The Forbidden Domain - Part 25

The next day I felt significantly better. By the time noon rolled around I was capable of walking around the apartment without feeling like it was killing me. Valarie had already left to go to work because while I had the day off she still needed to go in. Instead I kept myself busy with various chores around the house, although I did have to take several breaks while doing it.

Feeling rather good I sent a message to Valarie saying that I would be good to meet with Marilyn tonight. She agreed and with that I sent the message to Marilyn to invite her over to discuss what she wanted to discuss. I quickly received a response from her agreeing to the meeting. With that dealt with I decided to take a nap before the meeting in a few hours.

I was woke by Valarie a little before the meeting. This time I managed to sleep without being bothered by any strange dreams. Scarred Yiskah must have decided it was best for me to rest now. I took the next few minutes to wash my face and help me clear the fog from my mind. Usually I did that by training but I was still in no condition to do that. I wasn’t used to sleeping and resting this much.

When Marilyn arrive I was as prepared as I could be. She was alone this time and I was a bit thankful that Lyle was not with her. I was seated at our table while Valarie let her in. Valarie joined me and the table and Marilyn took the third seat.

“Sorry to disturb you like this Miss Page. I know that you have been recovering from your last ordeal.” Said Marilyn. It was always strange that Marilyn was so formal, always calling people by their last names. I never really thought of myself by my last name because it was just a name given to me for legal purposes at the orphanage.

“I’m getting better and I know that you wanted to talk with us about something important.”

She nodded, “Yes,” She looked between me and Valarie, “I would like both of your to join Project Mayfly as special agents.”

“Special agents of Mayfly?” Asked Valarie.

“I heard that you have gathered a team of people for Project Mayfly. Last I knew you were basically the only employee of that project.” I said.

“I guess I should explain then.” Said Marilyn. “With your arrive I had evidence that supernatural activities actually exist, something that Project Mayfly has been looking for a long time. I used some old provisions in the Project Mayfly charter to fully establish the organization as the official supernatural investigation squad.

“I then contacted some of the retired members of Project Mayfly to ask them to return to the project. A bunch of them accepted my request and now that I actually have manpower and funding I plan of more fully investigating supernatural activities. The two of your are certainly not the only two people in this world with such abilities.

“Other however are certainly doing better at hiding there activities though. I am having Lyle go through all the old Project Mayfly records to find and contradictions in the reports to see if we had accidentally misclassified any of those.

“However I do not have anybody with supernatural powers on my team. I would greatly appreciate it if you would join us. Your knowledge and abilities would be a great boon to my team and just your presence will help keep the Project up and running.”

I listened to her explanation before I finally asked, “So you want to find other people with supernatural abilities and then what?”

“Do what should be done. Some of them might be like you, trying to use their abilities right or have nobody to confide in and are basically alone. Others might need to be stopped because they are using their powers to commit crimes.”

“And the ones that don’t want to be found and don’t want your help?”

“I don’t plan on turning Project Mayfly into a witch hunt. I want to protect everybody who needs protecting. It isn’t like supernatural powers automatically make you a criminal but it also doesn’t prevent people from being a criminal. There are people who need help, people who need stopping, and many other people. Normal police officers and government employees are not equipped to do that with people who have supernatural powers.

She continued, “There is a lot we don’t know about the supernatural and I would appreciate you help. Not only do the two of your have abilities that we do not but you also can understand and empathize with people with supernatural abilities in ways that I can not just because I have not gone through the same experiences. I need you to help us from going down the wrong road.”

Valarie turned to me and asked, “What do you think Yiskah? She need our help. I think that we should do it. We helped people like Wanderer and Esta, this would let us do that more. Those people need your help.”

I understood their reasons and that appealed to me as well. “What about money? As much as I would like to help people out of charity if I’m going to do that much work for you we would not be able to make rent. Especially if we had to quit working at the Pendulum Lounge.”

“Actually,” Said Marilyn, “I would like you to continue to work there. I can provide you with a small salary to help support you as payment for any assistance that you can give us but I have been working out a deal with Mr Bryant. He had quite a lot of connections throughout Bay Port and beyond and he had a lot of influence. I have been trying to arrange having him work as a contractor to help provide support for people with supernatural powers that need assistance. I would like you to continue helping him in that regard, having people that have abilities will help reassure people who ask for assistance from him. Plus I’m sure that all bureaucratic work that we have been at my office would bore you and be a waste of your talents. Instead we would like you to be called when we actually have investigations that need to be done. Would this kind of arrangement be acceptable for you?”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that kind of arrangement.” I said, “Does that sound alright to you Valarie?”

She nodded, “Yeah, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it.”

Marilyn nodded, “Thank you for you support.” She lifted her small briefcase and opened it, pulling out a couple of contracts and slid them over the table toward us. “These are government contractor agreement to work with Project Mayfly. They include your salary and your duties to us. They also state that should I be replaced as the leader of Project Mayfly that you can opt out of the contract without advanced notice.”

I eyed her and said, “I take it that is an advantage you plan on leveraging against your superiors to keep yourself as the leader.”

“Government politics is complicated stuff and there are already plenty of people lining up to try and take over my position. All of them I do not trust to correctly lead Project Mayfly. I need to be entrenched against their attacks and have a position of strength when dealing with them or else Project Mayfly will turn into another useless government branch that might do more harm than good to people like you. I do not want that to happen and I’m sure that you do not either.”

I nodded and then looked over the contract. It seemed fairly straightforward with a more than generous salary for contract work. Some people might have slipped in special clauses for advantage against us that were hard to notice but I did not believe that Marilyn did that. The first reason was that Marilyn did not want to manipulate us, or at least I did not believe that she did. The second was that for mine and Valarie’s purpose this contract was hardly limiting at all. We could easily break the contract without any problems and escape somewhere else with little inconvenience should Marilyn attempt something bad against us.

Valarie was already signing her’s and when she was done I took the pen from her and signed my own copy. We then handed them back to Marilyn. Once she took the contracts and stowed them Valarie said, “Um, since we are not government contractors do you think that you can help provide lodging and support for Wanderer? We brought him to this world temporarily. He plans on learning about our world before he returns to his own world.