When her alarm blared at four in the morning she rolled over with a sleepy protest, hitting the snooze button practically in her sleep. She felt rumpled, half strewn across her bed sideways with the blankets dangling off her right leg to the floor. Her pillow was crumpled against her body, wrapped tightly in her embrace with her head cushioned on her arm. It took a few blinks and the last bit of quiet dismayed sounds to realize that she was, in fact, awake. Had she always been so heavy a sleeper, so bizarre in her positioning? It was a trend she was noticing now plagued by dreams she was sure she had but couldn’t remember.
She’d powered down for one of the few times the night before opting instead to try things as a civilian for at least the first portion of her assignment. The apartment she’d been given was nice enough; all she needed was enough space for herself and somewhere to make coffee. Heavy cream, heavy sugar, heavy caffeine. She crawled out of bed to make herself a pot letting the alarm clock blast a second warning until it finally gave up and shushed on its own a minute or two later.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and yawned, her robe sagging open to trail the floor with a sleep shirt beneath. Where had the clothes come from and, worse, how had this person known her size? Strange the idle thoughts that pestered her first thing in the morning. Out of necessity the General usually dampened them quickly and tramped them down eager not to rock the boat. What was now was. There was no reason beyond that to wonder.
Except that she did wonder.
The shower helped, warm water pounding away the sleep and supposition. Sherwood got dressed and picked up the things she borrowed from the Information department including once very powerful telephoto camera and binoculars. On a whim she’d also grabbed a hand held tape recorder to record her own thoughts and maybe some of his if she could get close enough. It seemed so much easier than a notebook and with the memory card in the thing she could record a novel and not run out of room.
She powered up to teleport to the address given to her by Kazenite. It was a relief to find that she appeared on the sidewalk as planned and not in his living room by accident. Not that he’d ever know it but to mess up like that would just be…embarrassing. The little house was about what she expected for a bachelor of about his age, a tree in the front yard convenient to provide cover for her to observe. The neighborhood wasn’t the greatest, sparse houses were space in a haphazard way down the cul de sac.
She wondered if the others had been destroyed, torn down, or the city planner had simply been smoking something he probably shouldn’t have.
She shimmied up into a tree and powered down keeping her bag of equipment with her. From her vantage point she could see into his bedroom pretty easily. 4:45…almost time to start the show. As if on cue “Deman” sat up, fumbling with the clock beside him. The noise ceased and he lingered a moment more before getting out of bed. She saw him drop where he was and do a quick set of push ups, two sets of twenty five. Then sit ups. Sherwood cocked her head to the side and watched in fascination. What was this guy, a robot?
“Deman appears to wake up at a quarter to five and proceeds to actually work out. He’s spent five minutes just doing push ups and sit ups.”
Once that was over he got up and disappeared into an adjoining bathroom, a shower she imagined. He came out naked; she blushed but didn’t avert her gaze. She was tempted to take a picture but refrained. The man was certainly attractive. For the first time Sherwood thought she might actually enjoy this task before her. She absolutely did not allow the words “peeping” and “tom” come to mind, especially not while perched in a tree.
The sun wouldn’t be up for another hour or so. He left the bedroom and she crawled down, keeping low to avoid being seen. The dark tones of her costume helped with that in the gray haze of pre-dawn because, aside from the tree, the front yard was devoid of any sort of adornment. She made her way around, looking through windows discreetly, until she found him in the kitchen chugging what looked like warm wet grass and cardboard. She gagged a little, ducking down to stay mostly out of sight. He set the cup in the sink and, to her dismay, was heading toward her to the front door.
Sherwood eeped and poofed, finding herself somewhere dark. Trying not to panic, she reached out to feel her surroundings without moving too much. She didn’t know how precarious her position was and cursed softly. Hearing a metal reverberate with a door closing things did not get much better as Sherwood realized she was in the trunk of his car! The engine started and vibrated through the car. Loud music started playing immediately, some band she didn’t recognize, not that she would usually, and he pulled out with her in his car none the wiser.
God this was bloody inconvenient!
She shifted a little while the car was moving, peeking out from between a crack in the back seats where they could fold down. He drove with a grin on his face, perhaps a little too upright in his seat for the type of music that was playing. The drive was quiet and uneventful, Sherwood struggling not to roll around or give herself away before she could poof out without him knowing. Plain clothes was probably the better idea but so much for that now.
