Disclaimer:
All DBZ characters belong to Akira Toriyama.
The other ones belong to me :p
YELL
" Someone has taken the idea of revenge a little bit too far "
Chapitre EIGHT: Third Call
Saturday Evening, 18:47 Capsule Corporation
Two hours thirty later, an impeccable white and blue
van parked in the private alley of the Connors, behind Trunks' car. It looked
like vehicle of the telephone services, and it was in fact the case, even if
the words Satan City Police were written on the side in fine discrete fonts.
Almost at the same time, the same kind of scenario was happening in the property of the Sons. Two technicians rang the bell, excused themselves to have taken so long to come, and asked ChiChi if she didn't mind to sign the form that one of them presented to her, fixed on a small plank. She scanned it quickly, and saw that it was authorizing them to place a phone tapping and numbers-tracing system on her phone, as well as the authorization to use these phone-tappings in Court.
At the Capsule Corporation, Bulma scribbled her signature on the bottom of the pages.
"This searching-system, is it really effective?", Chichi asked. It seemed significant to her to say something: once the form signed, the technicians had kept silence, and this silence was oppressive for Chichi.
"Yeah", one of them answered. And it was all.
At the Capsule Corporation, Bulma was more lucky, for one of the technicians began to explain the process while dismounting the phone receiver: " We can trace back a call up to his point of origin, and everywhere in the world. Forget about old movies where you had to keep the person at least 58 seconds online to locate him. As long as nobody hangs up here... ", he agitated a receiver which was looking very science-fiction suddenly, "... we can trace him up to the point of call. Of course, most of the time, the call is made from a phone box in a public place... ", he hastened to add.
"You have another station on the floor? ", asked his partner.
"Yeah... four others", Trunks answered with the more and more clear feeling to be making a nightmare : forgotten the time when everything was settled with burning blasts or raging Kamehamehas... Now, everything was done legally. He began to regret the war-time.
"They are separate lines?", the second technician inquired.
"No. We only have one", Bulma answered, while thinking that, considering the numerous calls of girls in tears for Trunks, she would soon install a second line only for him.
"Where you will place the recorder?", Trunks asked.
"Probably in the cellar ", the technician answered with an absent expression while connecting the wires of the ripped-open receiver in a small box bristled with spring-contactors. He had in his voice a "do-you-mind-to-let-us-make-our-job ?" tone.
Trunks took his mother's arm and lead her away.
*******************************
Saturday evening, 20h22, Son House.
Chichi was away and preparing a strong coffee. The events of these latest two days had tried her patience, and she had a presentiment that it was only the beginning. The technicians had finally finished connecting all the listening-hardware on her telephone.
They had first been disgusted, but apparently not very surprised to discover that behind the state-of-the-art phone hardware of the Son, was hidden in the West City telephone exchange, the good old archaic rotary dial system.
"My God ! You've got to see it to believe it !", the technician named Rowin told, with a voice-tone suggesting that there was nothing better to wait from such dump of a place.
His co-worker, Kyle, had gone out with a heavy step to seek in the van the necessary equipment to put the phone of their customers to the level of the hardware used by the police. Rowin had rolled his eyes and had looked at Chichi as if the latter ought to informed them that, about phones, she was still in the pioneers-time.
"All the phones of the city function like that", Chichi had explained curtly. She was feeling in her stomach a wonderful acidity-crisis.
*******************************
Saturday evening, 20h23, Capsule Corporation.
Bulma was sitting in front at the table of the living-room, in front of her fourth coffee cup. She was gently massing her temples with the top of her fingers, as if she was feeling the coming of a particularly painful migraine.
* It's probably already what happens to her *, Trunks thought. He glanced the technicians who were coming down from the first floor, followed by his grand-father. Two agents of the FBI had come to ask them questions. Especially to him. And they were preparing to leave, gathering their files.
"It is good", one of the technician launched happily. "The system is placed and should be operational." Trunks wondered whether they would be so merry if they had to place such a listening system on the phone of one their relatives in similar circumstances.
"And now ?", he asked, more to fill the conversation. The technician close to him answered him with a smile: "it is simple... we wait. Nothing more... We will just make some tests to see whether the system functions well, and --"
He was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. Everyone looked at the apparatus, and Trunks felt an artery starting to triple rate in his neck. A bubble of burning acidity, rose slowly from his stomach in his chest and gave him the impression to extend its pseudopodes until the bottom of his throat.
"Excellent !", the second technician, Jo, exclaimed, " we won't even need to make a checking-call ".
