Clearly a Professional

"Mister fax machine, why do you hate me?" Sage inquired to the inanimate object in exasperation.

The machine only seethed sickly in response before resuming to making the low rattling noise it was making before. The Computer Technician had spent the past few minutes trying to fix the problem with this machine, and clearly it wasn't any electrical error but a mechanical one. And sadly, the young American was by no mean mechanically inclined.

With a small frown, she pulled out her smart phone and began searching the internet for possible fixes. Yet the attempt was in vain, for there were no helpful results to be found. Perhaps it was because she couldn't properly identify the problem or that the model wasn't widely used, but either way she found no answer.

Putting the phone back in her pocket, Sage stopped to glance around the office for a moment.

No one was looking, from what she could tell.

WHAM!

She smacked the side of the machine, and the rattling ceased.

When in doubt, just hit it. She thought to herself with amusement.

Greg was coming back from his coffee break as he heard a thudding sound, more of a whacking sound when he though about it. Heading around the corner, he saw Sage, the computer tech, whacking the machine. Greg observed her for a moment.

"Trouble with the fax machine?"

He allowed a brief smile to flicker over his features before taking a sip of his coffee, which was quickly turning cold. Greg was a busy man and he couldn't afford for anything to be broken, even if he had no intention of ever using it. That's why you had email, right?

"If you want, I have one in my office."

It was a limited time offer, the fax machine worked but was hardly used, and by the treatment of the machine in front of him, he wasn't keen on swapping out his machine for the damaged and broken one.

He turned around and continued walking back to his office, hopefully, Sally had put a case for him to check out, as there seemed a lack of cases and murders recently. And he was feeling rather slow, not because of his old age but because nothing was actually happening, this was the highlight of his day in fact.

Sage couldn't enjoy her small victory for long, and quickly found that one of her superiors was watching the whole time. Naturally, she was embarrassed, yet tried to play it off as smoothly as possible.

"I guess you could say that."

She looked back to the machine for a moment. It looked fine and functional now, but she still didn't trust it. In truth, she wouldn't even use a fax machine in general. Yet one of the workers had mistaken her for an errand girl, and she reluctantly complied with doing the task even though it wasn't in her job description. Her gaze went back to the Investigator, and her eyes brightened hopefully at the offer.

"Oh, that would be great, actually!"

She hurriedly got together the papers she was given and began to follow him. As she walked, she couldn't help but voice a few thank yous and other phrases of gratitude. And feeling as though she were rambling, she paused for a while before changing the subject.

"I don't think we've met, right?" Out of habit, she pushed up her glasses a little. "I'm Sage Underwood, the new Computer Technician."

As a sort of side note, she added, "It's my first week here."

"No, we haven't met before. Greg Lestrade. Nice to meet you, Sage." he said with a nod. It was bit odd having the parade of gratitude following him, for now he didn't say anything, sitting down behind his desk. He had to admit, having a new member to New Scotland Yard was fun and refreshing.

He opened the first file that was marked urgent, a frown appearing on his face, he did not like this. This wasn't at all good. He got to his feet, still reading the file. "Sage…take a look at this."

It was a case file about a guy that he had put behind bars, now the guy had broken out and most likely looking for him with a bucket full of revenge. "I know you're just a computer tech, but can you hack into the jail files?"

Lestrade knew what he was asking was illegal, but when a guy that was HIGHLY unstable, the rule book was thrown out of the window.

"Very nice to meet you too!" She chimed cheerfully.

Once in his office, she casually went to the fax machine and started faxing the papers she had in her hands. She wasn't really sure what they were for, but a quick glance over showed that they must have been reports of some sort. Nothing interesting, really. The photos in the stack implied a car robbery. She was just about done with faxing the papers when Lestrade called her over.

"Hmm?"

