Disclaimer: I do now own any of CSI Miami or its intellectual properties. I own only my OC.

A/N: For those of you who have read Computer Calls, I've brought it back by poplar demand. For those of you who have never read this collection of one-shots, these are actual calls that have been taken by computer experts.

The Cupholder

The phone chirped its special ring in the Miami-Dade Computer Lab, indicating an internal call. Senior computer tech Emmie Stockburne turned toward the console. Just as she went to press the ANSWER button, she glanced at the caller ID

R STETLER—IAB

She groaned as she hit the button. Not again. "Computer lab, Emmie Stockburne" she said in as polite a voice as she could muster for Rick.

There was silence on the other end for a second.

Emmie raised her eyebrows. "You there, Sir?"

Rick's voice sounded tortured. "Emmie, I need you to come up here and fix my computer. Now, please. And bring some paper towels when you come up."

She paused. "Sir, what exactly is the problem? With all due respect, we're on a major case for Calleigh, and if you describe it to me, maybe I can walk you through fixing it from here." Emmie didn't know why she bothered to tell him this. Everybody knew Rick Stetler had a track record of wrecking computer equipment in the most bizarre ways imaginable. Each time, she or Tyler usually ended up going up there to untangle the carnage.

"There are two of you in there. Tyler's handling Calleigh's case, remember?"

"Okay, Sir. One of us will be right up there." She let out a disgusted sigh as she clicked off the answer button.

"Let me guess" Tyler said from his side of the lab. "Stetler crashed his computer again, and he wants you to drop everything and come fix it?"

"You expected otherwise? And I can't even send you this time because Calleigh requested you for this case." Emmie sighed loudly and picked up her black tool case. "Where's justice?"

The computer tech first went to the break room and snatched up a handful of paper towels before trudging up the stairs.

I'm afraid to ask why he wants paper towels. That's gotta be a new one.

When Emmie got to look in Rick's office, she opened her hand, letting the wad of paper towels fell to the floor. "Oh my—"

The desk area looked more like an explosion in a Starbucks. Coffee had exploded against the white wall, the desk, and the blue carpet. Some had even made it to the ceiling and had now dripped back down. Rick was standing off to the side, obviously infuriated, wiping his face and blotting coffee off his suit and white shirt. His wet hair now stuck to his face. He then turned around to wring that obnoxious paisley tie into the garbage can, all the while cursing under his breath.

Emmie hated dealing with Rick under the best of circumstances, but when she saw the coffee's point of origin, she put down her toolcase and breathed hard to keep from laughing.

On the side of the computer console she spotted the remains of a large Styrofoam cup stuck in the CD drive. The drive itself was halfway retracted, squashing the mangled Styrofoam mess. It now looked like a giant crushed eggshell.

Rick seemed to grow more irate by the minute. He pointed at the disaster on his desk.

"Emmie, you gave me a computer with a broken cup holder! You see what it did to my office!" He held out his coffee-splattered clothes. "You know what it's gonna cost to dry clean all this?"

Reality set in now. "Excuse me Sir."

Unable to control the laughter any longer, she stepped out of the office, well away from Rick's hearing, wiping tears from her eyes. It was her first "cup holder call" in twelve years of computer work. Sooner or later, every tech would face the dreaded "cup holder call", and now she could say she was no exception. Just that hers was a little more colorful.

After several minutes of composing herself, Emmie stepped back into the room where Rick was now attempting to remove coffee-splattered documents from his desk. She stood patiently behind him as he cursed some more, picking up sopped reports and packets with his thumb and forefinger, letting them drop into his wastebasket with a splat.

Rick turned around. "Did you bring paper towels, like I told you to?" he snarled.

Emmie reached into her tool case and handed some to him. He snatched them away and tried to blot the brown river off his desk. She could no longer control herself. She closed her eyes and began to laugh again.

"Enjoying this?" Rick snapped again, glaring at her. He pointed to his spattered clothes. "See what happened? I have a meeting in fifteen minutes, and my investigation packet's been destroyed!"

Emmie walked over to the baptized computer console. She pointed to the CD drive on one side. "Sir, is this the 'cup holder' you were using?"

Rick wasn't doing a good job of maintaining his temper. "Yeah. Then I tried to adjust it so I could reach my coffee, and look what happened!"

Her military training demanded that she at least attempt to show Rick some respect. She breathed deeply to avoid any more fits of laughter.

"Did you push this in?"

"Yeah. Like I told you, it doesn't work!"

Emmie reached up and peeled the lid off the dripping wall. Most likely this was what caused the cup to explode.

"Sir, I don't know how else to tell you this. This isn't a cup holder. It's a CD drive. It's not made to hold the weight of a coffee cup, and uh, well, you just trashed another computer."

"What?"

This act of stupidity was just too much for her to ignore. "The CD drive did what it's supposed to. So now I'm gonna have to take this whole console downstairs and attempt to reimage everything that was on there and replace everything you damaged. Again. I hope you remembered to back up your work this time."

"Wait a minute. Lieutenant Caine said…Oh crap!" Rick stormed out of the office, still mopping at the brown spots on his suit with paper towels. With him out of the way, Emmie was free to laugh as she started the long, drawn-out process of unplugging the damaged goods and getting them ready to be swapped out. It would be an all-day job. The cleaning crew would get to take care of the mess.

In the brown river on Rick's desk, Emmie spotted a wet envelope. She peeked at the cover.

PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF LIEUTENANT HORATIO CAINE

Not anymore, she thought. Eighty percent of that packet would never be recovered. "Sergeant, if you didn't back this up, you're screwed."

As Emmie had toweled off the damaged console and was now carting it to the elevator, she saw Horatio looking out the window, his back to her. Quietly she tapped on his door.

Horatio turned around. "Miss Stockburne! Please come in. I see you have your hands full today."

"Yes Sir." She pointed to the coffee-stained mess that now dripped on the cart. "A certain IAB sergeant thought his CD drive was a cupholder." Then it occurred to her. "Sir, did you-"

Horatio just gave Emmie that smile of his.

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Actually, all I said to Rick was whatever that thing was in the side might as well have been a cup holder, since I don't use it for anything else."

Emmie laughed again. "I'll be sure to leave that part out in my write-up. Well, I've always believed that everything happens for a reason. Guess I better do some damage control of my own." And with that she left.