“Uplink established, we're good to go. Viv, can you hear us?"

The speakers click quietly as they switch on, immediately followed by a soft, jovial voice. “Loud and clear, Bern! How was the trip down?"

“Smoother than anticipated," Bern replies, “though it was a lot faster, too."

“Sorry, sorry! You're so small, distances are gonna feel like a lot more to cross."

“So we're learning," one of the other passengers says, a bat, still harnessed into his seat. “Anytime you'd like to get us into the air, I'm ready."

“Then, without further ado…" Vivien, trailing off to concentrate.

The hidden engines of the teardrop-shaped vessel vibrate into activity, and it orients itself properly horizontally in the lightless environment it finds itself in.

“Deploying flares in three, two…" he counts down, going quiet as glowing spheres spiral out from runic projectors on the exterior.

Their light immediately spreads to fill the space as they hang in the air, glistening off every deep-hued surface. The keratinous ridges deep beneath the muscle offer a mural of contours that direct the reflected glow of the flares among them like rivers.

“Well gosh, Viv, if you had told me your stomach was so pretty I'd have visited a lot sooner," the second technician chuckles.

“We can make it a regular thing if you want, Micah," Vivien returns with a tone to match. “Hey so, my tea is gonna get cold if I don't get to it…"

“Yeah, fine fine," Micah says, but is quickly overshadowed by Bern's enthusiasm.

“You may as well, it'll make it more authentic," the final passenger says; an opossum, clad in the same model of airtight hazard suit as the other two. The impartial tone of their voice is a little too obvious to hide their excitement to be here.

“If you say so," Vivien chuckles. His laughter carries over a telepathic uplink just as easily as if it had been spoken aloud, so the natural rise and fall of his innards in time with his breathing is not interrupted.

After only a few moments, the walls of slick muscle ripple from above, and deep amber liquid flows in, spidering out over the rolls and crevasses of the gently-undulating wall, gathering into a shallow pool further down the slope.

“Alright, so what are we looking for?" Micah asks, taking his harness off and stretching his wings in the protective membrane of his hazard suit.

“Just getting a look-up close, taking some photos and scans," Bern explains, popping open an equipment crate. “The detail is a lot finer at this size, think of all the places we could put runes we haven't before?"

“A Benthic could probably do that though, yeah?" the bat asks, crouching next to his associate and helping them get things in order.

“We're the size of a Benthic to a Benthic, Micah, And perfectly stable too, thanks to Viv's equipment."

“You're welcome!" he transmits. "Just be gentle with it, I'll have to return most of this stuff once it's been sanitized."

“You've seen what kind of definition they've gotten before with their smallest-scale equipment; think about what ours will get?" the opossum interjects.

“Will, you get excited about the strangest things, I swear," Micah chuckles.

“Yeah, you're the odd one out in here, though, 'cause here agrees with us," Bern adds.

“I'll bring you three lower so you can hop out and take a look up close, alright?" Vivien signals.

The wolverine focuses at his desk, eyes closed, as his discreet earpieces provide him with an accurate mental picture of and control over his delvers' descent.

At least until his door swings quickly open, a breathless bird leaning against it. “Vivien!"

He jolts a bit and spins in his chair to face them but it's enough to cause his link to break. Will is the first to sense something is off, hugging against the console-inlaid pillar and wrapping their tail around it.

“Guys, hold onto something," they direct.

Bern looks up to them as worry starts to set in. “Wait, what's going o--"

Micah and Bern stagger as they feel the first inklings of a sudden drop; the former dashes for his seat with a powerful curl of his wings, pulling the harness over his shoulders again, while the latter curls around the loose equipment and floats towards the ceiling, effectively pinned to it as the surveyor falls.

“What, what, I'm a little bit preoccupied," Vivien says, trying not to stammer.

“The auditors are here!" they announce, metal feathers bristling.

“What?" He leaps to his feet, palms flat on the glass surface of his desk. “They're not supposed to be here until tomorrow, I thought?"

With the systems no longer tracking relative position, his crew hits the pit of his stomach quicker than anticipated, and as it spirals back into the open space of his gut, Bern ping-pongs around the interior of the craft. Non-Newtonian fluid-padding effectively nullifies all impact but it's a mercy their own stomach is empty, as motion sickness compounds by the moment.

“We all thought that, but they had an opening. But whatever went down at ghostworks, they're taking today to clean it up so our department swapped with theirs."

