Things didn't happen the way he desired. When Thomas returned to work the next day, he realised that taking vacations wasn't that easy and simple at all.
Ellisa came, taking advantage of Trevor's absence. She rained at him with harsh words, and many comments about his responsibility towards the SA, and how he acted loose the moment his leader went away.
She acted like an angel as if she cared about Trevor and his department. Yet Thomas didn't buy any of that. He still didn't know why she was acting this way towards him, towards the department. Yet he remained silent, promised to follow the rules, to let her walk away without having what she desired.
"You should take leave permission," as she left, Lucy seemed to get annoyed by Ellisa's attitude, "We can leave half day if there is someone in the department to do our tasks. Just give an excuse for being ill and let me sign the scroll for you. We don't have work yet, just studying and reading cases."
"Oh, thanks for that," Thomas totally missed this point, "it seems I have to play by the rules of this world. Or else this tigress will come roaring at my face from time to time."
He did just as Lucy said. Starting from that day, he'd come early in the morning, fill an early leave request, and let Lucy sign it, before delivering it to the internal affairs department. The superheroes there were all nice and easy to talk with, didn't argue or ask any questions even when he came every day to do it.
He could now leave four hours earlier than his official working hours. Using this time, he went directly to the library and started to read through the books and scrolls out there.
For an entire week, he was the only superhero attending that section. The books he started reading were all speaking about the life of superheroes, singing praises about how great and righteous they were.
The more he read these things, the more he didn't buy any of this. Gradually he began to feel like living under the rule of tyranny, one which reminded him of many brutal tyrannies over the long history of humans back on Earth.
As he grew sick of reading this bullshit, he avoided picking such books and instead focused on the books of Qi practice. These were all theoretical books, talking about visions of strong superheroes over the course of time, speaking about how they thought of Qi and how to practise it.
According to these theories, Qi was present in everything around, even in dead objects. It could be harvested, but its concentration would determine the value gained from doing so.
Few believed superheroes' bodies were different from normal folks, as they got channels and places to store Qi there. Thomas could name these things as meridians and dantian, knew this wasn't a mere fantasy and any human body on Earth could develop these two things.
But he still didn't know why some people had it in them and others didn't. The theories didn't answer this question as well.
As he kept reading through the books, he noticed few speaking about the history of other sectors, the history of this era. They all mentioned in great praise the Great Monarch, speaking big about his achievements and accomplishments to the world of superheroes.
Thomas was curious about this man and wanted to know more of his history and life story. And yet not a single book out there spoke about any of that.
"Weird… How come they speak about him as if they are speaking about a god and there isn't a single book or mention of his life tale?"
Thomas found it weird, but he had nothing to do about it. He kept reading through the Shinning Day newspaper editions, reading many useless articles speaking of events that didn't matter to him.
Back on Earth, any newspaper would be arranged in sections according to the purpose of the articles. Yet this one here wasn't following such a rule. There might be entire editions speaking about construction projects, building new towns and villages, stretching train rails, and such. A few editions he read spoke about incidents and crimes, and these weren't relevant to what he wanted to find.
One week passed and he got absorbed in this routine. His life went peacefully until one day in the morning, he was destined to meet a shocking surprise for him.
He was sitting in the department, reading lazily through the latest reports sent by the team out there. Lucy wasn't that excited about reading such reports and preferred to read the old cases in the department.
Two hours passed from the start of this working day. As he was reading through a useless report of how they spoke to people in that town, asking them about the train incident and getting nothing, Thomas heard knocking on the door.
"Don't tell me that b*tch is here again," Lucy whispered while giving Thomas a funny look. During the past week, Ellisa came once on the excuse of checking over them. Yet she just wanted to find any mistake here to torture the two of them or just Thomas.
Even Lucy hated her! And that was enough evidence of how bad Ellisa's personality was.
"Excuse me, I have an urgent message from your boss," just when Thomas opened the door, he found an old man standing there, one who he didn't see before.
"A message? How come he kept sending these reports from far away and arriving this fast," Thomas thought it was a regular report about their investigation out there. Lest to his knowledge this was a different case.
"You must be new here," the old superhero cleared up his throat, and extended a red envelope to Thomas, one that was so small and weirdly resembled the one Trevor left before leaving all of a sudden, "I'm Tork, a superhero with long-distance mark ability."
"Oh, sorry sir, I'm new here and didn't recognise you," Thomas acted humble and polite with the man as the latter did the same to him, "but… May I ask what your superpower does? Oh sorry, forgot that's a taboo to ask…"
"No worries, I know you don't mean ill," the man paused before laughing, "Frankly my superpower is well known to everyone in the SA. I can mark anyone leaving far away, establishing some sort of a mental connection with him. Using that mark, that superhero can send back urgent messages towards here, and I receive them quite fast."
