THE SECRET DEVICE

The place that Piccolo had chosen for the celebration for Lucas was a little bit out of the way. But was all part of the planning.

With the threats that had been made towards Lucas about his newly created micro-chip, Bridger wanted to ensure that security was paramount at all times. Going to somewhere more public where there were just too many people around was not the ideal situation to be in should something go wrong.

Tony had chosen a large hanger building that was large enough to hold everyone that was invited. Not that it was a particularly big party in the first place. Just mostly the senior crew from SeaQuest and a few of the others that Bridger had specifically asked to be there for Lucas.

The hanger backed onto a nature reserve and then the main highway. The was a number of tall trees and bushland to give them seclusion and notice anybody that might be approaching by vehicle. There was a security fence along one side provided by the airforce, but it was rarely patrolled this far away from the main base.

What Tony didn't count on was that Riley had trailed them most of the way, but now was on foot through the trees with his two henchmen. They decided to sit and wait before putting together a plan.

The time was now just upon dusk and the light above the tree line was fading, turning the area in shadows and twilight.

There was plenty of food on the few tables at the end of the building. The two large sliding doors on the side were fully opening, allowing people to mingle either just inside the doorway or outside in the cool but comfortable night air.

Kristin was beginning to be worried that the day had been too much physically for Lucas. The teenager sat in the middle of a row of fold up chairs. Some of the other crew members were busy dancing to some of the music that was playing in the background.

Lucas had a slight smile on his face and seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere, but his eyes looked slightly red from tiredness and he couldn't hide the grimaces of pain that moved across his face from time to time as his leg played up a little.

The teenager's mind still hadn't shut down for the day after everything that had taken place. Numbers and information was still running through his brain about what had been discussed at the meetings. He was fairly sure that he was going to accept Mr Collins's offer.

It gave him the most recognition for the work he had carried out and gave him the freedom he desired to be involved in the manufacturing, marketing and final design step of the whole process. He also couldn't ignore the money that had been offered to him, but that wasn't totally the reason he made that particular choice.

Bridger and Kristin both approached the teenager, taking up seats either side of him. "How are you doing honey?" the doctor asked honestly.

"Actually, I am quite tired," Lucas admitted, "But I am having a great time, honestly," he added, trying to convince the two adults beside him.

"Uh-Huh," Bridger replied in a tone of voice that suggested he didn't believe the kid for a second.

"No really, I am, even if I am stuck sitting here like a rock," he said, grinning back at the Captain. "I can't dance anyway." He raised his glass of soft drink in a toast just to prove it.

Unfortunately it was only soft drink due to the painkillers that Kristen had given him only a short time ago. Alcohol and medication just didn't mix and it was better to be on the safe side rather than sorry later and suffering from the effects.

"How about you Kristin, would you like to dance?" Bridger asked Westphalen.

"Why Captain, I would be delighted," Kristin replied with a sparkle in her eye. "Are you sure you are alright Lucas. Is you leg still hurting very much? she asked, feeling a little guilty at having to leave Lucas out of all the fun.

"Just fine," Lucas said, tapping lightly at the flexible cast and inwardly holding back the moan of pain that was on the edge of his tongue. He didn't want the Captain and doctor spending the entire party worrying about him or his leg. I was supposed to be a happy occasion after all.

From where the three hidden figures were in the trees, Riley could now see the teenager sitting all by himself and most of the others dancing some distance away.

Despite the opportunity that seemed to present itself, it was still too much of a risk to try and get to the teenager before anybody else seen them. They needed a distraction or diversion that would give them more time to snatch the youth away before everybody even realised that he was even missing.

Seeing Doctor Westphalen and Lonnie Anderson among those dancing, Riley suddenly had an idea about how they might cause the necessary distraction and gain the extra time they needed at the same time.

Riley and both of his men were all wearing black clothing so as to hide in the shadows and darkness as much as possible. It was now one of those henchmen who began creeping out of his hiding place towards those dancing in the group.

The man had singled out his decoy target as Lonnie Anderson, mainly due to her petite frame and slight built. Without so much as a warning, the man running out at Lonnie, with the intent of attempting to grab her on the way through.

Lonnie screamed a split second before anybody else knew what was going on as she spotted the dark figure racing towards her from the trees. She then felt the man try and physically grab a hold of her and screamed again, attempting to pull away from her attacker.

The man's attempts to grab Lonnie were only half-hearted ones before he took off past the group towards the trees again. It was now that the other crew member's except for Lucas took off after pursuit of the brazen culprit.

Lucas had gotten to his feet and now struggled with his crutches through the row of chairs, trying to go after everybody else. He knew he would never catch up to them or even get close but he told himself that he had to something.

