Chapter Nine

Felix's captor quickly walked down a row of office doors. He stopped abruptly at one.

            "Yee!" He commanded. He stepped inside to see a man hunched over a desk. Blood ran off the edge and on to the carpet in one steady column. He slammed the door again and stomped back down the hallway.

* * * * * * *

"So what's in the other package?" Morris asked.

            "Anticipation, I guess." Sparky replied. He pushed the package forward to Morris. He tore the top off of the box with one tug. He pulled out the folded black leather trench coat and shook it out.

            "The thing weighs a ton." Morris commented.

            "It's armored. Metal plates and Kevlar." Morris laid the coat across his lap and tilted the box towards him. He reached to the bottom of the box and grabbed the pistol. "And that is a Savelite Guardian. Only heavy grade pistol that can chew through a clip three bullets at a time."

            "You bought these for me?" Morris asked is slight disbelief. He dropped the gun back in the box and went back to examining the trench coat.

            "No, they're on loan if you'd like to use them. I thought I'd pay a visit to the man who organized the attack on you Friday morning." Morris looked up in surprise.

            "It was organized? How? Who?" Morris exclaimed.

            "I can't give you a name, but it was John Montgomery. Oh damn." Sparky said, smiling.

            "How'd you find out? Why'd he want to do that to me?"

            "I beat it out of one of the punks that jumped you. The chairman paid him and a few other students to chase the 'undesirables' out. He paid them off with passing grades in some of their classes. Trolls and orcs aren't attending the University because they're too stupid, you know."

            "I'm going to murder him." Morris growled. He reached back into the box and took hold of the pistol once again. "If they're already hunting me, I have nothing to lose."

            "I have a better idea." Sparky interjected. "There's this nice biker place on in the ass-end of Seattle that Chairman Montgomery would love to visit…" Rapping came from the door.   

Bubba opened his eyes. He fell asleep sitting against the wall outside Emily's room. He checked his watch. Both hands pointed at six. Knocking came from the door again. The monkey charged for the door, eagerly anticipating her present. He rolled around to his knees, stood up walked to the door. Baby triggered the door to open. Standing there was a thin gentleman in sunglasses and a leather trench coat. He held a toolbox.

"Hi. There a patient here?" He asked. Bubba pointed at the couch. Sparky's deck laid there, charred and still slightly smoldering. The man took off his sunglasses. His eyes were wide.

"Dios mio!" He exclaimed softly as he crossed himself. He knelt down next to it. "Did you notify it's next of kin?"

"How long will it take to fix?"

"I can arrange a proper burial." The man pulled his hand inside the sleeve of his coat and picked up the deck.

"See she has an afterlife. We have the cred." Bubba assured the man. He inhaled and shook his head.

"Good thing I'm a miracle worker. I'll call you in a week." The man exited the apartment. Bubba closed the door behind the gentleman and went to Emily's bedroom door. He pushed it open gently.

            "How's it going?" Bubba asked from the doorway of Emily's room. She was laying on the bed, her head resting on a blood soaked pillow. A triangle shaped section of her skin from her head, from her ear to the inside corner of her left eye to the top of her head, had been removed. Sparky sat over her head, with his tall column of hair squashed inside of a rubber cap and a mask over his face, reassembling the cyberdeck inside and removing the destroyed portions with tiny precision tools. Emily's left eye stared blankly at Bubba.

            "Got all the charred material out of there and stopped the bleeding. No hemorrhaging, and I have no idea how she got that lucky. I can get her patched back up, but I need Doc to do the finishing touches and get rid of the scars." He removed his tools, stood up, and removed his cap and mask. He stepped outside with Bubba and closed the door. He reached into his pants pocket for his cigarettes. He took one out, lit it, and sucked hard on it. "Damn her outrageous luck."

            "She going to be alright?" Bubba asked. Sparky sucked hard on his cigarette again and tossed it in the general area of the kitchen.

            "Can't say." Sparky said, smoke pouring from his mouth as he spoke. "Doc's the better judge of that." Sparky looked at monitors still on the floor. They displayed sets of coordinates, scrolling over and over again.