It was then that she was presented with case files. The escapee looked pretty scary, in her opinion. And according to the file he might just go out on a rampage now that he escaped. Maybe he'd go after the people who threw him in prison in the first place, or the wardens who watched over him, heck maybe even Scotland Yard. Sage didn't know, but the man certainly seemed dangerous.

Just as she was about to question why she was looking over said files, she was given an answer. At first she was shocked, but her expression turned to childish excitement.

First week and she gets asked to do something illegal by a keeper of the law?
An offer she couldn't refuse.

"Of course! Just don't tell on me." She joked.

"Okay, so I'm not a master at hacking, but I at least know what to do. Uhm, should I use your computer? Or should we play it safe and use someone elses-- I mean, it doesn't really matter since we can use multiple proxies and it make it a pain for anyone to trace back to us, but I don't know if you want to risk it...?"

Sage bit her lip in thought and looked over to him, wondering what he might want to do.

"I don't really care whether you are a master at hacking, but you can do it, right? Look, use my computer, I'd take the risk because, this guy is dangerous. He's killed several students and almost killed me once…or twice." Greg said, getting out of his chair for her to sit down on.

"I'm sorry for my irritancy," He stopped, grabbing at his radio. "I'm calling a meeting, NOW." He said into his radio.

He glanced at Sage, a smile tugging at his lips. "Look, I'm not telling on you but people in my department needs to know this sort of stuff, don't worry. Continue doing it, I need to go to the meeting room, come along if you want to."

Greg tapped his foot and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth several times and walked out, down to the meeting room where every senior officer was gathering along with a few police officers.

Sage blinked with surprise at the thought of someone having a near death experience more than once. She could sympathize, though. She may not have had anyone try to kill her before along with other, but if someone had, she would surely do the drastic to bring the man to justice as well.

"Of course I can! I'll try to be quick about it." She strode over to the desk, taking his seat as he left it and setting her stack of papers off to the side.

"Ah, I'll just be here. I may or may not have something by the time you're back."

As the meeting went on, Sage went out in her way to build up several website based proxies before "peeking" at some of the jail files in relation to their suspect. It took a while to find and access the particular database in which the file was located, but she did eventually get in. There was really nothing of great significance in the man's file. He had been in there multiple times, and there were some extensions on his time due to violence toward the prison guards or other prisoners. Other than that, there was nothing worth mentioning.

The meeting had ended in Lestrade feelin inab rather grumpy mood as he started his way up stairs and back to his office. He stopped just out of Sage's line of vision, steeping around the photocopier before headin towards her. Lestrade sighed, gently knocking on the doorframe, although the door was open. He didn't want to spook her and get her off task.

"What do you have for me sage?"

Sage looked up from the computer slightly in acknowledgement to his presence before focusing back to the files displayed on the computer.

"So far, it seems to be generic stuff. Served time on multiple occasions... Had extended time for violence towards prison guards and other prisoners... solitary confinement twice..."

"Oh! Let me check the visitor records." She started to furiously type once more, "Maybe he has a friend?"

"Uhhhhmmm, looks like he made a few phone calls a week before his escape. To who, I don't know... But check this out." She patted the desk as a gesture for Lestrade to come over, and she even turned the computer towards him a little. "This week, he had several visits from the same person."

"Great job, Sage! I must have you work up here more often..." Greg said, side noting it for next time. He needed to get the phone number and set up a warrent so that once they find whomever the guy was talking to, search his house and possibly be able to try him for a couple of things. "I would like to have all CCTV footage an a background check of all visitors in and out." He sat down, sighing, things were working in his favour.

((End?))

Sage grinned at the compliment. She would very much like to work in this field a lot more. Her current arrangement consisted of maintaining endless streams of code and fixing easily solved computer problems on the computers of her co-workers. A change in scenery would be very nice.

"I'll get right to it then!" She turned the computer back to herself and was back to the now familiar furious typing. With a bit of a laugh, she said more to herself, "This is gonna be so much fun..."

[ Sure ;u; ]