Travis loved mornings. He usually was up and dressed at five AM, and rarely if ever slept past eight.
There was just something invigorating and joyful about morning that made Travis unable to stay asleep for very long after sunrise. His chronically light sleeping habits may have been due to the bright sunlight he could nearly feel on his skin after he opened his house door to get the morning paper, as clichéd of a reason as that may be. Perhaps his early bird nature was caused by the wet grass he and Texas trotted on whenever they went for a jog, or maybe the fresh air that one could only breathe in the AM.
Whatever the cause, Travis found his spirit to be most at ease in the dawn. It was all the better, then, that Travis had the job that he did. His job demanded that his hours be as flexible as his lanky body was. At any moment, at any place, and at any time, the blackberry strapped to Travis’s pants could chime and send Travis to anywhere in the country. Through a turn of unlikely events, Travis was currently employed as a Special Agent for the BAU. While his appointment to this position made him quite popular at parties and his mother very proud, his job was nowhere near as exciting or glamorous as the tv dramas that his father loved to watch indicated. Travis was originally hired into the organization not due to his knack for saving hostages from madmen, or a knack for taking out terrorists with a two by four and some tooth floss, but mostly because he majored in accounting at a time when most people others turned their efforts towards studies in Political Science and English. He wasn’t particularly skilled at math, but Travis found that he was particularly able when it came to devoting hours and hours of his life to work that most sane people would find mind numbingly dull and repetitive. True, in college he had very excellent grades, but when you go to the local community college there really is not much else to do but study.
Well that, or die of severe alcohol poisoning, which is not to say people were incapable
of doing both. In any event, Travis’s new role as a Special Agent wasn’t very different from his role as an accountant. Charlotte had a fair deal of crime, but the city police was quite capable and preferred to handle most of the things that went down. Travis was twenty nine years old, yet if one were to look at him one may have assumed that he was nineteen. The youthful looking man stood at six feet and four inches. He was a bit scrawny, though not to the point of looking like a twig in a suit. He usually kept his blonde hair short and well combed, and his eyebrows were thin and even.
The glasses he would wear were rimmed at the top and contained two different lenses, which served to correct both of his blue eyes poor vision. Travis preferred glasses over contacts; they were less of a hassle to wear and he did not have to touch his eye to put them on. He had rejected the possibility of laser eye surgery altogether, there are some places where technology did not belong, and Travis’s cornea was one such place. His work outfit was a blue blazer, some well folded and ironed black dress pants, and a blue and gold striped tie given to him by his beaming father when the BAU accepted him as an accountant. Travis’s clothing
was quite well pressed, but his tie in particular was kept in tip top condition. Travis didn’t feel that he was particularly egotistical, but he kept the letter of acceptance to Quantico laminated and framed on the table next to his bed. He came from an upper middle class family, his father worked for banks as a human resource consultant and his mother taught arithmetic to third graders at First Ward Elementary school in Charlotte. His parents were getting a bit on in years, so Travis took great care to perform his
morning routine as silently as he could. Today was no different. Travis began each morning by making his cot’s sheet nice and neat soon after he managed the willpower to get out of bed. He found the challenge of getting up out of bed a manageable one, but he wasn’t the type to sleep alone often.
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His near perpetual cot-mate was a big hundred and twenty pound yellow lab named Texas, and Texas was a bit more of a heavy sleeper than Travis was. Travis had learned through his seven years with Texas that the big mutt absolutely adored sleep. Getting up out of bed and fetching a milk bone from the basement closet, Travis demonstrated something else that he had learned about the state sized dog. While Texas loved sleeping, he enjoyed eating even more. Travis placed the bite sized treat an inch from the dog’s black nose, and Texas’s brown eyes opened as if he were just splashed with ice cold water. With a wag of his nearly two foot long tail, Texas jumped out of bed and sat on the floor obediently. Travis chuckled.
“I guess you can move quickly, if the circumstances are right. Ok boy, here you go, don’t eat it
too quickly.” The dog scarfed down the treat resting in Travis’s outstretched palm. After spending five minutes folding his sheets and making his cot, Travis went upstairs to the ground floor of his parent’s home, followed closely by Tex. Travis took care of his personal hygiene in the guest bathroom, which was located right next to the main entrance and exit of the house. With a barely audible click, the lanky man opened the door and turned one of the dimmer lights. He tip-toed into the lavatory, but his efforts of making as little noise as possible were foiled by the loud clip-clopping of his dog’s paw on the bathroom tiles.
When he took a look around the pristine facility, Travis noticed his blackberry was still on top of the sink where it had been placed the previous evening.
The outfit he had picked out and folded neatly the previous evening was still hanging in the bathroom closet. He went over to the tub, and turned the hot water knob all the way to the right after he clogged up the drain with a rubber stopper. While the bath slowly began to fill, he examined himself in the mirror. There was a bit of blonde stubble on his chin, so he put his electric razor to the bottom of his chin and gradually trimmed it off. He put a conservative amount of toothpaste on his toothbrush, and scrubbed his teeth for about a minute and a half. When Travis was done cleaning the plaque off of the milky whites of his mouth, he made sure to floss the gaps between his teeth slowly and thoroughly. He ended his dental hygiene by
gargling cinnamon flavored mouthwash for thirty seconds.
The bath was done filling up, so he disrobed
and climbed in. It was about five forty five in the morning when his black berry began to shake. Travis lazily raised his arm out of the bath and fumbled to grab the device. There was a call incoming from an unlisted number, so he sat up in the bath and answered the electronic device. “Howdy, Travis Davis speaking, may I ask who is calling?” Although Travis put on a casual air, he knew whoever was calling had to be someone important. His blackberry was only able to communicate with a fellow bureau member, and usually an unlisted call meant someone needed Travis to do something. Moments after Travis’s inquiry, an elderly gentleman with a hint of a northern twang to his southern accent responded.
“Oh, morning Agent Davis. This is Jon Lafatear calling, I’m in charge of the Raleigh-Durham division. Listen, there’s been a bit of an incident at Bensen University, and we need you to check things out. The campus police have everything under control, but the magnitude of the situation requires your presence as well. I’d send down someone from my area, but we’ve got our hands tied with a drug operation” The statement wasn’t anything surprising to Travis. Six months before, when Travis was first appointed to being a Special Agent, Lafatear’s words may have filled Travis with excitement, but he had learned to take his assignments with a grain of salt. He grimaced as he remembered what happened last time there was an “incident” at Bensen University.
“Sure thing Agent Lafatear, I’ll head over there asap. Any idea what’s going on at the good old Black and Gold?”
A nervous chuckle came out of the blackberry.
“Actually Agent Davis, I have no idea. Headquarters didn’t feel like telling me. Who knows, maybe if you’re lucky you’ll get to bust a frat for violating digital copy-right or something. Anyways, thanks for filling in for us and sorry for calling you so early in the morning. Be sure to call if y’all ever need help from us here at Raleigh.”
With a soft click, the man hung up.
The blonde bathing man wasn’t finished with his phone just yet. Though he wished he didn’t have to, he made a short call to inform his “co-worker” of their assignment for the day. After a short and rather unpleasant conversation, Travis got out of the tub to dry off and get ready for the day.
“Well Tex…” he said to the yellow labrador “It seems like I’m going to have to go pay another visit to Bensen University.” Travis let out a sigh. “At least the Chik-Fil-A there is still open.”