*
Seth looked down at the empty backpack on the bed, and he stared blankly at it. There was room for a laptop, maps, trail mix, underwear, whatever he thought that he would need, but he could not decide what it was he needed to take with him. Of course, it would be all of those things loaded into the backpack, but his determination was not there. He had lost some of the inspiration for doing his job along the way, and the inability to even load a backpack was a sign that maybe it was time to try something different. He looked up from the unmade bed, and he stared at the condition of his room.
“What am I thinking?” he asked himself as the amount of clutter shouted at him, “CLEAN ME UP!!!”
Seth Hogan’s life had been in a constant state of flux since he had graduated college. There was his time with the military in the Middle East, and there was the time spent in the DAM. Both spans had different duties, but there was never any consistency except with the people he worked alongside. In the military, he had buddies that he toured beside. Likewise in the DAM, he had comrades that he solved mysteries beside. But his home life had consisted of drive-thru meals, pizza, and a few video games and movies. The focus in his life had been his friends at work and the work itself. There was very little time for building up some sense of a unique identity, and there were some days that this lack of self-identification bothered him. This was one of those days, and as he surveyed the bedroom, his mood was not improving. He reached down and picked up the backpack along with a handful of underwear and socks, and he carried the items to the countertop in the kitchen. Within minutes, Seth loaded up the backpack with all of the necessities for work and flight delays, and he headed out the door of the apartment at Inner Harbor.
At ground level, he stepped out into the chilly morning air, and he whiffed in the sea breeze air. The salty odor made him feel alive once again, and as he listened to the sea gulls fight over a bagel that had fallen into the water, he thought that he could cope with the adversity again. Life always moved one step at a time, and he would commit to cleaning up the apartment when he got back from Fresno.
“No, wait a minute,” Seth thought, “it’s Three Rivers, California. The flight goes into Fresno, and then a short drive east to some facility in a small town. But the name of the town sounds relaxing.”
The bus ride over was forgettable, and Seth stepped out onto the sidewalk at ground level of the office building where the DAM was located. He caught a glance of Dr. Tatum as she walked through the path that led to the foyer, and he was surprised to see that she was not wearing a dress suit, which was her normal office attire. The field agents all wore the blue and black shirts that were standard issue, and though Dr. Tatum had her briefcase, she was outfitted in a field agent top. She also had a travel bag in her other hand that presented a mystery to him.
“Funny,” he said to himself as he fell in line behind her. Routinely, he would have called out to her and chatted with her as they climbed the stairs, but the change in outfit and the travel bag caught him off guard. No big deal though since he would have to consult with her this morning about the trip. “I’m sure there’s some reason that she’s underdressed for work today. Maybe she just wants to fit in with the group a little better, though the group has been just the two of us for quite a few days now.” He shrugged off the questions, and he followed her into the office. She arrived a minute before he did, and he expected to see her waiting to greet him at the door, but when he strolled into the entry way, she was nowhere to be found. Her briefcase was sitting alone and unguarded by the desk in her office.
“Where is she?” Then Seth heard some commotion coming from the archive and library area, and he headed down the hall to check things out. “Theresa? Where are you?” he called out with no reply except the sound of banging file cabinets. He turned the corner at the doorway, and he found his boss going through the drawers full of artifacts that had been collected over the organization’s many years of service. In particular, Dr. Tatum held a necklace in her hands, and she attached it around her neck.
“Everything okay, Doc?” Seth inquired, but before she answered, she gave him a long look of disgust.
“Yep! Everything is just fine!” she countered with a slam of a drawer. “Just fine!” she added in case he had not caught the emphasis the first time. Seth knew when to back off, and he nodded his agreement.
“I can tell,” he replied and backed out of the room. Dr. Tatum followed with a scrunched up file folder in her hands. The folder could have been important since she was grasping it with such ferociousness, but given her mood, the folder could also have been the helpless victim that sat on the top of the growing pile of cases. Seth would normally have asked if the file was his next assignment, but he thought that he would give her the chance to speak first. He backed up against the wall in the hallway, and she thrust the file at his chest for him to take.
“The information for our assignment is all there,” she fumed as she let go of the documents and stormed into her office. Seth caught the folder and opened it up to check the information inside. To say that the documents were lightly handled would be an understatement, but he could read everything inside once the papers were smoothed out on the flat surface of his desk. The details were fairly straightforward. A former government employee, Huit Brighter, had disappeared last week from a nursing facility in Three Rivers, California, and there was little circumstantial evidence to go on. By the long personnel file, Huit was an elderly man who had served as part of a government think tank during World War I and World War II.
“Wait a minute,” Seth said aloud. “This guy that’s missing, he’s over a hundred years old?! Holy crap, what would anyone have to gain from his kidnapping?”
“You tell me? I have no clue either, but as the only DAM agents on site, it’s up to us to figure it out,” Dr. Tatum answered with a yell from her office.
“Did I hear what she just said?” Seth wondered. “Doc. Are you an agent?” Another slam of a desk drawer, and out came Dr. Theresa Tatum with her bags packed for travel.
“I am now,” she said in a more agreeable tone. “Well, it’s good that I still have a job, and I like the people I work with,” she added as she handed Seth his plane ticket. He accepted it, and they quietly collected their necessities for the trip before locking up the office. Crush and Pound would have to let themselves in if they returned before Seth and Dr. Tatum made it back.
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound Annual 3 Page 7