Vivien sucks in air through his teeth, quelling it as he goes for another sip of tea. “Can you stall them for a second? I uh… I need to make myself presentable."

“I'll get you a few minutes."

“Thank you."

The bird backs up and hurries off with the same haste that brought them here, and the moment they're gone, Vivien sits down again, shutting his eyes and trying to link up again. In seconds, the vessel inside stabilizes, and he brings it down to rest on the floor of his stomach.

Micah's expression of sincere worry switches out for that aloofness he vastly prefers as he realizes Bern is alright. The goat sits up, equipment still lumped together in their lap as they clutch their beetle-blue helmet in a reflexive effort to comfort their head.

“I would… blurgh, would love just a little bit of warning in advance next time," they pant out.

“I'm really, really sorry, I was sure I locked that door," Vivien apologizes. “Do whatever you need to do for a bit, you three are on your own while I deal with this."

“Wait wait, how long will that be?!" Bern asks, hurrying to their feet. They stumble, not quite ready to be upright again, but it's easy enough to shake off.

Unfortunately, there's no response, Vivien is already throwing on his lab coat and hurrying out of the office.

“Well," Micah says with a shrug, removing his harness for a second time, “I guess we should get those pictures, right?" He approaches Will, who is still wide-eyed, and with some effort, wraps his arms around them and begins to pry them off of the pillar.

“Yeah, gimme a sec…" Bern implores, gathering up the cameras and lens bag off the floor, and slinging the straps over their shoulders. They traipse over to the door with all the stability they can manage, and drawing a deep breath, they hit the switch.

In an instant, the humid heat of Vivien's stomach rushes in to fill the air-conditioned space, the heat of his beverage making it even more reminiscent of a sauna. As Will frees themself from the bat's hold, Micah gives them a firm but endearing touch to the shoulder, and hops past Bern, being the first down into the knee-deep pool of Bersarthian breakfast blend, and offers a hand to his colleague.

As they also land, they let out a whisper of wonderment to themself as they look up. The flares hang like fireworks in stasis between the steep, shimmering posterior and anterior walls that heave rhythmically together as Vivien hurries for the auditors. It may be a less-controlled situation now but it captivates Bern all the more.

Collecting themself as their first steps outside restores both enthusiasm and clarity, the goat hands their cameras to their colleagues. “Alright, let's get to work."

Springing into action himself, Vivien hurries back into the laboratory proper, not at a full sprint of course, being caught doing that wouldn't look very professional, but to behold his brisk trot unfortunately places his specific brand of agita on display just as well. His eyes scan the lab, which has been vacated for the occasion, but there's no sign of the auditors. Until…

“Pardon me, down here?"

Vivien turns towards the sound, trying not to show his dismay when he finally spots the Subterranean standing on the countertop. Of course they'd send someone so small, someone so capable of spying every last detail out of place. Their eyes meet, catlike pupils fixed on his own with intense scrutiny, completely unshaken by the disparity of their sizes.

“Oh, good morning!" the wolverine says sunnily; his ability to keep his voice measured serves him well several times a day, but he knows he'll meet a week's quota in this meeting alone.

The auditor, his expression severe despite his colorful chevron-patterned suit, slicks back the keratin plates on his head and clears his throat, projecting a voice far deeper than would be expected of his stature.

“Good morning," he emits in return, in what could be taken as a purr, saturated with charm but pointedly devoid of any real warmth. “Liminality vice director Vivien, I presume?"

“That's right," he returns. “And y--"

“Compliance officer Iyen," he cuts Vivien off, apparently preferring to keep pleasantries as brief as possible. Fingers dive into a shirt pocket, pulling out a book seemingly too thick to have been kept there and flipping it open. “Where is the rest of your staff?"

“Preoccupied just this morning, as luck would have it." Technically the full truth, as long as Iyen isn't interested in prying further than that.

Fortunately, he is not. “Now, walk me through what it is you do here."

“Oh, where to begin," Vivien sighs, eyes searching for a suitable process to start with.

>>>>>>>>>

Meanwhile, the crew inside the wolverine's belly is anything but stalling. They coordinate drones via hand gesture, helping them measure and scan every ridge and fold, details on an otherwise smooth surface too fine to be made out at the more commonly-designated small scale.

