"You wanna run that by me one more time?" Darien asked.
Darien did have a special bit of wrath he reserved for those who brought misfortune to children, and he was offended that The Official would in any way equate Darien's lesser forms of criminal activity with the sin of bringing harm to a child. In Darien's mind there was the kind of crime where nobody really got hurt (his kind of crime) and the kind where the intention was for somebody to get hurt (not his kind of crime). A set of lock picks could hardly be equated with a revolver, nor could stealing a painting be seen as the same as stealing a baby. Objects weren't people, was the long and the short of it, and Darien's entire life philosophy was partially reliant on recognizing that fact.
"That child has been kidnapped and it is now your job to find him," The Official clarified, "I don't care how you do it, just get it done."
"Look, I get as upset about a kidnapping as the next guy," Darien said, standing up to put the picture on The Official's desk, "But, uh... why us? The police have got detectives for that, or the FBI or something. Hobbes, who runs kidnapping cases?"
The Official answered before Hobbes could respond, "Right now, in this case, you do."
"Not to put too fine a point on it," Darien continued his protests, "But isn't that kind of like sending the Scooby-Doo gang to find Jack the Ripper? It's a little out of line with our skill set."
"Agreed," Hobbes said, rather to Darien's surprise, "I didn't sign on to be a babysitter. Fawkes is bad enough."
"Thank you," Darien said, then absorbed what Hobbes had actually said, "Hey!"
"It's adorable that you think I'm giving you a choice," The Official said, and smiled the smile of a man who could hold your paycheck (or your counter-agent) hostage until he got his way, and was definitely slimy enough as an individual to do it too.
"Oh that's not a good face," Hobbes said to Darien.
"That's a bad face," Darien agreed.
"That's the face I get when I ask for a raise."
"That's the face I get when I try to find a cure for Quicksilver Madness," Darien added.
"This," The Official said sternly, but while continuing to smile serenely, "is the face you get when you're not doing your job and I'm thinking about canning both of you to save on expenses."
Darien quickly reached out and picked up the photo, giving it a second look, "You know, maybe I have seen this kid somewhere. Like maybe someone in my apartment building has a kid that looks like this."
"Or maybe the newspaper delivery guy was carrying a baby this morning," Hobbes supported.
"You know what, we're on this and if we find anything, we'll be sure to get back to you," Darien said.
"Right," Hobbes confirmed, "Uh... you wouldn't have any more for us to go on than this photo, would you? Like, say... an address, family members, that kind of thing?"
"Get out of my office," The Official said sweetly, and smiled again, "And close the door behind you."
Darien and Hobbes did as they were told, taking the picture with them.
"How are we supposed to find a baby we don't even know the name of?" Darien wondered.
"You got any connections you'd like to tap?" Hobbes inquired.
"Hell no!" Darien snapped, "I never got involved in this kind of stuff; you know that."
"Eh, I just thought maybe you'd like to change your answer," Hobbes replied with a shrug.
Darien decided to ignore the implication for the moment and asked, "What about you? You know a bunch of spooks, do any of them know how to find a baby?"
"Sure," Hobbes answered, "But a particular baby outta a million of 'em? Not so much."
"I'm not even gonna ask," Darien said.
"Yeah, that's probably best," Hobbes agreed, "Here, gimme that picture."
"What for?" Darien asked, even as he handed over the picture.
"For this," Hobbes said, taking the photo over to the nearest end table and banging the glass against the corner to break it, then pulling the photograph through the front of the frame and looking on the back, "See here? Somebody wrote a name on the back of it, and a date, probably the day the kid was born or else the day the picture was taken. Our first clue."
Darien, less than impressed, said, "Hobbes? Those frames have little fiddly bits on the backing to let you take the picture out without damaging it or the frame."
"Oh?" Hobbes turned the frame over to look at the back of it.
"Yeah, how do you think they put photos in the frames to begin with? Have you... never done that for yourself?"
"Whatever," Hobbes said, pushing the frame against Darien's chest until he took it, "Let's find a computer and follow up on this name."
Darien sighed, snatched the picture and read the name, "Are you serious?"
"What?" Hobbes asked.
"This kid's name is Nicholas Balthazar Shepherd," Darien replied.
Hobbes just stared at him blankly.
"Ol' Saint Nick? The three wise men? Shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night?" Darien suggested, and Hobbes' blank look deepened, "What? They didn't have Christmas plays when you were a kid?"
"I don't remember," Hobbes answered flatly.
"Lucky you," Darien said, handing the picture back.
Frowning at the name, Hobbes wondered, "What kinda person names their kid Balthazar?"
"Someone who likes Christmas a little too much," Darien answered.
"At least they coulda gone with Emanuel or something that's actually a name. Balthazar. Sounds like a crummy wizard from a bad fantasy novel."
Darien sighed, "Let's go."
The Keeper's computer was the newest, best piece of hardware in the building, Darien knew, but it barely had internet access. The Agency was still using stereoscope toys in place of actual slides. Not that the rest of the world was going much faster on average. Darien barely knew a thing about computers. They were too big for his solo theft operations, and far too uncommon to form a partnership around. Electronics were big money, sure, but they were high risk. Too many people had gone around stealing color televisions decades ago. Too much to learn, with too few computers just lying around in the kinds of places Darien was prone to rob. He'd been told that this bright new millennium would see the rise of the computer, and perhaps the eventual realization of the world Isaac Asimov envisioned in his robot science fictions. Darien had his doubts, but his arrest at the end of 1999 and subsequent delivery into the hands of his brother followed by the addition of the Gland to his list of problems in life had thoroughly distracted him from bothering to find out.
