Cat's in the cradle (Melia and Taliesin)

[Melia]

As the sun crept over the horizon, Matt's paranoia and exhaustion began to take it's physical tolls. His head began to feel heavy on his shoulders and Kristie's affection and warmth was indeed making him feel drowsy. He nodded off a few times, his head bouncing back to full alertness with a gasp. He'd guzzle some more tea, cold now but it only helped for so long.

His mind was still racing, and he was beginning to wonder if he had imagined things. Nothing at all seemed to be amiss so maybe he shouldn't worry about it. But his paranoia spoke back, 'That's what they want you to think so you let your guard down."

Finally mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion combined with Kristie's warmth and relaxing kneading got the best of him and he fell asleep.

 

[Taliesin]

Kristie was really starting to worry that he would somehow manage to keep himself awake forever at this rate, though she persevered since there was little else she could do. Once he finally succumbed to nature she wriggled off his lap and strode towards the computer room. A locked door was hardly enough to stop her for more than a few extra seconds and once she was inside she quickly grew into her human form. She needed to do some serious work and paws were just not going to cut it in this instance.

She sat down in his chair, grimacing a bit at the way it stuck to her naked body but there wasn't a lot she could do about that. She had thought long and hard about the best way to leave her mark so he would come find her. Normally it was painted on a wall or she used red objects found around the house to form it. With Matt however signs that someone had managed to sneak into the house again might very well give him a heart attack.

So she would do this on the computer, make it look like she had planted a timed virus while in his computer before. She tried to be as quite as possible typing while she pulled up a browser based graphics editor and edited a large red bow she had found. She then set up the pseudo virus and dropped the edited photo into it, this time going back through and covering up all of her tracks. The browser history was deleted and the virus was hidden away in another program.

About 15 minutes later her virus that was more just a simple program popped up, showing a large red bow that took up most of the screen. Below it scrolled the words 'nice set up, keep it up, I'm sure you'll go far.'

 

[Melia]

Matt's cellphone buzzed on the coffee table. He'd missed four calls before finally waking up enough to notice it. He groped at it from the couch and answered in a voice that was groggy from a very deep sleep.

"Ullo?"

It was Mr. Howard, wondering where he was, was getting worried because he usually answered his phone right away and usually came to the hanger every day.

Matt rubbed at his face. "'m fine. Sorry I just... Been a little sick. I'll pop round tomorrow morning." When he had adjusted to a more normal sleep schedule which he most definitely was not on. What day even was it? What time?

He finished the phone call with Mr. Howard and looked at his phone for the time. Well it was mid afternoon now. Why was he sleeping on the couch anyway? He snorted, an attempt to wake himself up and clear his head from sleep.

Oh! The computer stuff! He shot to his feet and raced to the computer room to check and make sure everything was still secure.

On the screen was a big red bow with an encouraging message. So someone had been on his computer. Maybe they'd remoted in? Well... At least it seemed that nothing had been done. And perhaps this person wasn't out to get him but simply curious...

Still... There was something mildly familiar about the bow. And certainly if he ever paid attention to the local news he would have recognized it immediately. But still...

He pulled up Google and began his research. What did the bow mean?

 

[Taliesin]

Kristie was settled in what was becoming her usual spot on the back of the couch, dozing while she waited for Matt to wake up. The waiting was making it hard to actually get to sleep, she kept on hoping she'd be able to calm him down just a bit but also afraid that she did something that would only make him freak out again. She wasn't sure she could handle another scene like last night.

She followed him warily into the computer room, watching his expression hopefully. He certainly didn't seem to be flipping out like he had last night. It looked like her plan worked. And now she would see if he could find her.

As soon as he typed in 'red bow' there were a couple clothing sites advertising but most of the page was filled with links to news stories about 'The Scarlet Thief' in his area. It was always the same MO. The thief would sneak into the house and take some expensive piece of art, regardless of how advanced the security system protecting the item was, and leave a red bow of some sort in the house. Nowhere was ever hit twice and nothing other than the item and whatever made up the bow were ever disturbed. There were a couple instances where the investigation had kicked off when pieces had been found and traced to street kids but nothing ever came of those investigations.

