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Love you all, TheModernChromatic.

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"Ugh. Sofie? When are we going to get what we want from this little string bean? I'm tired of waiting, and you know what we've gotta ask! Just do it already!" River whines and hits a fist on the outside of the door to my lab. I sigh, annoyed, and turn around to face her where she is pacing about the outside of my lab.

"You know we have to wait. He's not going to say anything if we come at him like savages. Just. Wait." I grind my teeth and resume my examination of a crack in my coffee mug. I close my eyes and take a whiff of the stuff so that the bare scent makes me wrinkle my nose. Black coffee. Bleh.

River continues to storm about the space around the door to my lab (which isn't going to open without a fingerprint, voice activation, and retinal scan from me) while I run my fingers over the crack in my coffee mug and stare blankly at a bowl of oatmeal. I hate breakfast. All of it.

"Sofie. We have to say something, and now. We've had him for a week, which means Butler has been awake for at least four days and by now he's alerted everyone he knows about Artemis disappearing. We can't just keep him forever." River has stopped pacing and is now eying me very seriously. I grab the handle of my mug and take a swig enough to burn my tongue and the roof of my mouth.

"Ah...." I hiss as the pain sets in, "Bleh," I spit, and then address River. "You wanna go through with the interrogation, be my guest. But we have to be subtle, and we can't hurt him. Besides, that, you'll be fine, after all, his IQ is only triple yours. That's not too much of a gap..." I growl, and run my burned tongue over various places in my mouth.

River gives me a look that makes me want to sleep somewhere locked up and safe. Then she grabs the remains of my coffee and I hear the mug splash and shatter as my arms fly up to defend my face.

"Coffee's gone," she stares after it, aptly bored, and then turns back to me, "We'll give the garbage you're trying to down to the prisoner. 'Kay?" She snatches my bowl and my arm and pulls me to the lab door. I yawn and stretch, then rub my eyes and begin my scanning sequences to open the door.

***Four Days Prior***

Butler awakes in the dark of the closet with a groan as he tries to remember what had happened. His eyes water a bit and he blinks slowly. There was a party...he rubs his face with a massive hand...and there was a lot of people...and...with a jolt, Butler remembers what he's forgetting.

"Artemis!" He shouts out loud and bursts through the closet door, which barely opens in time. His feet slip on the expensive rugs about the mansion as he runs frantically back to the courtyard where he last knew Artemis to be, shouting his name the whole time. He stops abrubtly at the emptiness of the Ireland morning sun reflecting in the wake of his failure. His huge shoulders slump a bit and he dashes back to the mansion, praying that Master Artemis was safely in its great walls.

He thunders past one of the maidservants and then promptly back-tracks.

"You there! Girl!" He shouts, and the little maid jumps at the boom of his voice and holds a fragile hand to her collarbone as it to say, 'Me?' "Yes, you girl! Have you seen Master Artemis about recently?" The frail girl hesitates as she tries to remember, having been hired for her work and not her brains, she struggles.

"Oh," she says in a tiny voice, "Well, let's see. I haven't seen him since before the party. He was yelling at me for not getting any clean towels in his bathroom. I never saw him after that. You weren't about either, so I assumed you'd just gone with him on another aimless adventure." She tucks her chin into her chest to avoid making eye contact with the large man.

Butler grunts and storms away to begin a search in vain for Artemis. After about and hour of this, he gives up and retires sulleny to the courtyard where the Irish sun now sits proudly in the afternoon sky. Butler sits and presses his giant hand together and then sets his face against them in defeat. He sits this way for a matter of minutes before looking up and noticing something out of the ordinary stuck to some of the shrubs that adorned the edges of the courtyard.

Slowly, he rises and saunters over to them, hope bubbling up inside him again. With haste, he snatches up the abnormal object on the brush and holds it to his face.

Between his massive fingers, is a thin strip of green fabric, a delicate kind that almost shimmers in the light.