The Mad Hatter
Chapter 1
Brody Nelson drew the short straw. He had to sit with the interns, doing boring paperwork after hours. At least the interns were entertaining. They were very nervous and skittish around him and he had no idea why, but they did make a lot of mistakes and stumbled around the place.
When one of the interns stumbled right into Nelson's chair, quickly apologized and ran off, he realized something was strange. Nelson stared after the poor kid as if the answer would be written on his back.
"There's a rumor that you're very ill tempered." A voice said from another desk.
"Really?" Nelson asked and looked up at the young woman with porcelain skin and black pigtails.
"Apparently you break things, like fingers and faces." She added with a smile, showing that she found it ridiculous.
"And you aren't scared?" Nelson asked.
"Please." She giggled and shook her head.
"What's your name?"
"Alma Brooke."
"Alma? Well, I don't know whether I should be offended or relieved that you aren't scared of me."
"You might want to try: proud, since one of the FBI interns actually did enough research to know that you're not a hothead."
"Oh. Yeah. Good."
Another intern quickly walked in carrying a coffee cup. She placed it on Alma's table, glanced at Nelson and whispered something to Alma.
"Thank you." Alma said as the intern rushed off.
"You got the other interns to fetch you coffee?" Nelson was impressed.
"They're a little scared of me too. I'm of Russian decent. I actually do break fingers and faces." She stood from her chair and grabbed her coffee mug.
"And make them sleep with the fishes?" Nelson asked with an accent. Alma smiled.
She picked up a few folders and handed them to Nelson.
"I've been reading through those today. Not sure where to file them. But they are very interesting. Have you read them?"
Nelson looked at the writing on the file binders. They were marked according to the names of the top ten most wanted Cyber criminals.
"You read through all of these?" Nelson asked as he looked at the pile. It wasn't a big pile, but would take a while to get through. Some folders didn't have a lot of info. Just the basics that they knew, but some had official investigation notes and pictures.
"Have you read them?" she asked, curiosity clear on her face.
"I've scanned them." He said as he gently flipped through a few.
"You should read them. Like, really read them. Altogether. Might give you a new perspective." Alma said as she turned towards the door.
"Hey, Alma." He called her just before she reached the door and she stopped and turned to look at him. "You started the rumor, didn't you?"
She grinned, tapped her nose and walked out.