"How long has that been displaying?" Sparky asked, approaching one of the monitors.

"Since you went in to work on Emily. Five hours. That an location?" Bubba asked.

            "Camera address." Sparky said. "That camera is pointing toward our magician, no doubt. He's locked down pretty tightly."

            "Can we get him?" Bubba asked. Sparky shook his head.

            "No. This master location is a known Yak warehouse." Sparky explained, pointing to a portion of the code. "And this isn't my usual cowardice talkin'. We don't have the manpower, or the guns to pull it off. You know they keep their property protected as much as the Star does." Bubba looked at the ground, thinking. He reached into his pocket and took out his secretary.

            "I'm calling the Trump Card." Bubba said grimly. Sparky's eyes widened.

            "What? We can't afford the Trump Card!" Sparky exclaimed. Bubba didn't reply as he brought the phone to his head. Sparky stepped forward and grabbed Bubba's wrist. He jerked it down.

            "We already owe enough people money!" Sparky barked, two feet from Bubba's face. "We're still paying for Emily! We can't do this!" Bubba grabbed Sparky by the collar and hoisted him eye to eye. Both men scowled at each other as their foreheads were pressed together.

            "We have to!" Bubba growled.

            "This job is every man for himself! Fletch knew that!"

            "You're talking like he's already dead! This is more than that! Circumstance loves that kid! That's the only reason she let herself get messed up like that!" Bubba put Sparky down slowly. He pointed into the bedroom. "If she dies, the only way to validate that is to bring Fletch back alive." Sparky silently cursed.

            "Fine. Do what you have to." Sparky said. He stomped into his bedroom and slammed the door. Bubba growled for a moment at Sparky and dialed a number. The phone rang a couple times, then the other end picked up. Silence.

            "I need a favor." Bubba said.

            "What manner of favor?" asked a high pitched, scrambled, computerized voice.

            "A friend has been kidnapped. We need him back."

            "Where is he?" The voice asked. Bubba took one of the numerous cords off the floor, plugged it into the pocket secretary and transferred the camera location through.

            "Will there be anything else?"

            "We need him back now. They may kill him." The voice fell silent. "Hello?"

            "The favor will cost you two hundred ten thousand nuyen. One hundred eighty thousand nuyen if your friend is already dead. Do you agree to my terms?"

            "Yes."

            "Meet me outside of your residence in thirty-five minutes." The voice said. Bubba hung up.

            Yoshi Shira and the severely injured orc stood before the security terminal monitoring Felix.

            "Do you think they know where he is?" The orc asked.

            "I doubt it." Shira replied. "I ordered the grid locked down. No user may pass." He looked at the orc in his one unbandaged eye. "Will you be staying for my demonstration?" The orc looked back.

            "Pardon?"

            "I believe you will thoroughly enjoy it." The man said, smiling evilly. He went to a small box and opened it. Inside was a clear jar holding clear liquid.

            "Acid?" The orc asked.

            "Not exactly. You shall see." The man replied. "But I believe this will weaken his desire to keep his girlfriend safe. Allow me to insert a disc and we shall begin the interrogation."

            The black semi approached the warehouses silently. The only one taking notice was the security guard on the verge of dozing off. He reached for a radio.

            "This is front post, west gate. Got a semi out front." He yawned. "Just thought I'd let you know." He put the radio down and closed his eyes. The back doors of the semi opened slowly, and a ramp dropped out noisily. The security guard opened his eyes and saw a small tank roll out.

            "Shit!" He exclaimed and ran out. The turret turned for the booth he was in and fired, sending debris everywhere. The entire tank rotated ninety degrees and hit full throttle through the electrified gates. The gates yielded easily enough. Showers of sparks came from the breech. Lights around the warehouses flickered, blinked off then came back on when the sparks stopped shooting from the gate. It continued accelerating down the main road of the warehouses. Suddenly, it screeched to a halt, swung it's turret to a wall and fired at point blank, demolishing the entire end of the building. The hatch popped open and a man, covered from head to toe in black, jumped out. He walked straight in, over the debris of the crumbled wall and approached an elevator.

