Technical Assistance

Chapter 1: Data Retrieval

She waves him away from her computers as she tries to assess the state of her computers, still flustered by the encounter. "What list?" she asks, crossing her arms. "Like, for Christmas? I'm Jewish, so I never really got the whole Santa Claus thing. I mean, I get the Santa Claus thing, but I never really thought there was any balance to the whole situation. If Santa brings present to the good boys and girls, what happens to the bad ones? Is that who you are—like, some sort of anti-Claus who doles out punishments to the bad kids?" It takes her a minute to realize what she said, and then she groans. "Okay, I'm going to stop talking now."

It might be her imagination, but she thinks she might see the corners of his mouth tilt upward. "What's your name?" he asks, his tone indecipherable behind that voice modulator. Combined with the masked facial features underneath the hood, he really makes himself out to be quite an enigma. She doesn't like being unable to read people—especially not people with murderous intent.

She frowns, looking toward her desk to avoid the question. She doesn't really want to tell a murderer her name, but she also doesn't want to find herself impaled on an arrow in the next few minutes. She lets out a cry of horror as her eyes land on a battered laptop plugged into her computer, and she can feel her blood boil.

Without any thought toward self-preservation, she walks up to him and pokes him in the shoulder. "I know you didn't plug an unidentified laptop into one of my computers and potentially risk infecting my babies with horrible, crippling viruses." She realizes how foolish she's being and steps away from him, practically running back to her desk. She's relieved when she finds that the seat adjustments have not been moved, and she examines the computer for a moment, with its massive bullet holes and damage that can't be undone. "What did you do, use it for target practice?"

"There was an altercation," is the only response the Vigilante offers, studying her carefully, as if he's afraid she's suddenly going to take the laptop and run.

She sets it down on the desk, flipping the laptop over and studying the different compartments. She doesn't know what compels her to be so charitable to a man who runs around shooting arrows into targets and sitting in other people's computer chairs, but she finally says, "I'll have to take a better look at this hard drive, but I should be able to tell you exactly what's on it. The compartment seems to be bullet-free, but the other bullets could have jarred it. Computer parts are sensitive, you know, so if anything is loose in there, it could mean the whole thing is shot."

She focuses on tearing the hard drive disk out of the laptop with her trusty screwdriver, so she can't see his face as he asks, "What?"

She turns to glance at him for a minute, rolling her eyes. "Oh, come on. You wouldn't be in the IT department if you didn't need some sort of information off of this hard drive. Tell me what you're looking for, and I'll retrieve it for you before you blow up the entire network with your incompetency—which I would have to replace, by the way. So, really, I'm doing myself a favor." She waves a hand toward another wheeled chair on the other side of the area. "Have a seat. This could take a while."

He does as she asks, watching her work with the careful observance of one who has depended on his eyes for his survival. He's at least a little less intimidating when he's sitting in a chair at her station, and she's thankful for the distraction of the computer. After a very long moment of silence, he decides to randomly ask her, "Do you think you have enough coffee?"

Her cup is almost empty by this point, so she makes a point by filling it before answering, "Probably not. I'm running on two hours of sleep, and coffee is solely responsible for my waking state right now." She tilts her head to the side. "Do you really want to talk about coffee right now?" She doesn't wait for the answer before completely removing the hard drive.