Find It Inc.

Chapter 3

“So how is this going to work?” says Frankie in an attempt to break the silence that engulfed the room. K is back to her pacing but she speaks while she paces around the room.

“Well Boss J and I have been up the entire night…”

“Whoo Hoo” interrupts Caz and reaches a quick light slap on the tight by Jo.

K gives the death stare to Caz; she does not have time for this rubbish. “And we have tried to assign you to the project that suits your skills and strengths,” K says half mumbling to herself. “But it is tricky since there is only J and I…”

“Who is ‘I’?” asks Caz receiving a harder slap from Jo.

“So… if… worst case, all three of you end up in trouble than one of you will have to handle it alone”

“No big, we got out of worst without you” reasons Caz “so why the worrying? Is it just something for you to do?” Caz lifts her eyebrows in the direction of K who has ended up behind J’s desk.

J tells them that the assignments are never as easy as they appear and as soon as one of them is done they will be sent to Caz’s one since she got what sounds like the most difficult one. The reason for this is she is less likely to dies and she has a good nose on her unlike Frankie.

The hunters are giving their files and told to go home and rest since they are going to start tomorrow morning, K and J just wanted them to get a head start and understand how necessary something like this is for the company.

The three hunters part ways with Caz and Frankie walking up one direction while Jo walks another. Jo says she is going to take the bus this time since her feet hurt a ton. Frankie and Caz walk in silence until the corner of the street that they separate at.

“Wait!” calls Frankie to the back of Caz who stops in her tracks and turns around, “What was up with you today? With the stupid jokes?”

“Nothing. I always make stupid jokes. This time should be no different” answers Caz. Frankie nods and walk to her building while Caz does the same to her own building.

Caz reaches the apartment and flops on the couch to have a look at the assignment she was given. She is going to miss knowing someone has her back and she is going to miss have someone literal by her side even more. She hates doing solo assignments; she swears she gets cabin fever while outside if no one is there with her. Maybe she can ask Dylan to come with? Take a few days off work? But that will not happen. Dylan’s work does not believe in days off or holidays; heck the only reason Dylan gets Sunday off is so the office can do a full clean without anyone there.

Caz pages though what is in the file but it goes in one eye and out the other, her mind is wondering way too much and way too sleepy to be thinking right now. It is the usual with maps, a story, client information, what the treasure looks like, risks involved etc. She wonders if one of the girls got a file with nothing in it except like a drawing of a map on a beer stained napkin, which happened before.

While Caz is daydreaming while turning the pages a word catches her eye “timing”. It is not weird to see that word in the files since a lot of time (see what I did there) they have to deal with traps that are linked to a clock so it was not the word itself that she found strange but the that she noticed the word in the first place. Like it leaped out at her for no reason. I mean not literally although that did happen once on one of the assignments she had to do where a letter tried to strangle her but failed because it was too small to reach around her neck. It was only a letter after all. I think it was the letter ‘q’. Lower case ‘q’ if that matters. Maybe it should have used its tail and cut her; that is what I would do, makes more sense. Sorry… got bit side tracked there. Anyway, Jo would say that it is her body trying to warning her of something while she would say “Nope. Nap time.” And with those pearls of wisdom off she went to continue her dreams.

***

While on the bus on her journey home Jo is enjoying the relaxing rhythms of the bus while her feet enjoy being slightly off the ground. The stop and start of the bus becomes a tempo that at times in lines with her heart beat. She holds the file on her lap while she watches the new comers come on while some of the old comers go off. It is like watching a physical theater play of the life of the bus. Her imagine goes to that of a stage:

The auditorium goes dark once the audience find their seats. There is a chilling quiet that sweeps through the people as the first note of the play is performed. A simple sound: of tires on the gravel streets of a human less road. The soft spot fades up on center stage as a man stands there looking at the floor, his face in shadow. The tire sound comes to a stop and the man moves out the light as another comes into it and the sound starts again. The pattern is repeated a few more times until there are more people crammed into this tiny spot light. It must be rush hour that is the only time when there is no space. The spot cross fades to a colorful scape of an open stage where one performer is watching another group of other performers doing what they would imagine people doing on a bus. There are a few dances to watch at the same time that you will need a few views to see it all. The literal audience gets out of their seats and walk on to the stage to get a closer look. Some of them talk between themselves on what does it mean; while others try to join the dance. Good thing these performers are not easily distracted otherwise this would be a mess of a play. Jo walks around the stage and notices that the actually stage floor as a slight vibration to it as if you are on a real bus but then it stops.