Most recently an old woman's rare Japanese vase had disappeared. The police had no leads as usual.

Kristie was a bit amused to see just how many hits she got as well. She couldn't help but start purring happily again and settling behind him on his chair. Now that she had somewhat put out the fire she started it would only be a day or two more of this lazy life before she went back to her shop keeper persona.

 

[Melia]

Matt was certainly no detective, however the information he was finding on this Scarlett Thief was very interesting. It made him a bit nervous, but he had a feeling in his gut somewhere that this person knew of him but was not out to hurt him.

Then again they were stealing items of great value and he had assets that were of very great value. He whined a little bit in his throat. "I'd really rather if you approached me face to face if you need money..." He mumbled to the computer screen, still a bit nervous and on edge of anyone being able to get into his computer system. He thought he'd been so thorough. But this recent breach was shaking his confidence and he was still quite paranoid.

All he had learned about this computer stuff had been self taught. At least the encrypting and everything. He'd simply read every possible book on computers he could get his hands on to get the best in depth knowledge of how computers and the internet worked. He'd made a few hacker friends who helped him a bit. But for the most part it was still all very amateur work as far as he was concerned. It was the lengths he had gone to that made everything as secure as it was. Or had been. He'd thought.

The investing bit he'd learned elsewhere at a different time. And really that was all that it was. Investing.

"Nnn," he was still plenty nervous, but a nights sleep had helped straighten out his head quite a bit and at least set his emotions back to base level so he could approach the whole thing with a more level head.

First he had to try to find out who this Scarlett Thief was. Since they had complimented his set up he wondered if they had a desire to communicate with him. Perhaps it would be easier to track them down than he thought.

He figured the first place to start would be the most recent 'victim' so with ease, though the local newspaper didn't disclose much, they disclosed enough information that he would be able to find her. And, looking at the corner of his computer screen, he would have enough time to do that tonight.

He stood up, locking the computer, and locking the computer room, being sure to shoo Kristie out, then grabbed his jacket and headed out to visit this old woman with the Japanese vase.

 

[Taliesin]

The old woman's house was about equidistant between Kristie's shop and Matt's place, so not too much of a ride for him. The house was small but obviously old and elegant looking in that 'from the 1900's' sort of way. It was 3 stories high plus an attic but stood out from the newer constructed buildings around it.

When he knocked on the door a harassed looking butler answered it a minute later. "Yes? Oh not another one. The Lady has spoken all she cares to on the subject of her vase, go back and tell your reporters to go find someone else to bother." As the butler had opened the door an invisible wave of perfume washed out. A perfume that should be familiar to Matt, it had shown up in his house just as things started to get a bit crazy a couple days ago.

Back at the house Kristie paced around nervously. She wanted to leave and take care of making the bug but she had no way of knowing how long Matt was going to be out and thus couldn't risk it. Also while she had wanted him to go visit the old woman and perhaps notice the perfume she honestly had no idea what sort of conclusions he would make from the connection. She was playing an awfully risky game but she couldn't deny the thrill from it either. It was all a confused mess inside of her.

 

[Melia]

Matt noticed the perfume immediately and backed away, waving and holding his nose to prevent a sneeze. He waved at the butler "Thanks," he called "that's pretty much all I needed to know-"

He sneezed once but recovered pretty quickly, given the fresh air and the fact that the perfume wasn't completely surrounding him. So the Scarlett Thief was definitely connected with that cat. And now that he thought about it, the cat was red...

He raced back home. Either the Scarlett Thief used his cat for something or- well that was certainly impossible...

Matt was breathing heavily by the time he got home. He burst into his house, very nearly knocking the door off it's hinges. He marched purposefully toward the Kristie and picked her up, staring very carefully into her eyes. His own blue eyes narrowed suspiciously again.