He pulled into a coffee drive through in downtown and lowered the music. He rolled down the window and ordered, getting some complicated drink she had never heard of extra hot. With that brought a gust of breeze. Oh, God, she was going to…
“Achoo!”
“Bless you.”
There was a long pause as the barista tried to figure out what was happening. “What?”
“Didn’t you sneeze...?”
“No.”
“Oh, I thought…” He looked around quickly and didn’t see a culprit. Shrugging, he decided it was better not to push the issue. He might have heard a sneeze in the background. He knew he did not function well without coffee, anyway. There was a little awkwardness when he pulled up to the window and paid, he was flirted with by another girl who said she liked a man in uniform, but he wasn’t the type to let that bother him much and soon enough he was sipping a strong steaming hot coffee. He turned the music back up and drove up the block to the precinct.
Sherwood took her opportunity to teleport into the alley and power down. She came out as a faceless civilian and crossed the street, sitting at a bus stop to be able to observe him without being noticed. He talked with fellow officers and acted like he hadn’t a care in the world. She spoke lowly into her recorder, starting with the coffee and ending with his behavior now leaving out her own blunders. There was no reason to record those for posterity.
His butt seemed to be waxing a chair today because once he went inside he didn’t seem to come out for a long time. When he went on patrol he took a police cruiser, failing to notice the person trailing him discreetly. She recorded what he had for lunch and whom he spoke to. When she could she got close enough to listen in but there was nothing worth mentioning to anyone he spoke to.
It wasn’t until dusk started to fall that there was any change in his behavior. He left work in a new uniform. She could tell because it wasn’t wrinkled from the day. In fact, that seemed very important to him and his hair was wet – an after work shower?
Intrigued she powered up and followed him leaping rooftop to rooftop across the city effortlessly before he came to a stop in front of a condo complex. She followed him up the outdoor staircase with her eyes and when he stopped she dropped down onto the balcony that belonged to the unit. She was fairly high up but heights didn’t bother her. Through the sliding door she could hear the small conversation with the device Info gave her. It sounded like they were talking shop and the cynical General wanted to scoff at the shaken woman’s instability.
Though where she thought she had the right to judge about instability was anyone’s guess…
Sherwood dropped down when Deman came close and she started snapping pictures, leaving the device to record what it could pick up as she listened. There was a lot to be said about his body language, his attitude. He liked this woman…
There we go! The general broke into a wide grin as they started getting to the topic of the hour and she was sure this was what Kazenite wanted to know, committing the comments to memory as well as recording them. Once he moved away from the window she snuck up, snapping away madly to capture each subtle gesture, the habits of a traitor. Two traitors.
The fist in the wall was unexpected. At least he showed some backbone, even if it was for the wrong cause. She expected that to turn the girl right off, captured her momentary worried look. No such luck. They gravitated closer, touching, soft voices. Oh, God, it was like watching a bad romance movie on TV. All that was missing was a case of amnesia or a twin sister to break in at any moment and announce that it’s his baby. All a little too daytime soapish for her.
She sighed, bored.
Oh, hang on a tick…
Yes…yes! He was going to reveal the name of his Knight contact. She stared intently, on edge, waiting for a name. Knight…
The b***h! That stupid woman! What the hell?
It seemed there were other things on the girl’s mind as she started kissing her police protector/traitor. Sherwood fumed, briefly imagining walking in there and putting an arrow through them both. There were remarkably many places a person could be shot without suffering more than a crapload of pain. She was quickly learning each of those places with her time in the Negaverse and not really tempering it with patience. She’d get the information quickly enough, cleanly.
Two more god damned seconds!
As the scene rapidly devolved into something better left to Playboy television Sherwood wondered if she ought to stay. Good God was getting laid worth screwing her out of the best piece of information she’d learned all day? Each sound from inside grated on her nerves, crawling right up her spine. She turned off the recorder and settled in, leaning her back against the outside siding fuming as she had to wait out their little tryst. Kazenite said to watch him all day. She thought that meant right up until he went to bed. His own, not hers.
Maybe the pillow talk would prove more interesting.
A surprising amount of time later the sounds inside quieted. Apparently his daily routine did something in strength and stamina. It was hard not to be impressed and a little bit wistful about it. He snuck out, though, a little later leaving the raven haired beauty to sleep it off where she’d fallen. He looked a little ragged, the hour had grown rather late. She was coming close to twenty four hours without sleep and was liable to get grumpier before she got to her apartment.
Shanyume
Sirene Naiads
2002 WORDS
