by Amber Lynn
The alarm blaring was the next thing I heard. Without moving, I could tell the other side of the bed was empty. Since we seemed to be on the same wavelength, I'd allowed the pillow wall to come down. It also helped that I could read what he was thinking and put a quick stop to anything I found unacceptable.
I rolled out of bed and turned the alarm off. The plans for the day included bringing a new artificial intelligent robot online and getting a step closer to completing our mission. I looked forward to both events. After a quick stop in the bathroom, I wandered to the kitchen and found Nate on the phone.
"Yes, sir. We should have a list of suspects today. I don't think it'll be more than a week before we can head back." Seeing me, he mouthed, "Good morning."
I smiled and headed to the cupboard to check out our cereal selection. It was a tossup between Grape Nuts and Kix. Even though I really liked Grape Nuts, I was stuck on the detail that with that name it should contain either grapes or nuts. The fact that it didn't was disturbing me that particular morning, so I grabbed the Kix. After making up a bowl with just the right amount of milk, I took my bounty to the dining room.
It hadn't sounded like Nate would be that much longer on the phone, so I wasn't surprised to see his body casting a shadow in the doorway moments later.
"How'd you sleep?" he asked as he kissed the top of my head.
"Better than I have in recent months. Something about maybe getting out of this town has put me in a really peaceful mood." I spoke around bites of cereal, not really caring whether Nate cared to see what I was eating chewed up.
"I'm sure you've figured out that the boss wanted a status update. He wants us back to the city as soon as we can get things wrapped up here, which I thought was a little unnecessary for him to spell out, but it was the purpose of his call." He took a seat next to me at the table and the look on his face indicated trouble. "In other news, your mother called. She'd like us to stop over sometime this week."
The hope that Nate was joking died quickly when I saw there wasn't a sparkle of mischief in his eyes. If he valued his life, he would've backtracked quickly.
"Why would she think we're even close enough to just stop over? I don't remember telling her I was in the state and by car we're still like eight hours away. That isn't exactly stop over distance."
"I may have mentioned to her on the phone today where we were currently working and that you were starting to get some of your memories back," he relayed, looking very sheepishly.
"You wouldn't. Why would you do something like that? And how early did you get up anyway to be making all these phone calls?" My hope was to be on my way back to New York, not heading over to see my mother.
I was terrified to find out whether she'd spent all my life knowing exactly what I was thinking. She did a good job covering it up by doing the exact opposite of what I wanted, if that was the case.
"I wanted all of our people to know that you were on the way back to us. What better way to do that then tell your mother? I'm sure she's called every phoenix out there and told them personally by now."
I could see his point, but that didn't mean I liked it. I was pretty sure my mom would beat Katie in a gossip smackdown.
"Fine, but why do we have to go for a visit?" I felt whiny and it showed as my voice went up an octave.
"She can't force us to come, but she said she had some items that she'd been keeping for you. Her hope was that they'd help stimulate your memory more." He picked up my hand and held it between his. "You know how much I want your memory back. If she has something that could help, I think we should check it out."
"Let me guess, you already set a day we would make this trip."
I knew Nate well enough to know he probably had things all planned out. I couldn't believe the person I used to be liked that aspect of him anymore than I did in the present, which made me think he should've learned not to do anything without consulting me eons ago.
"Yes, I do. We're going to go Wednesday, so tell Hank you have a family emergency you need to take care of that day, just in case things aren't wrapped up by then. To make the trip more interesting, we're going to stop at three state parks. I've picked out Pictograph Cave, Greycliff Prairie Dog Town, and Lewis and Clark Caverns, which all happen to be on the way."
"Did you have your phone's search engine working overtime this morning? Are we going to be able to fit all that in one day? The driving alone is sixteen hours there and back." I tried to do some math in my head and things weren't computing.
"I figure if on our way over we stop for maybe an hour at each place, by the time we get there it will leave only a few minutes or so to spend with you parents before we have to leave. We'll tell them we have to get back to finish the case up, so it's the perfect excuse to get the items your mother has and not spend a lot of time with her. I thought you'd like my evil genius mind." The smile on his face definitely matched the definition of evil.
"You know, one of these days that evil genius mind of yours is going to get you in trouble," I said, poking his chest. "What about sleep? You have almost a full day planned."
"We can take turns sleeping on the way back. I figure we'll leave here at six in the morning and make it to Butte around five that evening. If we leave within an hour, we can each sleep for about four hours on the way back and still have about four hours to sleep in our bed."
He'd really given the plan a lot of thought. As big as the Suburban was, I didn't doubt I could sleep comfortably.
"Okay, let's do it. We haven't been on a road trip for a while and we've never gone on one in something with doors. Plus, prairie dogs are really cute."
"Great." he said as he gave me a quick kiss on the lips. "Let's get ready for work. I think today is going to be a one we'll both remember for a long time.