"What are you... You're not just any old cat are you?" He sniffed at her. "You are an unusual color... Red. Scarlett... hmm.." He mumbled on a tangent. "Would probably have been a better name for you than Ginger..."

He pulled her down to the floor and began closely examining her fur. "I assumed someone had colored it... Some of these kids do weird stuff to animals... Are you an alien? Do you have another form?"

 

[Taliesin]

Kristie paused in her pacing only to practically jump out of her skin as he slammed into the house, her hair all standing on end and she landed back on the floor. She had heard him coming but had hardly expected this explosion. She edged somewhat warily back as he strode towards her though she suffered him picking her up.

She was more than a little not happy though. He was supposed to be confused and maybe think that 'Kristie' human i.e. the scarlet thief had perhaps played with 'Ginger' while she was in the house. He most definitely was not supposed to make a leap in logic that would be ridiculous by any standards that didn't include that such creatures as her actually existed.

She thought fast and decided for the moment she was going to play normal kitty and hope he found a different theory to go with. So she played the confused animal and kept looking back at his hands examining her, twitching her tail and flicking her ears back and forth but behaving in no way that was outside the boundaries of usual cat behavior.

 

[Melia]

Matt sat back and sighed eying here carefully. "Why would a cat be involved with a theif? I'm really confused. Maybe you're an alien. You seem like a really smart cat if you can open windows. I can barely crack those windows cos they're so old..."

He held her up to the light, as if that would shed any mental light on the situation. "I swear if you're an alien...oh!" He gasped. "They sent you here to observe me, right? Because you know I'm gonna go to Tau Ceti, right? Yknow if you wanna give me any hints on how to build a pwoper spaceship I'll take them."

Convinced he had an alien cat on his hands now he went back to the papers he was reading and pulled them in front of Kristie. "Mr. Howard says I have to have gravity to make such a long flight through space. Otherwise my bones will deteriorate and stuff. So he came up with this concept.. Yknow have you ever read Ender's Game? Of course you haven't you're a cat. Or an alien and maybe you have... Hmm. Okay so in the book there's this battle school and it's a giant wheel and it uses centrifugal force to create artificial gravity." He began to speak faster as he got more excited, his speech impediment coming out more and more and becoming harder and harder to understand. "So Mr. Howard has this idea to make a little centwifuge. Kinda like that big wheel but yknow, small enough to put in a little spaceship for one person. It's not ideal he says cos the bigger the wheel the more accuwate it is to weal gwavity, see, cos the gwavity would be heaviest at my feet, yeah? And then if it's a weally small centrifuge if my head was in the middle there'd be no gwavity there. Plus it would have to spin WEALLY fast! But if I lay down, then the gwavity is just right, like that gwavitron wide they have at carnivals! The bigger the wheel is the slower it had to spin and the more normal the gwavity. And the smaller the faster it has to spin the weirder the gwavity. Wight now we're working on finding something small that still can work! What do you think?" He asked, looking at Kristie expectantly. "...you're a cat. Or maybe an alien." He tapped his fingers against his mouth, thinking. "Or just a cat that sneaks out and visits some person who is also a thief."

 

[Taliesin]

Kristie was honestly more confused than Matt was at this point. She had thought him a bit odd before when he spoke of his space ship idea, mostly because as far as she was concerned Gravity was still only his secondary problem in that endeavor. But now he was talking about aliens and somehow thinking she was going to show him the way...or something? Even after a few days to get used to his speech she was having a hard time understanding what he was saying.

She stared blankly down at the papers for a few moments before looking up at him with a decidedly 'what the hell?' cant to her head. Her brain was hurting just trying to think about what he had just said. She had no interest in physics and why the hell was he referencing a book in this non-conversation? There were so many holes in his plan she didn't even know where to start. And there was no way she was going to actually start speaking and point them out while she was like this.

