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sfblah · 1 month ago

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The Cleanup Crew - Chapter 3

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Finally it's time to get dangerous. This is almost twice the length of the previous chapters, which is like fine, but I was originally hoping to keep installments in this series on the shorter side. I guess you can take the writing out of the blah but you can't take the blah out of the writing.

Female sneezes - Feathers

cw: Guns, Violence

Operation "Porcupine"

All things considered, Bucket’s first day at the cafe wasn’t terrible. Not too many customers, and she spent all of her time shadowing Duster and Mop anyway. It was like the first day back in school, when all your teachers just make sure you have all your stuff and don’t even assign any homework.

That evening, however, was like the second day back in school.

The four maids gather around the table in the staff room, where Kerchief had laid out several stacks of papers. The manager pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and glances around at her subordinates, then she turns her attention to the documents below.

“We’ve received a request for turndown service,” she says, her voice flat and serious as always. “A straightforward retrieval mission, which should also serve as a fine opportunity to show Miss Bucket how we do business after hours.”

Bucket’s eyes unfocus and stare into the middle distance. Time for actual work.

“Our client is an engineer with the ExTech corporation who has been leaking information regarding dangerous products to various journalists over the past several months. He was recently outed as a whistleblower, and has already been taken into protective custody. However, he was forced to leave several important items behind at his apartment, and it’s our job to collect them.”

“Sounds easy enough,” says Duster, grinning as she manages to somehow rub a finger under her nose but in an arrogant sort of way.

“Due to the sensitive nature of the situation, we will only be told what to look for once we arrive in the client’s apartment, but we have also been assured that there won’t be anything we can’t carry on our persons.”

Bucket realizes she’s zoning out and tries to resume paying attention. It wasn’t even a conscious choice on her part, it was like her mind had a mind of its own and would simply switch off if she wasn’t thinking about video games or food. Whatever. Hopefully nobody noticed.

“Miss Duster, Miss Bucket, and I will enter the building as cleaners and make our way to the client’s apartment on the eleventh floor. We’ll go in light and quick, with concealed equipment only. Miss Mop will provide surveillance from this nearby billboard, where you’ll have a view of our client’s apartment’s windows. Let’s…”

Kerchief trails off, closing her eyes with a deep breath. She pushes her glasses up her nose once more before continuing.

“Let’s try to keep collateral damage to a minimum, please.”

Neither Duster nor Mop give any sort of response, standing stock still. Bucket blinks. Just what kind of collateral damage are they expecting?

“Any questions?” Kerchief concludes, looking around the table at her maids.

“Um, yeah. Hi,” interjects Bucket, shakily raising a hand. “Was I supposed to, um… Bring my own guns? Cuz, I, er… Kinda don’t have one.”

Kerchief gives a hand sign for the others to move out, and then she leads Bucket over to the weapon wall. Part of her hopes she’ll be allowed to pick her own, but she buries any urge to complain when the manager selects a diminutive, blocky pistol.

“Here, this should suit you nicely. Glock 19, compact nine millimeter.”

“Thanks,” Bucket mumbles as she accepts the gun, hoping she doesn’t sound ungrateful. She kinda is, but she hopes she doesn’t sound like she is. After checking the chamber and holstering the weapon under her ruffles, she skips after Kerchief to avoid being left behind.

For better or worse, the apartment building is a relatively short van ride away. Duster holds a one-sided conversation with Mop as Kerchief drives, and Bucket silently spaces out all over again. The rookie maid is jolted from her trance when the van stops early and Mop climbs out alone, SRS precision rifle in tow. Bucket briefly wonders how Mop can use a scope with her hair covering both eyes before deciding to spare her remaining functional brain cells.

“Oh yeah, almost forgot,” says Duster as the van slows to a stop in the parking lot. She holds out an earpiece to Bucket, who accepts it and slips it into place after a nod of thanks. After a brief pop of static, she hears what she assumes to be Mop’s voice over the radio.

“I’m in position. Approach looks clear, no sign of movement in the client’s apartment.”

“Thank you, Miss Mop,” Kerchief replies, coming in differently through each of Bucket’s ears. “Keep us apprised of anything unusual.”

Kerchief’s voice is flat in a stilted, socially awkward sort of way, while Mop’s is flat in more of a ‘can I go home now?’ fashion. Bucket assumes they each simply have their gimmicks. Duster’s customers at the cafe probably want her to lift them off the ground with a big hug, and Mop’s want her to step on them.

