Mycroft watched Kara until there was nothing left to see. He ached with bitter-flavoured need. He was well aware that he earned the nickname of Pig-Pen but he never thought of himself that way. Since he did everything online, it was easy to let the real world slip away.

First he had to depressurize himself. His body always had a Pavlovian response to one of Kara’s visits and it clouded his thinking.

An hour later a few new blossoms were added to the garden next to his desk.

Now he was ready to get to work. His fingers flew over the keyboard until he hit an error.

ERROR:1B6aa- ACCOUNT TRANSFER = FAIL
ALL SYSTEMS DOWN, PLEASE CONTACT HELP DESK

He rang the listed number.

“Thank you for calling Credit Suisse, how can I help you?

“I was calling to transfer funds. I was working online when I received an error message.”

“I’m so sorry, our computer system went down twenty minutes ago. The earliest it’ll be up is tomorrow morning.”

Mycroft thanked her, hung up and shrugged. Kara would just have to wait.