Marcus sat at his office once again, leg over his desk, papers scattered, and his half-empty hip flask standing close to his keyboard. He was on the phone, leaning back in his chair, with what felt like an insurmountable task. “Look, I know you’re busy, but I wouldn’t be asking if this wasn’t important.”

  The voice on the other end was Khyree Benjamin, head of the PD's Facial Recognition and Digital Surveillance Unit.

  Khyree resisted, citing policy and the unit’s overburdened workload: “You know we don’t just run this tech for anyone, Marcus. There’s protocol. Approvals.”

  Policy, policy, and more policy.

  “Come on Khyree. You owe me one. Remember that story I buried for you three years ago? This is me cashing in.”

  Three years earlier, Khyree Benjamin had been investigating a potential leak within the digital surveillance unit and an internal report suggested one of their own was selling the data. The investigation was potentially career-ending for multiple agents if exposed.

  Marcus, being an investigative journalist at QSBC, had stumbled upon fragments of the story. His initial research threatened to blow the lid wide open on the entire investigation, compromising months of careful undercover work. A premature exposé could have destroyed years of carefully constructed intelligence gathering mechanisms.

  In a late-night meeting at a nondescript downtown café, Khyree approached Marcus, revealing just enough context to demonstrate the catastrophic consequences of publishing his report. More importantly, he offered Marcus an exclusive – but not then.

  Marcus agreed, burying his initial investigation. The leak was eventually contained internally, with no public disclosure.

  Khyree sighed, “Alright, I’ll take a look. No promises, though. There’s a good chance I’ll come up empty-handed.”

  Marcus softened, “That’s all I’m asking. Just… see what you can do. You’ve got the images I sent, right?”

  Khyree confirmed he received the security footage stills, reiterating that the results might not yield anything useful.

  “Noted, thanks.”

  Once they hung up, Marcus took a gulp out of his whiskey-filled hip flask. He glanced at the faces on his monitor, the grainy images from the security footage staring back at him.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  He drummed his fingers on the desk. His career was on his way to being vindicated.

  Come on, Khyree. Pull a rabbit out of your hat.

  Lynn pushed the door open with her hip, balancing two paper bags of takeout. “I brought some food,” she announced, dropping the bags on the table.

  Thesius looked up from the laptop with visible frustration. Notifications dinged incessantly, dozens of tabs were squished together, and even more pop-up ads cluttered the screen.

  “These floating rectangles are maddening!” He yelled, batting at the persistent ads.

  The day prior had been a crash course on computer literacy for Thesius, who had spent hours struggling with basic concepts. Text-to-speech had been both a blessing and a curse, with him accidentally triggering random searches by muttering to himself.

  Lynn sighed. “You could’ve asked for an adblocker,” She said.

  “I don’t know what an adblocker is,” he retorted. “Why would I think to ask for something I don’t know existed!” Thesius threw his head back, letting out a theatrical groan. “Magic is far more intuitive. You want a fireball? Boom! Fireball. You want to summon the dead? Boo— Well don’t, that’s taboo. But it’s easy! This, however—” he gestured vaguely at the screen, “Is torture by a thousand little clicks!”

  “Move over,” Lynn said as she physically scooted him off the chair. “I’ll show you a different type of magic.”

  She took control of the mouse and activated the adblocker, silencing the intrusive pop-ups. All while closing the 18+ content that had opened as a result of the ads, at least she hoped it was due to the ads. Then she went through the open tabs, many of them being duplicates: Where is the nearest castle; can you summon gods with a computer; who is Thesius; why is the king; Reimar Quinn; how to make gold quickly?

  “What are you even looking for?” She asked as she skimmed through the window titles. “‘Where is the nearest castle?’ Really?”

  Thesius, meanwhile, was now preoccupied by the food Lynn had brought, this time being a quesadilla. He took a comically large bite as he mumbled his trademarked, “Wonderful, wonderful,” through a mouthful.

  Lynn rolled her eyes as she closed out redundant tabs. “ ‘Can you summon gods with a computer?’ I hate to break it to you, but no. And this one—‘Who is Thesius?’ Are you Googling yourself?”

  Thesius swallowed before answering. “Wouldn’t you want to know what the world says about you?”

  “I guess,” Lynn said, clicking on another tab. “‘Why is the king?’ That’s not even a coherent question.”

  Her clicking came to a halt at the tab labeled ‘Reimar Quinn’. “Reimar?” she asked, turning to look at Thesius.

  “Mhmm,” he replied, with a dollop of sauce on his chin. “That’s who we’re looking for.”

  Lynn’s eyes widened. “You had his name this whole time!?”

  “But of course,” he said.

  Her jaw almost dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding me. That would’ve saved so much trouble!”

  She pulled up the search results for Reimar Quinn. The first few results seemed promising—official-looking sites, and even a Wikipedia page. She clicked the top link.

  The page loaded slowly, but when it finally did, an image of a young, youthful person became visible. They appeared to be in their mid-teens. “Let’s see…” she murmured. “Born in… blah blah blah…oh.”

  Thesius had just finished his food. “Oh?” He said, looking over her shoulder.

  “Yeah. He’s dead.”