On the bright side after all the head spinning he seemed to settle on the more reasonable theory she wanted him to be following. At least sort of, he was still convinced she, the cat, was somehow getting out rather that she, the thief somehow getting in but she supposed beggars couldn't be choosers. She meowed inquiringly, the first time she had made a sound other than a purr in his presence and strolled over to the couch, jumping up into her usual spot and starting to groom herself. Keep following that train of thought she thought at him determinedly, as if that would magically change his mind.

 

[Melia]

"No matter which way you spin the dial, I'm not letting you out of my sight anymore, cat," Matt declared, though he wasn't really sure how he would accomplish that feat. He had to sleep sometime and he felt horribly guilty tying her up. With dogs it was necessary sometimes. But with cats it seemed cruel. He could shut her in the bedroom but he was beginning to suspect that she was capable of figuring out how to open doors. At least if she was capable of opening that window. He didn't even know if she'd actually opened the window, now that he thought about it. He'd just assumed because of the claw marks. No matter what he knew that somehow, in someway, this cat was associated with the Scarlett Thief. And while he never really concerned himself with thievery, (what did it really matter, in the grand scheme of things), he was very concerned about theft from his hard earned funds, something getting messed up in his meticulously messy security system, and the government pouncing on him like...well...a cat.

He'd read 1984, after all. Approximately 64 times. It wasn't necessarily that he was doing anything wrong to hide from them but he did just want his goddamn privacy and that was generally something that people who had a lot of money had the luxury of. He wanted privacy from government spies. He wanted to do his work in peace. The great strides of scientific studies that he hoped would be accomplished with Mr. Howard's help wouldn't be published or in any other public way known until long after he was gone.

The long story short was, he did not want politics interfering with his life dream. Everyone knew politics slowed everything down, knowledge got in the wrong hands, power got dispersed somewhere it shouldn't have. And that was what he was trying to escape from.

"I don't know what to do with you , Ginger." He said setting her on his bed. "I'm not sure if letting you in my life was a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand. I like your company. But on the other... You are a bit mystifying. I really really hope you don't have some kind of tracking device or chip in you. Or. Or. Are some government droid sent to spy on me. You seem pretty real and squishy though." He said poking at her soft belly. "I'm gonna keep you in my room tonight and I really hope you don't cause any trouble," he said as he crawled into bed. It would be a night of light sleep simply because of how weird his sleep schedule had been the last few days, but he was determined to get himself back on schedule.

 

[Taliesin]

Kristie really didn't know how she felt about the situation anymore. On one hand he seemed to have moved safely away from the theory which was the truth. He seemed solidly confused in fact which was a decent place for him to be as far as she was concerned. That being said he was paranoid (read- crazy) enough that he was trying to contain her, which was less great. She needed to get out of there as soon as possible, without revealing too much, at that there was her problem.

She lay down on the corner of his bed and stared broodingly at the door, pondering if she should risk it. She was fairly sure that with his crazy ideas about her he wouldn't be entirely surprised at her opening a door, so perhaps she would just let herself out and wedge open the window again. She sighed softly and buried her head in her paws. How had this gotten so out of hand? It was supposed to be a quick in and out, not more than a day or two and she would have her curiosity satisfied and on she would go with her life.

She'd always held herself above the old saying 'Curiosity killed the cat', saying she was smart enough to get herself out of any trouble she might run into because of it. Today however she heard her master's old whisper and really hoped the old bat did not have some sort of psychic powers or anything. She didn't remember that being in a vampire's repertoire but it wasn't like he shared his deepest secrets with her or anything.

She fell into a light doze, dreaming restless dreams of shadowy figures chasing her. It was a dream she hadn't had in a long time and she woke quite suddenly a few hours later, panting softly and hoping she hadn't been making too much noise in her sleep. She pushed herself to her feet and licked one paw, running it over her ear and letting the familiar motion sooth her. Once she felt calm again she jumped lightly to the ground. She was getting out of here, she had had enough of this.

Still in her cat form she stretched upwards, expertly hooking her paws around the knob and turning it open.

