Geekomancy by Michael R. Underwood Read Free Book Online Page B

I’m going to try this and something explodes, it should be my something, not Bryan’s, Ree thought. There was also the whole magic-in-public thing.
    Ree returned to The Shithole, made sure Sandra hadn’t randomly come home for an unknown reason, then set to work.
    She had done as much research on the local suicides as she could during downtime at work, reading the news articles and chasing some of the chatter across social media sites from impromptu digital memorials that the girls’ friends had put up and set to public. It was an intriguing puzzle, with seemingly no connection between the victims other than their romantic circumstances. That’d be one hell of a specific serial killer, assuming there was malicious intent. Ree had no idea what magic could or couldn’t do to people’s minds. It was disturbing, the same kind of disturbing that led Ree to stay up too late at night watching horror movies.
    Setting her mind to the task, she changed into one of her “I am serious screenwriter” outfits. This one was a charcoal pantsuit with two buttons, a hint of extended shoulder, and an orange silk blouse. With that, she should be able to pass for a young and casual Someone Important.
    Next she pulled the first series DVDs for the BBC Sherlock down from its shelf and popped it in.
    All right, so I need to focus, internalize the awesome. But is it about the character or the show? The writing or the feeling?
    Probably the feeling, she decided, hoping she wasn’t about to explode thousands of dollars of tech.
    Ree smirked internally at how crazy it all was. But as much as it was crazy, it was also exciting. Magic. Real magic. And monsters and superpowers. She shook out the nervousness and queued up the first episode, “A Study in Pink.”
    As she watched, Ree dialed in to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes, his mannerisms and speech; as she did so, she couldn’t help but smile again at the great shot composition and use of the soundtrack.
    She’d just finished the scene where Sherlock uses his deduction-fu on the woman with the pink coat when the doorbell rang.
    Damnit, don’t lose focus. If she had to start over, she’d lose time, maybe miss something.
    Ree went to the door, still watching the show out of the corner of her eye, with the intention of brushing the visitor off. She peeped through the eyehole and saw the building’s superintendent. She opened the door a quarter of the way, leaning against the wall.
    As her eyes scanned the super up and down, her mind went into overdrive, a buzzing in her mind driving her thoughts.
    She looked down, and superimposed text popped in over his feet, the same font as in Sherlock .
    It read: Left leg .5 inches shorter than right.
    Her eyes scanned up the man’s leg to a patch of exposed skin where his stained shirt failed to cover his side.
    A line of text popped up over his waist: Surgical scar above the left hip.
    She noticed a metallic flash from a coin on a chain tied to his belt. 24th Infantry Division Challenge Coin.
    Holy crap, it’s working! Ree thought as her mind raced.
    She looked up to the man’s shoulders, then saw more text: Right shoulder displaced. Improperly healed.
    Then she looked him in the face. Sun damage. Crow’s-feet. Wrinkles.
    As the super opened his mouth to speak, Ree jumped the gun, saluting her super. “You never told me you had a Bronze Star, Sergeant.”
    The superintendent took a step back, crossed his arms. “Excuse me?”
    Ree continued without thinking, agape at what she was doing, her mind on Sherlock overdrive, jumping from fact to inference faster than she could keep track.
    “Your left leg is half an inch shorter than your right. There’s a surgical scar on your hip, suggesting extensive reconstructive surgery. You never wear shorts, even during the hottest parts of the year, because you’re self-conscious about your prosthetic leg. The displaced shoulder indicates that you pushed a squadmate out of the way of something,