Hero

Chapter Twenty-Four

My head slipped through my hands and I jolted awake, my eyes opening widely before I squinted at the bright light of the computer screen in front of me.  I groaned and rubbed at my eyes before picking up the microphone that sat on the desk.  Stifling a yawn, I frowned and said, “Search keyword.  Crime.”  The POWER group’s supercomputer activated at the sound of my voice and began searching through every database in the world.

I ended up with over a billion searches.

“Search keywords.  Crime and…Mistress.”

Only a few hundred million hits this time, but most of the articles were about people killing their own personal mistresses or people killing the mistresses of their spouses.  I sighed again and groaned, lacing my fingers through the knots that had developed in my hair while I was sleeping.

“Did you stay here overnight again?”  I heard Tempus Manum’s voice behind me, and I twirled around in my chair, slamming my wrist against the equipment.  I clenched my eyes tightly closed at the pain and rubbed my sore wrist.  Tempus Manum raised an eyebrow.  “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s okay,” I said, taking the cup of coffee he offered out to me gratefully.  It was perfectly made, just like every cup of coffee he’d brought me many morning for the past month and a half.  “Thanks for the coffee.  I don’t know how you get it so good.”

“Perks of experience being a barista,” he said, raising his own mug to me in salute before taking a sip of it.  “So did you find anything new last night?”

“Not even close,” I said.  “Every time I try, no matter what I look up or what keywords I use, I never get anything even closely relating to Mistress or the EVILS or anything we could use.”  I yawned again and rubbed my cheek, feeling the mark left by my palm.  “There are times when I seriously hate her.”

“Does that mean there are times when you don’t?” he asked and I rolled my eyes when he grinned.  “Alright, if you can’t narrow it down based on the obvious, have you looked at the not-so-obvious?”

“Believe me, Temp, I’ve looked at everything,” I said exasperatedly.  “There’s nothing more I could have looked for.”  He leaned over the computer and pushed me to the side so he could face the interface.  He took the microphone away from me and held it up to his own mouth.

“Search keywords.  Crime and Mistress and United States.”  At the sound of his voice, the computer whirred again and a list of results popped up.  This time it was only a few dozen million entries.  Tempus Manum grinned again and proudly placed the microphone down on the desk.  “Were you searching like that?”

“Why, no, Tempus Manum.  It never occurred to me to try narrow down the search by location, especially if that location happens to be the country within in which we both reside and the crime is most likely.” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.  I shoved him out of the way and scooted myself closer to the screen so I was once again in control of the computer.  “I’ve been searching for answers every free moment of my life for the past month and a half; if there’s a term that even slightly relates to Mistress, the EVILS, America…take my word that I’ve searched it.”

“Hey, it didn’t hurt to check.”  He took another sip of coffee.  “So, what do you have on the schedule for today?”

Before I could answer, Nova burst into the room, humming casually as she balanced a backpack, her purse, a box of donuts and a cardboard tray with two coffees in it.  “Morning, Stryke,” she said cheerily, far too happy for someone who I knew had only woken up half an hour ago at the maximum.  “So, I wasn’t sure what kind of donut you wanted because you didn’t text me back, so I brought a few choices for you.  And I know that you need coffee to operate almost as much as you need your pills so I also…”  She placed the box down on the conference room table and looked up to see Tempus Manum and I standing by the computer.  “Oh, sorry.  I didn’t know you had company.”