Trunks felt suddenly the unpleasant sensation to be locked up in an frozen-air pocket, which moved slowly with him as he moved towards the phone. On its right, was a gadget, kind of rubi-cubic, with luminous bulbs on the side. One of them was flickering, in synchronization with the ringing of the telephone.
Jo was kneeling close to the chimney, busy to tidy up his tools in a black trunk which, with its large chrome closings, was looking like a building workman's hypertrophied luck tin. The other technician, Daniel was resting against the picture window leading to one of the gardens and was crunching an apple, stopping from time to time to examine his work with the critical eye of an artist in the pangs of creation.
"You should take the circuit-controller ", he said to Jo, "if we need to deparasite, let's do it right now. It will avoid us to come back."
Trunks frowned. Daniel was speaking as if the Capsule Corporation were a field of leprous.
"Good idea", Jo answered happily. Trunks wondered, irritated, if he was able to feel something else than a perpetual idiotic joy, while observing Jo taking an object with a handle like that of a gun in the giant lunch tin.
In the expectancy, the two technicians were just appearing slightly interested. The two FBI agents, Werner and Rolland were arranging their notebook, rectifying the impeccable fold of their trousers and confirming the impression that Trunks had made about them at their arrival: those men were more looking like legal advisers or tax inspectors than clue-searchers. They didn't even seem to realize that the telephone was ringing.
* hey, guys, what happens to you? *, Trunks got the sudden desire to howl. * Why the hell did you set up all this hardware, if it is all the effect that it has on you?*
Of course the probability that the murderer was the first person to call the Connors five minutes after the installation of the listening-system was too negligible so that somebody could think about it seriously. Except that Trunks was feeling that it was him. An unpleasant vibration in the back of his neck certified it to him.
Jo was watching him, now, wondering why Trunks was not picking up the phone : " Uuh… I believe that we're going to leave, Mrs Conno... " Werner began, before Trunks stopped him: "Not, that's okay ".
He turned half to them, with a weak smile: " I won't start trembling each time the phone rings...! ", and he finally picked it up.
//Hi Trunks//, the voice which he knew too well said.
Trunks felt his breathing accelerating, and Bulma understood who was on the phone by discovering the paleness on his face : " It's him... ", she murmured in a breath.
"What you want, son of a bitch ?! Huh ?!! What do you want, at the end ?!! ", Trunks howled to the receiver.
Jo started; Daniel petrified himself at the very moment he was going again to crunch in his apple. The two federal agents abruptly turned their head in Trunks' direction. Understanding who was on the phone, thy exchanged a glance where you could read: and now, what the hell are we supposed to do?
//Keep cool, Trunks//, the voice told with a funny note, //it's useless to have a pee in your trousers//
The two technicians consulted each other with a low voice and Daniel rushed out to the van, always holding his apple with one hand. Jo ran to the staircase leading to the cellar to check that the tape recorder had engaged well with the sound of the voice.
The impassive Effe Bee Hai dispensers of justice were standing in the medium of the living-room, their eyes round. Bulma believed that they were about to held in each other's arm, like children lost in wood.
"What do you want?!", Trunks repeated with a firm and charged with a deaf hatred voice.
//Me ? Simply to tell you that it's over, man//, the voice answered. //I finally got my revenge on Gohan. I just call to put your mind in rest//, the voice added with a friendly tone.
"You tell me bullshit, yes!! ", Trunks howled furiously. The two agents of the FBI started as if someone has pinched their buttocks.
//C'mon, Trunks, it's not very nice all that //, the voice told with an offended and sulky tone. //You thought that I wanted to harm you ? No... The only one that I wanted to see laying down, the internal organs spread in front of him and blood repainting the walls was Gohan //.
* He knows *, Trunks thought suddenly. * He knows that they listen. And he knows how they think. He will play the old and single revenge so that their attention will be slackened. And when their protection will weaken, he will come back, knocking on the door…*
"It's a damn lie ! I know it! ", Trunks told with a dry and shingling tone, "Why would you have called Pan, then? Which use, as you had already killed Gohan?!!".
//It is not important... Perhaps the desire have fun of the fear of people one last time before leaving the scene... //, the voice said, very calm. //But that does not have any importance anymore. I will not keep you any longer. I'll just you repeat it: It is over//.
And it was the end of the communication.
[to be continued... ]
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Do you believe him? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? ;-)
Oh, well, stay tuned to the next episod :)
I'm just warning you, it will be a little bit gore, so, prepare the vomiting
bags :D
thanx jdchs for your review on the previous chapter :,-)
I was wondering if someone was still reading this story... (waaaaaaarh :,(........
)
interesting analysis ;-)
