Interlude: Research

Alexandra found herself in a position that was becoming more and more familiar with, sitting in front of a computer a desk. Granted, she was dressing a velour jogging suit, with her hair tied in a messy knot, she was barefoot, and one leg was curled under her, but it was still a desk, with a computer. She snorted. The reading glasses perched on the end of her nose were just around the corner. She squinted at the screen thoughtfully. Nah, not yet.

She reached for the coffee cup beside the laptop and took a drink, instantly making a face at the room temperature liquid. She didn’t remember how long it had sat there to get that way, but she’d been involved in the things the on the screen.

Every day, sometimes every hour, more and more reports and research crossed her e-mail. Almost every day, some other type of reports and research were added to the growing virtual stacks. Some of it was deleted as unimportant. That pile was small. Some of it went aside to refer back to later. Some of it was sent on to be delved into further. Or, like the pages on her screen at the moment, sent to someone who could make more sense of it. The scientific jargon that looked more like nonsense words to her would come back to her in wording she was able to understand, if necessary.

Her accountants and business manager were baffled by the sudden and severe increases in her spending. Good people weren’t hard to find, just expensive. And even more expensive if you wanted to keep your interests to yourself.

She rubbed her temple. Another stress headache, or she’d been staring at the screen too long. Maybe the reading glasses where a good idea. She picked up her coffee cup and concentrated on the screen, taking more effort to get around the headache than it should have. In a minute, the coffee was steaming again.

She remembered how many coffee mugs she’d shattered trying to learn the fine control it took to do such a little thing. But, that was a long time ago. Before. She hadn’t been able to do it at all, for awhile, after she’d met Serra. Now, it was second nature again. She paused, watching the steam rise from the mug. She hadn’t made a conscious effort to reheat it, had resigned herself to drinking cold coffee. Apparently, her subconscious disliked cold coffee more than she did. She shrugged to herself and moved on to the next e-mail.

A report reporting nothing. Those were becoming more and more common. She clenched her jaw. Hitting walls was becoming more and more common. Lack of information, information that didn’t apply, information that had already come through from another source. It wasn’t accomplishing anything.

As hard as she was glaring at the screen, she barely noticed the smell of burning plastic. A second later, the mug shattered in her grip, suddenly boiling liquid splashing across the desk, the computer, her sleeve. She heard the faint echoes of maniacal female laugher. It was a familiar sound, and becoming familiar again.

Refocusing was much harder than it should have been. Coming back to herself, she saw the deep melted indentation under her hand, across the keyboard and the touchpad of the laptop. It was the second one she’d melted in the past week. She wiped wetness from her face. Instead of coffee, her hand came away coated with blood that leaked from her nose.

Her headache was gone.