The three maids hop out of the van, showing nothing to set them apart from any other group of housekeepers. Kerchief casually flashes a key fob to open the building’s front door, and Bucket takes a detailed mental image of the patterns on the carpet as she follows to the elevator. The ride up to the eleventh floor is silent aside from Duster cracking her knuckles. No pre-battle elevator music or anything. Maybe this really would be an easy in and out. Surely there’d have to be thematically inappropriate and royalty-free jazz if they were about to walk into a gunfight.

Nothing out of the ordinary in the hall either. The door to each apartment was neatly shut, with no trash or bodies strewn about, no ninjas waiting in the rafters, and no rafters in which ninjas could be waiting to begin with. Kerchief unlocks unit 11-38 and the squad slips inside without incident.

“Don’t shoot, Mop. It’s just us,” teases Duster, giving a casual salute in the direction of the nearest window.

“Tempting,” Mop drones, though the glass remains unpunctured.

Kerchief brings a hand up to her earpiece as Bucket takes a look around the room. It’s a small, simple suite apartment. Decently sized living room, and a door on one side that presumably leads to the bedroom.

“We’ve arrived, Master,” Kerchief says into her radio. “What would you like us to retrieve?”

“O-oh, right, of course, thank you,” comes a nervous voice that Bucket hasn’t heard before. Time to walk out of here with an armful of classified documents that will surely get her disappeared in the coming weeks.

“It’s, um… My limited edition commemorative Boom the Porcupine plushie.”

Bucket’s head jerks up to stare across the room at Kerchief. The bespectacled maid’s glasses spontaneously slip down her nose just a smidge.

“...I’m sorry?”

“I-it’s the most important thing I own! Only ten were ever made! P-please, find it…”

Neither Bucket nor Kerchief give any sort of reaction. The manager’s eyes darken as she stares vacantly into the middle distance, but still she says nothing.

“Um… M-miss Maids? A-are you there?”

”heh… HRESHoooh!”

A sudden thundering sneeze startles both maids out of their stupor. Bucket looks in the rough direction of the noise to find the door to the bedroom wide open and Duster nowhere to be seen in the living room.

“hh-hhh-! RAAHshooh! Uh. I think I found it.”

Duster’s scratchy, nasal voice sounds even scratchier and nasally-er than usual. Bucket and Kerchief follow into the bedroom, and while the living room seemed completely untouched, the domicile appeared to have been completely torn apart. Papers and broken drawers are strewn across the floor, and the pillows and mattress are ripped open and covered in loose feathers. Duster stands beside the bed, a green plush toy held limply in one hand as her head tips back toward the ceiling.

“HAESHHoo!”

A few feathers stir at the disturbance, and the stuffed animal falls to the floor. It rolls toward Bucket, at which point she picks it up and turns it over in her hands.

“Looks okay to me,” she says, unable to find any obvious damage. Her eyes briefly flick up to Duster, who is busy frantically rubbing two fingers back and forth under her nose. “Gesundheit, by the way.”

“Please forgive Miss Duster,” Kerchief interjects, leaning over to inspect the plushie herself. “I’m afraid she’s allergic to feathers.”

“No I’m dot!” protests the boyish maid. “It’s just sobethig id the eh… heh… HERSHHoooh!”

“Care, care. Another van is pulling into the parking lot,” comes Mop’s voice. “Will keep- Get down, get down!”

Before Bucket can react, she finds herself being yanked into the bedroom closet. The sound of breaking glass just barely reaches her ears as the door slams shut, plunging her and the others into darkness.

“Talk to me, Miss Mop,” Kerchief half whispers.

“At least six unidentified contacts, and they’re… They’re climbing the side of the building.”

“They’re what!?” snaps Duster, prompting Kerchief to clap a hand over her mouth.

“Hold fire and keep me updated,” commands the manager. “The apartment has already been searched. We’ll let them see that for themselves and they should pass us by.”

“Understood.”

Silence falls once more. Bucket ponders pointing out that whoever these people are, they’re definitely going to check the closet. But surely Kerchief already knows that, right? Plus, with eleven floors worth of wall to climb, she and the others would probably have time to simply go back the way they came.

