Chapter 19: All Work...
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Work was the last thing she wanted to do today.

But she went anyways. She had to get this done, so she pretended yesterday never happened.

"Good morning Rachel." Caroline greeted.

"Morning Caroline." She went up the elevator and stopped on Garfield's floor. She had gotten an email this morning saying she needed to see him first thing after she came in.

She scanned her hand and entered.

"Morning, Rach."

"Hello, Garfield. You asked for me a few hours ago?"

"Yeah. Vic wanted to see you today, but I'm the one that has to do most of the planning for the trip and I needed some help."

"Oh. No problem. Where are we going?"

"This year I get to pick haha! I chose Hawaii this year since it's only 6 hours from LAX by plane."

"Oh Hawaii. That sounds fun. Which island?"

"Haven't decided yet. I heard Maui is the best island."

"Well, some people might disagree," she sat down. "But it is the best island."

"I like you, Chase."

"I aim to please." She said with a shrug. She looked at the papers and the travel plans. The private resort they were staying in, the private beach that Grayson Inc. owned over there, even the private charter plane was booked. "You've made a lot of progress, Garfield." She said suprised.

"Well, I've had some free time." He said vaguely.

"What do you even do when you're not working?" She asked going through more papers about the flight.

"What do you do when you're not working?" He repeated back to her.

"I asked first." She said avoiding the subject.

"Fine. Sometimes I volunteer at the animal shelter in the outskirts of town. I'm not trying to look like a goody two shoes or anything, it just lets me get away from work."

"Do you like this job, Garfield?" She asked bluntly.

"It's not that I don't like the job, it the fact that people like Dick make it harder. He likes to drag others down to bring himself up. Granted, that's how this industry works, but you're supposed to do that to other companies. Not your workers and your friends. I mean do you see how he has these floors arranged?"

"I noticed that..."

"My point exactly. He has me down here and himself on the top floor. His wife isn't even on the same floor as him. If you looked at the map what does that say about the person who designed this place?"

"It says a lot of things. Including the way he sees you."

"No kidding. Part of me wants Nightingale to kill us. Just to stop Robin's mistreatment of people." He confessed.

"But this company has done so much for the way we live."

"Well The Wilson Corperation is right on our heels for our info so once were gone it'll probably be very easy for them to get our hands on our tech and our secrets."

"...Are you always this pessimistic, Garfield?" Raven asked.

"Heh. Sometimes..." They both reached for the same paper on the desk. As soon as their hands came in contact with one another they pulled away, yanking said paper right off the desk.

"Sorry. I'll get it." Garfield watched as Raven ducked under the desk and grabbed the paper, only to slam her head into the underside of the desk making a few pens and tablets fly off. "Dammit!" And out slipped a curse.

Garfield busted out laughing.

"I was going to apologize for my language. But I'm just going to keep silent." She said rubbing the back of her head. "Here's the paper."

"T-thanks." He said catching his breath. "It's fine. We all let one slip once in a while." She rolled her eyes. "Aww come on, Rachel don't be like that."

"I can and I will." She glared at him.

"Ugh. Women."

"OhisthatViccallingmeI'dbettergonowbyeGarfield." She spat out all at once while gathering her things and booking it for the door.

"Damn." He looked down at the desk. "I wish I didn't know she was faking it." He played with a pencil on his desk. "The one time I actually know what's going on and they don't, Raven's acting is what brings me down. Figures. Of course Raven's too good at her job." He sighed. "I guess I should finish." He stacked all the papers neatly together. Not a single one out of place.

....................

Raven reached to knock on the door, but hesitated when loud banging could be heard from the office. Followed up by a hearty whirring of a machine coming to life.

"God finally!" Cyborg shouted from the other side. Raven could only guess what it could be.

She knocked.

"Rachel?"

"Yes."

"Unlock the door and come in." He allowed. Raven scanned her hand and went in. Cyborg was standing next to a printer. It didn't look like his regular printer though. It looked a bit different. It was a blueprint printer. A very new one at that. He must've either made it himself or just gotten it.

"Finally. Gar hogged you forever."

"Hey at least I know I'm needed." She said as she put her stuff down.

"Yeah you are needed. A lot. It's a good thing you accepted Dick's offer. Even if it was kinda the wrong time to ask."

"I needed the money. Plus it's a job at Grayson Inc. How could I refuse?" She slapped herself in her mind. Eventhough she was starting to enjoy coming in and talking to people.

"Haha. True true." Cyborg agreed.

"So what was with the noise, Mr. Stone?" She asked walking closer to him.

"Mr. Stone is my father. I'm Vic." He joked. "But seriously, you don't have to call me that. Sounds too formal for me."

"Ok."

"In any case, the noise was this damn blueprint printer breaking on me. But I got it to work again. This is why I usually make my own equipment. But Dick insisted that I have this one for some stupid reason."

"Wouldn't it be cheaper for you to make it yourself?" Raven queried.

"That's what I said! But he said we needed to use this model for some reason. I trust Dick but sometimes he makes some weird descisions."

"Mmm." She agreed quietly with him. "So what is it you needed me for for so long?"

"Oh. The designs Star sent up a few days ago. I need mesurements and blueprints made. I could have done them if Dick didn't give me a mountain of other things to do."

