Find It Inc.

Chapter 6

Caz and Frankie enter the office for the briefing and, of course, none of them have read the files they were given. Jo is already there with her non-sugar black coffee that has her usual two teaspoons of coffee instead of one. Jo’s messy reddish black hair is in a ponytail that lies on her light brown neck while her gray tracksuit pants cover her legs. Her pants are wet due to the rain. This means that she took the bus to work instead of running.

“Long night?” asks Caz as she flops down besides Jo in a pose that looks like she is about to go back to sleep. Frankie goes to make coffee for the two of them not waiting too long for the kettle to heat up since Jo has just made a fresh pot of coffee.

“I was inspired, on the way home and I had to dance it out.” Answers Jo in a distance, tired voice; most likely reminiscing about the creative fun of last night. Caz giggles to herself imagining Jo swinging all around her garden in the dead of night with the nosey neighbors watching on in a sort of confused trance. This is what Jo normally does in her free time. Frankie enters with two fresh cups of coffees and hands one to Caz who blows on it to cool it down. Frankie likes to feel the steam of the coffee as it floats up to her face. She does not actually drink coffee but the smell can still keep her happy and active. She thinks back to the days of when she would watch Thomas make his art early in the morning where the mixture of coffee and oil paints were almost arousing; a faint smile crawls to the corners of her month but this smile is interrupted with Boss K swinging the door open to the office and goes past the treasure hunters without saying a word. Boss K storms into the office of Boss J with the door shutting behind her.

“Rude,” exclaimed Jo

“Good Morning to you!” yelled an annoyed Caz while Frankie just stood there trying to bring herself back to the memory she was experiencing before she was so rudely interrupted. A few seconds later the door to Boss J’s office swings open and Boss K is standing in the doorway with steam coming out of her ears (not really but if she was a cartoon character that would have happened).

“Good Morning” grunts Boss K thought her closed teeth and tensed mouth, “I take it all of you did your homework?”

The hunters avoid eye contact like school children in front of a beloved teacher that they knew they have let down. Boss K lets out a long sigh, an uncomfortable long sigh, the longest in history of the sigh, so long that by the time you have finished reading this sentence the sigh was completed, a very long sigh. “Of course you didn’t. Why do we even print?”

The door of the office swings open and a happy Boss J skips in.

“Good Morning All.” She says with a wide smile that seems to literally go from ear to ear. No one has the heart to tell her that it is one of the most disturbing creepy smile that anyone has ever witnessed. Boss J skips past Boss K who turns around to close the door behind them. The hunters sit there and try to listen in to the sounds behind the close door but none of them dare to move in fear of getting caught by Boss K. Sure they can brave death traps and powerful beings wishing death upon them but Boss K is a different story all together. They have always felt that there was more to her; that she was hiding something or even worst… protecting something. I mean she was but no one knew that… except us and Boss J.

Boss J opens that door and tells the hunters to enter. They walk in one by one with Caz being the last. Boss J’s office is neat and a whiteboard is ready for the briefing of what the assignments are going to be.

Boss J begins:

“So we are no longer going to do the file things since you do not use them,” the hunters nod. “Anyway,” Boss J continues, “since this is quite different to what we have done before and Boss K is very concerned about your guys’ safety we have decided to… kind of… hire another helping hand, just in case. I personally do not think anything will happen but Boss K has a bad feeling about everything…”

“Doesn’t she always” says Caz who is silenced by Boss K’s death stare.

“So… we will be looking for one more member before we send you out on the assignments but in the meantime we will need you all to do the research, plan the maps and prepare so you can get in and out as quick and safely as possible. Understand?”

Caz groans, Jo groans as well and Frankie was not paying any attention to what is being said. A crack-team of professional we have in our mists. “Do you understand?” says Boss K with a hint of venom in her voice that makes Frankie snap into attention and the other two sit up and say “Yes” as if they briefly share one body. Frankie looks at Caz who gives her an ‘I will tell you later’ look. “Good” says Boss K with an attempt at a weak smile like someone who’s Botox just got inserted but she forgot about it.

Jo sits back in the chair taking that attempt at a smile from Boss K as a sign to relax, “who do you want to hire?”

“Dylan.” says everyone as if it is common knowledge.

