"I haven't been completely honest with you." Randy set down her glass.
"I know that you're a werebrick."
Bill was taken aback. "What?"
"I know that if you want to, you can turn into a brick."
Bill pressed his hand to his forehead. "How did you know?"
She waved it off. "Something to do with my line of work. I can't really tell you."
"I was planning on telling you, but it's not easy to find the right moment for such important matters… or at least I thought so."
"And that's exactly why I pushed this conversation forward." Randy resumed eating her steak. "Now that we both know, that we know, how about you show me your monthly gathering?"
Randy couldn't help but smile as Bill slowly caught up to what she said. "Of course you can, but please don't call us werebricks."
They were building a bridge. Brick was passed from one to the next in line until the last inline also became brick to pass. At the tip of the building bridge, one person, or "Mountain child" as they called themselves pushed the brick in place and another stuck it to the bridge with mortar produced by bare hands.
Human turns brick and bricks become bridge.
Randy couldn't really participate, but she was non the less part of the line. Overwhelmed by the compassion concentrated on the simple task of passing bricks, she became one with the movement. So concentrated was she on the task at hand, that it took her a while to notice the opposite riverside. Or rather the nebulous mountain on it that slowly crept into existence. This seemed to motivate the others even further.
At some point all bricks were bridge, but it never reached the other side. Randy was sitting beside the bridge, the new moon above here. She was exhausted from the monotonous work, something the bricks did not have to deal with. Bill had told her beforehand, that it was part of the ritual to stay as bridge till the moonset. To gaze upon the unreached mountain. Randy had set out to know all about Bill's gathering and so she waited, even though she knew nothing would happen anymore
"How long do we need to be at this Gala again?" Bill leaned close to Randy so only she could hear him.
Randy turned to meet his eyes and raised an eyebrow. "Oh? You are getting bored?"
Bill returned her gaze. "Of course not. But I can tell, that something of this place is stressing you."
She averted her eyes. "You could say that." It was then, that Randy got a message. All Bill could read was Located the anom- before Randy put the phone back in her pocket.
"But you're right. It is getting late. Would you wait in the car for me? There is something I still need to do."
"All right, we can go."
"What happened to the light?"
"Apparently they had a problem with the fuse; Come on, start driving!"
"You can stop following me, Jack. I can see you." Randy didn't have time for this.
Her pursuer looked puzzled. "How do you know my name?"
"Did you really think, Bill wouldn't tell me about his little brother, who run away?"
"And I'm all the better for it."
"I wouldn't say that about a group, that bludgeons people to convert them."
Jack shrugged. "It's the fastest way we'll complete that bridge."
Randy crossed her arms. "Whatever you want, make it quick."
"Doesn't matter anymore. Bill has you already too tangled up in his mythos." With that, he turned around to leave.
"I know I'm new in this, but even I can tell, that it's not about completing the bridge."
"Like I said: tangled up. You can't see it yet, but his group is slowly dying. How many in your group can still conjure mortar? Was it one or two? It's the mortar that builds, but they are just stuck being bricks."
"Damn it!" Randy rushed through the front door. She had lost Beta-13 again.
Bill came downstairs to greet her. "I see your day wasn't the best?"
"You can say that again. As of recent there is like one interesting thing in this city and I don't what they want here. Every time I think I have something they just leave again leaving me none the wiser. It's just-"
"Hey" He laid his arms around her shoulders. "Why don't you take it slowly?"
She sighed. "You know how it is. I can't actually tell you anything."
"And you know that whatever you have to say, it is save with me."
Randy pondered for a moment and that pulled out a city map. "Do you know anything about this general location?"
Bill frowned. "I think that's were Jack and his gang do their bridge building. I keep telling them to not be that out in the open, but he never listens."
Randy froze. "Of course that's what they were after. I should have thought of that. Of course Command can't just keep my personal live out of this." She pulled out a document titled 'Step Compilation' and looked through it.
"So I guess that helped?"
"Yes, but I fear this concerns you now too. I believe your brother and his gang have been kidnapped."
Bill's face had difficulty parsing this information. "What?"
She forced a smile. "Luckily I work for an Organization, that can help with that. Guess it's my turn to show you my world?"
"And another one for the collective separate chamber."
"Seriously, why even bother with ConProcs, when you don't give us the funds to implement them?"
Bill was thrown into a prison. Like some others in the cell, he was also in Brick form. He waited till the guards moved on, before turning into his human form and pulling the device from his mouth, that Randy had given him as a parting gift. Like instructed he attached it to one of the cells walls. It was thankfully not his job to detonate it. All he had to do now, was move away from the wall and wake the others up. So he did.
"Bill is that you?" Jack was lying on the ground, with a half-gaze directed at his brother.
"Yes, it is. Can you walk?"
"I think I still can, but I can't speak for everyone."
Bill looked around. Only now did he notice that none of the human forms seemed completely lucid. "We'll have to make the less lucid ones turned to brick."
Jack managed a confused look. "For what?"
"We're getting out, obviously."
It was after this, that the provisional Site managed by three Mobile Task Forces for different purposes was struck by several events at ones. One explosion from the containment unit, one at the back entrance and a blackout, served as ideal conditions for the Insurgency pulling in and the Werebricks pulling out. When the MTFs got control of the situation again, the agents and Werebricks were long gone.
Storyline 1:
- first bridge "ritual"
- Randy talks with brother (wants to convince her of the new way)
- awkward talk
- escape from prison
Storyline 2:
- first meeting frames here as the mysterious one (knows a bit too much)
- mysterious gala (werebrick feels out of place); off-screen spy action
- awkward talk (after something with work frustrates her)
- escape from prison
Mysteries:
- A lot about the bricks remains unrevealed. The two brothers have different opinions on werebrick lore. For example, the brother thinks, they turn on full moons because of compulsion/instinct, the main character thinks they won't turn against tradition (but still just doesn't look into the moon), or what exactly is up with the "other side"; "Children of the Mountain"; "Servants of the Builder"
- Randy is Choas Insurgency, never outright mention it.
The escape: Full moon night, SCP thinks they all bricks, but they never look at the moon and the main character snuggles a bomb inside. Escape only possible because of mortar.