Hopelessly Human

52. Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Natalia looked around and found a flat screwdriver on the shelf behind her. She inserted it under the back panel of the computer and started jimmying it open. She gave a giant pull, and the panel popped off. She was sent stumbling back into the shelf behind her, before falling on her butt. She'd unknowingly knocked over a bottle containing gray liquid.

"Got it," Natalia told them. "Ow."

"You okay?" Dylan asked.

"Fantastic."

Sam looked at the back of the computers full of wires and unknown parts. "Huh."

"Well, that looks simple," Dean said sarcastically. "Does it come with a manual?"

Natalia frowned. "What do we look like? Wikipedia?"

Sam frowned at her before saying, "Nothing in the archives, and Dylan and I obviously couldn't find anything like it online, not to mention we're pretty sure the Men of Letters doesn't exactly have I.T. support anymore, either."

As they spoke, the gray liquid in the bottle started growing and moving.

"I think I know somebody who could help us," Dean replied. "Come on."

Natalia grinned, realizing who Dean was talking about.

They stood and left the room, and switched off the light. The bottle's lid popped off and the gray liquid spilled onto the floor and started to grow and climb onto the wall.

Dean and Natalia were sitting at the far table. Natalia's feet were resting on the map table scratched an itch on her leg. The front door above them opened and Sam, Dylan and Charlie entered and walked down the stairs.

"Here it is," Dylan and Sam said.

Dean and Natalia smiled at Charlie as she waved at them and he said, "Hey. Thanks for coming."

Dean and Charlie hugged, then she hugged Natalia.

"Not a problem, especially since I got fired last week," Charlie replied.

Sam set her bag on the table. "Hey, what? What happened?"

"Turns out the company I work for was outsourcing to child labor, so I took a big Wikileak all over that. And, yeah. It's cool, though. It's given me more time to focus on my hobbies... like LARPing, macrame, and hunting."

Dean and Natalia looked alarmed while Dylan and Sam looked concerned.

"Excuse me?" Dean and Natalia questioned in sync.

"Okay. It was just a couple little cases. I took down a teenage vampire and a ghost... which sounds like a YA novel if you say it out loud."

Dylan's voice took on a slightly concerned tone. "Charlie, how'd it go?"

"It was, uh... it was intense. But I kind of wish hunting was more... magical, you know?"

Dean rolled his eyes, Natalia let out a sigh, Sam looked confused, and Dylan looked surprised.

"Never mind," Charlie muttered. "So, where is this Commodore 64 of yours? And tell me; are Dylan and Natalia engaged?"

Dylan shook his head. "Nope. Not yet. Sorta enjoying the dating life."

"Better put a ring on her soon."

They walked into the computer room and Charlie started geeking out over the old computer. "Sweet Ada Lovelace. This thing belongs in a museum. I mean, it's got encryption software. It seems to be powered by something magical."

"Skip to the end," Dean told her.

"It's kind of an alarm system. Global badness? It freaks. This computer is what locked this place down."