Reaper Girl: Episode Fifteen
Kate picks up a biscuit and nibbles off a corner. She grimaces and puts the biscuit back down on the plate.
“Before you start pouring that tea, Liam,” she pauses and surveys the room, “time to do a little house cleaning. Margery, while your efforts are appreciated you’re not really contributing to this little adventure anymore, so time for you to go home.”
“What?” Margery stammers, looking bewildered and relieved at the same time.
Kate doesn’t give her an answer but snaps her finger and Margery disappears.
“Auntie!” Tristans squeals before he too disappears.
“Hekate!” Albert grumbles, “Was that really necessary?”
“Oh relax, kiddo, they’re fine. Margery is back with her brood down below and Tristan is back in his flat with his poems. Just needed a little space to think. This ensemble cast had got a little too unwieldy and we need to be be efficient now.”
“She’s right, Albert. They weren’t exactly doing anything except gawping. And Margery was about to put a fork in your eye anyway. You do have that effect on people. So what now?” Greta asks.
“We need to get to Syl,” Albert replies, “Jerry’s not stupid. He knows he needs to get hold of his soul. He might not be able to access it without me, but given who he is, he might be able to get at it another way, and it’s the damage he might do in that attempt that concerns me. I need to get back to my systems.”
“What about Erica? Where is she?” Kate asks.
“Ah yes, I was just getting to that,” Liam says, twirling a spoon in his fingers, “She’s gone.”
“Gone where?” Stacey asks, dropping her cup.
“I wouldn’t presume to know. She’s just gone. I asked her to get some biscuits from the cupboard and she never came back out.”
“Liam, what did you do?” Stacey glares at him.
“What, me? Nothing. I may have just let her see that there was more than way to catch a fly,” he grinned, “anyway, Riri will definitely be taking your boy to Syl. Like you say, it’s the logical next step. So, if you don’t mind, you can all pop off there and leave me to tidy up here. I’ve been waiting millennia for a bit of peace and quiet, and now I’d like to enjoy it. You can take your tea and biscuits to go. Colin, grab the paper cups would you?”
Colin pulls a small stack of cups from his apron, “One step ahead of you, sir.”
“I think I’ll head off too then,” says Greta, “No need for an old witch where you’re going. I can’t be doing with all this newfangled technology anyway. Back in my day it was quills and parchment. I do miss those Luddites.” Greta gets up and wanders out of the front door.
“Well,” Kate grins, “I guess it’s just you, me, and Albert then, Stacey dear. Pop some tea in those cups, would you. Don’t worry about the biscuits. Honestly, Liam, next time get in some custard creams. Chocolate chip is so cliché.”
Liam smirks and shoves two biscuits in his mouth.
Stacey grunts and folds her arms, “Right, well, I guess we’ll have to catch up with Erica later then. Albert?”
“Very well, ladies, your portal or mine?” Albert asks.
An elevator door opens at the dead centre of a server farm. Rihanna and Jerry step out.
“Well, this is an upgrade from the last time I was here. These used to be fields of flowers with cute little glowy orbs in them. It was quite pretty,” Jerry says.
“Yeah, there was a major update a while back. Erica’s suggestions for a more efficient infrastructure in her department had a bit of a knock on effect.”
“Ah yes, the tireless tread of progress. So, where’s my soul then?”
“Good question. I guess it’s on one of these machines? I don’t really know much about computers,” Rihanna says.
Jerry lifts off the ground and floats up above the row upon row of blinking lights. Off in the distance he spots a cubicle sticking out from the otherwise uniform stacks.
“This way,” he grabs Rihanna and swoops over to it.
Inside the cubicle is a wide steel desk with a bank of monitors and a single keyboard and mouse. A black swivel chair has been left neatly in place. The only personal touch is a small framed photograph of a little girl standing next to a gravestone.
“He always was a bit sentimental,” Rihanna says.
Jerry pulls out the chair and looks at her.
“You want me to find it? Erm, okay, but like I said, I’m not great with the computers.”
“Try.”
Rihanna sits down and taps the space bar on the keyboard. On the monitor in front of her a little white box pops up requesting a username and password.
“Shoot, any ideas?” she asks.
Jerry clenches the back of the chair. A corner breaks off.
In the time it takes for Rihanna to shift the chair backwards and swivel around, Jerry takes his sword and manages to smash, dent, rend and stab an impressive number of server towers. Unfortunately for him, every system here is backed up a hundred times and those backups are distributed over multiple machines. It does nothing to the system, but it does make him feel a tiny bit better.
“Aaarrrrrgh!”
He swoops back into the cubicle, sheathes his sword and slicks back his hair.
“Any other ideas?” Rihanna asks, arching an eyebrow.
“Yes, we wait.”
Thanks for reading another episode of Reaper Girl. Stay tuned for the final showdown coming soon!