Chapter 20: Kochi

Talon was generally unimpressed by Kochi's cityscape, particularly the industrial side of it. He would have thought that Calico would choose a more thriving metropolis to set up a facility and drain resources from. Then again, it was more about the resources themselves than the actual city, he reminded himself. All the same, Kochi wasn't exactly a goldmine in terms of fuel, industry or even work. Not that it mattered to him. It was, in fact, quite irrelevant to his own job; he wasn't being paid to judge how his employer played with his toys. If anything, he did his best to not think about it and focus more on his prime objective. An objective who seemed to do everything she could to make his job easier. He would almost be suspicious if it were an older or more aware target.

He exhaled a plume of smoke from his cigar out onto his view of the city on the overcast day. The buildings, having little variation in size beyond the two main categories of skyscrapers and five-story complexes, were not as tightly compacted as they were in New Delhi, being a couple more meters apart from each other. It was a thriving city for the most part. Not nearly as much as Tokyo or New Delhi, but remaining successful to a measurable extent. The side of town Talon was on was the side that met with a vast forest, the hill he stood on being just short of the imaginary border separating woods from city. He gave the overview one more visual sweep, then turned back into the forest where Clint was waiting in the car. "Get some inspiration?" he called as Talon approached.

Talon didn't respond. For being relatively new to a difficult job, the kid sure was cocky. He hoped that it didn't have any repercussions on his abilities. Fortunately, so far, it hadn't. But that didn't mean he didn't bear keeping a close eye on. Especially with Calico in the state he was in.

The man wasn't exactly seething, but he was uneasy. Everything in his plan had gone well so far: the resources were flowing in his direction, his weapons were being prepared, and not a single government had even noticed his activities beyond shipping cargo. However, he was tense about it all. He never showed it during the meetings, but he was nervous about any sort of hitch in his plan, and there were several possibilities for those. The girl and her dog were one of them, but they weren't the only ones. Calico was on edge for fear that something in his plan might turn sour, such as government intervention or a failure to receive necessary supplies, and cause his corporation to halt entirely or even be dissolved. Whatever his current worry, one thing was certain: he wasn't as confident as he was when it was Penny and Bolt out there; he was nervous that his plan might not succeed.

This almost caused Talon to smirk. His high and mighty boss, Doctor Calico, was actually thinking there was a chance he might not win. This, of course, meant stricter orders for himself and Clint. Much of the "master plan" depended on their success, and Calico had little toleration for failure. Or so Talon had been told. Whatever the boss's mood, this wasn't the type of job to second-guess in. Talon didn't usually care what or who the targets were, his main concern was doing the job the right way and, often times, his way. Such was the case here.

He climbed into their Jeep, double-checking what lay in the backseat, making sure that Clint hadn't lost any of their equipment. He faced the front again and kept his eyes fixed ahead. "Head to the generator complex," he ordered.

"The generator complex?" Clint repeated, giving him a confused look. "I thought we were going to the base. Or the airport."

Talon didn't look at him. "Trust me. She'll do some looking around, and the complex will lead her to the base."

Clint drove the Jeep down the road, but continued to wear a wary expression as he tried to read the other's thoughts through occasional sideways glances. The kid would be confused a few times along the way, Talon thought, but he was smart enough to do as he said without question. "We're still going to give her a way into the base, right?" Clint asked, after a minute of silence.

He would do as he was told almost without question. "Yes," Talon replied.

"And then we'll get her into the archive room where—"

"One thing at a time," Talon interrupted, crumpling his cigar in the ashtray beside him. "Get us to the generator complex. Then we'll go from there."

Clint very much preferred to plan far ahead, but he didn't voice it. Not to Talon. He continued to drive down the hillside road, running all possibilities of what Talon was thinking through his head. Nothing came up with an amount of certainty.

If Emily hadn't felt lost enough before, Kochi gave her a whole new definition of the term. She walked out of the airport as casually as she was able to appear, gently brushing and gliding past the numerous Japanese travelers, far too preoccupied with their own business to notice her, even when she occasionally collided with them. Their conversations were a mix of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, not that Emily could decipher them from one another. She occasionally heard a sentence or two of English, from slightly or heavily accented to flat-out butchered. She held tightly to Lightning's leash, keeping to the length that he could only be at her side, unnecessary since he rarely allowed her to even leave his sight. They walked through a large open, cylindrical area with three levels of balconies encircling it leading upward to a domed skylight. Looking up, Emily could see numerous more travelers either looking down or passing by the overlook on each level, some of them browsing through the gift shops, others dining at tables while engrossed in their newspapers or tablets. Some of the ones looking around were either fascinated tourists or stern-looking security guards.

