Chapter Thirty

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A/N:

I said I was writing this fanfic for complete fun and to branch out my writing style and I meant it because this chapter is gonna be SILLY as heck and a taste of the sexual tension to come- like I'm so excited for this guys. Alright! Let's get started!


Heels tapped tile floor as Esme walked through Alchemax's foyer. Her blue lanyard swayed down her chest as she adjusted her glasses and adjusted her hair into a bun. She checked to make sure her stylus was in her pocket, and if she had a check board she would have ticked off in bright yellow that yes, everything was perfect.

She walked in just like that and made her way to the elevator's first floor, where she was greeted by several people with a smile and escorted to a shiny pristine room where she got to meet the board members and discuss their plans for the company. They'd be so impressed with Esme that they'd ask her what to do about their spider problem, and she'd immediately convince them to void the arrest warrant and let them have authority over the public eye.

As far as first impressions went, that's how Esme had imagined what it would have been like to work at Alchemax. And unfortunately, that was a pipe dream that crashed and burned almost as badly as the beakers she knocked over as soon as she arrived.

Thankfully the rest of the week wasn't as bad as the first day. She mostly was on clean up duty, organizing specimens and samples for the other lab workers and helping to transport things between departments. Basically grunt work.

She couldn't complain though. Being around the lab meant she got to learn more about the metal band beneath her coat sleeve. Sneaking to Xina's office to study the glyphs on the orange metal confirmed her suspicions from the club.

'Mayan artifacts?' She had thought. Something about what Xina said had stuck out to her that day in the club. Mayan artifacts sold to Spectre.

In Esme's world, much of any research into the Mayan civilization had been stunted by warfare in the regions, stalling any progress. There had only been a few groundbreaking discoveries a few years before Esme was born, but then the research fell off again, interest declining as technology advanced and bigger problems arose.

Here however, there was much more research done. For one, what caught her attention more than anything, was the mention of a goddess with similarities to the Egyptian goddess Neith, Astarte in Pheonicia, Ishtar in Mesopotamia, and Athena in Greece. The Goddess was not mentioned by name but several glyphs portrayed her as weaving a tree, branches spread like a spider's web. Maybe that was a stretch, but Esme felt like that some of the glyphs were too familiar.

She looked back down at the bracelet on her wrist. That orange gadget that somehow kept her from fritzing out of this world. Small glyphs carved into the metal softly glowing the longer she looked at them.

'Mayan artifacts.' She looked back up.

There were Mayan ruins back in El Salvador. She had visited Tazamul a few times with her father, walked up the steps and even had access to the inside. She remembered being so proud to wear the thick orange lanyard that draped down to her waist, flashing the laminated badge that matched her father's. Sometimes they'd visit their neighboring countries to see the ruins there. Most of the time, her father went alone for those trips.

When he'd return, he had a buzz to him. Sometimes he was so excited he'd forget to change out of the tan and muddy shirt that used to be white, trailing dust and dirt in much to his wife's dismay. Then he'd talk for hours with her mother about his findings. But Esme never understood why her mother always looked so concerned. Why his voice would drift off the more and more he noticed his daughter listening in.

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