Up in the lunchroom, Nate was already at the usual table. I quickly ordered a turkey sandwich with a side of macaroni and cheese. For some reason, mac and cheese sounded good right then. I wasn't sure what to expect from the auto-dispenser, but it hadn't done me wrong so far.
When I got to the table where Nate was still by himself, I stopped and asked, "Now where would be a good place to sit?"
"On my lap, silly," he replied. "I imagine that's not a work sanctioned spot to sit, though."
"You would be right," I said as I took a seat on his right. "So, how has your day been so far?"
"Pretty boring actually. No one has needed a referee or tried to blow anything up today." He nibbled on a French fry that I contemplated stealing from him. I wondered if there were any rules about going back for seconds.
"I'll have to see if I can cause some kind of disturbance to keep you amused."
I had a lot of really good ideas, and wished moving objects around with my mind had trumped the speaking thing. It would've been fun spending a little time pulling the fire alarms throughout the day.
The rest of the table filled up and everyone kept talking about the installation that was going on after lunch. I couldn't believe how many times I heard the process by that time. They'd all done it tons of times and even being the newbie, I felt I could do it in my sleep.
"So, what have you found out?" Nate asked in my mind.
The initial exchange of words tingled a little bit in my mind. The words themselves didn't sound any different than when they were spoken out loud. The tingle was just like a knock letting me know someone was coming in.
"Nothing definitive yet. I sized the list of seventy down to five, two from my group, two from fusion and one from astrophysics. I'm running a couple more searches to see if anything more jumps out."
"Is one of the people on your list Eric?" he asked. Even in his mind, I could feel the disgruntled nature of his thoughts about Eric.
"He would be one of them. I know you don't like him because of the whole tattoo incident, but don't let that cause you to focus only on him."
"I won't, but I'm not shocked that he's one of the possibilities. Give me the names and I'll run them through our FBI database to see if there are any hits."
I mentally sent him the names and we returned to the conversation the rest of the group was having. It gave me a chance to take a few bites of food. I found it impossible to try to listen in to two conversations and eat at the same time.
After a few minutes, Nate was back to telepathy. "Hey, did you ask for Wednesday off yet?"
Communicating news to my coworkers wasn't one of my specialties. "Sorry, I've been looking at the reports all morning."
"Hey, Hank," he said out loud. "Did Peggy mention that my mom is having an operation on Wednesday and we need to fly back to California for the procedure?"
"You're too smooth for your own good," I thought to him. I hadn't even started thinking about what excuse I'd use. It was something we should've spoken about beforehand, since we both had to use the same one.
"No, she hadn't mentioned that yet, but we've all been really busy this morning. Once we get the new Vinnie up and running today, we're going to have some down time while we play with our new toy. Missing a day won't be a problem," Hank replied.
"Good, I'll have her back bright and early Thursday to help train the new robot," Nate said as he stood up. "I better get back. I'll see you after work."
The latter words were directed to me, at least they better have been when his voice turned a little husky and let the other people know he had specific plans after work.
"I look forward to it." I actually wanted to hit him for the inference I read in his tone, but I only mentally kicked him in the shins, which he should've picked up loud and clear.
Everyone finished their food and we headed back to the lab for the big to-do. I followed along and watched as Hank and Josh hooked Vinnie up to a computer. A few button clicks later and a progress bar was slowly making its way across the screen.
"This part usually takes about an hour," Hank informed me.
I was used to the wait from working and watching the slow progress bars on my programs, but everyone standing around and staring at it made it a really boring experiment. We should've arranged to have games or something while we sat around all day hitting buttons and waiting.
I didn't want anything to do with the activity that would've put me to sleep after about five minutes, so I went back to my desk. I saw that both of my programs were still running, so I spun in my chair a few times, trying to think of something to do.
Not coming up with anything better, I decided to try to communicate with Rick via long-distance telepathy. I didn't doubt I could talk to Nate if I wanted, but the challenge of reaching Rick was too much fun to pass up.
I thought of Rick and said, "Freddie, bring me my motorcycle," in my mind. I spent about five minutes concentrating really hard and received no reply. Darn, it didn't seem like it worked.
Just as I was plotting the next thing I could do to waste some time, my cell phone rang. I took it out of my pocket and was happy to see Rick's face.
"Hey, I was just thinking about you," I said as I answered the phone.
"I know, and sorry, love, I don't think they'll let me take Winnie on a plane and I know you'd kill me if I drove her to you. Just so you know, it's really hard sitting through the end of a press conference when all you can hear is some crazy women yammering about her motorcycle."
A few mental high fives went off in my mind. "That's so cool. I didn't think it worked. I was told we could maybe talk across town, but past that it would be difficult."
I wished I knew some more phoenixes, other than my parents. I knew I was going to love my new way of communicating. I just needed to know how to close a connection down so my mother wouldn't start yapping at me all day.
"It doesn't work that way. I don't know if your power boost is from the building or your body, but I couldn't respond to you. If I could, you would've heard me telling you to zip your lips."
"Hmm. Let me see if I can test this real quick." I thought of Nate to get a message to him. "Can you hear me now?"
