"That much I know."
    "This is all propaganda. You have to get used to it."
    "I hope you're right."
    "Me too, otherwise I'll look stupid."
    "Thanks for the support."
    "See you later," she gave an abbreviated wave and returned to her work.
    I caught up to the others, who were discussing what to do next. Promethean had gone off somewhere, presumably to his folks' place, but that left myself, Scott, and Albert, uncomfortably ensconced on one of the hovercycles, the second machine slaved to it.
    "Well, I suppose if we need someplace to stay we could stay at the office," Scott offered.
    "The office?" I asked blankly.
    "Yeah, my office."
    "You have an office?"
    "Yeah." He seemed surprised by my questioning.
    I shook my head, giving up on any hope of understanding. "Don't look at me like 'doesn't everyone?' I can't get used to the idea of you having a life yet, you're what, three weeks old? Sure, lead on."
    We followed Scott and wound up at a place which used to be Dr. Scott's apartment. A sign on the door said K. Robeson Enterprises, Inc. Scott opened the door for us.
    "Excellent, you're here!" a familiar voice exclaimed. "We've already hired a temporary staff and gotten ourselves some office furniture." The Muse stepped forward with a broad smile. "Ms. Banks, pleasure to see you again."
    "Nice to see you again," I managed, bemusedly allowing my hand to be kissed. "Scott?"
    "Yes?"
    "Explanation?" A computer terminal had been set up on a desk. I recognized the setup on it—looking over Sphinx's shoulder. That was the base system. Massive amounts of information scrolled across the screen. Once in a while he would pluck out a piece and drag it to a corner, where it joined what looked like a growing logic tree of some description. The apartment had lost much of its original appearance: it was an office now, occupied by several desks, computers, a copy machine, filing cabinets.
    "Incroyable!" Albert exclaimed. "Is this tapped in to our computer system?" Sphinx's entire concentration was focused on his work, he paid the rest of us no attention.
    "Scott?" I repeated. "Would you mind explaining?"
    The doorbell rang.
    "I'll get it!" Muse announced.
    "Explaining what?" Scott inquired.
    "What this is?"
    "Ah yes! You must be the young lady from the temporary agency. Please, come in." He looked her considerable assets up and down and managed to be in no way offensive about it. "Yes, I'd say that you fit our criteria perfectly."
    "But I haven't even shown you my resume." She blinked bewildered doe-eyes at him.
    "Not to worry, I'm an excellent judge of character. This is your seat, over here."
    "I don't believe we've met, monsieur," Albert spoke up. "Je mapelle Albert Gabriel Smith."
    An elaborate stage bow. "Larry Oliver. Delighted to make your acquaintance."
    "Explain all of what?" the silver robot repeated.
    One of us was being spectacularly obtuse. I was pretty sure it wasn't me. "You hired... them."
    "Yes."
    "To do what? Besides tapping into our computer system?"
    "For a nominal fee," the Muse assured me. "We find the enjoyment of the activity to be the primary reward."
    "Actually, I think they have hidden bank accounts larger than anything I could pay them," Scott corrected.
    Muse cleared his throat. "We won't discuss that."
    "Of course not. That's rude, Scott," I chastised mildly.
    "Stephanie? Could you get some coffee for us, and put it in the conference room there? Or wait, I'm unclear in this day and age, is is acceptable for me to ask you to get us coffee?"
    "Oh sure, that's fine." She smiled brightly and headed for the kitchenette. Not the brightest bulb in the box by any means, I suspect, but she does look like a young Katherine Hepburn.
    "Data analysis," Scott told me.
    I nodded carefully. "Any particular data, or data in general?"
    "Criminal activity, actually. There's a vast storehouse of information on criminal activity which isn't being processed in any way, sort of been put in a giant pile and left there."
    "Tres bien," Albert approved.
    "That's a very... interesting idea," I admitted.
    "I understand it came to him while he was watching Hitchcock," Muse mentioned.
    "I've seen that movie."
    "Nonetheless, we are setting everything up in fine style, and I believe Sphinx is already making headway on some critical issues. Sphinx?"
    "I don't know if you'd say critical," was the casual response after a moment.
    "What have you found?" Muse inquired; we all gathered to look over the leonine man's shoulder.
    "Remember that string of murders around the beginning of the year?"
    "Very well," I said.
    "The individual responsible for them is still in a coma, correct?"
    "One of them."
    "And the other ones just disappeared, right?"
    "Yes." I didn't see any point in getting into explanations, although it occurred to me that given the checkered pasts Scott had just put on his payroll, handing Gretchen and Co. over to mysterious interdimensional judges probably wouldn't raise any eyebrows.
    "You found the links between why all those particular women were killed?"
    "No, not really."
    Scott and Albert expressed confusion; the former hadn't existed at the time, and the latter was not yet a team member.
    "Sorry," Sphinx glanced over at them. "It just caught my attention, so I started running with it. I'm good at figuring out riddles. They were all divorcees, they all kept their children, there were questions in each case as to whether the children were being abused by their fathers. Very much a skein, levels of betrayal. I'm interested in what he thought he was constructing with this. It's not a bad theme—bloody, of course," he was quick to add. "Too many people these days are entirely too bloody, if he had just been kidnapping the women, that would have been much smoother...." He continued tapping. "All of the parents... that is strange." He surfaced again. "I'm sure it has nothing to do with this now. I'll drop the file off on your desk," he told Scott.
    "Thank you."
    "Scott, this is fascinating," I admitted. He's certainly been using his time well these past few weeks. And how does one delicately bring up the fact that he's given known criminals access to (somewhat) classified information, in the presence of said, charming, known criminals?
    "Oh, and Stevies called, the alternate facility is well under way," Muse mentioned to Scott.

| Top |