"Subject found."
"Huumphh." The figure in the bed rolled over, a long, tanned arm snaking out of the blankets to turn off the sounding alarm on the computer beside the bed.
"Subject found."
"Huumphh?"
"Subject found."
"Found? Found!" Sitting up, Ed clawed the blankets away and flipped across the room to land in front of her computer.
"Subject found." The computer's little face-icon was laughing and repeating itself, blinking as though it were proud of itself. The search that was in question had been ongoing for nearly four years, a constant task for both computer and hacker. Ed's goggles glowed in the dim light of her apartment as she chased down in the net what her program had found. Following the path it had laid, she was led to a convenience store's security cameras, to a single, grainy image of a man. A face that shouldn't be there, shouldn't be alive, with a cigarette dangling from his lips. He was looking straight into the camera, smiling at a stray thought. Ed wound through the camera's records, watched the man walk backwards out of the store, then switched it forwards to see him enter, lighting the cigarette. He bought a magazine and a package of doughnuts, flirted with the night-clerk, and smiled at the security camera above the door as he left. The date and time were on the screen, along with the location. Spike Spiegel had been at Jake's Grab in Ganymede less than two hours ago. But Spike had been dead for eight years.
{So, what do you think? I know this is a topic done to death, but believe me. I have a few twists to give you all. So please, read, relish, and review. Oh, and since I have to have a disclaimer, here's Spike himself to do it for me.
Spike: Listen, you. This fic belongs to me! If you don't like that, have a lobster!
Okay, Spike, that was very.... nice. Now, back in the Bishi Bin!
Spike: Aww...}
