***
Night quickly fell on the group that was still sitting lazily in the main section of the large hotel room, there were seven of them in there, so of course it had to be big, but it was still a hotel room. There wasn't much the rest of them could do while waiting for Kera to come back, almost an hour ago she had left on some 'important' buisness. None of them knew what that really was, since the 'important' buisness changed with almost every occasion.
The only thing they all had to do was to plan what they could do to screw up the mission and make it harder than it had to be, and so far they had some pretty good plans. They were about to start on one of the plans when Kera came lazily back in to the hotel room carrying a load of books and food.
"Get everything you need?" Ellie asked sarcastically.
Kera stared over at her calmly, "No, not really since none of this is for me, but whatever right?" Kera set the load down on the table and gestured for everyone to help themselves and then she made her way back to the bedrooms.
The group at the table swarmed the bags and saw to their amazement gourmet foods that they hadn't had in years. They'd been so busy with work lately that all they'd been eating was microwave meals or fast food. Then they saw the books, and their eyes widened even further, they hadn't had a chance to keep up with all their book series since they'd started work, and yet here now they were the completed series of everything they'd been dying to read. Immediately, a wave of guilty feelings washed through the group; they'd been so wrapped up in their own anger and here Kera went and did something really nice. Kera must have bought all this with her own money since no one else had gone with her, and everyone else kept their cash on their person.
Ellie was the first one to speak, "Ooops...."
The group nodded in silent agreement, "Yeah...."
Kelly made the first move towards the food, "We shouldn't let this stuff go to waste though right...?"
Again the group agreed and they were upon the bags like dogs on a scrap of meat. Yells of merriment erupted from the group and they were chattering happily from the other room.
Kera however, had work to do and couldn't involve herself in the festivities. She sighed wearily and pulled out her notebook, for the most part of the hour that she had been gone she had been working on investigating the idols, and then as an afterthought she had picked up the food and books. She frowned and tapped her now empty wallet, after bribing and buying things she was now officially broke. But she felt her money was going to good use so it might as well be good for something. She yawned, covering her mouth slowly with a fist, before shaking her head and blinking in fast succession. "No time to sleep now, I've got to get to work..." she reminded herself aloud, pulling out the small notebook that she had bought.
She flipped through the various pages of the notebook that she had managed to almost completely fill that afternoon. She had learned quite a bit about the idols that day; they were in fact stationed in the mountains of Colorado* somewhere so she figured that was where Luke was sending them. She had also discovered that there were four leaders of the idol, three men and a woman. No one knew their faces, or names, just that they had deciphered from the voices the leader's genders. Then she had discovered a point of interest, there were some theories going around that the idols ran a mining company, and that could mean their hideout was in a cave somewhere in the mountains.
*Picked a random mountain range 'cause I can't remember the ones in my dream ^^'' can't guarantee accurate description, lol.
Kera smiled half-heartedly, this was good information, but she knew the rest of the group out there would condone it, no credible sources as they would see it. They had all suddenly become like that lately, except Jess of course, who Kera knew she could always count on to be mostly indifferent unless it came to kicking people. Kera smiled, they had all been friends for a long time, but something was coming between her and them, and she was afraid to know what it was. Kera yawned again and looked at the clock it was only 9:04 pm and already she was exausted. Popping her neck she decided to get ready for bed and call it an early night, she knew everyone else would be eager to leave in the morning.
***
Morning came around with the sunlight streaming in through the large hotel windows, right into Kera's bleery eyes. She opened them stiffly bringing up her hand to shield her eyes so she could tell what time it was. It had taken her longer than she liked to fall asleep the night before, while she was working the noise her friends had been making was less noticeable, but when she was trying to sleep it surrounded her like a choker.
The clock read 8:12 in large red numbers and Kera sat up in the bed to see all her friends still fast asleep around her. She wondered what time they had finally slunked away to bed, because it had been about 10:00 when she had fallen asleep. Kera bit back laughter when she saw Kelly curled up on the floor and Sandra taking up the entire rest of the bed. Sandra had several times pushed Kera off the bed in the middle of the night and she was sure Kelly was used to it by now. Kera carefully got out of the bed so not to wake Kiri who had chosen to share beds with her that night.
Kera quickly took a shower and got dressed and then wandered out into the main section of the hotel room to see Jess sitting at the table eating a peanut butter sandwich. "Hey Jess," Kera greeted cheerily, Jess was always a morning person, and she could always be found with some form of peanut butter.
Jess nodded and smiled, "Morning."
Kera gestured towards the room, "How long did they stay up last night?"
Jess shrugged, "Not sure, I came in shortly after 10:00 and you were asleep. They were making such a fuss over nothing, peanut butter is better than all that food, and those books were overrated."
Kera laughed, "That's why I just got you refills of bread and peanut butter, knew you'd appreciate that more."
Jess smiled, "Got to have a smarter view on life. So what did you find out yesterday?"
