Chapter 2

Freddie

In order to get back to the table, I had to shove my way past about a dozen people gathered around it. One was knelt next to the booth, sitting Samantha up and checking her pulse and vitals. A doctor, I assumed. The restaurant staff was frozen in mute shock, and the restaurant manager himself looked like his day could've gone better. He'd refused to give me the Epipen, but instead brought it along himself. From the looks of things though, it wouldn't be needed. The color was already returning to Sam's complexion and she could speak again, answering all the doctor's questions in full, complete sentences.

The manager said a really, really bad word under his breath. "Someone please get this table cleaned up," he snapped loudly. A dozen restaurant staff immediately sprang into action. "As for you," he said, whirling on Sam, "What is this meaning of this. You have become sick for no reason! No food served, and yet here you are vomiting all over my table and my floor?"

She gave him what I supposed was her best apologetic face. Unsuprisingly, it wasn't that impressive. "I'm so sorry," she said. "It was the man who was here with us. I think he put something in my drink."

My mind was reeling. Come to think of it, Vincent was gone. Along with. . .

"He drugged me as a distraction so he could steal our laptop."

The manager snorted, even as I was stunned mute by the implications of this. "Likely story," he said. "In any case, I will have to ask you to leave my restaurant immediately and kindly not return."

"Our pleasure," I snapped back at the manager. Sam might be kind of abrasive, but the guy had no right to talk to her like that.

"C'mon," I said, offering Sam my shoulder to lean on. Whatever Vincent put in her drink must've been a doozy because she actually let me. I helped her into her coat, shrugged mine on, and led her out of the restaurant. Her arm around my neck and mine around her waist. I felt horrible, seeing Sam like this. And mad. A slow, simmering anger that threatened to burst into an inferno. There was no sign of Vincent anywhere, which was a good thing because I didn't know if I could've trusted myself not to go sprinting after him in a flurry of kicks and punches.

No, there was only wind and cold. And Sam. She leaned into me and I hugged her even closer as we made our way back to the hotel. No point trying to say anything, the wind was so loud we'd have had to scream to be heard. The sidewalk and streets were practically deserted and on top of that it had gotten very, very dark in the short time we'd been inside LeFranc.

Wordlessly, we headed into the lobby elevator, still shivering off the residual cold. I reached the room first, so I opened it for Sam who plopped down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. I did the same.

Silence, then. "DAMMIT!"

Her outburst didn't surprise me in the least. I knew it would be coming sooner or later. I glanced over, but she was still staring up at the ceiling, her mouth set in an angry, determined line. "We couldn't have known that Vincent-"

"Yeah we could've," she cut me off vehemently. "And we should've. But that's not the point. That chizzstain drugged me. He drugged me and laughed about it to my face while I'm a helpless mess trying not to projectile vomit all over the floor." She was breathing hard now, and for once I'd say her ire was completely justified. She turned to me. "Do you know what he said? He said 'Dingo Studios sends its regards'."

"What a tool," I muttered.

Sam sat up suddenly, eyes blazing. "We can't let them get away with this!"

I sighed. "There's not a whole lot we can do Sam. He's got the laptop now, and it's not like we can ever prove he took it."

Sam plopped back down, turning on her side to face me. Her eyes held something that I rarely ever saw: worry. "What do you think he wants with the laptop in the first place?" she wondered aloud.

I shrugged. It's pretty obvious, isn't it? If he actually works for Dingo, then he probably wanted our best stuff to use for-"

"Totally Teri," Sam finished, disgust in her voice. "And here I thought they'd learned their lesson."

I let out a dry laugh. "Instead they just got. . .sneakier." I started upright, yanking out my PearPhone and booting up its applications. Something had just hit me, and if my hunch was correct. . .

"What?" Sam pressed impatiently.

"Well. . ." I stood up, gesturing wildly with my hands. Explaining things has defnitely never been my strong point. "My mom, she's paranoid as chizz, right?"

"Tchyeah she is."

"So she's always trying to find ways to keep track of me. She used to have the microchip embedded under my skin if you'll recall."

"Creepy."

