Best Thing on the Internet

Spencer Reid

"We don't want to shoot you, just put the knife down," Derek says in a calm, but stern voice. We are in Arizona, so the heat is blazing down on us. I never thought it could be this hot so early in the morning and I know heat, I grew up in Las Vegas. The unsub is standing right in front of us, holding a knife up to the throat of a woman who just so happened to be at the place at the wrong time.

"Let me out of here and I'm not going to hurt anyone," the man said, looking at the two of us. This man murdered six people, so of course we weren't going to let him go that easy. I look over the unsub's shoulder to see Emily creeping up behind him.

"You know we can't do that," she said, putting her gun up to his head. His eyes go wide and he just drops the knife. The woman just runs away from him towards us. Derek reaches his arms out and grabs the woman, ushering her away from the scene. I holster my gun and walk over to the unsub, grabbing his shoulder after Emily handcuffs him. We walk him over to a waiting police car and shove him into the backseat. We walk back to our SUVs and get out the heat. I turn the AC vent towards me and it instantly feels great.

"I thought you grew up in the heat, pretty boy," Derek says, driving back to the police station to get our things and go home.

"I think I got too used to east coast weather," I say into the air. We all eventually make it back onto the plane and we are flying back to Virginia. I am sitting in my chair, sitting on my phone. Derek moves next to me and peeps over my shoulder to see what I'm doing.

"Are you using the internet to play chess with strangers online when you could be using it to meet women?" He pulls my wrist down so he can get a better look. I just look over to him confused.

"What? People are using the internet for that now?" I'm not the most tech savvy, I barely even like using my phone, but I am being blown away everyday.

"You are the smartest person in the world and you have never heard of Tinder?" Emily asks from across from us. I just look at both of them confused.

"Let me show you, download the app," Derek gestures towards my phone. I shake my head.

"You don't have it?" I ask. He just laughs at me.

"I am pretty good at meeting women organically," he says. Nothing about what he said made any sense to me. I asked him what organically meant in this situation. He explains how it means in person, at the clubs and bars he goes to, and he doesn't need help. "But you do," he said as he took my phone out of my hand. He downloaded the app and we are waiting for it to install on my phone.

"Do you have Tinder?" I asked Emily. She shakes her head to answer my question.

"I'm too old for that app," she said. She isn't that much older than me. I am usually never confused, but right now I feel more lost than I ever had before. Derek showed me how to work it and set it up for me. He had to find pictures from articles online because I didn't have photos of me.

"So if you like them, you swipe right. If you don't, you swipe left, got it?" He showed me as he handed back my phone.

"How do I know if I like them? There is very little information about them on here," I noted, tapping through the pictures of a blonde woman.

"That's the point, you see if they are cute, then you find out about them," he explained. Emily just looks up from her and shakes her head at us. She muttered 'men' as she looked back down to her book.

"This is stupid," I say, turning off my phone. I just turn my head to stare out the window as we land down in Virginia.

I am surrounded by people all day, but as soon as I get home, I suddenly feel alone. I know it is really no big deal to be single, especially when you do the work that I do. I am just starting to feel like I'm missing something in my life. As soon as I open my door, it all just kind of hits me. I hang up my bag and take my gun off, putting it by the front door. I flop down on my couch and just stare at the ceiling. That is when I feel my phone buzz in my pocket. I take it out to see I have a notification from tinder. Maybe I will give it another shot. I open the app and just swiping through then I see this one girl, a few years younger than me, but she looks so familiar. I just can't place it.

"You see if they're cute, then you get to know them," I repeat the words Derek told me on the plane. I think she is cute, but I am more interested in getting to know where I know her from. So, I swipe right, but nothing happens. Her profile is just gone. I tried swiping again, but I couldn't get it back. I don't know what to do. I close my eyes and try to think of where I know her, but I can't. I keep my eyes closed for too long, falling asleep on my couch with my phone in my hand. I only wake up about an hour later from my little nap to my phone buzzing in my hand. I look at it and it says "Elizabeth matched with you"