull this off.

...Almost.

“Which one, Poe?” She asked, standing patiently over the photo array. All were in color: all were arranged in a loose grid. Some were men, some women: similarities blurred, and differences jarred.

On her shoulder, a black BIC pen pointed his cap towards the array. A moment of studying: then, with a dive, he landed point-down on his target.

The police chief.

“Good boy,” she crooned, tickling his cap as he flew back to his perch. She quickly re-arranged the pictures. “Polly. You’re up.”

The red pen tucked behind her left ear took much, much longer. It bobbed up and down indecisively: then, with a flutter, it left its perch to tap lightly at a photo.

Conner Smith. Beat officer, on his second year out of the academy.

“Close, but not quite.” She tapped at a photo up towards the corner: Conner Smith, aged twenty or thirty years. Daddy Smith was a detective in the Mutant and Mutant-Related Crimes division; MMRC. The Mercy. The red pen tried scuttling to her purse; she scooped it back out, to let it know it was being silly. “Either would be interesting. Just do your best.”

The photos got switched around again.

“Zim. Which one?”

No hesitation. The green pen launched itself out of her hair, and tapped its target smugly before returning to its perch.

Her garbage man.

“...Just do your best,” she repeated, wearily.

A half hour later, Maxine Ralls parked her bike outside of the police station, and unstrapped the old camera from the basket. Four pens rode innocuously in her purse; her very normal, not-paperclip-covered purse. Poe, Polly, Zim, and one wild pen. Just in case she actually needed to write.

As she stepped into the station, every pen within twenty feet of her came alive. Some clattered, caged, in desk drawers: others took off from pencil holders, desks tops, and out of loosened hands. Her three little invaders detached themselves (Zim, only after Poe had cap-pecked him) and joined the suddenly swirling flock as they rose towards the ceiling. Her wild one lunched up to claim the coveted ear perch; she gave him a pat, and kept walking towards the front desk.

“Good morning,” she said, producing an ID and a smile for the suddenly cautious man. “Maxine Ralls. Wolf News. I have an interview scheduled with Ms. Elli Fletcher. Has she arrived, yet?”

The secretary, understandably awed by the wild display of otherworldy power that he could see in the air around him and hear in the drawer in front of him, mutely nodded and pointed down a hall. "F-Fourth door on the left, last desk." He barely even glanced at the ID, and even a first grader with her dad's photocopier could have passed that check. Still, obvious displays of mutant power such as that would have an effect on anyone, if not the police in particular. What with all the increasing murders and kidnappings of officers and civilian workers by mutants unknown.

Down the hall, fourth door on the left, last desk. The hall was lined with the cloudy doors favored by police departments, a few with black nameplates on them, for those officers that have deserved their own office through either seniority or special circumstances. The fourth door on the left was a completely clear door, through which one could see a number of two year and newer greenhorn officers. Elli was by far the youngest present, and also the only woman visible. Her uniform was new and clean, and fit her rather well, and she wore it like she knew what to do with it.

Fourth door on the left. Last desk. Maxine knocked politely, before turning the door knob and letting herself in.

A part of the pen flock had followed her—five wild pens, as well as Polly and Zim. Poe had already broken off from their group. She could feel him at the edge of her range, moving up past the ceiling level—he must have found a staircase. Good boy.

The people sitting in here would have known a mutant was coming. Twenty feet: her power affected every ball point pen and paperclip within twenty feet, regardless of walls. Or ceilings and floors, for that matter. And always, for twenty feet, she could feel them—like closing her eyes, and wiggling her toes. They were there, in the darkness. That was the best comparison she had for other people: it was rather hard to describe a sense that only she seemed to have. At times like this, she mostly tried to ignore it, anyway. The more she ignored it, the less things flocked to her. They just... flocked. And frolicked. With unnaturally animate merriment, that she could feel all around her.

“Ms. Fletcher?” She asked, of the cute blonde woman sitting at the appointed desk. She was prettier in person than in her picture. No surprise, there. Maxine smiled, and slipped inside the door: purse over her shoulder, camera case in hand, pens wherever they wanted to be.

She offered a hand. “I’m Maxine Ralls, with Wolf News. We spoke on the phone. Are you ready for your interview?” She looked around, smiling innocuously at the other rookies in the room, who might or might not appreciate this little show of power. She looked back to the woman, in her crisp new uniform. “Is there somewhere more private we could set things up?”

Elli was smiling as she put a small stack of papers in her 'To Turn In' box, next to her 'To Do' box. Every new recruit had an enormous amount of paperwork to complete, but sometimes Elli felt as if she had that much more simply because she was a woman. Were the amount of recruits rushing in enough that they could afford to keep their best hopes off the streets for hours a day to fill out forms? The truth was, they couldn't, and it seemed as if the police force was dwindling before her eyes. Just in the time since Elli had become a full police officer, a week and a half ago, two more had been killed. One was in a firefight with a drug-happy gangster, the other was a mutant who killed him and his family while they were taking his day off at the zoo. Was Elli afraid that the same thing could happen to her? Certainly, but she refused to let fear keep her from her job: to protect and serve.

“Ms. Fletcher?"

Elli looked up and saw a young woman standing before her, pens swarming around her like a pack of angry bumblebees. Only not really angry. And not bumblebees. They were swarming, all right? "That is I. How may I help you?"

“I’m Maxine Ralls, with Wolf News. We spoke on the phone. Are you ready for your interview?”

Elli smiled, and stood. She took the offered hand and nodded. Inwardly however, she was a little peeved. Just because he's the commissioner doesn't mean he has the right to order us around like slaves. I mean, I know we need the good rep an interview like this can bring, but why me, a rookie? I'm probably going to slip up and get us all fired...

Elli held out a finger, and whistled, crooking her finger at one of the pens buzzing around Maxine. After some hesitation, the pen alighted on her finger, and Elli smiled. That was indeed an interesting ability, pen manipulation. And Elli had to guess that it went beyond that, even.

“Is there somewhere more private we could set things up?”

"Hmm... I suppose... We could go to officer Byrnes' office. He had the single just across from here, but not anymore..." Elli trailed off, remembering the day when he had died.

So far, so good: the officer-to-be seemed to take the swarm of pens in stride. She even shook hands. And... whistled. And smiled as someone’s classy black pen alighted on her fingertip.

Okay. Not good. Maxine wasn’t building her internship into an actual job offer by dealing in humanity’s most tolerant. She was hoping for this interview to go very wrong, in a very camera-worthy way. Then again: the police commissioner probably knew that.

Well, then. She’d just have to put some work in.

>> "Hmm... I suppose... We could go to officer Byrnes' office. He had the single just across from here, but not anymore..."

Maxine smiled, willfully ignoring that clue to Officer Byrne’s untimely fate. Did a mutant do it? Was she a horrible person for hoping so? Naw. She was a horrible person for hoping that Byrne and little Elliot here had been close, though. Nothing like starting things off with the woman a bit off-balance, after all.

“That sounds perfect,” she said, smile still in place. “Shall we?” The pen on Elli’s finger flew up to the woman’s shoulder, claiming it as a new perch. The rest of the flock innocuously dispersed—better to not have them fluttering back and forth across the screen, when she got the camera set up.