"But then I got it deactivated. So she would put trackers on my shoes, my toothbrush. . ."

"Your laptop?"

"Maybe. We'll find out in jut a sec." I set up the homebrew app I'd created to root out my mom's trackers, and piggybacked its detection off a communications satellite. Not exactly legal, but if these weren't desperate times I couldn't imagine what would qualify. First, nothing. Then: "Here we go," I announced triumphantly. "She did put one in my computer, and I can trace it from my Pearphone."

"What?" She leaped off the bed and yanked the phone from me. "Where?"

Irritated, I yanked it back. "Here, let's overlay the tracking device with a GPS grid. . ." I hurriedly entered a few more touchstrokes and waited for the screen to load.

Sam jabbed me. "Explain it." I was too excited to even take offense.

I pointed to the red dot that centered the screen. "This is my laptop," I explained. "I isolated the homing beacon and set the results over a GPS map of the city."

"So now we know exactly where he is?"

"Well, technically. Don't forget that we're still really unfamiliar with this city. And if Vincent is halfway as smart as I think he is he'll hop on the first plane out of here." I knew it was true, and with that our chances of ever getting the laptop back seemed to dwindle back to nothing.

Sam's brow furrowed, a sure sign that she was unusually deep in thought. Wordlessly, she went over the desk facing the bed and opened her own laptop, enabling the video sharing function. "Sit," she ordered.

So I did.

"Carly needs to be a part of this conversation," she said. "I'm puttin' her on video chat." With that, she plopped down right beside me, in range of the laptop's camera. The screen was blank for a moment, then Carly appeared her hands somewhere above adjusting the camera.

"Hey!" she greeted us. "Sorry I couldn't make it but I'm sure-" she trailed off, her smile fading. "Wait, what's wrong. You guys look like someone just wazzed on your best pair of shoes."

"Metaphorically, that's not too far off point," I told her. "Vincent is a fraud."

"A fraud?" Disbelief was etched on her face. "Wait, how do you know?"

Sam took this one. "Cuz he totally put something in my drink that made me sick, then made Freddie go get the manager. And while I'm puking my guts out he laughs, takes the laptop, and tells me that Dingo Studios sends their regards."

"What?" Carly shrieked. "No way! I mean, no way. Please tell me you're kidding."

I looked straight into the camera. "Dead serious." And I told her the rest of the story, how we'd come back to the hotel, humiliated. How I'd uncovered the tracking gimmick and where that left us.

Which just about did it for her smile. "Well, you have backups right?" she asked hopefully.

"Of course I do. But that's beside the point. Obviously Dingo wants to use our ideas, and right now there's no way we can stop them. Between the three of us, there's what, like dozens of man hours invested in that laptop? And since the entire TV network deal was a sham from the start, we won't have the budget to actually implement any of it in the forseeable future."

Carly scowled. "I think I'll puke if I see one of our routines on Totally Teri or Warlocks of Wimbledon or. . .any of those asinine shows on Dingo."

"Second that," piped up Sam. She turned to me. "Well, is there any way he could email the data from your laptop or maybe even transfer it to a flash?"

I shook my head, having anticipated the question. "Nope, I've got security protocols for situations like this. Password encryption and complete system lockdown. I'm sure the tech guys at Dingo could get through it but short of that, no one's gonna be able to get into it."

"Which means," said Sam, "That he has to physically get the laptop to them, right?"

"Right?"

Carly snapped her fingers. "I just remembered too, all the outbound flights out of Milwaukee are canceled for tomorrow. It's the same storm system that hit Seattle. If you guys can catch up with him before he hops on a plane back to Dingo-"

"That's a big 'if'," I reminded her.

"Yeah, but if you can. . ." Carly was more animated now. "It's our only shot you guys."

Sam punched a fist into her open palm. "I'd like to spend a little quality time with Vincent," she said. "Let him know just what mama thinks about chizzbags who poison her."

I gritted my teeth, annoyed as always at Sam's tendency to slip into the third person. Still, I could echo her sentiment. Vincent had well and truly pissed me off as well.

