I didn't manage to finish that book before the school library's deadline

Oh, and another thing. Updates might not be as fast as you'd expect them to be this summer. My family plans on traveling a lot and I don't have my own laptop. I'll try and work when I can but you can expect several week waits starting in July.

Spectrobes Legends

Chapter 21

I looked at the three men, all packed into a corner. They'd lost their sunglasses at some point, revealing dark, emotionless eyes. Even when I waved my sword at them, they hardly flinched. Keith had searched them. It turned out that one even had a silencer pistol on him, but most of their weapons qualified as nonlethal—tasers and mace, mostly. Even without confessions, anyone could tell that these men were professionals sent to capture, not to kill.

I pointed my sword at the middle man. "You mentioned something about a singer."

"The only reason professionals like you would care about someone like that is if someone paid you to 'nab said singer!" Lily deduced.

"Who sent you?" Keith demanded.

They were silent.

Lily pulled out her cell phone. "I'm calling the police."

One of them cursed.

Keith grabbed Lily's phone. "Wait." He looked back at the men. "I believe that we can come to an agreement here."

I gave him a what-are-you-doing? Look.

"In your line of work, I doubt that you'll be able to get any jobs when word gets out that you were taken down by a teenage girl, am I right?"

Another man gritted his teeth.

"If you tell us who sent you then we'll forget any of this ever happened."

"WHAT?" Lily cried.

"Are you insane?" I hissed.

"This may be our only chance to get a solid lead on Alex's location." I explained.

Grudgingly, Lily and I went along with Keith's evil plan.

"You know, some hired guns are honorable people that would never sell out their employers for a better deal." One said.

I winced.

"We're not those kinds of hired guns." Another responded.

They handed us a business card.

Trung Sisters Incorporated

"That's our employers' calling card. The co-presidents were the ones that arranged the entire thing. They're the ones you want."

"Looks like we're going to be spending a good long while on Google tonight." Keith sighed.

(…)

The Trung sisters were born in a rural Vietnamese village, into a military family, and led a rebellion against Chinese occupation of Vietnam in ancient times. According to legend, they managed to kill a tiger and wrote their call to arms on its pelt.

"I'm pretty sure that these sisters are dead." Lily announced.

"And I'm pretty sure that these aren't the Trung sisters we're looking for."

"No. They're not. I decided to see what we'd get if we left out the 'incorporated,' but I guess it was a bad idea."

We were back at my house, in my room, researching the tip those men had given us. I still felt funny about letting those jerks go, but I was a woman of my word, and one even agreed to change his policy so that he'd never accept a job that could wind up hurting a kid.

Keith added "incorporated" into the search. "Let's see what we get when we add that last part in."

He pressed enter.

One of the first results was a logo of two female white tigers (don't ask me how I can tell—they way that they were drawn just made them look more feminine) standing on top of a much larger male tiger. That was dead. The image was encompassed by an ornate ring that had that same look that always seemed to be associated with Asian nations.

"It's a research group that seems to work in all areas," Keith told us.

"Wait a second," I told him, "go back to the search results page. I think I saw something."

He did so.

"Click on the fourth link."

It was a news article.

"Human rights violations… Come claim kidnapping and extortion!" Lily breathed.

Keith's eyes widened as he read. "Trung Sisters Incorporated has been accused of violating international law…over eight times in just as many years. The two sisters at the head of the company are said to exhibit signs of insomnia, megalomania, and possibly even sadism."

Lily gulped.

"Keep on reading," I said.

"Some claim to have evidence that they've been working on biological weaponry and a genetically engineered super soldier."

"What the crap?" Lily blurted out.

"This is starting to sound like a James Patterson novel."

"The company has never been pinned due to their large funds, lack of a position in the public, eye, political connections, and favoritism amongst some feminist movements for being a company based in China and Korea—patriarchal societies—and being headed by two women."

There was a link that lead to recent news on the company.

Lily gasped. "Trung Sisters Incorporated announces that it's privately investigating a lead on the mysterious red-haired woman and the Krawl themselves…!"

"Humans Rights and Environmental groups currently investigating TSI have reported increased activity since—" I covered my mouth in shock—"the same day Crystal City High School was evacuated due to the Krawl attack!"

"The same day Alex vanished!" I exclaimed.

"And look at this." Keith clicked on another link and pointed at the screen. It was a picture of a building in the nearest big city, like a twenty minute drive away. "They just bought this complex in the next town over."

Lily gulped. "So we're…"

"Going to break in." I said.