I Met a Man in St. Yves, part 1.
Author's Note: This was a Lone Gunmen fanfiction piece that I started on June 26, 2001. I'm not really sure where the idea came from, but that's fine. Please read on. As always, I do not own these characters. I am merely borrowing them.
"Kimmy is dead."
"What?" Frohike couldn't believe it. Kimmy, one of the best hackers ever, was dead? They had seen him only last week. It seemed impossible. How could he just have died?
"You heard me," said Langly. He held up a copy of that morning's newspaper. It was the "ordinary" newspaper. The newspaper that didn't tell the whole truth, as the "Lone Gunmen" did. The headline read, "HACKER DEAD." Underneath was a picture of Kimmy.
"I don't believe it!" roared Frohike. "How did he die? What happened? We've got to look further into this."
"Frohike, it's a done deal. He's dead. Besides, didn't you watch the news on TV yesterday?" asked Byers. He was clam and collected as usual. He could stay calm and collected in the worst of situations. He straightened his tie and suit jacket carefully.
"No, I didn't," snapped Frohike. "What happened?"
"He was just standing on the street and someone crashed their car into him. The body was hit at very high impact, so they had a rather hard time trying to figure out who it was. They finally identified him by the teeth."
"Poor Kimmy," said Langly. By now he was a bit hysterical. "He was a brilliant hacker. He taught me almost everything I knew. And now he's—now he's—gone!" He started sobbing. Byers and Frohike looked at each other quizzically, not quite knowing what to do.
Frohike handed Langly a tissue. "Thanks," said Langly. "Um, allergies," he added lamely.
Byers nodded. "I know, I have allergies too," he said in an attempt to make Langly feel better.
"We've got to get to the bottom of this," said Frohike. "Something isn't right? Why did someone just run him over? Did the police get a license plate or anything?"
"No," said Byers. "The only thing they have is an eyewitness who's blind."
"Then how the hell is that an eyewitness?" asked Langly. "More like an earwitness or something."
"She heard tire screeching and Kimmy scream. She said that there was another voice, though. Someone yelled, 'You shouldn't have helped them!' right before he died," Byers recollected what he had seen on the news that previous night.
"You shouldn't have helped them," repeated Frohike slowly. "Who would Kimmy help?"
"He was a hacker," said Langly simply. "That means he could have helped anyone, really. But he had made a bunch of money. He only was hacking recently as favors or for us if we needed him to."
"It's still strange," said Byers thoughtfully. "Who was this 'them' that that guy was talking about? And why did he take Kimmy's life? It must have been important."
"It must have," agreed Frohike. "By the way, where's Jimmy?"
Langly and Byers looked at each other rather sheepishly. They had both been too caught up in Kimmy's death to even think about where Jimmy was. Usually he was somewhere trying to make breakfast or attempting to uncover a conspiracy where nothing was to be found. But he was just gone.
Suddenly, Jimmy burst in the warehouse from the back door. "You guys will never guess what I've found out!" he said, obviously very pleased with himself.
"And what might that be?" asked Langly. He wasn't really up for any of Jimmy's surprises, but since he figured that things couldn't get worse than they already were, he went along with it.
"One of the players on my football league's wife witnessed a murder last night."
"Of course!" said Frohike. "Tell us more, Jimmy."
For the first time that morning, things had started to pick up. Before Jimmy had gone to work with the Gunmen, he was the coach of a blind football league. He now sometimes reported with the Gunmen and funded the publishing of their newspaper.
"Well, the guy's wife, who's also blind, called me up really early this morning. I had told all the football guys that I was going to be a reporter, and he must have told her. So she called me and I got an exclusive interview," said Jimmy, somewhat smugly.
"Way to go, Jimmy!" said Langly. "Did you find out anything that the police haven't?"
"I think so," Jimmy said slowly. "The woman's name is Emily Rhett. She said that she actually knew Kimmy. She didn't tell the police because she doesn't trust them."
"Well, who does?" asked Frohike."
"Anyway," Jimmy continued, "Emily heard this guy yell 'You shouldn't have helped them!' before he ran over Kimmy. She thinks that guy was Kimmy's father. But she doesn't know who he was talking about when he told Kimmy she shouldn't have helped."
"Kimmy's own father wanted to kill him?" Langly thought out loud. "I don't know, I've never met the guy. Kimmy never talked about him."
"Plus that," Jimmy said, "Kimmy's father has disappeared. We can't find him anywhere. You don't think that he's dead, too, do you?"
"We don't know," said Frohike. "But this is good stuff, Jimmy. Maybe you can become a real journalist after all."