LEX leaned towards Bliss, a frown creasing his face.

"What's up with Joey?" he asked softly, "he's been moping around all morning."

Bliss looked up from her laptop, seeing Joey sitting slouched in a chair, scooping ice cream out of a tub and half-heartedly eating it.

"You're right, he looks pretty upset," she agreed, clicking her pen as she thought out loud, "what could have happened? Nothing bad's happened to his family that I know of, and most of his friends work here... Did I forget his birthday? No, that's only in a few months' time. Um..."

Bliss narrowed her eyes at the depressed figure, trying to figure it out. As she did, her eyes seemed to light up, and Lex could almost see the figurative lightbulb go on above her head.

"Today is Thursday, right?" she asked Lex, with the confidence of someone who had just solved a third-degree mystery.

"Yes, why is that important?" Lex asked curiously, feeling a little like Lestrade — clueless as to why that particular fact was of any asset to solving the mystery.

Bliss leaned towards him conspirationally.

"Jordan plays for FC Highcrest, the local soccer team. They always have matches on Wednesdays, I'm willing to bet he lost an important match yesterday."

Lex raised his eyebrows.

"Would losing a match really hit him that hard?"

"It might've been an important match," Bliss shrugged, "plus, he's the team's keeper, so he carries a lot of the responsibility. And he's good — so I've been told, I don't really know much about the sport — so people expect him to perform well."

Lex nodded slowly.

"What are you two talking about?" a voice enquired.

"Oh hi Mike! It was nothing, we were just discussing why Jordan looks so sad," Bliss smiled at the newcomer, "I think it's because he lost a soccer match."

"It's called football," Mike corrected stiffly, "and yeah, we lost yesterday."

"It's called football?" Bliss repeated with a frown, "huh, that's weird. I thought football was the thing with the oval-type ball?"

"That's American Football," Mike explained with a small roll of his eyes, "and Americans call football soccer, because they already have a different sport called football. But last I recalled, we were in England, where we call it football."

"Oh, my bad," Bliss shrugged.

"Did you need anything?" Lex enquired politely.

"Yes, actually," Mike nodded, "we're having problems with a WiFi signal, it's been acting up for weeks but our last technician was always too busy to check it out. Do you have the time to take a look?"

"That depends," Lex replied, turning to Bliss, "am I done here?"

Bliss opened her laptop, and started it up. It hummed, showing a logo of some computer company, and then the log in screen.

"Yep, it works!" she beamed, "you're free to go, Lex. Oh, and send Joey over here, maybe I can cheer him up. Or at least steal some of that ice cream."

She smirked, and Lex smiled.

"Will do."

He turned to Mike.

"Right, which way for the WiFi?"

-

"Steady Lex," Lex muttered to himself as he brought the two wires closer together. He narrowed his eyes as he pressed them against one another, and then quickly fixed it up so that they wouldn't snap apart anytime soon.

He closed the router and stepped back, dusting his hands off.

"I think that should do it," he told Mike, "why don't you switch back on the power and see?"

He gestured to the power switch, and Mike flicked the switch up.

There was a silence filled with anticipation, and then the green light on the WiFi router lit up.

"Yesss, step one complete," Lex grinned, "alright, now we just need to check if the signal is actually any better."

Mike took his phone out of his pocket, checking the settings to see how strong the WiFi connection was.

"All bars full!" Mike exclaimed in awe, "I haven't seen that since we first had this thing installed. You just made yourself a whole lot of friends, Lex."

Lex chuckled.

"Thanks. Was there anything else?"

"Nope, that's it for now," Mike answered with a grin, "I should be getting back to my desk. Thanks again!"

Lex waved as he walked away, dropping his hand when Mike disappeared out of sight.

"Friends, huh?" he mumbled to himself, turning around and dusting off the WiFi router, "that's... been a while."

He shook his head to clear his mind, and walked out of the room and back towards the main office section.

"Let's go see if they need me anywhere else."

As he walked down the passages, Lex realized that he already knew quite a few people. In just Tuesday and today, he'd already met a whole lot of people working at the British Reporters Sunday Standard, and for the most part, they were pretty friendly.

That lady up ahead in the passage, for example. That was Rosaline Tullipa, a sweet young lady with a flowery personality. And that guy in the chair was Benedict, although most people called him Ned or Ben. And the one standing by the back entrance was Angelo, a Spanish market vendor.

Wait a minute... Angelo?!?

Lex backtracked a couple of steps, looking down the passage that led to the back entrance. Yep, that was definitely Angelo, the guy that had sold him fruit about a week back. What was he doing at the British Reporter's Sunday Standard?

Lex's gaze switched to the other person standing in the passage; Joey. He was laughing at something Angelo had said, and handed him a large stack of newspapers.

Lex bit his lip. A part of him wanted to walk up to them and ask what they were up to, but another part told him that he should just slip away and pretend he hadn't seen anything. After all, he'd only been here two days — Wednesday didn't count, because that was work-at-home-day — so it really wasn't his responsibility to report if anyone was acting suspicious. For all he knew, Angelo visited the British Reporter's Sunday Standard all the time, and if Lex reported that as suspicious, he'd just look stupid.

Lex found his gaze searching for Isabel so she could help him with this decision, before realizing that he was on his own this time.

He made up his mind, and slipped away. He could always confront Joey about it later, right?

Let's just hope this isn't one of those decisions you end up regretting forever.

-

Special thanks (and a round of applause) to RangerStark for this beautiful drawing of Bliss Redwood =D.

If you're enjoying the story, please don't forget to vote & comment, I would really appreciate that. =D

~Evanlyn