I wasn't sure about that, or what he knew that would lead him to think it, but I rushed through a shower and got all my knives put in place anyway. For clothing, I just threw on some jeans and a pink t-shirt. Slipping into some sandals, I was ready for the day. Nate, the speedy dresser, waited by the door in a pair of jeans and a light blue t-shirt.
"Is it casual Monday? I don't think I've seen you in a work environment wearing jeans."
"Hey, if it's good enough for the rest of the security team, it's good enough for me. I've never been accused of looking like a cop, but now wouldn't be a good time for anyone to start thinking that, so I'm working to blend in."
The ritual of going to work and being walked to my office didn't change. The scene when I stepped into the lab was a bit more chaotic than usual. Everyone was there, running around trying to do a million things at once.
"What's going on?" I looked around to see Ettie was helping. I didn't know if that was just because she was needed for the process or the party had helped her, but it was nice to see her there amongst the others.
"Nothing much yet," Hank replied for the group. "We're just going through the processes of backing up and uninstalling the current system. It will probably take most of the morning. The actual new installation process won't take place until after lunch."
"Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked, looking over Hank's shoulder at his computer.
"Sorry, we've already hit the button. Now, all we do is watch to make sure everything runs smoothly." His response didn't really explain why everyone kept moving around, but it didn't sound like I was needed, which I assumed was why I hadn't been told to come in early.
"Great. If something comes up that you want me to assist with, I'll be at my desk looking over some things."
When I got to my desk, I woke the computer up to see if my program was done. Sure enough. I saw it claimed to be complete. I clicked a few buttons to get the results, which were reports that I needed to scan through for information. Since I wasn't exactly sure how the data was being moved, I couldn't have it point directly to a person. It was up to me to analyze the report and figure out where the irregularities were.
According to the results, almost every employ
ee loved to email files on practically a daily basis. I decided that data was going to be as helpful as a tennis racket with no strings. I should qualify that to say as helpful as a tennis racket with no strings to use for playing tennis. The racket without strings could still be useful if your goal was to hit someone over the head. Have I tested that theory? Yes.
Moving on to my transfers report, I saw that it was a lot more accommodating, but there were still at least five people who may have suspicious activity. Two of those five were on my team. It showed activity from Eric, Hank, Jim Kirk and Angie Mirks from fusion, and John Cook from astrophysics. Okay, so no giant arrow pointing out the problem, but it was a place to start.
Just for giggles, I decided to have the program check for printed files coming off of those computers. ?Focusing on the five machines would more than likely give me results before I left for the day. It would've been helpful if our boss gave as a sample file. With that, I could've just found out who accessed the file and question those people.
While I waited for the team to need me, or lunch, I started digging into the employee records of my five suspects. The people were literally rocket scientists. Every single one of them was a card carrying Mensa member. After my search, I found nothing in their records indicating that one of them had a reason to be disgruntled.
I guessed it was time to check the bank records and see if anyone was depositing large amounts of money. I hacked into the bank the think tank used and quickly started looking for their accounts. I didn't have a real good timeframe of when the documents were sold, so I stuck with a general search for the last six months.
The results again turned up nothing really suspicious. I knew most evil masterminds tended to use external accounts for their evil doing, but eventually one of them had to be a little stupid. Figuring out where to start with a search of other potential banks was a little complicated. Thankfully, I'd had a lot of downtime over the years and had another program that would help.
At my previous job, I used the program a lot to trace funds after we knew the originating account. For my newest search, I told the program to search all the best-known banks for accounts with any of the suspects' names. As long as they didn't use some little credit union or a fake name, there was a chance I'd get a hit. With all the banks it was going through, I didn't have a timetable for when the results would come back.
I sat back and tried to think of anything else I could do. Not coming up with anything, I decided to go check to see if Ettie was still hanging around. I found her at a desk that hadn't been occupied since I'd started.
"Hey, how are things going?" I asked, bringing a chair over.
"Really good, thanks to you. They're not running from the room screaming about me cursing them and I've been here all morning," she said as she saved whatever she was working on and looked up at me.
"That's great news." Doing a quick check of the wall clock in the room, I saw it was almost noon. "You joining us for lunch today?"
"I was going to try. It's pretty lonely eating by yourself, and sadly the voices in my head don't offer very stimulating conversation."
"Really?" I laughed. "My voices always say the most interesting things. Of course most of the suggestions they have would leave me in a jail cell, so I have to be careful listening to them." I said it jokingly, but it was sadly true. Until recently, the voices were nonstop telling me new inventive ways to kill Nate. Those voices had quieted and I kind of missed them.
"Well, as long as you don't act on their suggestions, there isn't any harm in listening to them."
I imagined if I told Ettie the exact things the voices said, she'd change her tune, but we weren't close enough for her to find out how scary my mind really was.
"That's what I figure. Let's head to the lunchroom. I'm starting to get hungry."
We met the rest of the gang by the door and were off to find some lunch as one big happy family.