"Yes, my little butterfly, what can I do for you?" he replied back instantly. It was so weird that it sounded like he was in the same room, but I was pretty sure he wasn't even on the same floor.
"Can you try to message Rick via your mind mojo? I'm conducting a little experiment."
"I don't believe that's possible, but I'll try." He went quiet for a few seconds. "I don't think anything happened. What brought on this test?"
"Evidently I have some major juice, because I was able to get through to him. I have him on the phone now, and should probably get back to him. Let's do some more testing later," I said as quickly as possible, so I wasn't leaving Rick hanging.
"Fine, talk to Rick, but this is definitely something we need to talk about."
Back on the phone to Rick, I said, "I'm guessing you didn't receive anything from my fianc? in the last few minutes?" Being at work I didn't want to use Nate's real name, and I wasn't sure Rick knew our code names, so fianc? was the best thing I could think of.
"I don't think I've heard of any other engagements involving you, so I believe you're speaking of Nate. No, I didn't get any messages during the dead airtime."
"Cool. That means it's all me. I have so many things to say, but I'm at work and can't say a single one of them. I know," I finished talking out loud and changed into silent mode. "Can you hear me now?" I asked, laughing at the fact that I sounded like a cell phone commercial.
"Yes," he said over the phone.
"I am a super phoenix." I wasn't sure if the weird voiceover came across, but it sounded cool in my head. A part of me knew I should've been scared I was able to do something others couldn't. The fact that something made me special combatted the fear, at least for a while.
"You've always been special as far as we're concerned, but this is something new. I'm sure yo
u have Nate in a fit about it."
"When isn't he in a fit about something concerning me? He reminded me of the first time we met, and how he practically had a stroke when he got a look at me." I reverted back to speaking out loud. No one around me was paying attention, but I didn't want anyone to wonder about my lack of adding anything to the conversation.
"Good question. I'd love to sit and talk all day, but I do have a case I'm working on, baby girl. Can you call me back later tonight, so we can discuss this new development with your fianc??"
"I suppose. It's about time for me to get back myself."
After we hung up, I looked at the time and decided I needed to go see what everyone else was doing. I walked over to Hank's desk and saw the team hovering around it.
"How's it going?" I asked. I could feel an anxious hum amongst the others.
"It's just about done. Shouldn't even be a full minute," Eric replied.
As soon as he finished speaking, a big box appeared on the screen that said "Installation Status: Fail". I wasn't as smart as the others, but I didn't think that was the correct message.
"No," Hank said while he pounded out commands on his keyboard, trying to figure out the problem. "I don't understand. We fixed all the problems."
"Did anyone check the files this morning to make sure everything had been saved properly?" I asked.
"I don't think so, but I got on the network last night from home and verified the changes were there," Hank responded.
"She did it," Josh said, pointing at Ettie. "She can't accept that we're making progress and sabotaged the files. That's why she's been hanging around this morning."
Things were going to get ugly fast. Before Ettie could fire anything back, I interjected. "Wait a second, Josh. You have no proof that she did anything and I am ninety-nine point nine percent sure she didn't." Ettie gave me a little nudge, so I added, "Sorry, Ettie, I've got to protect myself. I don't believe you did it, but just in case you did, I have to give myself the point one percent. Moving on to our problem, can you do a scan of the files to see when they were last updated?"
Hank started looking at the modified dates, while the rest of us looked on. Once he got through the list, he said, "Five of them were updated this morning at two."
"Good, we know which files to look at to fix the problem. I'm guessing no one is going to say they were the one who changed them." I paused, giving them a chance to speak up. "I didn't think so. Let me take a look and I'll find out where the changes were made and try to trace them back to the computer. Maybe we have some prankster hacker who just wants to turn our hair gray. Until we know anything for certain, don't start pointing fingers." I glared at Josh to let him know that included him.
"That sounds like a plan. Can we make fixes to the files or should we let you at them first?" Kim asked.
"Let me get the information first, and then you can do whatever you want. It won't take me long to retrieve the initial information I need. Give me thirty minutes with the files and I'll hand them back over."
"Okay, do you guys want to put the backup on Vinnie for now? It will give us something to do while we wait," Hank suggested.
I left them to make their decision and headed back to my desk. There, I accessed the files and grabbed the save logs for them, so I could work with the data. Twenty minutes later, I had what I needed.
I yelled out, "Go ahead and do what you want with the files, but back them up on an external drive or something when you're done."
I assumed they'd do as I said and started looking over my logs. On initial glance, they weren't making a lot of sense. After an unknown amount of time, Ettie showed up at my desk.
"Hey, we're heading out for the day. The files were fixed, but they don't want to try another install until tomorrow. I just wanted to say thanks for sticking up for me."
"No problem. I know you didn't do it and I hope to have an answer to who did here in just a little bit."
We said good-bye and I sent Nate a quick message that I was finishing up some work. I dove back into the logs and was trying to figure out how in the world the file changes could've originated from our office, but not by any of the computers.
"Avery, can I please talk to you?" a voice asked and my heart sunk. It wasn't Nate's voice and no one else there should've known my real name. I looked up to see Vinnie standing by my desk.
CHAPTER 18
Knock knock. Who's there? A robot. Oh, s#%$!