Holly Ockala

Holly Ockala was just slightly too old to dye her hair black or midnight blue, but she made it work. It gleamed like a jewel and she wore it in retro styles like Betty Paige, or done up in antique ivory combs. She had a dazzling intellect which, as a child, alienated her from her peers. They called her the 'bug girl,' and to cope she developed a biting, caustic wit that revealed itself whenever she felt insecure about being too smart. All day long she made snarky comments. Holly was a data analyst for the FBI, and she could hammer out answers from the cold raw ingots of evidence. People thought the glamorous field agents sleuthed around with a magnifying glass and a calabash, recognizing fingerprints on sight and cutting sign like an Indian tracker. They actually gather lots and lots of data which then had to be interpreted by someone like Holly. But when these handsome men and women in their nice suits came to talk to her, and Holly began spouting off and digressing on the beauty of pure numbers, the perfect design of a fingerprint, she would hit the wall of self awareness as suddenly as Eve biting the apple. Her leopard print and quirky jewelry made Holly feel naked next to their sleek tailored suits, she knew she could never apply makeup as demurely as these sculpted, confident people, so she started cracking jokes.

Holly didn't realize it, but she was the reason there was a quirky, quasi gothic, tattooed science nerd on every procedural crime drama currently on television. Her cubicle neighbor, a soft and specky young man named Dill, would watch Holly work all day. He was enthralled by how she delicately navigated data, as graceful as a ballet dancer. He noticed the flourishes of her typing, her fingers arched dramatically tapping arpeggios. Sometimes Dill would consult with her even when he didn't need help, just to see her caught up in the excitement of chasing down criminals through un-erasable channels of divine justice. Dill wasn't encouraged though, he could talk to Holly professionally but didn't know how to break the ice socially, and she made always made such sarcastic jokes. Dill left the FBI to consult in Los Angeles. He thought he would be helping to design data work flows for telecoms, but after some introductions he found himself explaining crime scene technique to TV producers, and other memorable aspects of his time at the Bureau. Holly had heard about Dill's exciting new job in Hollywood, but she never made any other connections, and really wished they had stayed in touch.