Carly looked down at the bottom of her computer screen. "You guys, I have to go," she said. "I know it's a longshot but please, if you can, get that laptop back."

"Okay," said Sam and I simultaneously.

Carly giggled at this, lightening the mood a bit. "By the way, how are you too getting along without me there to break up your fights?"

"Fine," Sam answered a little too quickly.

"We're good," I spoke up, also a bit too quickly.

The computer image of Carly did a double take, back and forth between Sam and I. She smiled, as if privy to some inside joke. "I'll call you guys tomorrow," she finally said. "Good luck."

"We'll need it," Sam muttered as Carly signed off.


Sam

After another shower I stepped out of the bathroom and almost wasn't surprised to see Freddie already in the bed. He'd changed into pajamas and was writing in a notepad by lamplight.

I cleared my throat. "Thought we already had this conversation, Fredtard."

He looked up from the notepad, peering at me from underneath an unruly clump of hair that had fallen over his forehead. "C'mon Sam, neither of us wants the floor, and this is a Queen size for chrissakes. We'll survive sharing just this once."

My mind scrambled for a logical comeback. Nothing. "Fine, but if I strangle you in my sleep don't go crying to mommy about it."

Freddie's expression went full-on panic mode. "Oh, shoot!"

"What?" I cautiously sat down at the other end of the bed. "I was just kidding. I probably won't actually-"

"My mom," interrupted Freddie. "I forgot to call her, she'll be furious." He leapt up and scurried into a corner of the room, phone in tow.

Amused, but too tired to thoroughly mock him, I readied for sleep. It had been an emotionally and physically exhausting day, but I still wanted to be able to wake up bright and early to get to the business of beating the living chizz out of Vincent Lee.

Grabbing one of the extra pillows, I stuck it halfway down the middle of the bed, like a divider line. Freddie was still trying to placate his mom over the phone, but I made sure he got a good look at my expression, which read something like cross this line and you die.

Satisfied that the point had been made, I curled up under the covers and drifted off to sleep.


Freddie

"We caught him!" exulted Sam, standing over the kneeling form of one Vincent Lee. He groaned and tried to push himself into a sitting position but Sam casually kicked his support arm from underneath him, sending Vincent in pathetic mess right back to the ground. She looked directly at me. "Couldn't have done it without you Freddie. And to think I used to make fun of you all the time."

"I know, you definitely saved the day," said Carly. Wait, where had she come from?

"I thought you were in Seattle," I blurted, confused.

"Not anymore baby, I just couldn't stand being apart from you," she told me in a very throaty and un-Carly like voice. She ran up and threw her arms around my neck. "Freddie I miss being with you so much."

What the hell? Past Carly, I could see Sam staring at us with a pained expression. "Wake up," she murmured.

"But. . .Carly," I began, dazed.

"Freddie, wake up!" Sam yelled at me.

I did, sitting up so fast I nearly got whiplash. I took instant stock of my surroundings. No Vincent, no Carly, just one pissed off Sam at the edge of the bed. I put a hand behind my head, more than a little embarassed. "Sorry," I apologized. "Interesting dream."

She snorted. "Must've been, the way you kept moaning Carly's name."

"I was not," I protested, scooting off the edge of the bed and rummaging through my luggage.

Sam rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say, Fredna. Anyway, it's nine already and we don't wanna lose track of Vincent."

"Right." I took a moment to really look at her and noticed she was already showered and dressed. She looked different too, sometime this morning she'd had the occasion to straighten her hair. It looked too good for me to even comment on, if that makes any sense, so I filed it away in my mind. "Geez, when'd you wake up?" I asked.

"Early. Didn't feel like fighting over the bathroom and all that," she said flatly. "Now hurry up and get ready, the buses are gonna be running really slow."

I'd grabbed everything I'd need to get showered and dressed, but still stopped right in my tracks when I heard this. "Bus? No way, we can just take a cab."

"Forget it Freddie, Bayside Mall is way too far away for that and I don't feel like wasting half our budget on cab fare."

I pictured waiting in the snowy, freezing cold for a dilapidated bus. It wasn't a pleasant scenario. Then pictured getting Sam to change her mind. Unlikely.

