The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2770 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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The meeting lasted half an hour but by the end I had a clear view of the problem. It was something in their computer system that had malfunctioned and locked all the data. I called Sammi who after taking on board the problem asked if she could access their computer remotely. I thought they would all die from shock but did my best to explain that she was completely trustworthy and worked for the bank as a cyber-protection manager. I also told them it was she who’d written the software that had malfunctioned. Eventually they agreed and it felt quite weird watching the computer operating without anyone sitting in front of it.

She asked me to put my phone on speaker and after a few questions she discovered that someone had tried to do something it wasn’t designed to do and had crashed the system. It took her a further hour to repair the damage and recover the data. Then the computer switched itself off and eventually rebooted itself and seemed to be working perfectly.

I made ready to leave. Back at my car I noticed it was now half past one and my tummy was grumbling. I called Danni and received a not available signal, tending to indicate her phone was either off or the battery had failed. Now how would I find her?

My return to Cribb’s Causeway was quicker than my journey to the university and I was parking my car just twenty minutes later. I sat quietly and tried to tune into her but all I got was darkness and a load bumping noise. The darkness concerned me as it was daylight but the bumping tended to reassure me she was still alive, though not necessarily conscious, which was a bit worrying.

I asked her to tell me where she was but received nothing. Where would I start and if she wasn’t walking about shopping how would I see her anyway? I resolved to spend an hour searching for her and if I hadn’t found her to call the police. At least I had a recent photo of her on my laptop—which was hardly a consolation. Then I had a thought—I booted up my computer and emailed the photo to my mobile. Then I tried to recall what she was wearing—a longish pink and blue top over shorts, very short shorts, and grey tights with ankle boots. She also had a brown circular bag.

I locked the car and set off—I was hungry, so first stop was a sandwich bar and a tuna baguette with a bottle of water. I ate as I walked about trying to let my unconscious mind drift to pick up any hint of her. Ten minutes later, the wrapper from the roll was deposited in a litter bin and I’d washed down the bread with half the water.

I went into one or two boutique type shops who sell teen wear but they didn’t recognise the picture on my phone. I kept walking and asking and finally I met a shop assistant who remembered seeing her. She couldn’t however remember whether Danni bought anything or what she was looking at.

I was beginning to feel it was looking like a job for the Avon and Somerset Police when I heard a regular thumping noise. I walked towards it, it was one of those concrete bashing attachments for a JCB and it was working across the road from the retail park. At least I knew which part she was in. Sitting for a few moments I tuned into her and the thump thump of the machine matched with the one I could hear from across the main road.

Imagining a blue string which connected both of us I began following it, getting some very funny looks as I muttered to myself and kept closing my eyes. It led me to some shops then around the back of them to an area which is normally reserved for deliveries or refuse collection. I tried to tune out disruptive thoughts about what I would say when someone asked what a woman in a DK suit with high heeled boots was doing poking about behind the shops. Thankfully there was no one around and I was able to ask the energy to find her for me and then lead me to her.

It took several moments before, in my mind’s eye, I could see a blue line leading beyond the block I was in, to the one across a small road used for access to the rear of the shops. I followed it and the set up was almost identical to the one I’d just explored. I hoped this was really helping not just giving me the run around. The blue light didn’t seem to like that very much and stopped helping at all for several minutes.

After about five, very long minutes, it began to assist me again and I began searching behind the stores in this block. I’d quickly looked in everything I thought I see when a niggling idea came into my head. I developed a sharp pain on the back of my head and a sense of falling. It stopped seconds later. She’d fallen off or down something. What the hell was she doing out here in the first place?

I poked about but there was nothing obvious except the loading ramps for deliveries and the large enclosed skip type bins. “Show me,” I demanded of the energy and I felt an object about the size of a hand propelling me towards a huge bin. It stopped when I actually crashed into the bin, which made me less than happy as it didn’t look particularly clean. I went to move away but the force kept me very close to the bin. There was a chute connecting it to the building two or three floors up. Was that how she came to be in there—the bin?

I walked around it and on the far side found a couple of doors which opened when a rusty lever about three feet long was released. This looked like fun, I don’t think. I pulled at the lever and yanked, even hung from it but it didn’t move. Wonderful, how was I supposed to develop muscles in a few seconds flat? Once again I was propelled against the bin. This time closely enough to see the lever was locked by a thick piece of cord. After cutting it, the cord that is, I yanked hard on the lever and this time it moved a fraction. Ten very sweaty minutes later, I had to rest to get my breath back but the lever was off the door. I took me ages to get the door open breaking two nails in the process.

The bin was dark inside but for a moment I thought I saw Danni’s bag. I grabbed piece of a broken pallet and poked towards it, using the still attached nail to the end of the pallet, like a hook. Pulling my prize towards me, it was indeed Danni’s bag which on inspection contained all it should including a purse full of money. So robbery wasn’t an issue.

There was nothing for it, but to get in the bin and poke about, was there anything else of hers in there, or even Danielle herself. The concrete breaking continued in the background. It’s not easy climbing up into a bin in a tight skirt and high heeled boots but bloody mindedness, a lot of cussing coupled with brute force and ignorance got me up level with door, whereupon I fell into it—the bin.

Two minutes later my head cleared enough to start poking about for my own bag and once located I started feeling for Danielle’s which I’d dropped on falling. It was dark in there and I poked about in between broken boxes and manqué mannequins when I suddenly stopped. It felt like someone’s leg. In seconds I was working in a frenzy only to discover it was one off a shop dummy.

Standing up to spare my aching back, I could just about make out what looked like a leg in grey material. My tummy flipped and when I carefully excavated it, the leg was attached to a pair of short denim shorts and those to a pink and blue top. Once again I threw things about in a frenzy and this time uncover the prostrate form of my teenage daughter. I checked she had a pulse. I’d have to climb out again to get a signal and just as I was about to work out how to escape this filthy prison I heard something above me and something slid down the chute knocking me flying and burying me under a pile of debris. I couldn’t move.