"Point taken. Which designs?" He pulled them up on his computer.

"These." She went to his side of the desk and looked at the designs.

"Those are mine." She stated. A hint of happiness in her voice somewhere.

"I knew that wasn't Kori's work. These look pretty nice. They're just what Star was tryin' to get at. I guess since they're yours, you won't have a problem making mesurements for me?" He was more telling her than asking her.

"Not at all...Vic."

She imagined the car and the skateboard in her mind. She started with the car.

Who would use it?
What would they use it for?
Where would they go with it?
Why would they need it?
How much would it be used? She thought to herself.

She finished putting in the dimensions, measurements, and different things that would be inside the car. Seats, the steering wheel, seatbelts, and what they were made out of. Then she moved onto the skateboard.

Who would use it?
What would they use it for?
Where would they go with it?
Why would they need it?
How much would it be used? She repeated in her mind once more.

She had this down to a select science. She knew what she was doing.

She started to mumble as she worked. Mumbling the numbers as she crunched them in her head. Ratios, percentages, velocity, speed, momentum, feet, inches, meters... Her mind was like a calculator. She hardly needed a 'pencil and paper' as they used to say. Most people do calculations on holotablets so they can save them on a hardrive instead of a filing cabinet. But some things just needed to be done on paper.

She clicked the top of the pen and put the pen on the desk. Proud of her work no less.

Vic noticed how she sat up straight with a satisfied expression versus the determined one she had donned for the last hour.

"Finished already?" He said sarcastically.

"Hey these things take time." She said handing the blueprints back to him.

"Don't I know it." He rolled the two blueprints up and put them in glass tubes. Then placed the glass tubes on a maglev cart along with several others. "Those go off to tech." He stated. "Mind delivering them for me?"

"Not at all." She grabbed the cart's handle and it glided out the door smoothly. There weren't many maglev items like this, but when she sees one she can't help but get just a little excited about it.

The world's becoming so much more efficient. But we still have a long way to go. She thought. They sure seem to be working on a lot of things. There's so many blueprints here. I wonder what they're– Her thoughts where cut off by a strange feeling. An overwhelming feeling that someone was watching her, scanning her, analyzing her, trying to pick out every little detail they could.

And this feeling was cut off my someone speed walking briskly by in front of her. Not even acknowledging the fact that she was there. She couldn't even get a good look at them. All she could really get that it was a man.

He had dropped something. A little slip of paper that had some writing on in in pencil. The writing was light, as though they only wanted the person who picked it up to see it.

'TAKE THE LONG WAY' is what it said. She figured this was simply a note the man wrote to himself for something or other. She just happened to read the note. She quickly disregarded it after reading it by tossing it over her shoulder. But...what if that was directed at her?

The blueprints had been safely delivered and Raven headed back to Vic's office. She scanned her hand and went in.

"I'm back." She called. Vic was hunched over at the computer, hand on his chin, staring at something intently. "Are you alright?" She asked.

"Huh? Oh, hey Rachel. Could you...come and take a look at this?" He said, eyes not breaking away from the screen. He sounded much more serious than he had when she left.

"What is it?" She leaned over his chair and looked at the screen.

"It's camera footage from last week when Nightengale broke in." Raven swallowed.

"Oh." She said.

"I was running through it and noticed something. Look." He fast forwarded to the part when she was standing at the safe. Looking scared and confused with the terrible reality of what she was after staring her dead in the face. "You hear that? She's talking. And up here in this one." He went backwards in the feed to where she entered the view of the cameras for the first time. Soon she began talking again. "Again. She's talking to someone. You know what this means right?" Raven remained silent for a while. Then she spoke slowly and clearly.

"Nightengale has a partner."

"Bingo." Vic looked at her with a smile. Raven was not smiling though. "Now we're sure she's working with somebody. It's so odd. She hasn't worked with a partner in years. And her last partner disapeared so suddenly. What do you think happened?" He didn't notice that Raven had gone away from his desk. "Are you alright?" He asked. She squeezed her eyes shut when he asked that.

"I am fine. I just...I knew him."

"You knew Nightengale's old partner?"

She nodded.

"He was going to tell her identity to collect the money and she killed him." Raven sat down at her own desk and took her pen in hand.

"Damn. I'm sorry, Rachel."

"It's fine."

"I'm still suprised she's working with somebody again. Especially if that's what happened last time. Did he tell you who she was?"

"Never." Raven was writing something down.

"Mmm." Vic kept flipping through the cameras, wincing at the gore when she tore into the guard's and mowed them down. He didn't have much footage though. Some cameras were hacked into and the footage was gone, others were destroyed by Nightengale. He paused the feed when her face was directly facing the camera in the middle of an attack. He tried to study her mask, her body, her hair, anything that would lead to her identity.

But it's nothing the police force hasn't already done. At all her crime scenes they sweep the place for evidence. Nightengale leaves no genetic evidence. No hair, so skin cells, no fingerprints, not even blood. Somehow with those weird powers she's got she manages to clear the scene of her blood before anyone can get to it.

"One day were going to find this woman. I swear it."

And that one day is when I'll silence you bastards for good.