What he did know was that computers were how you got found. Computers were what got you rapidly into trouble because the police could just zip over to one and look up your entire rap sheet. Before every police station had one of those, maybe you could get out of jail before they realized how many times you'd been arrested, but once they were in... well Darien hadn't stood a chance. Not that he'd really stood a chance in the first place with the criminally false accusation against him in that particular community, but the extensive list of crimes he'd been arrested for was what really put the final nail in that coffin and gave him no chance at getting out. Except for what Kevin had done.
Darien still hadn't worked out if this was something done for him or to him, and he'd been torn every day since between anger and gratitude at what Kevin had done. Yet he couldn't really feel either of those things, because his brother was dead, and that was the only reality Darien really knew anymore. Anyway, his subsequent entanglement with The Agency had seen to it that he didn't get a lot of time to work it out in his head. He had too much else going on in his head for that.
The reason it all came flooding back now was that Hobbes had driven them to a police station. Hobbes had flashed his badge, and basically been laughed out of the station, since of course the Department of Fish & Game really didn't have much involvement in missing persons cases. It was irritating, but expected, which was why Darien hadn't flashed anything on the way in. In fact, he had come in invisibly right behind Hobbes, and stalked around until he found an untended computer.
The reason the computer was untended seemed to be that it was as slow as time itself. Darien had first had to mess around with it until he figured out how the search engine (such as it was) functioned. The days of computers being operable solely by experts were only just beginning to fade, the rise of the PC was only a few years in (a few decades if you included PCs owned by geeky nerd types who built their own from scraps and later grew up to become successful scientists), and Darien hadn't ever poked around at electronics besides playing Donkey Kong in the arcade, mainly because Kevin had found the arcade fascinating and there had been times he'd dragged Darien with him (there had been some hope in somebody's mind that Kevin could keep Darien out of trouble; but of course he couldn't, and neither could a game of Asteroids). Kevin could touch a computer and it would bend to his will. Darien could touch a computer and cause it to short circuit and fry itself.
It was a weird time to be thinking of Kevin, but the computer and police station combined made it hard not to think of him, impossible not to remember those massive computer banks that had stored the data for Kevin's life's work, the only remnant of that now being stored unhappily in Darien's head.
Come on, Darien thought, trying to distract himself, How many people named Nicholas Balthazar Shepherd could there possibly be in California?
Truthfully, Darien didn't know what the computer was doing, but he assumed it was taking its sweet time retrieving every single reference to the name he'd given it, and maybe anything that looked remotely like that name. Either that or it was asking its fellow computers if the name Balthazar was a legitimate search query or if it should raise the alarm because an invisible man was trying to access information he hadn't strictly -or even loosely- speaking gotten permission to look at.
In the technical sense, it was information he could get access to, but all the paperwork shenanigans that had to happen before anyone here would take him or Hobbes remotely seriously were too extensive to be worth it, especially since The Official was bound to be of no help whatsoever, not because he couldn't help, but because he wouldn't. That was just how-
He didn't finish the thought because the computer finally spat out what it had collected. Darien wasn't sure how many Nicholas Balthazar Shepherds there were in California, much less the world, but right now there was only one in the age range he'd specified.
Eleven-and-a-half month old (was that still a baby or was that toddler range?) Nicholas Balthazar Shepherd, son of (really?) Joe and Rosemary Shepherd. But what really struck Darien as odd was the fact that Rosemary's (who probably went by Mary, all things considered) maiden name was Borden. Did that, perhaps, make her the... probably younger... sister of one Charles Borden; AKA The Official? Assuming that was true, why hadn't he just said that?
Scratch that, The Official hadn't even voluntarily told Darien his own name. Nor had Claire, for that matter. The Official and The Keeper was how they'd been introduced. Eberts was just Eberts, and Bobby Hobbes was of course Bobby Hobbes, because they couldn't do the secret identity thing.
Extracting information from The Official was like pulling teeth, and Darien pitied the sucker on the terrorist side of things who might have captured him some time in the history of his long career and tried to torture intel out of him. Idly, Darien wondered how many idiots had been fired for failing to get anything but a smug grin out of the fat man.
Darien looked around for a way to print this, though he wasn't sure where the printer in this station was located, but the user interface was so bad there wasn't a distinct tools bar or printer icon or anything to give him a clue as to how it was done. So instead he did his best to memorize what he saw, in particular the address of the baby's parents. Not that there was a great deal of information here.
Then, knowing he should get out before Hobbes got himself thrown out, Darien left the computer and returned to Hobbes, who was still vehemently arguing with the badge at the front desk.
Darien gave his shoulder a tap, but Hobbes was deeply into the argument. Impatient, Darien bodily turned Hobbes around and started shoving him to the door while Hobbes was still yelling threats over his shoulder to the policeman, who had apparently seen him before and knew Hobbes for the raging paranoid that he was. That the man thought Hobbes was crazy already provided adequate cover for why Hobbes was loudly declaring he wasn't done yelling yet while apparently propelling himself at full speed towards the exit.
Once outside, Hobbes forgot the argument and asked, "Did you find out who our boy is?"
"Better," Darien answered, "I found out why The Official wants us to find him."