Star Trek is not mine, If you say otherwise, I'll go all Pon Farr on your ass. Thanks for the reviews, follows, and favorites, it means a lot.
Chapter 18: Authorized Personal Only
T' Pell threw open the door to the chilled library, and rushed inside, Spock at her heels. She scanned the library searching for T' Pin's black wavy hair.
"There!" Spock exclaimed, pointing towards a computer to see her illuminated face searching the computer screen. He walked over to her saying "What did you find; we couldn't understand your message."
"Look at this book." she said pointing to a book title on the screen. Spock, leaning on the back of her chair read the title 'Where's Amanda' when he looked at the books description it said 'come get mommy' Spock looked to the left of the column and noticed that where books would normally have a call number all it said was 'storage unit'.
"Where's the storage unit?" Spock asked
"Your guess is as good as mine. I tried getting some information from the ladies at the front desk, but they weren't very helpful." T' Pin said turning around in her seat to speak to her friends.
"Did you go to the back of the library, where they store extra books and membership information? She may be there." Spock said glancing around the library seeing if he could spot a door. Instead he found a human woman walking towards them.
"Excuse me, but I just wanted to let you three know that you're being very rude, and your constant talking while I'm trying to read is really annoying. If management could do anything to remove you, I'd be sure to mention something." the girl who looked to be in her mid-twenties told the three teenagers.
How do you respond to that?
"Okay. I'm so very sorry to interrupt your reading time. I mean it's not like one of our mother's lives is at stake or anything. Not like a sicko has her held somewhere against her will, because you never stopped to think about what we might be talking about. If you have nothing better to do with your time than report three kids half your age for talking too loudly, then you should really reexamine your life. In fact I believe it was one of your earthmen that put in the American constitution, that all Americans are awarded the right of free speech. So, we're being too loud, deal with it, either suck it up and ignore us or go to a different library. Just leave us alone." T' Pin half said to the humanoid all the rage at the kidnapper being released onto this girl who could be double her age.
"Well, excuse me!" She said flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder and storming out of the room.
Spock and T' Pell stared at her in disbelief over what she had just said.
"She was out of line." T' Pin said feeling the need to justify her actions. However, Spock and T' Pell thought she couldn't be more right.
"As you were saying, before we were so lamely interrupted?" T' Pin said looking to Spock for him to continue.
"Yes, I was going to say we should check the back rooms for my mother." Spock said feeling slightly turned on by her rage. Then snapping back to reality and locating a small door behind the mystery section labeled 'Storage' and under that was a small plaque that read 'authorized personnel only'.
"We shouldn't try to draw any more attention to ourselves. I'll go in first and you two follow one at a time." Spock whispered. Walking over to the door and testing the lock. He was lucky. He opened the door and entered a room that wasn't really a room. More like a long hallway, lit only by a single light bulb on the ceiling. He found it odd that the light was already on, like someone had just used the hallway. There were doors lining the walls, each marked with a plaque. Each plaque was labeled with different book genera's on it. This must be where books no one reads anymore are stored. He heard the door behind him open and he turned around to see T' Pin enter. She nodded to him and shortly later T' Pell entered.
"Would either of you happen to recall what genera that book was?" Spock asked the girls looking about the room, trying to remember the books genera.
"There wasn't one listed." T' Pin answered "We should be able to figure this out logically, through the process of elimination."
"Well, it defiantly wouldn't be with the romance books." T' Pell said gesturing to the first door. "That doesn't make much sense."
"Well, whatever kind of psychopath we're dealing with may not have put the 'book' with the correct genera." Spock said looking down the hall trying to count how many doors there were. Checking his watch he found it was around 10:10. "I would recommend we split up again, but that didn't go too well the first time." Spock said to the girls who were looking around the long hallway.
"I agree, splitting up seems too dangerous." T' Pell said. "Should we just look through every room together?" she looked down the hall then back at the two others "there are about fifteen doors and we have about seventeen minutes."
"Lady Amanda's life could be at stake here, okay. We have to split up. We need to do this. No one closes the door to the room you enter, and we send a mental message if we have her." T' Pell said taking charge of the situation. Even though on the inside she was still a scared little girl she put on a brave face for her friends sake. "What could happen? We'll hear each other, we'll be fine." she repeated trying to reassure her frightened friends.
Spock didn't know what to do. He didn't want to throw his friends in the face of danger for his sake, that's selfish. But she seemed so damn sure. Oh God Pon Farr talking again.
"Let's do this." he said voice free from emotion. But he did reach out and took T' Pin's hand in one of his own and grabbed T' Pell's with his other and gave them both a reassuring squeeze. "We'll each take five rooms, which will give you three minutes per room. You must perform the tasks sufficiently and admirably." He said while looking from one beautiful face to the other. "I know it is considered to be in bad taste on Vulcan to discuss emotions, but I love you two. I just love you guys so much. You guys are always there for me and..." he stammered looking at his hand and seeing two hands intertwined with his own.
"Spock, Are you sure you're well enough to proceed?" T' Pin asked looking into his face, he was sweating and his hand was burning up.
"I'm fine." he said "it's our culture that's so screwed up, where are all these bottled up emotions supposed to come out? They have to at some time, some days I feel like I'm going to explode!" Spock said leaving the girls side and walking away from them.
"Spock, it's great that you're coming to this realization, but we have to stay focused. Don't let the mating drive rule your mind. Time is little, we have to start searching. We'll talk about it more after we find your mother." T' Pell said walking up behind her friend and placing her hand on his back in an attempt to comfort him.
"You are correct. Let's begin. Wait, how are we going to know which rooms have been searched and ruled out?" Spock asked.
Thoughtful Silence.
T' Pell had a great idea. She rummaged through her pocket for a moment then found a tube of lipstick; she rarely wore makeup, but she had stuck this in her pocket before going over to Spock's house, just in case she needed it. She pulled it out, walked over to one of the doors and drew a big red X on it. T' Pin pulled out two tubes and gave the pink colored tube to Spock who looked a little uncomfortable at using a cosmetic.
"Don't think of it as lipstick. Think of it as a marker." T' Pin said slightly amused at the uncomfortable look he gave her. "Let's find Spock's mother."