“So maybe there's not as much engagement from Viv as we thought there would be," Will says to break the silence as they set up a tripod for a panoramic shot, “but I'm still glad we're doing this."

Bern lets out an emphatic noise of agreement, followed up by a chuckle from Micah.

“You two would have been happy even if it wasn't an experiment," the bat says, ascending to scan the higher regions. The walls undulate in a rhythm indeterminable at this scale; it's like trying to find consistency in an ocean tide.

“And what does that mean?" Will asks, looking up at their cohort silhouetted by the flares.

“Means it's no secret you get cozier than most in places like this."

“Wait what do you mean no sec--"

“Guilty as charged!" Bern chimes in at the same time, causing Will's speech to falter into stammering objection as their cohorts share a laugh.

“Hey, no shame," Micah assures, peeling the bioplastic cover off of a blacklight marker and pressing it into a prominent ridge before it can recede. “I may not get it but it's cool that this kind of work will always have weirdos like you lining up to do it."

“What about you, then?" Will asks.

“Like I said, I don't get it," the bat reiterates, “but if it gets me out of having to calibrate the shadow gate demo, then heck yeah I'll get swallowed."

“Wait wait wait," Bern interjects in mid-photo. “If you didn't calibrate it… did anyone?"

“Iiiiiiiii… hope so?"

>>>>>>>>>>

“For future reference," Iyen says as he studiously takes notes, “it helps to have done this in advance."

“Oh yes, it usually is," Vivien assures, cranking the bolts out of the heavy cover fixed to the side of a large, upright, circular apparatus, “and we have the logbook to prove it, right by where you're uh, standing."

Iyen snaps shut his own book in a single hand before tucking it imperceptibly into the hammerspace of his breast pocket, before pulling the spiral-bound book out of its spot in the upright folder rack. Its larger size doesn't seem to hinder him at all; the harness that almost blends into the pattern of his suit deploys counterweights as he lifts to help him maneuver it flat onto the countertop, and he begins to flip through it.

“Just give me a shout when you are done, won't you?" he calls as the wolverine disappears into the hatch.

Vivien mutters some kind of affirmation, probably not even really words, as he slowly leans forward into the crawl space, knowing full well that changing the orientation of his body has instant repercussions. Moving with great care, he heads for the ectoplasmic interface.

>>>>>>>>>

“Alright, I think I've got this thing relatively stable…" Will mutters, mostly to themself as they finally get the tripod set to their specifications. At least, until the entire chamber begins to pitch forward. With a sigh, they collapse it again, tucking it under their arm.

“Incoming, Will!" Bern says as they briskly walk by, touching Will's shoulder to hurry them. Fluids surge past, about waist-high as they rush to keep up with whatever the new horizontal is.

The posterior stomach wall bears down on the higher cluster of flares, extinguishing them on contact and scattering sparks as Micah dives to avoid collision.

The opossum looks over their shoulder as Bern passes by, quickly finding a spring in their step unrelated to the pliant surface underfoot as their means of transportation comes skidding by. He ducks just in time for the tapered tail to swing overhead, and then abruptly, it stops for a moment, before rising into the air.

"I am so sorry for all this," Vivien apologizes from the speakers. "I only have a moment, is there anything I can do for you?"

"Got enough time for a list?" Micah calls from above.

"Well, let's start with the most urgent," Will speaks up. "The pH in here is taking a bit of a dive, we're approaching corrosive levels. Mind taking a swig of extract?"

"Oh yeah sure, lemme just…" the translation of Vivien's thoughts turns to indistinct muttering as his body shifts, sporadically rocking the contents of his stomach.

"Iiiiit seems to still be in my desk drawer."

“You don't keep it on you?" Bern asks near-incredulously.

“I'm not usually eating people, you know," the wolverine retorts. “Had to 'borrow' a bottle from consignment over in ghostworks, almost everyone there is the type so they've got plenty."

"It's fine either way," Will assures him. “Think you'll have a chance to go get it? We have a few minutes before the alarms start going but I'd rather not cut it close, you get it."

"I'll do my best, but this guy is watching me like he's the new Paragon or something." 

"Your best had better be good, Viv" the opossum says, only half-teasing.

"We'll see, gotta go!" Vivien rushes as the uplink cuts.

"Hey wait, about that list!" Micah tries to add, but his only reply is the surveyor splashing down into the swishing bath of enzymes.

