Aya knew something was wrong the moment she entered the office of Spero Services. Her two partners were acting like they did whenever something went wrong. Nadia was cleaning the office in a fury, scrubbing the floor and trying to sort everything in vain. Meanwhile Collin was sitting in the ragged office chair behind the old desk, staring at the desk in a sulking manner. Beyond the soft swearing that could be heard from Nadia as she scrubbed at the hard floor.

She sighed and put down her bags of supplies onto a small clear space on one of the tables near the entrance of the small office. "Ok, what happened?"

"Asshole of a client." Nadia said as she continued scrubbing at the floor.

"Can't really call them a client if they refuse to let us work for them, can we?" Collin chimed in, still sulking from his desk.

She sighed again. She really hated when these two got like this. It would take hours to calm Nadia down from her frenzy. And she always organized things wrong, even if it wasn't her fault that she didn't know any better. But she could not afford to have all her records be out of order again. There were better things to do with her time than resort them. It wasn't like a Hacker had hours of time to waste on pointless things like reorganizing. "Another racist pig huh?"

"In a nutshell yeah." Nadia threw her washrag across the floor. It landed against a cluttered bookshelf in a small, pathetic heap. "You're a human Aya, so tell me. What is it about demons that make humans think they can treat us like dirt?"

Aya held up her hands in defense. "I have no idea Kitty. I told you before, I was raised to treat demons well. Mommy and Daddy were all about the equal rights between all sentient creatures." She didn't like it when they associated her with the jerks of her species. But Kitty was upset, so she let it slide. Nadia would apologize later for that remark. "Look, so we got a loss of a client. Their loss. We'll get one soon, just you wait-"

"Wait until what? We get an eviction notice?" Collin interrupted with anger in his voice. Great, she thought to herself, just what we need. One of Collin's temper tantrum. It amazed her how delayed they always were, not occurring until hours, sometimes days, after the offending incident took place. She didn't understand why it took so long for him to do it. Then again, there were a lot of things she didn't understand about him.

Probably one of the reasons she was never comfortable enough to call him a friend.

"You won't get an eviction notice," she said, trying to calm him down. "If we really need it, I'll use the money I get from my side jobs to pay the rent." There was a benefit to being a certified hacker. People paid you quite a lot just to find the easiest information.

"I didn't work my ass off to get approved by the mercenary guild to live off your side money. I did it to get some respect, not to be considered another idiotic demon," he slammed one of the desk drawers shut so loud it made Aya jump. He got out of his chair in one swift motion. "I'm going for a walk."

"Do you want anyone to go with you?" Aya asked, more out of a feeling of obligation of being polite than the wanting to go with him. When Collin lost his temper, she preferred to stay clear of him. He was unpredictable enough for her when he wasn't throwing a fit.

"No. Just wanna clear my head" he didn't even turn around as he spoke, just walked straight out the door and slammed the door behind him. Aya took a breath in relief, feeling the air in the room grow less tense. She looked over at Nadia, who was looking at the door with a concerned expression on her face.

"Oh don't worry Kitty. He does this a lot, remember? He'll fume for a few hours and then he'll be good again." Aya said, she didn't like it when Nadia was worried about Collin. It wasn't like Collin would say anything to ease her worries. He never said anything that would give away too much about himself. He was always hiding things about him, then going off and reacting worse to things than he should. No matter who he hurt in the process. Aya didn't like that, Nadia deserved better treatment than that.

Nadia nodded, pushing the loose strands of her ginger hair behind the cat ears on the side of her head. "I just don't like it when he gets like this. That's all." She quickly got up and started sorting papers on the desk nervously. Aya quickly went over to her and places her hands on Nadia's arm, pulling her away from the desk.

"Forget about him Na. He gets mad sometimes, nothing more. It wasn't your fault." Aya smiled at her, trying to make her calm down. She knew Nadia, despite her cool attitude towards him, looked up to Collin, and it made her upset whenever he would get mad. It was like watching a small child getting scared every time their parent got upset. "Come on, lets go do something fun to get your mind off things." Nadia gave a nervous small smile. "I'll show you some hacker tricks, ones that will for sure get you extra points when you test for that mercenary certification of yours."

"But I'm testing to be a Seeker, hacker skills won't help me." Nadia said, shaking her head. Aya sighed, knowing that if she left Nadia alone in this state, she would clean the entire office and they would never find anything ever again.

"You say that, but do you really want to be a glorified thief? I mean thats like a step above delivery boy. Hackers? We're cooler." she took Nadia's hand and started leading her away from the desk. "Besides, it wouldn't hurt to know this stuff no matter what you decide to become."

Nadia hesitated, but finally nodded a little. "Okay, if its not a hassle for you."

"Teaching you is never a hassle. Don't think that for a moment" Aya said in a serious voice, shaking her head so hard her short black hair got into her face. "Okay come on, the first hacker trick? Is the right type of coffee to drink on the job. Lets go." She ran over to the coat hanger and grabbed Nadia's jacket and brought it back to her.

"Are you sure we should leave the office alone? What if a clien-" Nadia started to say but Aya cut her off.

"We will be gone fifteen minutes at most. I think its safe to say we won't miss anyone."

At that moment, the door of the office opened, and the bell on the door chimed. Both of them turned to see a tall man standing in the doorway. He was an older man, with flecks of gray in his burnt red hair that was cropped short to his head. "Excuse me, is this Spero Services?"

Thank you irony for stepping in, Aya thought, just when she about to make Nadia feel good. "Yes, that's us. how can we help you?"

Word Count: 1240
Total Word Count: 3984/50000