“First unknown entering the window now,” Mop says. Okay, that was a lot faster than Bucket expected. Sure enough, the crunch of someone stepping on glass shards soon follows. In spite of the apparent danger, however, the maid begins to tumble down another mental rabbit hole. In the sliver of light coming around the closet door, Bucket spots a little scrap of feather fluff stuck to the plush porcupine. She casually plucks it off and flicks it away, leaving it to flutter about in improbable aimlessness until it comes to rest right on the upturned tip of Duster’s nose.

“hh… heh…”

The muscular maid’s reaction is immediate, and Kerchief’s is only slightly behind. The manager presses an outstretched finger firmly against Duster’s nostrils, silently urging her to hold it in.

“hegh… ghh…”

Duster shudders, unable to suppress the occasional hitchy wheeze. The footsteps in the bedroom continue, sometimes moving closer, sometimes away. But, if someone else had already turned the apartment upside down, why were they-

“ah-ahh-CHOOOO!!”

Bucket doubles over with a sudden screamed sneeze, leaving Duster too stunned to finish her own. The closet door flies open and the maids find themselves facing a white, featureless… Face? A pair of glowing blue eyes stare out from behind what Bucket can only assume is a robot’s plastic outer shell. She sheepishly rubs her nose as the machine regards her and each of the maids, but none of them offer any reaction. Finally the robot settles on the stuffed animal in Bucket’s arms, and its eyes blink in seeming recognition.

“Attention, female. Surrender the porcu-”

Kerchief quickdraws her Sig P229 sidearm and delivers two rapid shots from the hip to the robot’s torso, then she takes a split second to aim before putting a third bullet through its head. She strides out of the closet without missing a beat, checking for danger in both directions before turning in the direction of the window and firing again. The maid takes her finger off the trigger, raises her weapon slightly, and looks back to her subordinates.

“Time to get tactical, ladies. Miss Mop, weapons free.”

Bucket blinks a few times before fumbling to draw her own pistol.

“Uh. Yeah. Yeah, sure,” she stammers, awkwardly stepping into the bedroom. A grappling hook had pierced through the window and secured itself to the wall below, giving the robotic attackers their means of ingress.

“ehh… hHRESHHoo!”

Bucket jumps as Duster heaves out another explosive sneeze. By the time Bucket can turn to look, her snuffly companion has already produced and readied a Scorpion Evo 3 submachine gun. Where she’d been hiding it all this time remains a mystery. With a harsh sniff and a firm rub under her nose, Duster walks up to the fallen robot and gives it a kick.

“ExTech,” she grumbles, pausing to mash her nostrils upward with the palm of her hand. “And they’re really here for this heh… ehgh… HESHH-hooh!”

“Porcupine,” Bucket amends, assuming Duster was trying to sneeze her way through ‘hedgehog.’

A distant POP interrupts the banter, and a moment later the sounds of crashing and clattering issue through the window.

“Remaining climbers dispatched,” says Mop. “Doesn’t look like they survived the fall. Are they… Robots?”

“ExTech drones, here for the same thing we are,” Bucket mumbles. “I didn’t think stuff like this existed, but I’m a maid with a gun, so I guess anything’s possible.”

“Oh, more good news. ExTech helicopter inbound,” Mop alerts. Kerchief’s hand flies up to her earpiece.

“Hold fire, there’s no way to control where it’ll crash.”

“I hope you can make a quick exit, then. They’re headed for the roof.”

Bucket looks around at her companions, bristling slightly as the sound of beating rotors draws nearer.

“So, uh… Elevator? Do we have to take the stairs cuz it’s an emergency?”

Kerchief and Duster each remove a climbing descender from under their ruffles. Bucket twitches.

“H-hang on, what are those? I don’t have one.”

“Just hold on to me,” says Duster with a grin, clipping her device onto the rope the robots had courteously provided. Not wanting to be left behind, Bucket immediately hops onto her back and clings for dear life. She squeezes even tighter as Duster braces against the windowsill, forgetting all about the porcupine plush as it gets squished in between them.

“Wait, can this thing hold two people?” Bucket screeches. Duster glances back at her with a wink.

“Only one way to find out!”

Duster kicks off from the window, and the pair begin to glide down the rope toward the parking lot below. Bucket lasts a whole two seconds before starting to scream at the top of her lungs, but she runs out of breath before they reach the ground and manages to silence herself.

“So, how’s this for your first day of work?” Duster shouts over the rushing wind. Bucket does her best to shrug without letting go.

“Beats retail, I guess!”

