Perfect with You

Chapter 26 - To No End of Our Own

No more roads. No more driving.

It had all become too repetitive. It had been gnawing inside of her head, making her forget who she was as she only felt like an event, not a person. Just the center of a task, always working towards a goal but never crossing the finish line. It was once an adventure, but it had been sucked dry and turned into a never-ending nightmare that she just wanted to kill. The only light in the darkness was fading slowly and might now be gone for good. After the fact, life was not fair, but that was not even a way to look at it anymore. Max had felt fate's non-existence for a long time now, everything being choices and chances. Too much control over a life in a world where nothing can be controlled is difficult. Having the ability to control the world as well, is downright madness. She often thought about how she had managed to not be driven completely insane by everything that has been happening to her, and the only conclusion she could ever work towards, was the fact that the thought of having experienced these traumatic things was absolutely terrifying, but living through those experiences is not a choice. This is where she stood and she had to deal with it.

"So five months after our dog ran away, we got a hamster and named it Evangeline, which has ten letters and Josephine has nine letters, but as you recall, on the periodic table, Au is gold and has the atomic number 79, so..."

Max's ears randomly began listening to Ted explaining his story of why he calls Tiffany, Jo. Which had bizarrely turned into a full-fletched novel at this point, explaining why Ted seemed so reluctant to tell it at first, but one glance at the focused boy showed that he was in the zone with Tiffany, on the other hand, having completely zoned out. Max was no better herself, however, as she had stopped listening almost immediately when Ted started off by saying "when I was six..." which was a clear indication of how this story would be dragged out into infinity. Luckily, Ted was able to multitask as he was working on the computer while rambling. One of the two gadgets Ted had taken with him had been revealed to be a portable Wi-Fi router which he had plugged into the side of his laptop. The other gadget that looked more like a remote control was, however, still a mystery.

Max was nodding mechanically every time Ted raised his voice slightly, while simply staring at the empty roads. She had been driving around for a while now without a clear destination, just hoping to find Chloe wandering somewhere in the streets.

"I then placed those numbers against each other and ended up with an equation-"

"Alright, Ted," Max's body urged her to stop him, as both Ted and Tiffany looked up, a dazed look on Ted, an awaiting look on Tiffany.
"An interesting story so far, but can you please tell me where we stand on tracking down Chloe?"

Ted just stared as if he was stuck in an abyss and had to use a good amount time to snap back into the real world. Tiffany signaled with her hand to Max that she should wait and let Ted take the time he needed, which she wearyingly did.

"Right" He finally said.
"As we have been driving around- solid driving by the by- I have been logging into the database of the various stores, cafes and restaurants we have been passing, to see who is connected to their provided Wi-Fi. The serial number of those who are connected shows up and I have been trying to cross-reference those numbers with any Bluetooth signal we have passed, to see if there're any hints that would lead me to believe that it would be Chloe's phone" Once again, Ted's explanation made it sound rather simple, but even though Max knew close to nothing about such things, she figured that it was more difficult than he let on.

"Do you really- I mean, how do you know how to do all that?" The question came from the subconscious desire to make conversation, but some part of her felt legitimately curious.

"Oh, I don't. I just ask various forums and use sites for our purposes" Ted almost sang out, gladdening Max as to how he didn't even try to get the easy praise he could have gotten from lying.
"Everybody who claims they know how to hack, are simply asking strangers on the internet how to do it" He leaned a little closer to the screen, his eyes moving slowly to the side, indicating that he was reading something. Tiffany also presented her curiosity as she too leaned towards the screen, but looking as if she didn't know what to look at exactly.