Just a Word of the week, one hour challenge... this probably will end up being a series here.
Don stopped a few feet from the kitchen door. He turned, quickly peeking into the dark room. Sitting in the dark with only a laptop screen for light, was the last person he expected to see. Well, sort of.
This particular author was known to pop in at random, though still appropriate, times. And judging by the two mugs at her elbow, she hadn't originally been alone. The lingering scent of hot chocolate wafted at him while he flipped the kitchen light on.
The response was nearly instantaneous. She jerked, hands moving to cover her eyes with a hiss. A knee jerk reaction that had no real bite to it. Though she had come very close to knocking over one of the mugs onto her laptop.
"Tails, why are you sitting in the dark?" The author in question peered through her fingers at him, eyes still adjusting. There was an almost silence in the kitchen as he waited for her answer. Music vaguely bubbled up from the ear buds laying on the table.
"Cause Mikey and I are on a wiki walk," she answered slowly. Don groaned. It was one of those visits. Just great.
The last time those two did one of these walks, they were certain they had solved JFK's murder. And had been determined to prove it if he would just help them with the hacking bit so someone would listen to them. After they ordered April some The Oatmeal cards for her to give to Casey.
"Where did you start this time?" He was going to regret that question, he just knew it. Still, he could work on damage control if he knew where they started.
"Comic book alien conspiracy theories." She grinned at him, trying to look innocent. He wasn't buying it. Not one little bit.
"Conspiracies again?"
"Hey! We didn't start with those last time." Don shifted, looking at her blankly. It was true, they had started in murder mystery shows, it really didn't help her case.
"Where did Mikey go?" He was going to just make sure they weren't getting into anything they shouldn't and leave them alone.
"He went for some paper. And some pens." She glanced at the screen, clearly looking for the clock. "That was ten minutes ago." Tails looked up at him guiltily. It was easy for her to get engrossed in reading whatever she had found. Or puzzling it out. Don just shook his head. Before he could ask her to come help him find Mikey there was a sudden yell from near the bathroom. Both of them groaned. The yell was more of a girly screech. That meant Mikey did something idiotic. Again.
"Mikey, get back here with my stuff!" The two watched as Mikey streaked passed the kitchen door, arms full of gear that wasn't his own. A moment later, Leo, sans gear and very wet, chased after the youngest turtle. For just a moment the two left in the kitchen could only blink in slight confusion. Then Tails brain finished putting together what she had just seen. Oh, she was not happy.
"Damnit Mikey! You said you were getting paper and pens, not bugging Leo while he was in the shower!" Tails nearly jumped out of her seat, annoyed. She fled the kitchen quickly, hoping to quell the eldest anger before she lost her wiki walk buddy for a week. Or more. Don didn't follow her.
He glanced at the laptop left on the table. He really shouldn't do what he was thinking. Really, he shouldn't. This was an author he was dealing with after all. But he wasn't going to mess with her writings, (he wasn't that crazy). Just add a little programming to keep her off those conspiracies sites. At least the easy to find ones.
A quick glance at the doorway to make sure she wasn't coming back just yet and he was in front of the laptop. He didn't recognize the site they had ended up on but it didn't look like much. What was the Niantic Project anyway? Judging from what he could see, not much. There was just a link to video, two images, and something labeled word of the day on a virtual cork board. He wrote it off as harmless.
Quickly, he opened up a new tab and got into his e-mail. Sending her an e-mail that contained the program he wanted to embed on her laptop, he waited. The alert in her e-mail popped up a little too loudly to his ears and he clicked it quickly. Opening the e-mail got the foot hold he needed for the program. Once that was done the program started working. It wouldn't do any real damage to her laptop, just redirect her when she was on confirmed whack-job sites.
He relaxed just a little, setting about to clean out her cookies and checking for viruses she might have picked in this wiki walk. Better to have a back up plan if she saw him doing this. Or asked. He hated lying to authors. They always found a way to get back at him for it. So this way he wasn't really lying. The last thing he did was update the personal anti-virus program she had worked off from him.
When she still wasn't back by then, Don grew a little worried. Mikey hadn't tried to lose Leo by going top side, had he? He stood, going to the kitchen door and looking out. The lair was oddly silent. Great. Knowing Tails, she would have followed those two. She could get almost signal minded about something at times. If it meant keeping her wiki walk partner then it's possible that she was experiencing tunnel vision as she called it.
He made quick plans, going first to Raph then his lab. Might as well go find his two missing brothers and a lost author. With some luck they were just in the tunnels. At least his small act of sabotage would go unnoticed for a little while.