            "Any reason why a dozen of your cameras went off line, Yoshi?" The orc asked. Yoshi beat his fist on a keyboard. He leaned out a door and screamed something in Japanese. Four men jumped to action and ran out of the building. Yoshi turned to the orc, furious.

            "If this man is taken, I will kill you." He growled.

            The elevator stopped. Four men standing before the elevator door fired into the car with eight sub-machine guns. The doors buckled and disintegrated in the crossfire. They kicked them in and entered the car, unloading the rest of the ammunition into the ceiling of the car. When the firing stopped, four blasts came from the floor, killing each man inside. The elevator began ascending again, allowing the man, covered in black, hanging from the bottom to exit. He walked casually down a hallway. As he came close to a T-intersection, he fired into right wall at a forty-five degree angle with a highly modified beast of a gun. As he turned the corner, he stepped over bodies and guns. Soon he came to a door and kicked it open. Inside, he saw Felix shackled to a chair.

            "Are you alive?" The man asked in a high-pitched scrambled computerized voice.

            "My leg itches." Felix replied. The man went to him and pulled the IV that was punched through his suit out of his arm, then crouched behind him and cut the restraints with a small tool. He came back around and hoisted Felix over his right shoulder. He balanced the weight and exited. He encountered no resistance through the hallway or in the elevator back down. Yoshi Shira watched furiously on the functioning monitors. The orc behind him watched indifferently. Yoshi screamed, reached for his belt and whipped out a gun, pointed straight for the orc's head.

"You knew this was going to happen, didn't you!" Yoshi growled. "You junkie piece of garbage, you knew it all along!"

"And what makes you say that?" The orc asked, crossing his arms.

"The one person who can tell me where that bitch is, stolen from me at the perfect moment! There's only one other person who knows where we are, and that's you!" Yoshi cocked the small automatic pistol and took a deep breath. "But I'm sure killing you will be a service to our community. One less drug addict to worry about."

Before Yoshi could react fast enough to pull the trigger, the orc thrust his flattened hand into Yoshi's stomach like a dagger. He pierced the skin and Yoshi's stomach. He stood there in shock, only able to stare at the orc with eye wide with pain. The orc turned his hand and hoisted Yoshi by the bottom of his ribcage until they met eye to eye.

"I don't appreciate being called a junkie, or a drug addict for that matter." The orc explained in a very calm and even tone. "My ability to ignore the burns on my body or the bullets in my chest does not come from a bottle or a line of white dust drawn on a mirror or a syringe or a pill. I have spent more years than you are old, learning the ancient arts from masters hundreds of years old. I have learned from these great men and women how to direct energy through my body, how to bend and flex in ways once thought anatomically impossible, and, most importantly, how to train my body and my mind to stop registering the concept of pain. Which, I'm sure, you wish you knew how to do right now." Yoshi began to tremble and spout blood from his mouth. His irises widened.

"So, when you call me a 'junkie', or an 'addict', you discredit my decades of training." The orc said. Yoshi trembled hard for a few seconds more than fell limp in the orcs bloody hand. The orc dropped him to the floor and quietly exited the building.

            The Trump Card exited the elevator, still holding Felix, and climbed back over the rubble. Suddenly, he took a pace backward and stepped behind a large piece of ceiling. With one hand, he flipped two switches and twisted a small dial on his gun. He stepped back out and fired a short burst at the roof of the building opposite the one he was in. He waited. A long rifle tumbled off the roof and landed to earth on it's butt, discharging a sniper round into the night. He walked to his tank, deposited Felix inside, retrieved the sniper rifle and climbed back in. The engine roared to life and rolled back out the entrance. It climbed back into the semi. The ramp raised and the doors closed. The semi's engine jumped to life and drove into the night with no driver.

            Thirty-three minutes later, the semi stopped in front of the promenade of Bubba's apartment. The back doors opened again. The Trump Card exited, followed by Felix. They walked quickly to the abandoned shop and entered, seeing Bubba standing in the middle of the tiled floor. The Trump Card stopped a few feet in. Felix approached Bubba.

            "Ya alright?" Bubba asked. Felix nodded. The effects of the stuff piped into his veins had worn off. Bubba tossed three credsticks at the black figure in the doorway. He caught each one, bowed and promptly exited.