Bern seems to be taking it easy compared to the other two, already conducting the drones in low sweeps to map out the sunken, anterior wall while they have the chance.

"What were you going to ask for, Micah?"

“Some differently colored microflares and an inflatable pool chair. I need to rest my wings."

>>>>>>>>>

“Terribly sorry for the delay," Vivien says, taking care to upright himself very slowly upon leaving the crawlspace. “This will need some time to warm up."

“Well, you can show me something else while we wait," Iyen suggests, sitting up from the ledge of a different bench than the one Vivien left him on. “Maybe when I take my leave, I can exit through it, and if I don't pop back in from the respawn vats minutes later, you'll know it's up to code."

The wolverine's laugh comes out as an uncertain mix of polite and genuinely nervous. There's no reason the gate shouldn't work, but now a what-if presses into the pit of his stomach with enough heft that if it was a physical object, his little explorers would have no room to move.

“Right then, perhaps I can get you the other logbooks?" he asks, hoping it will buy him time to move for the extract.

“No need," the Subterranean dismisses, “I've already looked through all of them."

“...Ah. Well, that's good, saves on time, doesn't it?"

“Indeed. And since we've got so much time, why not walk me through storage procedures?"

Vivien tries not to wince; usually that doesn't fit into an auditor's schedule and gets skimmed over in favor of a centerpiece of the laboratory, like automated divination or the dedicated continuum sieves that separately power the liminality department. Liminality's storage, it happens, is not only a mess, but also handled uniquely.

“Of course!" Vivien almost makes the mistake of offering to carry him; a courtesy for the shrunken, but a shocking faux pas for the naturally tiny, and so with a bit of unusual wrist movement he transitions quickly into stuffing his hand into his pocket before leading down the hallway.

Counterweights deploy on the ends of long, flexible metal rods as Iyen launches into the air on concealed steam jets to follow, taking the lead near the end of the short hallway and clinging to a coat hook off to the side of the heavy, latched door. Vivien pauses only a moment to collect himself, and pulls the handle.

Beyond, a warehouse too large for the physical constraints of the building it rests in stretches on in hammerspace, stocked only fractionally with supplies for the laboratory, and all the rest stacked with miscellaneous samples retrieved from the continuum sieves, labelled and sorted both in print and by the holographic screens that project out to be interacted with by passers-by.

“Now…" Iyen says, clicking his pen, “let's see just how well you keep inventory around here."

>>>>>>>>>

“You reckon he's almost there?" Bern asks. They sit up on the running board that juts out from the hatch of the surveyor, watching Will continue to wade through the fluids even as colored lights flash through their visor urgently.

“One can hope!" the opossum says, continuing to scan the surface beneath the intensifying acids with a long-handled instrument as though rolling paint. “I'd like to go under but not until then."

“Yeah, me too…" the goat sympathizes.

“Do you reckon you can go up and wait with them, Will?" Micah asks from atop the surveyor, lying on his back and directing drones. “I'm getting audio notifications about you as long as you're still in contact with anything hazardous."

“Pepsin saturation is still tolerable, I'll start worrying when it crosses 800 parts per million if it does."

“You're at 600 already, it's going to, and it'll suck even more as the pH keeps dropping. Take a break for a little while, rest your legs! Get something solid under you again."

“Oh, fine…" they finally concede, pulling the rolling scanner behind them as a child might a little red wagon, and hoisting themself up onto the ledge as well. “Just trying to be efficient."

“Hey, I know," Bern consoles. “You're eager to be here, doing this, but there's no harm in recuperating."

“Especially when not taking a break will take your fur off," Micah adds.

“Yes, especially then…" Bern chuckles. “What do you think is taking him so long?"

As if summoned, the surveyor lifts up slightly as Vivien's relay is reestablished.

“Alright, I've bought us a little bit of time."

“And about time you did, too! What's going on now?" Micah asks.

“He asked to see hammerspace storage--"

“Oh hell, we're gonna get written up for sure then!" the bat interjects.

“--and after I gave him the rundown of how we keep inventory I slipped away the moment he was good and invested in it," Vivien finishes.

“So you're on your way to get extract, right?" Will asks.

“Hold that thought."

As he transmits, the walls of his stomach tense slightly, and moments after, a dark fluid comes cascading down, foaming gently as it mixes with the contents.

“About time," Bern says, playing up the faux-exasperation in his voice. “Next time you'll remember to take that with you, right, big guy?"