Riley and the other henchman could now see Lucas shuffling slowly after the others through the trees and underbrush. They began to make their way silently after the young man.

After a few minutes, Lucas came to a halt. His foot was killing him and he knew the lecture he was going to get from Bridger and Kristin about trying to go after everybody else.

The night was particularly dark and Lucas shivered slightly at the coolness due to the canopy. He could scarcely see more than three front of him and he began to feel the hairs on his arms rise slightly with the nervousness that he was beginning to feel. He would be the last to admit to the rest of the crew that the dark was still one of his long ago childhood fears.

Lucas went to take a step forward when one of his crutches snapped a twig on the ground in half. The sudden noise made him jump slightly and he now began moving in a backwards direction, trying to peer into the night for a sign of any of his family or friends.

Lucas was about to curse at himself and tell himself off about how silly he was being about the darkness when a pair of arms came out from behind the bushes and trees and snaked around the boy, preventing him from going anywhere.

Lucas went to scream for help when a gag was jammed roughly into his mouth and then a hand clamped down hard over it. Lucas was now using his arms to try and release the grip of his more powerful assailant. The crutches had fallen away to the ground nearby.

Quite a number of metres away, Bridger and some of the other crew member's stopped when they heard what sounded like a muffled cry for help. It was only now looking around at each other that it dawned on them all that somebody was missing: Lucas.

They completely forgot about the man who had tried to attack Lonnie and started back towards the party. The one thing they had tried hard to do to their utmost for the majority of the day: protect Lucas.

The teenager was hardly in a position to be defending himself at the moment or being able to run away from any assailant. Bridger now realised that the attack on Lonnie was a ploy and it had worked to perfection to divert their attention from the real victim: Lucas.

"Lucas," Bridger called out as they made their way back. But there was no reply.

Bridger wasn't even sure that the teenager had followed the rest of the group into the trees. The last place he had been seen was sitting on the row of chairs watching his friends dance. That was all before they took off chasing after the dark figure and none of them had stopped to think about Lucas and what danger he might be in or what peril they may have put him in by leaving him alone.

The group quickly came upon the set of crutches laying on the ground. They were now certain that Lucas had been nearby. But where was he now. Bridger called out his name again loudly as did the other crew members is opposite directions.

There was no reply to their calls. Lucas's kidnappers had dragged the vulnerable teenager into the bushes and trees not too far from where the crew was standing now, but he was been held down forcibly but his two captors.

The gag remained securely in his mouth and the hand was still clamped over it, preventing him from making even the slightest noise that may alert his friends to his whereabouts. The second man was holding the teenager down on the ground and stopping him from moving around.

Bridger picked up the pair of crutches and began walking back towards the party area, talking to the other crew members along the way about what sort of search plans they were going to put into place.

They were all fairly sure now that somebody had Lucas and they may need more assistance than just themselves to find the young man. They could only hope that a clue had been left somewhere as to who may have taken him or where he might have been taken.

Everyone knew about the injury to Lucas's foot and how much that would impair any sort of escape. They could only hope that the captors hadn't hurt him any further.

"Did anybody see Lucas after we started running through here?" Bridger said turning to the others to ask the question.

"No Captain," Tony Piccolo answered. He too was worried about his young friend's whereabouts. It was like he just vanished into thin air.

"Did anybody hear any vehicle or such?" Kristin now said trying to think of the clues that would lead them to the missing teenager.

"If there was one, it must have been awful quiet," Tony surmised. "The only road that a car can drive on is high on the ridge over there behind the trees. They must have been actually on foot to grab Luke." he added logically.

"That's right Tony and that means that we have at least a little time to try and find them before they make it back to their vehicle with Lucas," Bridger now thought rationally.

"I feel really bad about all of this, Sir," Lonnie Anderson now said to Captain Bridger. "That's man's attempts to grab me were all just a ploy weren't they to get us all away from Lucas." She felt incredibly guilty that Lucas had been the intended target and not her as everyone had previously thought.

"Don't worry about it Lonnie," Kristin said on the Captain's behalf. The crew knew that Lonnie was feeling bad but they didn't think any of them would have been able to predict what the kidnappers had in mind.

While the SeaQuest crew were looking around for any pieces of information or clues that might lead them to Lucas, the two kidnappers now dragged a violently struggling gagged teenager through the trees towards their waiting vehicle.

The man who had attack Lonnie Anderson was waiting by the vehicle when they got there. He could see that his two accomplices had at least achieved what they set out to do. They now had the kid like their employer had asked. Now it was time to carry out the next faze of their operation in recovering the chip and finding out how it worked.

As tired as Lucas was, he was now working on pure adrenaline and fear as he saw the car in front on him as he was dragged along. He had tried to stop them taking him. He had fought hard, but with two of them and his slight frame it just was no match. He didn't have much of a chance.

