Audrey Hanson, FBI. Challenge #1

Flirt? Crap.

Crud.

I’ve spent the best part of my life busting my hump for the Bureau and demanding to be treated as an equal along the way. Now I have to dress pretty and giggle? Oh, the guys in the office are going to die when they get a load of this.

OK, I’ll just have to approach this scientifically and utilize my problem solving skills just like I’m on a case. No problem.

Right.

OK, first things first. I need to dress in a way to impress Sylar. Let me see if I can remember how all those air-headed bimbos in high school dressed to impress the boys. Minus all the hairspray, of course, no need to put a hole in the ozone over this mansion.

Alright, let’s give this a whirl. Let’s see what I got packed in the ole duffel bag here.

Heh, this won’t work; too sullen teenagery.

This might work if I were a Depression-era dirt farmer.

Naw, Sylar’s not going to fall for this. Guys don’t dig the girl on girl bit.

Wait, wait, wait, I remember. Back in college, I knew some girls who would go braless so the tips of their secondary sexual organs would show through their shirts. They called it “pulling a Rachael.” I guess that I’m lucky that I lost my bra in that bet this weekend. I’ll just have to use that to my advantage.

OK, now to flirt with this creep, er, I mean this handsome Sylar guy. Once again, not my strong suit, but I think I can handle it. I just have to compliment him and talk about things he likes.

OK, here goes.

“Hey there, Sylar, you handsome cad you,” I say to him with one of those sexy girl voices. “Tee hee hee, you look so strong, have you been working out?”

OK, stupid, stupid. He’s not going for it. I’m not out yet, try again.

“Er, I mean you, uh, see the big game this weekend?” I try out a huskier Kathleen Turner voice. “That Tom Brady, huh? Bet you’d like to eat his brain, huh?”

Crap, I think he just yawned.

Strike two, but as my dad used to say “Third time’s the charm.” Only I don’t know what he was talking about because he is a twice divorced alcoholic who got fired from the meat packing plant. Daddy! Why did you leave daddy?

Woops, no one wants to hear me talk about my dad right now, I’ve got a serial killer to catch.

“That’s it!” I snap my fingers. “Say, Sylar, did I ever tell you about my first serial killer case?”

Ooh, looks like he perked up a little.

“OK, so there was this stone cold, crazy killer on the loose who was kidnapping women, see? He was called Utica Eugene and everyone was going nuts trying to catch the bastard. Uh, the clever bastard. His MO (that’s modus operandi, which I’m sure you know) was kidnapping women and eating them. I was in Quantico at the time in the academy and the Bureau pulls me out and sends me to interview another cannibal in custody named Hector the Collector. This guy was as brilliant as he was mad, he was locked away so he couldn’t hurt others, whenever they moved him, they’d put him in a straight jacket and lock up his mouth so he wouldn’t eat somebody’s face. Real creepy stuff.”

“I like him already,” Sylar replies.

“Right,” I nod. “So anyway, after striking up a deal with Hector, we finally get enough info so we could find Utica Eugene. Turns out he’s at an old farm slicing up women who look like his mom because he never got that pony for his birthday.”

Sylar looks interested! I’m definitely onto something here.

“So we kick in the door and he’s standing there holding the head of one of his victims and I run up and I give him a chop like this.” I hit the butler in the shoulder with the barrel of my pistol as a demonstration. The servant groaned and dropped to the floor like a sack of wet flour. “Only Eugene doesn’t go down, he just races out into the barn trying to get away. He gets in there and there’s one horse just standing there eating hay. Eugene loses it and starts yelling, telling the horse how it was supposed to be a peace offering to his mom, but it was a useless old animal. This guy is just face to face with this poor creature and ranting and raving at it, telling the animal how worthless of a present it was until the stallion hauls off and bites the guy in the face. Utica Eugene goes down with his eye torn out and bleeding all over the place and we’re all just standing there stunned at what we just witnessed. The moral of the story of course is ‘never look a gift horse in the mouth.’”

I look at Sylar and try to smile. He just looks at me blankly.

“Oh yeah,” I added. “I got you some flowers, too.”