Kera pulled out her notebook, she knew that Jess would listen to what she found out, "Well, I figured out some possible hideouts for the idols and..." Kera continued to explain what she had found.
Jess nodded, "Sounds interesting..does that mean we have a lead?" she asked grinning.
"Yep, it means we have a lead." Kera answered nodding happily.
For the next half-hour until someone else woke up Kera and Jess talked about possible plans and actions that could be taken on the mission. But, once Cait and Ellie poked their heads carefully through the door and came out for breakfast Kera decided to join them and have something to eat. Her stomach growled in agreement, she hadn't eaten anything at all yesterday as lost as she had been in her work.
Kera poured herself some cereal and milk and sat down at the table with Jess again as Cait and Ellie fixed eggs and sausage for themselves. "Long night yesterday huh?" Kera asked easily.
Cait poked her head out of the kitchen nodding, "It was just what we needed books and delicious food!"
"I'm glad you guys liked it, we haven't been able to do that for a while," Kera smiled.
"I noticed you didn't join us though, what's up?" Ellie asked, knowing something was up if Kera didn't want to eat or read.
Kera shrugged, "I was just tired that's all...."
Ellie frowned not buying it, but turned back into the kitchen, "Yeah, you were asleep when we all turned in for the night."
"How long do you figure everyone else is going to sleep? They tend to like to sleep for like ten hours, so they're much worse than me; but I can easily wake them up..." Kera hinted, remembering how even though Kera usually got six or seven hours of sleep she was still considered the biggest sleeper. Besides, it was fun to wake those three up, they got easily mad about being woken up....
"Eh, leave 'em, let them sleep in today," Ellie called back from the kitchen, stirring the sausage around in the pan.
"If you say so, but they're not going to have time for breakfast or lunch then, we're leaving at 11:00 and not a minute later." Kera admonished.
Cait and Ellie exchanged amused glances, this was going to be fun, plan A started now....
At 10:30 despite Ellie's and Cait's arguments Kera went into the bedroom where Kiri, Sandra and Kelly were still fast asleep. "I don't care! They're going to want time to get ready before we leave so they're getting up now!" Kera yelled back.
The three lumps in the room didn't even move or twitch at Kera's yell, so they were either very asleep, or pretending to be asleep. Kera grinned, her teeth flashing menacingly in the room, if she couldn't have fun on the mission she might as well have fun being evil now. Kera grabbed a nearby remote and turned on the television to max volume on a hard-rock screaming channel and put her hands over her ears.
It only required a few seconds of the torture for the three to begin yelling and screaming at her to turn it off. They threw pillows and blankets at her and got up trudging off to the bathrooms, grumbling. Kera grinned and turned down the tv before turning it off, she then left the room triumphantly.
Unfortunately that triumph only lasted for a few mintues, because everything started going wrong, the shower acted up, Kelly's clothes had somehow gotten ripped, Kiri lost her toothbrush, something continued to become a problem, and they ended up leaving the hotel room at noon; Kera being the only one distressed and haughty. Jess merely observed everyone else, but the other five giggled quietly, happy to know that their plan was a sucess so far.
At 1:00 the group arrived at the main headquarters, flashed their badges at the guards and walked straight into Luke's oversized office. "So, we accept the mission, spill the beans." Kera instructed her voice tight and angry.
Luke raised his eyebrows at her and gestured for them to sit down, "In time, we'll get to it, why are you so angry?" He glanced back at the group of five and they gave him a thumbs up from behind Kera.
Kera glared at him, "It's nothing you were understand, now hurry up before I smack you a well deserved something...."
Luke's lips twitched but he answered anyway, "Here's the file, I didn't have much time to make it into a proper form to submit it to you, but I figured you'd want it anyway." Under the desk where everyone but Kera could see he waved a flash drive at them and tossed it carefully over to where one of them could pick it up.
Kera sighed angrily and snatched the folder roughly from his hands. "Fine, I'll do the grunt work again, just make sure that next time you offer me an important job you should do some work yourself...."
"Of course," Luke agreed easily, his smile complacent and understanding.
Kera didn't buy the smile for a second and instead stood swiftly from the chair and stormed from the room, "I'll give you a call when we've got this all wrapped up!"
The rest in the room began talking in quick murmurs to inform him of their plans. After they had finished Luke nodded, "Sounds good, now go catch up to her before she gets suspicious."
They nodded and left the room quickly. Luke grinned and pressed a small red button on his desk, "All right Aeo, here they come, I've sent them over to you...."
"Good work Luke, they'd never expect that all of us are spread out, and that you're right in the midst of the investigation." The voice of Aeo responded. "We'll see you later right?"
"Of course, I made it quite discreet as to your actual location so it should take them at least a few days, I'm planning to head out tonight and be back here in two days." Luke nodded, his plans were working perfectly so far.
"Good, we'll see you then Luke, we're looking forward to this...."
***
Okay...I thinks I'm done for today...but maybe not, if I add anything new it'll be in a different color.
Community Member
I read it! Just not the day you posted... hehe.