"Stay still you little bastard," one of the henchmen said as he tried to get Lucas's hands behind his back. But the teenager was determined to give them as much hell as possible before he would submit.

"Just leave it until later, we have to get out of here in case they come looking for him further a field," Riley now told his partners.

Lucas now found himself being shoved roughly into the back seat of the older model car. Riley got in and drove with one of the men in the passenger seat beside him and the other making sure that Lucas didn't go anywhere.

The man in the backseat with Lucas made sure that all of the window were wound all the way up and that the doors were locked to prevent any premature escape ideas the kid might have.

"Keep him down back there," Riley shouted as he could see Lucas's head popping up and showing through the window through the rear view mirror. The last thing they needed right now was for somebody driving along to spot the boy before they got him to the pre-arranged destination.

The man roughly made Lucas partly lay down along the back seat but the teenager was still determined to give his captors a hard time.

"I've had enough of you sunshine," the man with Lucas now said harshly and delivered a hard blow to the youth's left temple. It had the desired affect, rendering the teenager unconscious and now slumped over the seat rather than laying across it.

"Good, now we can get out of here," Riley said with a little edge to his voice. The plan had gone off and they had the prize catch they had come looking for but it hadn't gone quite as smoothly as he would have preferred.

"No need to tie his hands now anyway," the other man in the front with Riley said with a chuckle at the boy's state.

For the next five minutes, Riley had to manoeuvre the vehicle over slightly rough terrain and pot holes. A couple of time he had winced as the car would bottom out against the rocks underneath. He now cursed himself about not having a four wheel drive.

Back with the SeaQuest crew, Bridger and the others had gathered everything up as quickly as possible and split up into the two vehicles once again, heading for the main highway and back to U.E.O. Headquarters.

Once back on base, they would be able to alert the proper authorities about Lucas's disappearance and possible kidnapping and put together a rescue mission themselves. They also had to be there in case the kidnappers tried to call with any demands.

Unfortunately for the crew, they all suspected why Lucas had been taken because of the earlier attempts back on the boat. However even now they had no idea where Lucas's so called miracle micro-chip was hidden. They hoped that the teenager didn't have it with him.

The U.E.O. transports soon reached the main highway that would take them back to the base but unknown to them right now was the fact that the kidnappers and the car carrying an unconscious Lucas were on the same highway but headed in the opposite direction. They were still a fair distance apart for the moment.

Riley was now stopped along the roadway on a side lane because something was wrong with the engine. He had pulled up and was kicking the crap out of one of the wheels in frustration. It wasn't as if they had to go very far in this car he reminded himself.

After they took the boy, the plan was to get him to a rubber dinghy that was waiting on the shore line nearby to take him halfway across the waterway to an island. There wasn't anything on the small mound of rocks except a pumping station maintenance shed. This is the place that had been chosen to hide the kid until their employer got the micro-chip they were looking for.

Thankfully for Riley there was a small amount of constant traffic along the highway so as not to make them stand out from any other broken down vehicle beside the road.

Bridger and Ford's vehicles were now approaching the place where Riley and Lucas were stopped. Lucas had regained consciousness when the car pulled up but up until now he had been feigning unconsciousness whilst trying to get a better view of his predicament without the gorilla beside him being rough with him again.

Lucas could here the sounds of other cars driving by so it was safe to assume that they were on a road somewhere. If only he could get a passer-by's attention to help him. He looked across at the man seated beside him through slightly opened eyes and decided that now was the best and probably only opportunity he was going to have of alerting someone to his forced captivity.

The other henchman was out with Riley trying to work out what was wrong with the car. The U.E.O. vehicles with the SeaQuest crew in them were now in sight of the kidnappers.

Riley turned away from the light so he remained mostly concealed by the shadows, but it was then looking back at the car that he could see the teenager's arm and hand raised and waving about as if to alert somebody. Thankfully the kid's face wasn't showing through the window.

"Would you keep a better on him huh, Frank," Riley shouted through the glass, pointing at the teenager's brief attempts to signal for help.

The man called Frank now quickly grabbed a hold of the raised hand and forced it back down again, holding it forcefully against the boy's body. "I told you to stay down," he said and now shoved Lucas from the seat to the floor of the vehicle.

Lucas was made to lay on his back with his face looking back at his captor. To add insult to injury the man now put his heavy booted foot down on the teenager's chest just to make sure that he didn't made any further attempts to get up or alert anybody with his arms.

"How you doing down there now kid?" the man joked at the kid and pressed a little harder down with his foot until he got a muffled moan of pain from the teenager.

Lucas knew now that there was now immediate help coming for him. All of his attempts so far had been thwarted and he didn't know where or when the next opportunity might present itself, if it ever did.