Fortunately, none of them in black suits and helmets. None of them were looking for her.

When she finally reached the doors leading out into the parking lot, she scanned the area visually to ensure there were none of Calico's men nearby, waiting for her. She had been on a constant lookout ever since she entered the airport in New Delhi. She trusted the information Wilson had provided, but she couldn't help but feel like she was intended to trust it. He could have easily allowed himself to be captured so that Emily and Lightning could interrogate him. Probably contrary to what Calico's agents thought, she knew that this could be a trap. Then again, she kept reminding herself, she had no other leads to follow.

She would just have to spring the trap in a way that worked in her favor.

Finding a shuttle that traveled closest to the industrial side of the city, she sat in one of the benches near the back of the bus and held closely Mittens in her backpack to one side of her and Lightning to the other. Over the course of the ride, she reviewed in her head everything she had studied about Kochi while ensuring to not make eye contact with the other business and otherwise shady-looking passengers sitting further ahead of her. It was a short list, but still one worth keeping in mind. She was able to go over it about four times during the ride to Kochi's information center. The slow, uneasy ride past the city's few skyscrapers and bustling markets. Emily couldn't help but feel hyper vigilant. There had to be some of Calico's patrols around, making sure there was no commotion or investigation of their activities here, if they weren't looking for her. The fact that there wasn't even an occasional black Sedan made her anxious. Lightning also felt uneasy; for once, a lack of people trying to hurt Emily was disturbing.

When they finally arrived at the Information center on the more remote part of town, Emily and Lightning quickly disembarked from the bus and ran as fast as they could away from it, ignoring the risk of how suspicious it appeared. They ran inside the two-story rental car garage next to the Information building and hid behind one of the parked vehicles, as if they were being pursued. Emily pulled the map out of her backpack and looked it over again. They had made it to the far end of the city, near the industrial facilities Wilson had mentioned were near Calico's base. They were situated on the line separating the city from a dense forest, which Emily had noticed as they came close to their stop. It was in that forest where Calico was building his power.

It was in that forest, she hoped, where her family was being held. "At least we're headed in the right direction," Emily said, folding the map into her backpack again.

Lightning gave an eager bark and began wagging his tail. She smiled and stroked his head, doing the same to Mittens as she reinserted the map into her backpack. "We're almost there," she told both of them. It certainly didn't feel like they were, but the closer they were to her parents, the closer to home she felt. That was something.

She heaved the backpack onto her shoulders once again and walked vigilantly out to the street with Lightning—

Both of them nearly dove back into the garage as a black-colored Jeep approached down the street in their direction. They quickly skidded to a halt back at their previous hiding place, Emily attempting to catch the breath she lost from her sharp gasp. So Calico did indeed have agents in the city, and they had followed them here. Emily silently reprimanded herself for having used such an obvious mode of transport to get there. Of course there hadn't been any patrols in the streets. Calico knew where she would go. Lightning had realized this about the same time she did, giving a short, disgruntled growl. She patted his head reassuringly. There was no sense in being angry about the past, and there certainly wasn't any time for it.

She cautiously and slowly peered out from behind the rows of cars to see if the Jeep's occupants had noticed her. To her surprise and concern, it was nowhere to be found. She stood and stepped out from between the vans they hid behind. Lightning gave a warning growl, but Emily walked further towards the garage's exit, still looking down the narrow road for any sign of the Jeep. As she came to the opposite wall next to the door, she spotted the vehicle again, but it had not stopped. It was, in fact, a fair distance away from her, showing no signs of looking for her, or anyone. It was driving at a moderate, steady speed towards the industrial complexes. Towards one of Calico's complexes.

Once she was sure that it was a safe distance away, she whistled for Lightning and pulled her electronic scooter out of her backpack. She had it unfolded and powered up within fifteen seconds and while she checked that Mittens was comfortably situated as she strapped her helmet on, she made eye contact with Lightning for a long moment. Each smiled warmly at the other in an unspoken reassurance. We're almost there. Almost home.

Of course, both of them knew there would be more ahead than simply rescuing her parents. The small nagging pang of wariness Kochi itself had given them was reminder enough of that. But their weary minds told them that the closer they were to their family, the better off they were.

So long as they weren't alongside them in captivity.

