Lex called Tiva again. No answer. He was beginning to panic.
He finally pulled up to the building and sprinted in and up the stairs.
He knocked on Tiva’s door repeatedly. No answer. A voice called out:
“Lex! I’m so happy to see you! You need to go find Tiva!”
“How’m I supposed to do that? Aren’t you the nigh omnipotent AI assistant?”
“That’s the problem. She’s off my radar. I haven’t seen her in over 18 hours.”
“How’s that possible?”
“I don’t know. It shouldn’t be. There’s nothing I can’t see.”
“Well, when was the last time you saw her?”
“Well, last time I saw her she was being released from custody, and then all the cameras went dead.”
“Fat lot of help you are,” Lex barbed, somehow hoping to hurt the feelings of a false personality stored on massive clouds.
“Well, I’m looking through the data and it seems like there’s something from last night. I can’t quite see it. It’s there…but…I…can’t…quite…put… my……………finger……………………………..”
The sound slowly lost speed and pitch until Lex was again alone.
Lex sprinted out to his car and stepped on the gas pedal, hurrying as quickly as traffic would allow to the warehouse district.
He drove around for an hour looking for it, but nothing in the area quite looked like it. Lex began to get frustrated. He’d been there multiple times this year. Why couldn’t he find it? It’s like it was just overwritten.
Lex tried to call. No answer from him either. Shit.
The day was starting to drag on, and Lex had nothing to show for it. Lex resolved to find Tiva. He went back to the police station and began to drive around.
It was at that point that a pedestrian hit his car.
Lex jumped out to see Perfid laying on the ground beside his car.
“Lex! Help me!”
Bryan Appley 