Jo lifts her eyes lids and sees all the people are exiting the bus and this is the final stop, her stop. She takes the file and hops off the bus with the movement of the play still dancing in her head. She can hear the sounds that the play would use and decides to write it all down before she forgets and will look at the file in a moment after her joyful mind is at peace.

***

Frankie is lying in the air as you do as a ghost but she is careful not to go to further up so that her face pops through the floor of someone else’s room. Floating like this relaxes her and with the unstable feeling she has been having the whole day. She feels it in her stomach and it is different to the feeling of the pills she took to end it all. Like I said earlier, her outsides are fine and her insides are a mess. But this is a new feeling. Worry? Nah she felt that? Hungry? When was the last time she felt that? She has never been a food person; food just never did anything for her that when she passed away she did not even miss it. So what was the feeling?

She glides down to the bean bag in the middle of the room. The entire room is empty except for the lime green bean bag. An air installation Thomas says. Oh, that Thomas is a madman. Speaking of the crazy; look who walks in through the door but Thomas with his green hair that matches the beanbag and his ginger beard to show his Irish side. He is walking around the room as if trying to fix the energy of the place before the gallery is open for his beanbag art installation.

Thomas lets out a long tube of air, “you think they will like it?”

“Don’t think they’ll get it” says Frankie not moving for ‘the art’.

“But will they get it?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Frankie thinks for a bit while Thomas is cleaning the window. “Does it matter?”

“Does it matter?” asks Thomas as if in a trance of window cleaning.

Frankie says with a wide smile, “It is yours and you made it.”

“It’s mine. I did it. Mine. So stuff them. What they know”

Frankie smiles while Thomas steps back from the windows to admire his handy work. He goes to the beanbag where Frankie moves a bit to make space and sits down on it. He tilts his head up and looks at the ceiling. “I know you would like it” he softly says with gentle tears forming in his dark green eyes.

“I do” responses Frankie while looking in to Thomas’ eyes.

“But you wouldn’t get it” chuckles Thomas has he wipes his face with the back of his arm. Frankie does not say a word. The doorbell rings and Thomas gets up and sorts out the beanbag with Frankie still on it.

“Show time,” he whispers while kicking his heels together as he does before the start of every showing. A good luck tradition for an Irish lad. Thomas opens the door and steps aside so that the few viewers of art can come in and have a look. Frankie tilts her head towards the ceiling only to be greeted by her only face staring back at her.

***

Boss J is still in the office when her visual phone rings. It is her son Philip. The teenage boy hologram appears in the office having the look of someone who has not slept for days but at the same time just woken up.

“Ma, can we have pizza tonight please?”

“Sure, but finish your homework.”

Philip shows his mother the finished homework. “Good boy. I should be home in about an hour”

“I’ll order the pizza in half an hour so it should be here for when you get home”

“Thank you sweetie, love you”

“Love you too Ma”

The teenage boy hologram vanishes as J is dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the‘t’s or the other way around which ever she would prefer. The whisper of the dark sky from the window to the outside is an inviting sound for the journey home. She welcomes this thought and with the papers finished she places them in the safe and locks it. “Good night Boss J” says the safe as it adds another layer of protection to an already over-protected safe. “Good night Todd” says J.

A sneaky little thought enters her head while she is locking up but she puts it aside. The walk home, well to the car, is a pleasure and once inside the embrace of a warm car. She starts to drive home while listening to the music on the radio. She likes none of the songs so she just mutes it. The sneaky thought tries to enter her head again but she passes it to the side. She arrives home with a warm pizza and Philip waiting for her while the Television is paused on the show that they both like to watch. She relaxes and they begin to eat while he unpauses the show. The sneaky thought manages to get into her head:

‘What about T?’