“Well, the thing about that is I didn't make it to my desk. This is from inventory," Vivien explains. “And get this, not even logged in, or supposed to be there to begin with. I'm guessing Cerise has something to do with that, I'll bring it up to her when she gets back from vacation."

“Worked out in the end though, didn't it?"

“Suppose so! Imagine if you hadn't been in crisis, then the auditor would have written us up over this, too. Speaking of, I should find my way back to him; it's probably more dangerous to leave him alone."

“You do that, we'll get the deeper sections mapped!" Will resolves, charging into the foam and submerging themself.

>>>>>>>>>

“Ah, there you are," Iyen says, not even turning as Vivien approaches as silently as he can muster.

“Sorry for wandering off, I thought you were behind me," the wolverine fabricates.

“Technically I was, I simply saw no reason to follow you."

Vivien doesn't dignify that tone with a response, but knows he'll be workshopping comebacks in his head long after the fact when he should be sleeping instead.

Silence fills in for several moments in which Vivien is the only one uncomfortable, until he clears his throat. “Well, is there anything I've overlooked that I should know about?"

“Well, there's a little bit of erosion along the right wall about 90 meters deep from the entrance. What's on the other side of that?" Iyen asks.

“A considerable buffer of ectoplasm, programmed to replace and fortify the enclosure from outside. It's all pressurized between here and there, though."

“Ah, good. If it was just void I would have had to make a note of that. That said…" the Subterranean lands on one of the shelves, turning to Vivien for once and giving him a knowing smirk. “I did notice that, checked out, among other things, were a microendoscopic surveyor, which notably is an autonomous craft, as well as several universal manual input circuits and a model 3C Necroharmonic battery. You know, the kind that goes in your standard ectoplasmic chiseling beams, therapeutic liquefaction inducers… and shrink rays."

“O-oh, truly?" the wolverine stammers, losing his poker face. Those were on loan from other departments, it was supposed to be under the table.

“If I was interrupting a sensitive experiment, you could have said so," Iyen says. “But if there's no trace log for it, I'd get one set up before you leave today, alright?"

“Yes, of course! I'll get on that."

“Good. In that case," the Subterranean says, closing his notebook one last time, “I think I have come to the end of my time here. Strictly speaking, I'm not supposed to tell you the verdict in full, but I will say you're far from the worst-kept department I've reviewed thus far."

“Well, that's a relief to hear…"

“One last thing. Log that extract in your pocket too."

“When did you see that??" Vivien asks, too baffled to make any attempt at obscurity.

Iyen actually chuckles at that. “Vice director, it's my job to see everything. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to see myself out through that shadow gate, if it's done warming up."

“Of course," Vivien agrees. “I'll walk with you to it."

After bidding Iyen a much-anticipated farewell, Vivien returns to his office, slumping back into the chair with a groan and closing his eyes.

>>>>>>>>>

“Well, it took a while but I got rid of him," Vivien transmits. “How's it going in there?"

“We're actually finished!" Bern announces, in the process of helping the others corral the drones back into the surveyor.

“Oh, really?..." the wolverine emanates, sounding slightly disappointed. “Well, that's good then, the efficiency of professionals and all that.

“Yeah, sorry the day panned out this way," WiIll consoles. “Next time will be better for sure! We can focus on the descent, too."

“And maybe next time, we keep our shady asset loans shady, right?"

“Oh damn, was I not supposed to log all this stuff in?" Micah asks.

“That was you?" Vivien asks, stomach clenching with emphasis. “And no! The guy immediately pieced together what we were doing the moment he saw record of them."

“Well gosh, it's a problem when I don't do my job, it's a problem when I do do my job, what do you want from me?" the bat asks, throwing his arms up into the air before rolling off the surveyor. He splashes into the mix, picking himself up moments later to help the others load up.

“I'll make sure he comes along again next time, too," Will promises, getting to their seat.

“To keep him out of trouble, naturally," Bern adds, securing loose equipment before joining Will.

“Of course, of course," Vivien agrees. “Once he's done calibrating what he's supposed to."

“Yeah yeah, lesson learned, let's go big guy," Micah prompts, strapping in and crossing his legs. “I'm gonna graffiti the back of your uvula next time."

“Hey wait, whyyyyyyyy?"

“Don't worry, Viv," Will says, “I'll make sure it looks good."