"See you soon," said the voice on the other end of the telephone.
Rory Gilmore sighed and got out of her chair. She walked into her small annex apartment and set her bag on the coffee table. She opened the fridge, took out a can of diet coke and proceeded to pop the lid. She felt a rush of endorphins from the rush of caffeine in her system. She kneaded her temples with her fingers and tried to work out the caffeine-pain. Closing the can of coke, she walked the 5 paces to her bedroom. She sat down on her bed, reached up to her head, then froze. Then, she stood up and reached over to her bedside table.
Know-it-all, that I am. Smarty pants, she thought.
A lock was on the door. Rory picked the lock and opened the door. She glared around her room. It was a pretty straightforward space. It was very plain. The walls were plain white, the floors and the doors were plain beige, but the walls were lined with rows of bookcases. She stood up and walked over to the bookcases. She pulled out books as she walked across the plain floor.
A book on leadership. A book on linguistics. A book on solar system geopolitics. A book on android technology. Fiction, still fiction, fiction, some kind of weird cyber hacker book, huh? All kinds of fiction, though - especially if she is a romance nut.
Rory flipped through the book on android technology. She noticed that the book was slightly thicker than the other books. She put the book back and found a book on botany and flipped it open. It was thicker than usual, as well. She put that book back and read the titles of the books on the bottom shelf. Surprisingly, some of the books on the bottom shelf seemed to be covered in long strips of cloth. She bent over to take the books off the bottom of the shelf, so she could see what the books were about.
''Destinies: A Romance By Emily Lovelace and D. L. Graves,'' ''The Great Science-Fiction Love Story Thing'''''Rise of the Robots'' by Alistair A. Stevens, and ''Love's Evolution: A Romance' by Meredith Grier
Rory swallowed. She pulled the strips off the books and stood up. She was thinking about what she had found when her phone rang. She dropped everything and raced to her bedroom. She pulled open the topmost drawer of a bureau, grabbed her phone, and ran to the door. She picked up the phone without opening the door.
"Hello?" she said.
"Rory," said the voice on the other end.
"Yes, Janie," she replied.
"Please come get me," Janie said.
"What's the problem?"
Janie sighed.
"I don't want to talk to you in person. I don't even want to talk to you on the phone. Whenever I try to talk to you, I just get yelled at," Janie said.
"Okay," said Rory.
"Please come and get me now. You're a nice person, Rory," Janie said.
"I'm doing something," Rory replied. "I'm taking a look around. It's good. I'll get your job done."
"Rory?"
"Yeah, Janie," she said.
"I'll pay you when you come to get me. What was that?"
"Uh, I'm coming now," said Rory. "I'll get one of the drones to report back to my computer when I get done, how does that sound?"
"Fine, see you soon," said Janie. "I hope this works out."
Janie hung up. Rory put the phone on her bedside table and stared at her apartment. She walked from one end of the place to the other, on the lookout for something, anything. She felt like a scientist. She was looking for something she did not yet know about. She walked all about her room, listening for something, for something not human. Her phone rang.
"Hello?" she said.
"What's going on? Are you in your apartment? Is something wrong?" said Janie.
"Locked was locked, I'm looking around. I'll come get you when I'm done," Rory said.
"All right. I should be back by tomorrow," Janie said.
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