“Damn straight! I think you’re… Y-youre… heh… eh-hehh…”

Their descent becomes a touch choppy as Duster’s breath starts to waver. Filled with a renewed sense of panic, Bucket tries to maneuver one hand to put a finger under her lifeline’s nose, but…

“heh… hEH! HRESHHHoooh!”

Completely consumed by her sneeze, Duster loses her grip on her descender. She and Bucket plummet to the ground, a treacherous two feet of remaining distance. Both maids lay on top of each other on the pavement in silence for a few stunned seconds before starting to moan and groan.

“Gesundheit…” breathes Bucket, reaching between herself and her companion as she remembers the flattened plushie. Duster snorts inelegantly and rubs her fingers in a rough circle under her itchy nose.

“Yeah… Sorry. You break anything?”

“Nah. Just your fall.”

#OC Bucket #OC Kerchief #OC Duster #OC Mop #blah writes #snz #snz kink #snzfic #proofreading what is proofreading I'm impatient

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sfblah · 2 months ago

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The Cleanup Crew - Tactical Maid Service - Chapter 2

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Now to meet the rest of the main cast. Things still haven't really gotten tactical yet, but should I finish the third chapter sometime this century I promise this series will actually live up to its name eventually lol.

Female sneezes - Various causes

Operation "Crackers"

Cleanup Cafe. A cafe. With maids. A maid cafe.

And today, with one more maid than before.

Over an hour remains until the cafe opens, but she goes around back to the staff entrance anyway. Her hand stops short of the door handle, and her shoulder-length ponytail sways in the breeze for a moment before she finds her resolve and steps inside.

The break room is more or less what she expected: a table, a few chairs, a series of lockers, and an outdated computer in the corner. The only thing that might seem out of place in any other cafe is the collection of weapons displayed on one wall. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, and so on, most of which she recognizes from various video games. Her eyes drift across a few empty pegs, and she can only hope she wasn’t supposed to bring her own.

“Ah, Miss Bucket, you’ve arrived.”

A low, calm, and mature voice, but it still startles the maid enough to make her jump. It sounds like the same person she’d spoken to after her assessment, but there’s really no way to be sure. And… ‘Miss Bucket’? She really should have done more to assert that that would not be her nickname.

A tall, proper woman emerges from around the corner, blonde hair in a claw clip updo and clad in a black and white maid outfit. Sharp but tired eyes pierce through the large, circular lenses of her glasses, and Bucket finds herself frozen to the spot.

“Uh. Hi,” she stammers, unable to give even a little wave. Why is she so anxious? She already got the job. Just clock in, collect a paycheck, and…

“Again I’d like to welcome you to The Cleanup Crew. You may call me ‘Kerchief,’ or simply ‘Manager.’ I hope you enjoy your first day with us.”

Bucket fidgets in place.

“Um, yeah. You too. I mean… Yeah.”

“Please don’t be nervous,” commands Kerchief, her flat tone of voice doing little to reassure her new subordinate. “I’m sure you want to meet the rest of the team, but first, I have an assignment for you.”

Bucket gulps. Is this going to be some kind of initiation thing? Something to get blood on her hands and keep her from running off and snitching? Kerchief begins to move away from the weapon wall, and Bucket enjoys a moment of relief before her manager pushes open the door to the kitchen.

“Your first task is to prepare something to eat. It could be a meal, a snack, anything that strikes your fancy. Then, you are to come out to the floor and serve us as if we were your customers. I think that would be a lovely way for you to introduce yourself.”

After Kerchief disappears into the next room, Bucket takes a second to shake out her nervousness, wiggling from her feet all the way to her head. She skips through the door, and… It’s just a kitchen. No command center, no vast collection of weapons. Hardly any euphemisms for murder to be found. For better or worse, the maid has little time to catch up before Kerchief is already on the way out another door.

“We’ll be right through here, Miss Bucket. See you soon.”

“Wait, I…”

And the door swings shut.

Bucket limply lifts her hands and lets them fall back to her sides. Great. Time to navigate this whole-ass restaurant-ass kitchen, because she definitely knows how to do that. Gotta start somewhere, just open a cabinet, any old cabinet.

Seasoning. Condiments. Is salt a condiment?

The pepper grinder lays on its side, along with a sprinkling of that black and gray dust. Bucket frowns and shuts the door, grumpily pressing her fingers across the underside of her nose as she turns away.

Just make something simple. More involved than handing out ketchup packets, but this didn’t exactly seem like a Michelin star operation.

