Inner Workings

Inner Workings - Part 28

Milton gulped and covered himself with the bed sheet, as if afraid to show his bare chest over the phone. "I-I-I-I didn't think you would read the report."

"So it was a joke?" replied Rachel over the phone, her tone no less cutting.

"No. It was a serious report of my findings; I assumed you were being dismissive of it." Or had he gone too far in writing the report at all and now he was going to be fired in the middle of the night? He turned on the bedside light, needing something to look at while he talked.

"I find the phrase "neutralization through an application of earthworms" less than serious," said Rachel.

"But it was," protested Milton, getting out of the bed and pacing in front of the blank television, the floorboards creaking. For once he was the apartment tenant making noise during the night. "Sandra Pearl suffers from mysophobia, fear of germs, filth, bodily contact. If you wanted her to mentally break then the best thing to do would be to put her on edge with something disgusting. As a psychologist I wouldn't recommend it but—"

"Milton," interrupted Rachel. "How do you feel about night calls?"

"Night... um. If the patient needs me I can be available day or night."

"Then come back to Watch Two right now. I want you to go through this report with me. You might have actually done something useful." Rachel hung up.

Milton stood still, a small smile creeping up the corner of his lip. He had done something right. He had the apartment door halfway open to go back to the Watch Two base when he caught himself and shut it, hurrying back to the bedroom.

"Pants. Need pants."

***

Rachel set the phone down and looked out the doorway. Nate, his shirt damp, mostly with the water fountain but probably with a few tears as well, sat wheezing on the floor.

"Nate? You still alive?"

"Geeeh."

"Good. Can you breathe?"

"Meh."

"Try again."

Nate, still recovering from capsaicin shock, took a deep lungful.

"Good. Now exhale through your nose."

Nate did so and after a moment looked up at Rachel in puzzlement. His nose had been cleared.

"Thought so."

"No grape syrup?"

"No." Rachel tossed him a blister pack of antihistamine tablets. "Rest."

"That's so not fair..."

***

"Can you do any more tweaking?" asked Cetz, hovering over Grant's shoulders.

"You want me to tweak the picture any more you'll have to rocket me into orbit to put a contact lens in the satellite," replied Grant.

"I don't think karma would allow me to inflict you upon the universe."

"Then inflict yourself on the other computer and narrow down the addresses." Grant nodded his head towards the desktop screen surrounded by a militia of slushie cups. Cetz, after clearing the desk space, started typing.

Though Cetz had managed to allow Grant access to the Watch satellite feed so they could pinpoint and possibly see Sandra Pearl, the image from above was blurry. Grant narrowed down Sandra's location to within a couple miles before she had terminated her computer connection. Grant tried his best to remotely adjust the lens from his computer; unfortunately satellite technology hadn't advanced much since the Hubble.