Emily nodded to Lightning, mounted her scooter and accelerated down the road after the Jeep after carefully checking to ensure there weren't any others nearby. Lightning, of course, ran at her side at a perfect pace with the scooter, keeping his eyes locked on the Jeep ahead. Whoever was driving and whatever their purpose was in that area, they would lead them towards their next step. Even if it was a step backwards.

To their mild surprise and great suspicion, Emily and Lightning had followed the Jeep not into the forest, but into the industrial district they had seen on the far side of the city. Though she had only seen it from a short distance as she approached the information center, Emily doubted that Calico would be able or willing to have any major facility in such a small and rather unremarkable area. Her initial notion was that the base was somewhere in the forest, remote and far away from the risk of a curious local seeing something they shouldn't. But the Jeep had driven into the mix of run-down buildings, the only other traffic of which were large semi-trucks and an occasional compact car.

Two thoughts had occurred to Emily and Lightning at this point: the car wasn't returning to its base and was simply patrolling, or it was leading them both away from the base and into a trap. If it was the latter, however, why perform it here? Emily had concluded that at least coming near the trap would be worth it if it meant finding her family, but she figured it would be where they were actually being held so as to bait her. She hadn't expected it to be in some low-performance yet bustling series of factories. Or perhaps it wasn't even a trap. Perhaps Wilson had given her legitimate information and they were on the right track for once.

It sounded stranger than anything she'd heard since this all began, but they had only one way of knowing for certain. And it was a way Lightning disliked immensely. The two things he took issue with the most were the fact that they were even in Kochi at all, and that they were following this Jeep that had conveniently showed itself upon their arrival in this district. Even more so that it was driving into the least probable location for a base. If they were approaching a trap, it seemed to be a poorly constructed one. Poorly constructed traps were something Lightning could handle, of course, but he still didn't want to intentionally walk himself and Emily directly into one.

But Emily was intent on gaining any form of progress towards finding her family. It was his job to protect her as she did so, whether he favored it or not. But he knew that didn't mean they had to intentionally walk into—

Emily abruptly brought the scooter to a halt as they came up to a gate outside one of the larger buildings. She powered her scooter down and crouched behind the left-hand pillar of the gate, peering over as she attempted to keep the Jeep in view while staying out of sight of the guard post next to the pillar. The vehicle had driven halfway through the circular drive—which looped around the sculpture of the company's logo, a green half square inside a larger blue half circle with an uppercase Q between them—and stopped in front of the double-doors of the box-like, two-story building between two three-story buildings that ran further back, connected by a neat series of wires. A young-looking man with brown hair, a medium build and a gray jacket stepped out from the driver's seat and walked through the doors. Emily couldn't tell if there was another person in the car from her vantage point, but as she peered out further from behind the pillar, she could see that the guard post was vacant and the gate had simply been left open. Apparently, the security force had decided that any threat worth worrying about would have a difficult enough time getting past the lobby.

Emily watched the parked Jeep a couple moments longer, then shifted her gaze to the sign that lay on the decorative arch over the gate. She saw the company logo with Japanese text underneath. Fortunately, an English translation was conveniently provided below it.

Quantum Resources Inc.

A ploy, possibly. Something to cover up the real operations occurring here. But they had previously thought that this area was an incredibly unlikely location for Calico to have a base, backed by the fact that the power plant appeared as rundown as the surrounding buildings and there was minimal security. Which presented the question: Why had the Jeep stopped here? Emily felt a small amount of reassurance; maybe this was a place Calico didn't want her to go to. Somewhere where she could find information. If that was the case, however, why would he leave any forces nearby that would cause her and Lightning to find it?

Another question that would have to wait until later. The man reemerged from the building and climbed back into the driver's seat. Emily and Lightning ran through the gate and hid behind a row of shrubs that wrapped around the driveway as the Jeep drove through the gate again and disappeared as it turned onto the next street. Lightning looked back at the bulky structure, analyzing any possible entry points. The front door was out of the question, unless they wanted someone aware of their presence in any form. Looking down the side of the right-hand building, he noted no particular security measures of concern, but there were several small exhaust ducts about every twenty meters. He turned back to Emily, who had followed his line of sight. It seemed to be a clichéd manner of entering. Good thing we're not trying to impress anyone. Lightning told himself, still not convinced.

Emily looked back down at him and nodded. "Still think it's a trap?" He seemed to consider this. Whether it was or not, it felt like they were supposed to be there. He motioned his head in the building's direction as a reply. Emily stood and took a deep breath, sharing the thought. "All right," she said. "Lead the way."