Reaching Through Darkness

Ch20
Mirmo

Nea had just finished with the back hawk scrambled eggs when I knocked on Karen’s door. There was no response from her so I presumed she was pretending to be asleep in order to gain a few more minutes. At the temple I would have given her those minutes, but not on a mission and not on a day with so much to do. I loudly told her to get up and get dressed quickly. There was a sound between a grunt and a moan muffled by covers and a door. I turned around and went back to the armchair that had served as my bed for the duration of the mission.

“Hey Mir. I got a personal message from my comn a minutes ago from the Chancellor herself, saying she has put together a report on the scandal and left it at the senate for us to pick up.”

I nodded as Nea handled me a plate of white scrambled bat hawk eggs and a cup of steaming stim cafe. The smell of the dark brown cafe was enough to shoo away the gray, muddy grogginess of my mind. I got one bite in before an extremely sleepy young woman with chaotic hair and slumped shoulders walked in. Her eyes glanced around the room before she located the smell of breakfast and stared, nearly drooling at Nea. I had learned if poking, bugging, and threatening could not get her up, the smell of food would.

“Whoa, looks like someone has not had their shower yet. Mir, you should not let her be seen in public like this.”

If Karen was capable of Force shoving things, I am positive a large, heavy object would have been shoved hard in the direction of Nea. I knew this to be a fact after several hundred pillows being thrown at me. Lucky for Nea, she was not or awake enough to summon the energy required. Instead, my sleepy apprentice sat down on an armchair and stared at the floor until a cup of hot tea was handed to her. When I observed her eyes grow wider in wakefulness, I briefed her on the day’s plan. She nodded once or twice, but had no comments. I completely lost her attention when Nea handed her a plate of food. She hungrily woofed down her eggs and bread then handed back a clean plate back to Nea. Nea looked at the plate, her, and then me, shaking his head sadly. I threw up my hands, accusing him what I had done. He laughed a booming laugh that caused the dusty curtains on his one fifthly window to shake. Karen sneezed and glared at him at the same time.

“Do not worry darling. Go you take your shower and try on the pretty clothes I left by the door. Hurry up because I think your master has inherited your impatience he keeps complaining about.”

Another deep, dark glare was aimed at me before she walked off for her shower. Twenty minutes later she came out in black pants and a tight fitting medium blue shirt with her hair braided and ankle leather shoes. There was a lighter blue sash around her waist and I noticed a bow made out of the same material at the end of her braid. To top it all off she had on a dim black cloak with a hood that hung off on her back that wrapped around her body. She was cute, sexy, and stylish all at the same time. Nea did wonders to highlight the unknown beauty in that girl. There was a bit of an eye catching swing in her hips and carefully placed feet. I saw Nea watch her make her ever so slow way to the door. She then looked back at Nea with innocent eyes as if questioning him what he was doing. Nea grinned and muttered something about serves him right.

We piled into Nea’s cloud car and headed up. The glory of the several hundred story tall buildings had rubbed off a long time ago and now I found myself wishing for the lush green wetness of the temple. I could handle simple villages or a largish city or two, but this was getting to be too much. The crowds of people pressed on my mind. There was too much talk within the Force. The sound and smell of living beings could not just be sought out by the five normal senses, but heard and felt through the Force as a constant pounding pulse of life. I knew Karen was far more sensitive to this feeling and wondered out loud how she was handling the city.

“It’s alright. I’m kinda getting sick of all these people. There’s too many of them. They’re too busy ya' know? They think too fast. They feel too fast and too much. It’s like there’s nothing to focus on in the Force. Like, even the Force feels busy.”

I understood her completely. She had said it perfectly. During my nightly meditation I found the Force busy and unfocused. At the temple it was easy to feel the Force and find the center of focus, that being the temple with all the Jedi there. The Force had a calm, slow sense while here in the city, the Force felt like it was running as fast as it could to keep up with the billions of lives.

“Oh you Jedi and your Force. You act as if it is alive and I know it is not. Why worry about how ‘busy’ the Force feels? The Force will do what it wants. Anyhow we are here.”

Karen opened her door before Nea could come over and opened her mouth to argue. I shot her a warning to keep silent. We did not need bystanders catching our conversation about the Force or about Jedi.

We passed through security easily because Chancellor Leia had notified the guards of our arrival. We were lead by one of the guards to a special room that required a card and eye scan. The room was small and only contained a cabinet full of data pads. The guard went to the cabinet and pulled out a data pad and handed it to me. I thanked the guard and hid the data pad in my cloak. We were led out of the room by the guard and he would have escorted us to the door, but I told him I would like to show my niece around the senate. He nodded and left us. I asked Nea if he knew where we could view the information in private.

“Ol’ buddy, I could walk myself around here at night and drunk and still get where I needed to be. I had done a bit of law pushing myself in the older days.”

Nea quickly lead us to a tinted glass room that had a card swipe devise as security.

“How are you going to get in if you don’t have the key?”

Nea smiled at Karen and pulled out the guard’s card.

“I also have had to break into a few of these rooms before.”

Karen’s mouth went thin with disapproval.

Once we were safely inside, cameras had been spotted and fidgeted until they were programmed not to show us, then we settled down by a table and I pulled out the data pad to begin reading. The information Leia had provided for us was boring and did not seem to help us much. Most of it was facts we already had uncovered. In the report, I read about the scandal, which senators had been involved, where they had been during the time of the crime. Who they had been talking to and what other boring and unrelated laws they had been pushing. None of it was very interesting or made much sense. There was one strange fact that stood out in the information. They had all been seen on camera talking to a young man with dark-brown hair, tall, thin, well dressed, and brown eyes. I joked he sounded a lot like Karen’s kisser. Karen blushed and stared at the ground. There was nothing about the man, where he came from, or who he was working for. He talked to each senator on a different matter, but hinted something about a law he wanted passed, but no reason could be found on why or what law. Every time police tried to find him, he disappeared out of thin air, or so the police claimed. Sadly, he was the only interesting information, but he made less sense than the rest of the report.

“Well that was helpful.”

I sighed and understood how Karen felt. We got up, fixed the cameras, left the room, and walked through the hallways. There was silence amongst us. Each person contemplating the boring report, wondering what was going on. I asked Nea what should we do. Should we go to Ven and see if he could make sense of the report or should we go to the crime lords before they get angry with our lack of communication.

“I say we go to Ven and see what he thinks. It will only take an hour or two. We could comn the gang lords from there if you are so worried about them.”

I nodded and wondered if I could have the Dawners do some digging that I could not do. The thought of the Dawners made me think of Karen and if she was going to become their leader some day. I looked over my shoulder to see what Karen was thinking. She had been quiet too, probably thinking about last night. I looked over, but saw no one behind us. I reached out into the Force, but could not find her presence anywhere near. I stopped walking and turned around with a pounding heart. There was no one around us.