Identity Crisis

Aranea had a tiny little office without a window. It had once been a teacher's office; the scouts sometimes took those over from the faculty. The door had a large window with blinds. A pair of chitinous fingers pulled them apart to peek at whoever was knocking.

A NEK0... and one of the more colorful ones. Were his colors always like that?

Soon, the door was open, and Aranea, sitting two-legged in a swivel chair opened the door to her very small office. "Hi Konpeitou!" He had mentioned his name changed before. And that he was a he, now, which was cool. Aranea was a giant lesbian spider, herself. It was 2019.

"Stopping by to say hello?" She grinned, amused. It was like a little joke with herself; she already had the feeling this wasn't a social visit.

"Of course," she let him in. "Sorry for the mess." It was a bit cramped, but there was a little seat for Kon in the corner between a filing cabinet and the desk. A bulky, overflowing folder perched on the filing cabinet threatened to spill itself onto Kon at any moment.

Kon's request created more questions for Aranea. She would try to address his needs first. "Well... I'm sure that should be okay. There's a medical need for it after all. I'll shoot a message over to the people handling that stuff. They'll probably let us head over and run off a few copies of whatever they've got." She tapped away at her laptop for a moment.

"But while we're waiting for that..." Her face betrayed her concern. "How'd you get shapeshifting again? I mean, isn't there someone who can tell you how to use it?"

"Huh..."

That didn't sound like too bad of a deal, the way Kon said it... she just hoped there weren't any strings attached that he was being forced to hide. That was how they usually worked on this goddamn magic island. Or at least Aranea remembered hearing a special news report about something like that. So she didn't really trust it, but she wouldn't press it any further. There was no way for her to know, or to do anything about it if she could.

"Well, it sounds like this is working out for you, for the most part. I'm glad you're happy with it." She smiled.

It wouldn't take too long before Aranea's laptop started making message-received noises. "That's them," she said.

She received another message, frowned, and started typing, muttering "Of course they did." She tapped out a frustrated message, took a breath, then turned to Kon. "Alright. They're gonna let us run off copies of whatever you need. We have some boxes of stuff from one of the labs. I'll help you sort through it; I've got some time."

She stood up, and would start leading Kon out to another building.

Aranea didn't answer immediately. First, she locked the office behind them, and skittered a few steps away with Kon alongside her.

"Well..." She hesitated again. "They seized some NEK0 promotional materials, in our last raid on a lab. Some of that stuff is pornographic." And she didn't know how Kon would deal with seeing stuff like that, or if it would bring up some terrible feelings for him. The mere thought of it was doing that for Aranea. Making her sick to her stomach. Making her scars ache like fresh wounds.

"I could fish that stuff out so you don't have to see it," she offered.

Maybe Aranea wasn't clear enough about what was in that promotional material, and why it was deeply disgusting to her. She also didn't want to be more clear about what was in it. So it evened out. "Well, either way. If I filter that kind of stuff out for you, it should help you find what you need faster."

This was surely true. Seeing that stuff would waste Kon's time whether or not it caused a breakdown. And she wasn't entirely convinced that Kon was immune to it, but she wasn't going to tell him that.

The scouts' storage area for that kind of recently-acquired evidence wasn't too far away - but it was well-secured. There were quite a few locks, and a few times Aranea had to wave her id card around. It was not normal for a student to come to this part of campus, or for anyone else to come here who didn't have credentials like Aranea's for that matter.

Aranea would lead him to a basement room. Kon would notice a few cameras on the ceiling, watching them. There were shelves upon shelves full of oddities, and boxes, and boxes full of oddities. "I know I don't need to tell you this, but you shouldn't touch anything you're not here for." One couldn't be too careful bringing someone down here. She'd heard stories about people who weren't careful enough. Luckily, everything around them at the moment looked pretty benign.

She directed Kon to wait by a metal table not too far from the entrance, and she skittered around a corner, quickly retrieving a few heavy boxes of nek0 related information. She'd set the boxes on the table.