chapter FOURTEEN: Cold and Clear

Snake was through the sensors in a matter of minutes. They had presented challenges to him in his early years, but navigating them now was hardly a thing to worry about. When he did reach the other side of the hall he stopped, the two glass doors ahead, foggy and shrouded by what appeared to be ice on its surface. Snake went down on his knee and put his hand to his ear, attempting to connect with Brant, but he had no luck in doing so.

"Where is he?" he pondered quietly and stood. He looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was coming down the hall and put his hand on the silver handle mounted on the glass door. Cautiously, he pulled it open and slipped through the gap.

The terminals scattered about the room, broken into segments by thin frosted walls like those of cubicles, caught his attention first, but what cemented itself in his mind was the cold. It bit at his face as the snow had done outside.

Rubbing his hands together, he stepped forward just as a ringing erupted in his ear. Twisting so that his back rested against one of the thin walls that divided the terminals throughout the room, he put his hand to his ear and stuttered in beginning.

"Brant?" he blurted, his language shaky and broken.

"No, silly," a voice returned, young and seemingly overjoyed. Snake looked oddly ahead, as if the voice was now standing before him, a body matching to it. "Remember me, Snake?" He did. And he was glad to hear her, surprisingly so.

"Mei Ling," he said.

~*~

Desperado made his way back down the fire escape and the stairwell, and went out the front door of Café 1200. The street was still quiet. People were turning their heads away from the body beside the hot dog stand, the body of Desperado's friend, but they did not seem surprised or frightened. Only disgusted.

The Feds weren't on the scene yet. Desperado imagined, or hoped rather, that Alex's agents had caught the shooter before he sped out of the District, but he couldn't be sure. He wondered, as he stood on the side of the road, who the agents had been, or where they'd been for that matter. They obviously knew where he was and Alex had said that they were on location, yet Desperado had not seen a single one of them – or noticed a single one.

'They must be good,' he thought, and then slowly crossed the street, no cars coming from either way. A strong crowd had formed on the opposite sidewalk while most had passed the body and gone on with their business. It wasn't until he saw the flashes of their cameras flashing, and heard the commentaries commentating that he paid any attention to the News vans lined up along the sidewalk.

'They work quicker than the police,' Desperado thought. Just then, as he began splitting through the mass of people, sirens came down the street and blipped off as a number of police cruisers screeched to a stop behind the News vans.

Desperado looked over his shoulder and heard them yelling orders for everyone to move back. He peered through the crowd and looked pitifully upon Fred, his eyes vacant, mouth still curved – but in a frown, not a smile as it had been when Desperado last looked at him.

"Get back!" the policemen cried, pulling people away. Desperado realized how the masses were dwindling, but didn't want to leave Fred like that. He looked up once and saw people being wretched from where they stood and thrown roughly aside as yellow tape was wrapped around the area and around Desperado.

A policeman came up to him as he looked about in confusion as to why he'd been left within the crime scene and said: "Mr. Moore is expecting a call." Desperado looked sharply at the policeman who then tipped his hat and turned away.

"How does a policeman know who I am?" Desperado said aloud, provoking the policeman to turn and walk calmly back to him.

"Because a policeman is trying to keep you alive today," the officer said, angrily. "You're filling some pretty big shoes. You're important today, and people are going to want you dead." He looked over his shoulder at the corpse on the sidewalk. "The kind of people who put a bullet through that associate of yours."

"What do you know?" Desperado said, grabbing the man's shoulder as he began to turn away.

"I only know what I'm told." He started off.

"And what are you told?" Desperado said, boldly.

"Make the call, Desperado," and he went away.

Desperado wandered out of the Crime Scene, passing under the yellow tape and not taking another look at Fred. The streets were filled now, with people and cars alike, and the sun was moving up beyond the horizon.

His phone shook in his jacket as he went down the sidewalk, leaving the commotion behind. And, picking it out of his pocket, he checked the Caller ID: 'Brant.' Raising it to his ear and pressing it ON, he waited for the phone to connect. When it did, a voice came over the line – whispered.

"We have him," the voice proclaimed, slithering through Desperado's head. But, the line did not disconnect. There was a heavy silence as the caller waited for Desperado to answer. And then, grinning, he did.

"Good."

~*~

Brant didn't know how to describe how he felt when he woke. He knew damn well that the back of his head was pounding, reverberating with pain, and that he was somewhere inside. He couldn't hear the rain where he was, and he couldn't feel the breeze anymore either.

Sitting up a little, he tried ignoring the pain in his skull. There was a wall to his back, one that he slid up against, and ahead in what was engulfed in shadow there was a window. There was no sun outside, as far as he could tell, but the sky was no longer pitch black.

It was a dark blue now. A shade that did nothing to inspire hope. But, heck, he didn't know where he was. He knew he was inside somewhere, but other than that –

Something was in the corner of the room, hidden in the dark. He could tell from the light through the window. It grazed the shoulder of a creature, its body held awkwardly even as it sat. Peering through the shadows, trying to find other reflections of light, Brant stayed as motionless as he could. Whatever the thing was, he didn't want it to know he was awake.

But, he guessed, when a red circle lit up where the creature's face would be and two red slits like eyes along with it, the creature knew full well that he wasn't sleeping any longer.

A song of terror beat in his chest as he watched, his whole body lying still through fear of the two red eyes that glowed cold and clear.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey! If you're reading now, you're probably noticing that I'm beginning to return to my routine of updating almost every other day. This is how I used to go about things, but lack of fans and reviews has bogged down my writing quite a bit. I do plan to continue uploading chapters on a more regular basis, but I would greatly appreciate more frequent reviews. They certainly help to boost my enthusiasm. Thanks, and I hope you're all enjoying!

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