Shooting her a look that I hoped conveyed my misgivings, I closed the bathroom door behind me. Either way, we had a long day ahead of us.


Sam

We both ended up having to stop at the nearest drugstore for warm weather gear. Gloves, earmuffs, scarves, the works. It was sinfully cold outside, and the still-falling snow made visibility a joke. One stroke of luck in our favor was that a single bus could take us all the way to Bayside, but we'd been waiting for twenty minutes with no sign of it.

Freddie ad I sat alone at the bus stop, shivering and not much else. I was silently putting all of this unpleasantness into a mental box called 'Things Vincent Will Pay For', and the thought of gleefully pulverizing him up and down Milwaukee brought at least some comfort.

"Whoa," said Freddie. "You had a really evil expression just now."

"You don't know the half of it," I said between chattering teeth. He was silent for a moment but then, unexpectedly:

"I wish Carly were here."

The biting comeback was on my tongue before I could even think about stopping it. "Yeah I bet you do."

He glanced at me sharply from over his scarf. "What's that supposed to mean?"

In my best Freddie voice I moaned, "Oh, Carly, I dream about you all the time. I'm so madly in love with you and want to marry you and father your children and grow old by your side!"

"What?" Freddie cried. Despite the cold, he pulled his scarf down. "First of all, I don't even think of Carly like that anymore, not that it's any of your business."

Why I was both relieved to hear about his lack of feelings for Carly and a little hurt that he considered it none of my business, I couldn't really explain. "You're right," I replied stonily, "it is none of my business."

He sighed. "I'm just saying, I'd feel a lot better about all this if it was the three of us and not just me and you with this crazy plan that might not even work."

The sadness in his voice thawed me out a little bit. "I wish she was here too," I said. "But we got this."

This got a half smile out of him. "You think so?"

"Tchyeah." I put all the confidence in my voice I could muster. "Totally." The cold made it sound like 't-t-t-totally' and we both laughed at that. Which is when I realized that there on a freezing bus stop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Fred and I were having a moment. Maybe it was something about the proximity and the cold and the unfamiliar setting, but it wasn't hard to imagine him putting his arm around me and drawing me close for warmth, like an actual couple. It wasn't hard to imagine liking it.

He averted his eyes just in time before things got awkward. "Here we go," he said.

"Here we go?"

"The bus-"

"Oh. Right." And there it was, moving about two miles an hour through the slush-filled street. Finally though, it pulled up, the door opening with a lazy whirring sound.

Fred was the first in. "Bayside Mall, right?"

"Yeah, this route ends up over there," said the older woman behind the wheel.

We boarded, and to my surprise the bus was completely empty. We found a pair of seats near the front, right in front of the bus's heater which felt like heaven after waiting so long outside.

After a bit of jostling Fredddie pulled out his PearPhone and opened the tracking app he'd been using to keep tabs on Vincent. "He's still there, no movement since last night."

"Good." I started planning out our next move. "Can you bring up a list of stores at Bayside?"

"Yep." A succession of taps and he handed me the device. I skimmed through all the stores, ignoring the mainline ones like Aeropostle and Cinnabon. Sears, that could be useful. And a few other ones held promise as well. In my mind, a plan was already beginning to take place. Taking the time to straighten my hair might just have secondary benefits, disappointed as I was that Freddie hadn't seemed to take notice.

I glanced over at him, trying to see him as the old, annoying and dorky Freddie. It wasn't like I could pinpoint what exactly was different about him now, but somewhere along the way it became hard not to think of him as just. . .a guy.

"Who's just a guy?" asked Fred.

"Nothing!" I mentally kicked myself for thinking out loud. "I mean, no one."

"Right." He yawned. "Well, I'm takin a little nap, wake me when we get there will ya?"

"Fine," I'm playin' games on your phone though."

I got delicate and distinctively Fred-like snoring in response. Despite everything, I found myself smiling inside. Some things never changed.


Author's Note

Well there goes Chapter 2. the plot thickens and the chase begins. Reviews make my day of course so please tell me what you think! More to come soon.