 

[Melia]

Matt had fallen into a deep enough sleep that Kristie's movements did not wake him. In fact, when he did wake up, he wasn't thinking about Kristie at all. He was eager to get back to work with Mr. Howard and that was where his mind was.

It wasn't until after he had showered (rusty water, poor water pressure, finiky temperatures) and brushing his teeth (drippy faucet and squeaky sink fixture) and had wandered into the kitchen for breakfast and noticed Kristie's food bowls that he remembered her. She had gotten out of his room.

Of course she knew how to open doors. This was clearly a very smart cat. He wandered the house looking for her and even went upstairs to the never used attic and down into the musty basement to double check. She was nowhere to be seen.

He shrugged it off. It wasn't like the cat had been around long enough for him to get terribly attached. It was just...that it was a very smart cat and for some reason he was worried about the cat being out in the world with information about him.

That was silly. He mentally berated himself. He was being completely ridiculous. It was just a cat. It wasn't like cats could talk, anyway, no matter how smart they were.

"I need to stop being so paranoid..." He said to the banana he was slicing up over his cereal, knowing that was not going to happen. "I bet that lady with the perfume was her real owner and she just wanted to go home. Very good at over complicating things, Matthew."

He decided not to worry about the cat anymore but he had to admit that he had missed having a pet. It was nice and made him feel less lonely. Mr Howard was probably the closest he'd come to making a friend, since, well, ever. And even he didn't much like Matt too much. For being "too illogical and spastic."

Matt did like to think that Mr. Howard was continuing the working relationship for more reasons than money though. He had to high of standards and was too genuine for such a greedy action.

As he left for his daily bike ride out to the shuttle hanger, he decided he would stop at the lady with the perfume's house just to check her cat came home and apologize for taking her cat and that he had not meant to be a catnapper.

 

[Taliesin]

Kristie let herself out of the house the same way she had last time and didn't stop running until she was safely back in her own bedroom. It had all gotten just a bit too close for her comfort. She spent a lot of time just savoring the feel of being in her own bed, able to come and go as she pleased once more. Mentally she stuck her tongue out at the whispering words that had been giving her so much trouble before. She'd gotten out, Matt would be none the wiser and life would go on.

She did reluctantly conclude that she should put some surveillance on him however. Just to make sure he did start putting things together again. She spent the rest of the night putting together the bug she'd had Tessa getting the supplies for. In the morning she opened shop as usual and spent the first couple hours doing a system check and making sure that nothing had pinged while she was gone. Everything looked fine. All the bigwigs continued to be as clueless as ever.

When Tessa came in they had a discussion and set up some rotating surveillance on Matt. The kids in her network were more than happy to have a new job.

Back at the old ladies house the butler was less than pleased to see him again. "I already told you, the lady is answering no more-" He gave Matt an incredulous look. "Cat? The lady is allergic to the darn pests of course there are no cats here!"

 

[Melia]

Matt frowned at the butlers response but backed away. "And I'm allergic to her damn perfume. How do you stand it?" He waved a hand and left the useless butler. He was unimportant anyway, as far as he was concerned.

Still he puzzled over the whole thing again on his bike ride. Maybe it was just an ironic coincidence the perfume and the cat. He would have considered that he had imagined it or dreamed it, given the odd time of the night, but there was just no way he could imagine up the allergic reaction he had had to that very specific perfume. And he was far too paranoid to just let it go. He didn't like that someone seemed to have gotten in and out of his house unknown to him and accessed his computers. He worked so hard at them to keep them unsuspicious. And he only trusted Mr. Howard with any hint of the system. Only because Mr. Howard got some access to the funds.

Speaking of, the project they had been working on and discussing today had been acceleration. And that research, of course, required funds. And scarily also, fuel.

It wasn't so much the funds that worried him, it was the fuel. Purchasing large amounts of fuel for any reason was going to appear suspicious to anyone and was going to cause people to start watching him. Especially the damn American government. They had such an obsession with fossil fuels.

