After spending weeks perusing the daily newspapers and as many local jobsites as he could find without success, Jeremiah finally landed a job as a Gumshoe. When his application email was replied to, finishing with “How soon can you start?”, he cheered. Something was going right at last!

A quick reply containing the words “I’m available now.” sealed the deal, and his new boss told him they’d send a car to pick him up.

Having had so little preparation time, he’d barely scarfed down the remains of his cereal when a grubby beat-up old vehicle pulled up outside, honking its horn impatiently.

A quick change into smart clothes and it was time to go. Pity he had to wipe his hands down his trousers after getting into the car…

Back home at 6pm, and starved of human contact aside from his colleagues, Jeremiah booted up his computer and pulled up a chat window with a random stranger. In fact, it was the name that had intrigued him: "SynotofthisWorld".

Hours later he surfaced, having taken part in what was probably his longest conversation to date and when he finally (and reluctantly) came offline, he had Sy’s phone number scribbled on the notepad beside him. He’d call her tomorrow.

The following evening:

Boy, that girl could talk! First it was online, then on the phone… and now she’d asked him to accompany her Downtown on his next day off! Could this be the start of something more?