Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (top ebook reader .TXT) 📕

“Where’s Jess, dude? Don’t make us sweat it out,” Billy asked.

“That’s pretty much what I left her doing,” Mike replied, taking another bite of waffles with strawberries.

“Huh?” Billy grunted.

“Last I saw her, she was sitting in the floor of the shower with hot water pouring down over her. Still in her pajamas, mind you, but that was a dramatic improvement.”

“Hung over, huh?” Sam asked.

“Like a boss,” Mike confirmed.

“Gimme your room key.” Sam stood up and held out her hand.

“Why?”

“There are some things that need a woman’s touch. Frankly, most things are better with a woman’s touch, but a hangover is definitely something I know a thing or two about. Have the car ready; we’ll be down in twenty minutes. She’s gonna want a large coffee and a plain bagel.” She motioned for the room key again, and Mike handed it over.

Twenty minutes later almost on the nose, a soggy but sober Jessica climbed into the passenger seat of their rented Suburban, fastened her seat belt, and wrapped both hands around the steaming travel mug of black coffee that waited in her cupholder.

Jessica took a long sip of coffee, two huge bites of her bagel, another sip of coffee, and turned around in her seat until she could see all three of her teammates. “I’m just going to say this once, and then we can approach this shithole like it was any other case. This is a terrible idea, and we should all leave now. Anybody want to listen to me? No? Okay, then take a left out of the driveway and let’s go to school.”

They spent the day working along just like any other case, ignoring Jessica’s muttering about entrapment, kidnapping, and killing a bunch of motherfuckers. They set infrared and low-light cameras in the hallways and turned the library in the center of the school into a command center where Sam built her massive conglomeration of computer monitors, digital video recorders, audio analyzers, RFI detectors, and other gadgets that no one else on the team understood. Sam worked by herself straight through the day, connecting wires to USB ports, running cables along the tops of doorways so no one would trip on them, and focusing her limited cameras to give maximum coverage of the enormous school.

“How’s it coming?” Mike asked when he popped into the library around four in the afternoon. The winter sun was well on the way to setting, and Sam suddenly realized that she’d missed lunch. She looked up at Mike in annoyance, but relaxed and let it all slide away unspoken when he held out a footlong meatball sub with extra jalapeños, her favorite.

Sam grabbed a Monster energy drink out of the mini-fridge, which had been the first thing she hooked up, and sat down in the camp chair that had been the second thing placed in her control center. Mike sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning back on a stack of road cases with a Dr. Pepper in hand. One of Sam’s secondary duties was making sure there was plenty of each team member’s favorite style of caffeine on each trip. Mike was a hardcore Pepper, Sam loved her energy drinks, and Billy and Jess kept it simple, using black coffee as their pick-me up of choice.

Mike pulled a second sandwich out of his backpack, this one some strange concoction of grilled chicken, lettuce, tomato, pepperoni, mayo, and onions that smelled as bad as it looked. But Mike loved the things, and since he was the one tasked with getting everyone’s meals sorted, he could eat whatever weird-ass sub he wanted.

“We’re in pretty good shape. The new wireless cameras were dead out of the box, but it was just the batteries. I put new ProCells in them and now they work fine. They don’t have much for range, but they’re fine for what we’re dealing with here. I spread them all over the gym and locker room areas. I’ve got all the halls around the library wired for video and audio, and I’ve got a video link to the security cams in the office. Amazingly, they still work, and so do a few of the old CCTV security cams around the building. I’ve got all of them feeding into the D drive, with the infrared on A, HD video with sound on B, and the HD video with no sound on C. If there’s anything to see, we should see it.”

“Sounds good,” Mike said around a mouthful of hoagie.

“So what’s the deal around here anyway?” Sam asked, taking a huge bite of meatball and closing her eyes as the flavor hit her. She’d been a lot hungrier than she thought.

“What do you mean?” Mike’s face was guarded, like he was working really hard not to give anything away.

“Go ahead, may as well tell the whole story,” Jessica said as she walked into the library. The doors were long off their hinges, so she could have easily heard them from outside.

“Why don’t you tell it, Jess? You were here, after all.” Mike handed her a veggie sub and a Diet Coke.

“I don’t think so. I think I’d rather hear the rumors and see how they compare with what really happened. I’ll fill in anything important you leave out.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Mike said. “Fine, but I only want to go through this once. Let’s get Billy in here and get cameras rolling.” Mike pulled a cell phone from his shirt pocket and tapped the screen. “Billy, come meet us in the library with the high-def. I’ve got some sandwiches, and we should go ahead and get the intro footage down.”

Billy’s voice came from the speakerphone loud and clear. “Coolio, boss. I’ll be there in two minutes. I’m just finishing up the exterior cams. It’s almost dark out here anyway, time to move this party indoors.”

The trio ate in silence until Billy came in with a camera bag slung over his shoulder. He