The SeaQuest vehicles drove right by Riley and his vehicle. To Bridger they looked like another vehicle just stopped by the side of the road. They hadn't asked if they needed any help because there was more than one person standing by the side of the vehicle. They had to get back to the SeaQuest as quickly possible, not knowing that they had already passed the person they were all so worried about.

Riley and his henchmen waited about half an hour by the side of the road, wanting to be totally sure that the SeaQuest vehicles weren't going to come back in a hurry.

Now satisfied that they were alone and with the traffic now very infrequent along the road, Riley moved to the other side of the car and gave the order for his partner to remove the teenager from the car.

The kidnappers gathered what other pieces of equipment they needed for their operation and carried it in backpacks with them.

Lucas couldn't help but groan in pain as he was force to stand on the rough ground with his injured leg. He didn't know if he could walk on it and didn't even want to try for fear of the pain in his foot getting worse.

At the end of the day however, Riley hadn't given the teenager much of a chance to say no and told Frank to stay with him and make sure he didn't try and make a run for it.

Frank just looked at him with a stunned expression as he looked at the kid's leg in a cast and grumbled about how he had gotten the rough end of the bargain. The other two men were walking down the slope of the roadway towards the shore line without any other burdens to worry about but themselves.

"Come on kid I don't like this anymore than you," Frank said gruffly, and start to push the kid forward making him take an unsteady step forward. Lucas could hardly see the comparison between himself and the man.

Upon his injured foot taking his weight with the steps he was made to take, Lucas was barely able to keep from screaming at the top of his lungs from the excruciating pain that results. The gag was the only thing stopping the heart felt screams.

By the time Lucas had been forced down the slope and into the brief tree line before the shore line and waiting boat, his face was very pale and tears had been streaming down his face.

Frank looked back at the kid and couldn't help but feel a little pang of guilt at the pain the teenager looked to be in. Even though he earned his living in a dishonest way, he didn't like to see out right suffering.

"Say Riley have you got that snake juice there with you at the moment?" Frank asked as Lucas was allowed to sit at the base of the tree. Riley and the other man were rummaging around in the supplies in the rubber dinghy, making a final check that they had everything they needed before setting off.

"He's not going to last much longer anyway, might as well make it easier on him," Frank suggested as he looked down again at the boy's pale and sweating face.

'Here make him take two now, I will give him something a lot more stronger when we get to the island," Riley said, tossing the bottle back towards the man but not bothering to look where it landed.

Frank shook two of the white coloured pills from the small bottle and then put the sealed bottle into his jacket pocket. He held out his hand towards the kid with the two tablets sitting in the palm.

"Here kid, take them, they will make the pain go away," Frank now said, hoping that the kid would be naïve to believe they were just painkillers.

Lucas however gave the man a scowl as if to say "how dumb do you think I am". His eyes flashed with out rage of being bound and gagged. Pain or no pain there wasn't any way on this earth he was going to take anything offered by these men.

Frank rolled his eyes at the defiant look on the kid's face which had turned once again back to pain. He didn't have time to muck around with him. He was going to take them like it or not.

The man now grabbed Lucas's head forcibly with one hand and pressed it hard against the trunk of the tree. With the other hand he yanked gag out of his mouth, leaving it loosely about his neck. Frank now tried to pry open the kid's mouth and make him swallow the tablets.

Lucas had tried to hold his breath to prevent the tablets being inserted into his mouth, but unfortunately he couldn't hold it very long and was made to takea breath. It was when he took that breath that the man was able to stuff the pills into his mouth. The man held Lucas's jaw shut until the pills slit horribly down his throat without any water to stop the bitter taste.

Satisfied that the kid had at least swallowed the pills, he now released the boy's head and watched for a few seconds to see if they were going to take effect.

Lucas had tried to fight against the drug but after a few minutes found his head spinning and becoming foggier and foggier.

"Come on Frank, they will work soon enough, get him over here and we will hide him underneath this cover until we get there," Riley now said, trying to hurry the man before any of their doings was witnessed by someone.

Lucas barely felt the large arms that lifted him up into a standing position. He looked out through his eyes, but couldn't quite work out when or who he was. He could feel his feet moving and could note a large amount of pain for some reason. But other than that Lucas didn't know what was going on. He was well on the way to being under the drug-induced cloud.

The teenager was placed into the rubber dinghy and made lie down against one of the sides. Riley now tossed an old rough cover over the top of the kid in case they encountered anybody else on the water before getting to the island.

For now they couldn't even see a shock of the boy's blond hair poking out from underneath the fabric. By the time the engine on the dinghy started them across the water, Lucas had succumbed fully to the effects of the drug in him and was deeply asleep in the boat.

to be continued...