The Hidden Web

8. The flies are circling

Terry entered the beaming GLDU headquarters, tapped his security card and went straight into the left hand lift. He frantically pressed -2, hoping no one else would jump in. When the lift doors closed, he took the glasses he found in the hospital lift out of the evidence bag in his right pocket and swapped them for the ones that fell off the suspect. The lift door pinged open, as he approached the desk he could feel his heart beating faster, he had never done anything that could possibly cause him trouble in his life before. He handed the bag to the clerk who seemed to take a longer than normal look at it, she tapped a few keys on her keyboard and placed them in the tray for storage. "Thanks Terry." He just smirked and made a beeline for the lift.

Richard was frantically searching the lost property boxes, there was a red garden gnome with sunglasses on, there must be a charger for this tablet in here he thought. But he had no luck, so he searched the internet but it was like the tablet had never existed as nothing came up on his multiple searches for the tablet, even the marketplaces didn't have anything for that make of tablet, just chargers for the phones the company made a fair few years ago.

Rebecca searched for anymore references to that department name in her emails, but couldn't find any. She promptly decided that she needed to go into the office to do some more searching, so she hopped on the 152 and made her way into the office. She swiped her pass at the gate and headed for her office, she firmly closed the door and started scouring through all her folders from the past 5 years and found a few older paper files mentioning the different department name, so she neatly folded them and put them in her jacket pocket. She carefully placed all the folders back, black on the left blue on the right, people knew her too well and would notice if they had been mismatched.

Terry was sat in his bedroom, just his lamp side light on, he got the glasses out of his coat pocket and he looked through the glasses again, still the same image was displayed, he hadn't imagined it. He didn't know what to do, he needed to contemplate his next move, so he left his house and went into the Wizard & Unicorn and ordered his usual pint of bitter, then sat in the corner on a small table. He then browed the internet on his phone, searching for online casinos, but none were like he saw, it was almost like he was in a 3D casino. Just before he exited he checked the news page, Prime Minster Malcom Azrael had announced that the spaceport had conducted a successful test flight and longer missions would start in the near future. He closed the news page and noticed his phone was on 6%, so grabbed his charger from his coat pocket and plugged it in to the socket by the table.

Rebecca closed her office door and made a dash to the exit. One of her colleagues went to ask her a question, she didn't want to stop as she feel so dirty taking these files from work, but she needed answers. She politely said "Sorry, got a urgent matter to attend to" and leaped into the lift with a few other colleagues just trying to keep her mind off the files in her jacket pocket. She got sauntered through the gate and took a deep breath as she got out the building and taking a seat on the bench by the trees. After a few minutes, she made her way towards the bus stop, but not the 152 home, first needed a large glass of wine, so decided to pop into the Wizard & Unicorn before heading home.

As she entered she recognised Terry sitting on his own in the corner, he looked troubled, she ordered a large glass of Rosé at the bar and couldn't fight the voice in her head saying too check on him. "Mind if I join you?" Terry looked up from staring at his beer" No...not at all" mustering a smile.

Richard was helping toclear glasses up around the pub, he went to Terry and Rebecca's table andnoticed Terrys phone was the same make as the tablet he had found "Excuse me,does your charger work on tablets?" Terry looked puzzled "Not sure, sorry" "Doyou mind if I give it a go?" Then quickly thinking of an excuse "My daughterslost her charger, and it has her coursework on it" "Yeah sure" Terry replied,unplugging his phone and handing it over. Richard swiftly dropped the glassesoff and went into the back office and tried the charger with the tablet,nothing. The bar staff called for his help with the till, he tucked the tablet behindthe noticeboard on the side. As he left the room, the tablet display lit up.