Unsustainable. Wasteful. His mind whirred with the effects that would globally have. The alterations to entropy in a closed system. His stomach turned at the thought.

"And that's why I need to get off this planet," he mumbled as he pedaled faster.

He needed to make a side stop. Time to set up a new account and therefore time to set up a new intricately designed web of proxies. And this required at least six new computers. Server space, etc. He made a side stop on his way back home to the computer shop because the people there were pretty nice and seemed to mind their own business well enough.

 

[Taliesin]

Kristie had finished most of her big projects for the day at this point, she still had a couple hours to go until closing and she was definitely feeling that sleepy part of the afternoon. The bug she had been working on was safely stashed upstairs for her to plant later on tonight and her network of urchins and such were following Matt even as she nearly dozed off in her chair, staring at the huge wall of monitors.

It was a shame she hadn't thought to tell her minions to warn her if he was coming to the shop because she would have spared herself quite a fright. She cracked open an eyelid as she head the bell ring, tilting her head to see who it was and not quite managing to stop the widening of her eyes and she registered who it was. She also fell out of her chair in the most ungraceful way possible before quickly standing up and running a hand through her long ponytail, held up by her usual large red bow. "Oh Matt, you're back already! Certainly the hard drive isn't giving you problems already?" She casually moved up towards the front desk, now acting like nothing had happened.

 

[Melia]

The clatter of Kristie falling caused Matt to whip his head immediately in her direction, fully intending to only browse around. His eyes widened as well the moment she popped back up. The particular shade of red in her hair suddenly making a connection. That was what the cat had reminded him of. Her hair color. He stopped breathing and he could feel his heart pounding out of his chest.

She'd said his name far too fast for being the casual acquaintances that they were. He knew he had shared his name with her. But after a few days and many other customers surely that would have faded from her memory. He would have much more expected a "you're Matt, right?" than such an outright greeting. That alone had him on his toes.

But the bow in her hair. And the bow on his computer were the same. No matter the encouraging message that had been with it. The initial response was panic and fear. He released his pent up breath and was now breathing very rapidly. With that, he bolted out the door, saying nothing to her at all. He was on his bike in a flash and attempting to pedal before his feet were completely on the pedals. This of course lead to some painfully scraped shins. He grunted and got his footing and was racing away as fast as he could go, the trolley rattling behind him. For some reason he was crying though he had no idea why that would be. He gave one last look over his shoulder, terrified and praying no one was following him.

 

[Taliesin]

Kristie restrained the initial urge to rush after him, more an instinctive response to someone bolting in fear than anything else, before staring after him dumbly. For a few moments she was completely baffled as to what would cause such an odd reaction. It didn't make sense even if…even if. Her face went pale as she realized he must have put something together that she didn't want him to. He had been so close to the truth before, had he realized it now?

She put her hands over her face and forced herself to breath. It couldn't be. There was just no way…no way he would realize and rat her out right? He hated the government? But even if he so much as put his suspicions up somewhere, hell if he did a search related to her secret then she would be so very screwed. "Damn it. Damnitdamnitdamnit." She started pacing and waving her hands in the air wildly as she tried to think around the panic. She was sure she had plans for this but for the life of her she couldn't think of anything.

She quickly snatched up the phone and called Tessa. "Hey Tessa, you remember that thing I asked you to get? Yeah could you get two of them instead?" That was their code for 'double the surveillance, get closer if possible'. She would go in herself later, perhaps, when she wasn't so terrified. Something in her rebelled at the thought though, he was on to her now, it probably wouldn't be as easy or safe to get in now. "Uggghhh why did it have to go like this?!" She didn't even know what to do. This was terrible. She didn't want to think about what she would have to do if this got out of hand. As it was she quickly locked up her shop and sat down in front of her computer staring blankly at the screen.

