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niaga em ksa

Ask Me Again

"Are you done yet?" Matrix asked, passing time gingerly with his fingers drumming the table.

"Patience young padawan," Hershey replied, hitting buttons and clicking icons on the computer. The three of them sat, huddled around an aged computer, in the public library. It was one of the smaller ones, so Beta was the one making sure no one was watching them. Hershey had already passed not only the library's firewall but also inserted himself into the police department's database without a direct connection between the two. Neither Beta nor Matrix even knew such a thing was possible. It was god-like. "I will need a turkey sandwich though," he added.

Matrix stammered. "For what?"

Hershey paused his typing and turned to him. "For consumption." He went right back to it, leaving Matrix with a sour tongue and a duty to uphold. "You should go with him," Hershey said to Beta. Beta watched Matrix near the door in an annoyed hobble and decided Hershey was right.

"We'll be back soon," the Perna assured and followed suit.

It was only when they left that Hershey was able to find the files he needed.

He clicked on one of the police reports and read past the basic information and down to the actual description. "Missing," he muttered to himself, checking to see if anyone was around. Hershey clicked on another report. "Also missing," he concluded, and clicked on another one, and another one, and then another one. "And they're all missing." Hershey sighed and rubbed his eyes, pushing his glasses up to his forehead. "Well that's comforting." He ended up taking the spectacles off completely. He didn't really need the glasses anymore, not since he was dead. But, he found a non-prescription pair in one of the Plato stores and they gave it to him. There were some things you just needed to remind you of home, and that "thing" was Hershey's glasses. When he looked back up at the computer and exited out of all the reports, he found one documentation that was a bit different from the others.

Kidnapping.

"Well hello there," Hershey said as he clicked on it, looking deeper into the file. He did a quick turn-around to make sure he was alone again. Still, no one was paying attention. Hershey clicked on the picture of the missing kid: He was tall with premature bruising on his shoulders and neck, stubble around his mouth. He had a mole under his dull brown eyes. His skin was caramel. Hershey clicked on another photo from the file—there were only two—and what he saw was incriminating.

A short man was seen talking to the missing teen a day before he went missing, sitting next to him on a bench outside what looked like a government-funded building. Hershey found it creepy enough that they were even talking, but he found it even more creepy that someone had taken a picture of them. He also noticed there was something oddly familiar about the photo. It felt like Hershey had seen that man before. So, he looked closer, pressing his nose in to the computer screen and squinting at the man's eyes.

Those eyes.

And suddenly, they jumped at him. All the lighting, camera angles; none of that mattered once Hershey could truly see the black surrounding the white in the man's eyes.

A Sync.

The Nat muttered, "Oh man. Guys!" He turned around right when the person next to him shushed him, realizing that they weren't even there. Hershey quickly exited out the picture of the man and the missing boy, leaving just a picture of the boy up and stood.

"Matrix?" he whispered, looking around the library. "Beta?"

He had forgotten he sent them on a sandwich run without any way to contact him. Realizing his mistake, Hershey exited the library and ran out into the parking lot.