"Annd," Claudia worked furiously at the keys, "done!" she made the last few keystrokes and raised her hands in the air like a chess champion.
"Done!" Myka echoed from over by the cataloguing drawers.
Pete burst into the office from the Warehouse floor, closely followed by Steve. "Haha! We—" he saw both ladies watching them with their hands in the air. "—didn't beat you," he finished disappointedly.
Myka grinned at him, "I guess somebody learned their lesson about what NOT to dare!" she teased.
Steve was a bit more good-natured about it. He slapped Claudia's raised hands in a double-high-five. "Whoo! Man, we were booking it down there, but it still takes longer to physically scan the shelves than it does to run inventory diagnostics."
"Not to mention verifying the card catalog," Myka added. "Gosh, I don't want to read another word for the next two hours!"
"Oops, ya hear that, Claude?" Pete joked, "Myka doesn't want to read? Suspicious!"
"Sounds like a whammy to me," Claudia went along in mock seriousness. "Are you sure you're feeling all right, Myka?"
Steve joined in, "Do you smell fudge?"
Myka rolled her eyes, "You guys are behaving like three-year-olds! I merely said two hours, to counteract the five I've just spent scanning drawer after drawer! Though—" she sniffed deep and frowned. "I do smell chocolate..."
"Fudge or liquid?" Pete asked.
Myka frowned toward the front door. "It might even be—"
Abigail swept into the room bearing a tray full of decadent brown squares. "Brownies, anyone?" she offered.
The Warehouse agents all convened at the table where she set the tray. They all ate and agreed they were the best brownies anyone had tasted in a long time.
"Yum!" Myka sighed, "those hit the spot."
"Yeah!" Pete agreed through a mouthful of his last one. "We never get brownies anymore! It's like, what's the occasion?"
"I can answer that!" cried a voice from the doorway. Artie stepped into the room with a newspaper in his hand. "There's your occasion, Agent Lattimer."
Pete picked it up and read the circled article. "Mysterious death stumps law enforcement?"
Myka came around to read it too, but the first thing she noticed was the location. "Sunnyville?" she turned to Artie, "That's in—"
"Yes, I know," the portly caretaker nodded, "California. You have a flight in three hours."
"Me?" Myka squealed.
"Yes—and Pete and Steve." He handed her three files. "Each of you has the information, money, and tickets you need in there. Go on!"
"What about me?" Claudia whined.
Artie stared at her and shifted his glasses. "This day begins your official training to be caretaker. I have also arranged for you to be home base for the others, so if they need any additional information, I've instructed them to call you, not me."
"Dangit," Claudia scuffed the floor with her hightop.
"Meanwhile," Artie turned to leave and beckoned Claudia to follow, "You can explain to me just how you all were able to complete sorting the Warehouse so miraculously fast."
A sheepish grin crawled across Claudia's face. "Oh, y'know..."
Sunnyville, CA
The three Warehouse agents pulled up in front of the Sunnyville Academy. Several groups of professional security and law enforcement officers were on the scene already. Pete, Myka, and Steve glanced at each other and calmly shifted their badges to where they would be most obvious and accessible.
Myka pointed to a short, balding man speaking to a few officers, "Okay, that would be the Dean, Herman Blaine."
"Let's talk to him first," Pete agreed. The trio made their way over to the group.
A woman officer was gesturing to a map of the school and surrounding area. "—so to escape, we could reasonably expect the perpetrator to have chosen one of these doors, which would give him the most—"
Dean Blaine held up his hand as the three strangers approached. "Yeah, hang on. Can I help you?"
All three fell into their professional roles.
"Agent Bering, Secret Service," Myka flashed her badge, "This is my partner, Agent Lattimer, and Agent Jinks, ATF. We heard you had a situation the other night. What happened?"
"Excuse me!" the woman whipped off her sunglasses and whirled around. "Agent Summers, CIA, and this is my partner," she gestured to a tall, dark-haired man standing next to her, "Agent Harris, FBI." She grinned at Myka, "So it looks like we have everyone we need here. You two can take your ATF agent and get on back to—where is your home office again?"
Everyone hesitated a bit too long on the answer, so Myka tried to cover, "Oh, well, we—"
"—are going!" Steve cut in, grabbing Myka's elbow. "Sorry to have bothered, good luck on finding the killer!"
Myka tried to jerk away, but Steve didn't let go until they were all back in the car.
"What the heck was that?" she whirled on Steve.
"Mykes," Pete tried to reason, "she gave us the brush."
"Yeah," Myka acknowledged, "but that doesn't mean you just take it lying down!"
"Myka," Steve defended, "she's CIA!"
"So?" the young woman exploded, "We outrank her! It doesn't—"
"Myka," he repeated more forcefully, "She's CIA! Think about it!"
Myka stopped. "Wait—if she's CIA..."
"With a partner from the FBI," Steve added.
"What in the world would those two organizations have to do with highschool?" Pete wondered from the back seat.
All three jumped at a rap on Myka's window. It was Agent Summers.
"Hey, Service!" she hollered, "can we talk a minute?"
Myka nodded, and Summers moved away from the door to let her out. Steve and Pete stepped out as well.
"So," Summers began slowly, "you wanna tell me what you're really doing out here, Agent Bering?" She nailed the brunette with steely hazel eyes.
Myka smiled and tried to play nice, "You know I'd love to, but our involvement has got to stay classified on this assign—"
"Yeah, about that," Summers smirked. "See, a friend of mine works in the department that issues the paperwork for the Secret Service, and I just heard that you two haven't been on active duty since, oh—last administration, was it?"
Myka and Pete glanced at one another.
Summers smiled, "That's what I thought. Now if you'll excuse me, I have more important things to worry about than a gang of has-beens. Come on, Xander," she said to her partner. "Let's go question the students."
Summers and Harris stalked away.
Myka blinked, "That's it?"
"Apparently so," Pete huffed.
"What do we do now?" Steve asked.
Myka pondered, "She didn't confiscate our badges or ban us from the crime scene. I think we're pretty safe to investigate on our own."
"Yeah, just stay out of her way!" Pete remarked as the trio headed back toward the school.
The secretary didn't hesitate when she saw the badges. Apparently few other people shared the belligerent agent's sentiments. The secretary led them down the hall to the gymnasium. In a locker room at the back, one bank of lockers was cordoned off with crime scene tape. The three Warehouse agents stared.
A body had evidently been removed from one of the lockers by the forensic team and placed on the bench. From this angle it was difficult to miss the cause of death: two dark puncture wounds on the neck of a young man who appeared to have been drained of all his blood.
"Artie did say this was an artifact," Steve murmured, "right?"
"No way..." Myka glanced at the gleam in Pete's eye. "Don't say it!"
He grinned, "Vampires! Awesome!"