"It's like a telegram service then…" Thomas attached such a superpower with something technology provided back on Earth. He didn't mention cell phones or the internet, as this world was so retarded in terms of technology.
"What? I don't know what you are talking about," but even if he selected an old tech, it seemed this world didn't get to know it yet, "anyway, this service is only limited to big shots and department leaders. This is an urgent message from Trevor, and that means…"
"Oh, I'll open it right away, thanks sir," Thomas nodded slightly to the old man, before watching him walk away.
"What's the message about?" The moment he closed the door, he found Lucy standing by his side, curiously looking at the envelope he held in his hands like a cat looking for a meal, "isn't it like the one he left for us before?"
"I know," Thomas said in agreement. When he opened the envelope, he found a scroll out there, a small one, one the size of a finger.
It was rolled on itself, tied with a very thin black thread. When he unfolded it, his body couldn't help but freeze at first, then tremble next.
"What? What? Let me see… The writing is too small, I can't see anything…" Lucy kept moving right and left, trying to push her head in any space between Thomas and the scroll.
"He wants the two of us to go at once to that town," Thomas took a deep breath, finally saying what the message was saying, "We need to pack and leave right away!"
"Let me see… That's indeed true. But wait, didn't he tell us to not follow him?" She read the message in less than a few seconds, before raising her head and looking at him in a weird way.
"He is the boss, he can say whatever he wants, right?" Thomas didn't care at all about any of that. His mind was thinking about only going there, to the same town with the artefact hidden.
His long-desired desire was going to be fulfilled. And that alone was enough to drive adrenaline through his body.
"But… How can we go there?" she looked in a weird way towards him, "Why are you this happy? Don't tell me you want to go this badly out there!"
"I just want to know what happened back then," he hurriedly controlled his emotions, a task that he was getting better at handling with each passing day, "as for going there, we can board the train."
"It's expensive!" she complained, making him realise this issue.
"Then… Let's speak with a friend then," Thomas knew this situation was new for both of them, and they lacked any experienced one to give advice about what to do.
So he had no choice but to go to the finance department and seek the help of his most unreliable friend; Jax. He hoped the man wouldn't give poor advice this time, and luckily Jax was with one of his department colleagues.
He was a young superhero and seemed more reliable than Jax. According to him, they should head with the scroll to the resources department and would receive an allowance for the trip.
The two headed back to the resources department while asking among themselves why they didn't get this from the finance department. When they went there, they got to know the answer from the old man handling the department.
"You need to provide the scroll as I'll write down its content in the archive," the old man said, "then you'll get an allowance with a leave of absence for this mission. When your leader is back, tell him to come by and provide a detailed report about the mission."
Thomas handed the red envelope with the scroll inside to the old man. The latter did what he said, then handed the scroll and envelope back, before receiving enough Niks for the trip.
"Give me my money!" As the two walked away from the department, Lucy kept complaining out loud about this. Thomas rolled his eyes, and sighed while giving her the same response he said many times already.
"We are going to travel directly to him, and don't need to spend any money except for the tickets. It's not our money to spend, and will hand these over to Trevor once we meet him."
"I want my money! It's my money!" Lucy was acting as any stubborn young girl, without caring for whatever Thomas said.
The latter didn't need to go back to the apartment and retrieve the wallet or the paper inside. From all the times he read it, he memorised everything mentioned there by heart.
The two rented a chariot and headed to the train station where they boarded the first train leaving for that town. Thomas didn't know that by keeping the money away from Lucy, the latter created a loud scene, enough to attract the attention of someone undesired.
"What's all this is about?" from the top of the stairs, someone was watching the two moving down, heading outside the SA building while Lucy kept shouting and complaining, "They are leaving early on. And what's about this money thing? Something is fishy…"
Ellisa was too much focused on Trevor's department, and such a scene wouldn't escape her keen senses and ears spread all over the place. She watched the two leave the SA building, before moving her eyes towards one of her subordinates.
He was the newly joined superhero here, and his first task was to keep a close eye on the Investigation department. "You are sure they went to the Resources department?"
"Yes, my lady."
"You can go and take the rest of the day off," she waved her hand casually, while turning her eyes towards a specific direction, "let's see what is going on at that useless department."
She headed towards the resources department, ending up having what she wanted. The moment she learned about this, she decided to follow them as well.
Thomas didn't know that by teasing Lucy, he ended up attracting such a beast towards him and others, didn't know this was going to affect the adventure he was about to experience.