“Besides Dyl”

“I don’t know, that is why I will be sending out notices and adverts to see who would be a good match for the job” says Boss J knowing full well that there would be no one as good as Dylan but he already has a job that he cannot get out of. Boss K swifts her eyes to the corner of the room. A moment of silence passes.

A faint voice from Frankie is heard: “What about T?”

Everyone looks at her as if she has gone madder than mad. She vanishes because she does not want them to see her.

“Come back” says Caz and Frankie reappears slowly.

“T would not be a good fit for us. Mostly because she tried to kill us and take over the company or try to ruin the company or something like that… ummm” as Boss K searches for the words Jo jumps in to finish Boss K’s secret thought,

“She is bat-s**t insane. So no, we have enough crazies working here; we don’t need one that is actually dangerous.”

“But we could convert her to be a good person?”

The others stare at Frankie while Caz gets up to try to check her temperature. “I mean…” Frankie reasons on, “doesn’t she deserve… a chance… to be good? There is good in everyone we can’t just…let her not… she is powerful so it would be better for her to be on other side… right? I mean we have not seen or heard from her for a while maybe she changed?”

“Says the ghost” says the Jo under her breath loud enough for everyone to hear. Everyone (except Jo) considers Frankie’s confusing points but Boss K shakes her head as if answering the question everyone silently asked.

“People like her, T, do not change without it benefiting them. She likes to play games even if not all the players know the rules.”

“It is a sweet though,” adds Boss K, “but one that we cannot risk following through just yet.” Jo shoots her a death look. “We will see what the future holds” continues Boss K mostly to try to reassure Jo but that does not work and Jo gets up to walk out the office. As in she walks all the way out the building to get some ‘car air’ on the streets of the city. The rest wait for Jo to cool down because they would like her input since she is really good at that plus Boss J hates to repeat herself.

***

While Jo is standing outside thinking about what just happened and how idiotic a dead ghost can be. She remembers when she and T first met. It was long ago when they were both in diapers, yep they were family friends; like all the stories go they did everything together and grew up together. They went to the same schools; hang with the same people etc. until one day T just stopped. She vanished and Jo was extremely worried that something had happened to her. Something did happen to her and that was that she just cracked like the screws in her head were eaten by the bolts and no one knew why. T did not even know why, she woke up one morning and boom: NEW T. It was years till Jo would even see T again and the day that she did see her was the day that Caz almost died.

That day, Jo was standing there and she tilted her own head up to see the familiar figure of a close childhood friend lost in the scent of madness. Jo’s eyes water as she ran to T without the others noticing anything.

“Why are you doing this?” questioned a tear soaked Jo in front of T who was too busy admiring her handle work to notice her. Jo shook her and she turned around with her soulless light sky blue eyes staring into Jo’s dark chocolate eyes that were puffy from all the tears that came from them.

“It’s fun.” was the answer that floated from her well looked after lips as they form a smile that has lost all love and any type of emotion. T turned her head back to her plan and Jo went to the aid of her new friends. ‘It’s fun’ were the last words that T has said to her and in those words Jo knew that this was a ‘new T’; a dangerous one. Jo used to tell herself that T could be the best good in the world or the worst bad in the world depending on what she wanted to do. She made her choice.

The rain was mixing with Jo’s tears as she stood on the side walk in front of her office building in the present day but the emotion of the past still felt as if they have just happened. She has not told anyone about that moment or about the past with T. She does not want to. For years she has been researching a way to bring the old T back somehow, anyhow but she tired herself out running in empty circles. She wiped her face and softly laughs at how the tears felt on her skin because this was the first time she had cried since that moment. Jo walked inside and shook herself a bit in an attempt to dry. She took the stairs up being lost in her mind that she missed her floor and had to go back down one more floor.

***

“Sorry” says Frankie as Jo joins the world of the present, “I keep forgetting that… you can…”

Jo lifts her hand to stop her from finishing the sentence. “Just no more talk of T, please.” requests Jo.

“Unless it’s tea we can drink.”

Boss K throws a book at Caz from the stupid joke which Caz catches in her month and shreds it by shaking it around. Boss K looks annoyed since she will most likely clean up the mess and picking up shredded, spit paper is a hassle. And it’s gross. It is a gross hassle.

Boss J lets out a breath: “Anyway, your assignments…”