 

[Melia]

By the time Matt got home he was panting. He hadn't biked that hard in a long time. He'd made it home in record time, almost as fast as if he'd driven. But that was only because he didn't have to adhere to the traffic the way cars did. He wasn't thinking about that though. His mind was still racing, trying to unscramble something that he didn't understand. He tripped off his bike, putting a decent sized grass stain on his pants. Got up, promptly tripped going up the stairs of his porch and putting his hand through the soft wood. Ouch. Really this porch needed to be redone. He heard laughing and realized those kids from down the street had seen him.

"Oh fuck you," he mumbled as he got up and hurried inside, promptly locking all nine deadbolts and sliding down the door to process exactly what had happened.

The running was some kind of part to his thinking process he had yet to really understand. Somehow the metaphoracle act of physically putting distance between himself and the problem (was it a problem? Was there even a problem?) could help him also mentally distance himself from the problem.

That was the first step. Secondly, the tears had stopped and that was good whatever that had been about. So now he seemed to have some physical control over his body which frankly, in his panicked state, he really had no control over it at all.

Thirdly, well, that was where he was at now. Now what. The number one issue was that he was more than certain that someone had been in his computer system and it was that girl from the shop. Had she bugged the hard drive somehow? He hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary but she also probably knew more about computers than he did. He would be the first to admit that he was an amatuer (though many would probably disagree) as he was so very very self taught.

And that girl had something to do with the cat but he didn't know how they related other than the fact that the cat had such red hair. What had alerted him to the connection to the cat and the red bow in the first place, anyway. The perfume. Not the perfume though, no. The red bow that was connected to that vase being stolen. Which was also on his computer. And the smell from that lady's house on the cat.

Okay. So what did that have to do with him? Why? Why were they in his computers. Nothing was worse than someone touching that.

And then he thought. Why? Why was it so bad.

It wasn't like he was doing anything wrong. Not really. Okay sometimes. But really he only went to such lengths for his guaranteed privacy. But if anyone should know that surely they would think he had something to hide that he would go to those lengths.

"I just want to experience real freedom." He said out loud. That was what it boiled down to, in the end. In the end what he needed to do was talk to this girl and find out exactly why she was watching him. Or what exactly she was or what she was doing. Because he didn't understand. And he needed to understand before he moved foreward at all.

Earlier today this was all just a glitch in the wiring. A concern, yes, but it had a temporary work around and he could continue on as normal. Now it was urgent and it needed immediate attention. Everything else. The checklists. The bank accounts. The space shuttle. The research. Mr. Howard. All of that was on hold until this problem, this confusion, this girl, was understood.

He prided himself on being logical and stood up from his spot against the door. Turned around, unlocked it and stepped back outside. He would go back to the store and talk to her.

Except his bike was gone.

 

[Taliesin]

Kristie felt like her mind was a blank slate. She kept on trying to come up with her next action and the thoughts would just slide right away. Eventually she just put her hands over the keyboard and started typing. It was a few minutes before she realized it was the product number on the hard drive she had given him. Just like that, her brain sparked into action. She pulled up her remote access program and linked it to his computer. She opened the screen to his and was severely disappointed to find that it was a black screen, indicating that Matt was not currently on his computer. It was partially a good thing since it meant he wasn't doing anything on there that might give her away but she had been half hoping to use it as a means of communication with him. As it was, it looked like she was going to have to do something else.

At that moment her phone rang and she leapt of out her chair, facing the noise in a defensive position. When she realized it was just her phone she flushed in embarrassment and was very glad no one was there to see that. She picked up the phone and slid it answer the call. "Yes?" She frowned. "It's been stolen? Then get it back!" Did she not say get closer if possible? She might be just a bit more impatient with her network than usual.

Back at Matt's house the two street urchins who were currently set to watch him nodded at each other and the one with the phone slid it back in his pocket. The other boy started strolling towards Matt while the one with the phone turned and headed into the neighborhood in the direction the thieves had gone.

Boy 2, otherwise known as Michael, waved a hand to get Matt's attention. "Hey Mister, you just missed 'em took off with your bike and ran off like bat's outta hell." He jerked his finger in the general direction they had gone.