Bucket squats down, checking the cabinets below the counter this time. Her eyes clench shut and she gives her pudgy nose an upward wipe with her palm, still feeling a peppery itch somewhere inside. Then, once she finally has a chance to look… Flour!

Perfect! Flour goes in all kinds of stuff, like bread, and other things made out of bread. Bucket grabs the bag, struggling with its surprising weight for a moment, and slams it down on the counter. She spies a stack of mixing bowls at the other end of the counter, and she slides over the biggest one she can get her hands on. Ready to finally get started, she tears the bag of flour open and begins to pour.

Suddenly, Bucket’s mind and expression both go blank. Flour continues to flow as the maid’s teardrop-shaped nostrils flare and constrict. Like it or not, it seems the pepper is ready to leave.

“ah… ah-ahh…”

The last of the flour falls into the bowl as Bucket’s breathing begins to heave and hitch. The bag wasn’t big enough to completely overfill the bowl, but a veritable mountain of white powder stands before her nonetheless. At least, until…

“aaAAH-CHOOOO!!!”

The hapless maid sneezes up a blizzard that envelops half the kitchen. Her face and clothes above the waist are completely covered in flour, a few clumps falling away as she weakly opens her eyes. She barely has time to realize what happened before her face scrunches up again and she delivers another “haa-CHHHOOO!” into the bowl.

After the second explosion of flour settles, Bucket cringes and cracks one eye open. The blow is softened ever so slightly by the kitchen’s already largely white decor, but the powdery mess is undeniable.

“Oops…” she mumbles, sheepishly rubbing an outstretched index finger back and forth under her nostrils. After a look over her shoulder at the door to the cafe floor, Bucket makes a token effort at brushing herself off as she runs back to the break room. Partway there it occurs to her that she really should be doing this outside, and so she flings herself through the exit door. Maybe she can change into a fresh uniform and pretend none of this ever happened. Just sweep the flour out and then the wind will… Th-the wind will…

“ah-ahh-ahhh-CHOOO!!”

A layer of white bursts away from the maid as she sneezes again. She snuffles and rubs a finger hard under her nose, bending it from side to side. And when she straightens up, Bucket finds salvation gazing upon her from across the street.

Paying no attention to any potential traffic and still blotchy with flour, Bucket flees to the catty-corner convenience store. She clumsily ducks down to hopefully avoid being seen through the cafe’s front window, and a moment later she sneaks her way back with equal care, hugging a tub of premade frosting and a box of club crackers to her chest.

“Um… H-hi, master. Sorry for the wait,” Bucket stammers, finally emerging from the kitchen. One hand holds a plate of frosted cra- Frosted cookies, while the other timidly rubs her nose. Her voice cracks when she sees not one, not two, but three fellow maids seated around a table. One of them is Kerchief, her manager from earlier, but the others are new to her.

On the left is a pale, gloomy maid with a bob of green hair and long, straight bangs that completely cover her face above the cheekbones. Including both eyes. If she even has eyes. And on the right sits a boyish, muscular maid wearing a lopsided smile. Dark skin, short and spiky black hair, and a bandage across the bridge of her long, upturned nose. Both turn to face their new companion, and each gives a little wave. Bucket swallows nervously and resumes her approach.

As she arrives at the table, muscle maid leaps from her chair and rushes over.

“Hey there, Bucket! Pleased to meet’cha!” she exclaims, offering a hard slap on the shoulder. Her other hand flies to the plate and pops a frosted cracker into her mouth.

“Ooh, nice cookies,” she says as she chews. “Sweet and salty’s a good mix. Anyway, call me Duster!” She pauses to swallow. “And this is Mop!” She gestures to the green-haired maid, who ‘looks’ up at Bucket and wordlessly waves again. “Welcome to the team!”

Kerchief, Duster, Mop, and Bucket. What a world. Settling into panic mode autopilot, Bucket deposits her plate on the table and sits in the one vacant chair. Mop and Kerchief each take a cracker of their own, and Bucket feels a massive weight lift from her shoulders when neither offers a complaint.

“What’s your secret ingredient?” Mop suddenly asks, startling Bucket out of her trance. Her lips part, but before she can bullshit an answer, her nostrils decide to respond for her. “Well, I… I… ah… ahh… CHOOOO!!”

#OC Bucket #OC Kerchief #OC Duster #OC Mop #blah writes #snz #snz kink #snzfic

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