            "You look wonderful." Bubba said, patting Felix on the back.

            "Thanks. You look like shit." Felix replied. They turned for the hallways.

            "How did you find me?" Felix asked. "And who was that?"

            "He doesn't matter, but Circumstance found you looking through the security cameras. She's messed up pretty bad."

            "I'm sorry."

            "It's not your fault." Bubba said. "She does whatever she wants, and God save the man who tries to tell her different." They turned the corner for the propped open apartment door. As they entered, Doc came out of Emily's bedroom.

            "'Bout damn time." Doc said, a cigarette bouncing wildly between his lips. "How are you with mind spells?" He asked, waving him over to follow him to his loft.

            "Uh, like what kind?" Felix asked, ascending the staircase.

            "Probes." Doc replied. "Total invasion."

            "Never tried any before." Felix said. Doc began to pull books off the shelf and pile them on the floor. He stopped when the stack reached his waist.

            "Read these. You need to learn it."

            "Why?"

            "Circumstance is in some sort of psychotic coma. She won't come out of it until we bring her out."

* * * * * * *

Felix paused. He dropped his pencil on the notebook and scratched his scruffy chin. He picked his pencil up again, erased a sentence, and continued writing. A knock tapped quietly on the bedroom door. Felix didn't answer. The door crept open to a crack.

            "Felix?" Nocturne asked. No reply. She pushed it open all the way and floated in slightly. She called his name again. Nocturne floated in farther.

            "Don't step on the books."

            "I don't walk." Nocturne replied. She smiled, but got no response. She sighed and floated to the bed.

            "Have you changed your clothes?" She asked.

            "I will when we help Circumstance."

            "Have you shaved? Taken a shower? Eaten anything?"

            "I will when we help Circumstance."

            "You can't do this to yourself, Fletch." Nocturne said. She looked over the twins' bedroom, littered with open books and crumpled papers on every available flat surface. "How much longer?"

            "Maybe an hour. Almost done." Felix replied. He scribbled something quickly. "No, I'm ready. Is Doc?"

            "Has been for three days, Fletch." Nocturne replied. Felix closed the notebook, stretched and went around to Emily's room, followed by Nocturne. Emily lay on the bed with Doc kneeling next to her, patting her head with a damp washcloth. Her head had been put back together and the sheets were changed. Emily was dressed in a nightgown. A pair of IVs came from each of her arms, dripping clear liquid into her veins. Doc looked up at Fletch.     

            "You ready?" Doc asked. He smoothed his beard out and stood up.

            "Yes." Felix said.

            "You've read each of them books? Took notes and practiced?"

            "Yes."

            "Ones on ritual sorcery, too?"

            "Yes."

            "Good. Now, begin as we discussed." Doc ordered. Felix closed his eyes and slipped into the astral realm. After a few moments, Doc appeared before him, his aura shining bright orange.

            "Now, bring Circumstance's mind into view." Felix thought to himself. "Slowly, don't let the ego interfere." Slowly, the blackness of the surrounding room brightened to gray then white. As if Felix and Doc were falling, a dot on the invisible horizon grew. Felix started to feel nervous. This wasn't how he read the procedure was going to occur. The infinitesimal dot grew into a swirling mass of smoke. Felix looked at Doc to see his aura fade from bright orange to deep purple; the color of distressing disappointment. He looked at Felix and faded away. Felix looked at the approaching globe as it grew larger and larger. Suddenly, Doc's spirit reappeared, flaming red, grabbing Felix and tugging him away. But Felix didn't budge. He looked at the smoky sphere grow larger and larger. After tugging one last time, Doc let go and vanished. The sphere enveloped Felix.

            Doc sat on the floor, breathing hard.

            "No." Doc whined, on the verge of tears. "You damned kid."

            "What?" Nocturne asked, worried. Doc stood up, shaking. He reached into his pocket, put a cigarette in his mouth. He fumbled and cursed at his lighter. He grabbed the cigarette from his mouth and tossed it away in frustration and held his head with both hands.

            "Her will's too strong. She's not coming out, and I think she took 'em with her."