Cara wasn’t scared of much of anything.  Except the Repair Team.

They came striding through the Facility, their outfits smooth and black and altogether too tidy.  The Repair Team never had anything out of place.  Cara would hate them.  She would hate them *later*; right now she and Alex were hurrying towards Liam while trying to look like nothing was out of place at all.

“Boss-”  Alex asked.  It was his turn to ask this week.

Liam didn’t take his eyes off the Repair Team.  “Not us this time.”

Cara let out a breath.  Not a whole breath – it still wasn’t good.  But part of her breath. “Then-?”

“They need to use the Facility as a staging point.”  He flicked one hand to a screen and pulled it to where Cara and Alex could see the images.   Something – something like a screaming pile of goo?  The size of a large truck, from the scale – was crawling through the city streets nearby.  “Now the interesting thing is – look behind the goo.”

He flicked his fingers again and the image zoomed in.  There, behind the goo, the road was sparkling clean.  The cars were clean.  The buildings were clean.  The people-

The people looked a little worried.  And a little… off?

“Here, let me show you something.”  Liam flicked his fingers three more times.  “See?”

This time, they could see that the people before the goo and those after had three things very different: they were younger afterwards; they were taller afterwards; they appeared sexless afterwards, without beards nor breasts nor any other sexual characteristics.

“They’re also cured of anything from cancer down to a common cold, which, I’m told, is what the goo is supposed to do. But half the city is now sterile and androgynous,  which was apparently not the plan.”  Liam snorted. “Amateurs.  A better office – our office, for instance – could have spun that as the goal all along.  But they didn’t, so they get the Repair team.  I wish them and their city luck.”

Cara took a moment to appreciate what she had and consider the small tumor she knew was growing in her left breast.  “Yeah,” she muttered.  “Luck.”