Toshi smiled easily at the girl on the swing, she was so absorbed in thought that she didn't even see him walk up. "Hey kiddo, you escape?"
Obsidian jumped and looked the guy over. Her eyes narrowed perceptively. "You're too young to be a truancy officer, what do you want?" She did not feel like being friendly right now.
Toshi put his hands up in a mock form of surrender and laughed. "You got me there, I'm not a cop at all. I have been looking all over for you though."
Sid glared hard. "Try your lines on someone else freak-o."
Toshi blushed. "No, you misunderstand. I'm not like that, I'm a bounty hunter and your guardian would very much like you back. I don't know how you escaped, but we'll get you home safe and sound. You are Obsidian Sikes, right?"
Obsidian immediately got the wrong idea, thinking it was a bounty that Joseph had put out on her. "You guys never quit do you?" She tried to run, but Toshi was quick on the uptake and grabbed her arm.
"Hey kiddo, I don't mean to burst your bubble, but you're going home. This isn't a vacation here, you can't live off the street yah know."
"Watch me buddy." Sid hissed as her foot connected with his shin. Toshi refused to let go, and Sid was forced once again to ditch her coat and take off. Ein ran off in the direction of the pier as if to get help. There was no way that Obsidian was going to clear the four-foot fence surrounding that corner of the playground with that little of a take off and him so close, so she made a quick turn and changed direction. Toshi dropped the coat in his hurry to follow her.
"Wait kid, I'm not gonna hurt you!" Toshi yelled as he followed two feet behind her.
Obsidian spun and dropped into a stance. "I'll give you thirty seconds to get the hell out of here, or I won't be able to say the same."
Toshi smirked mistaking her loose stance for her trying to find a way around him. He had size and strength on his side, plus if she ran, he probably had stamina on her too. He stepped forward, arms out in a non-threatening position. He reached out for her, and at the last moment saw her small smile of satisfaction. That smile promised a lot, mostly blood and pain. Toshi was now certain he had made a terrible mistake.
Obsidian grabbed his wrist and flung him backward into the fence. Toshi was used to being bullied in school and reflexively curled, hitting the fence with his shoulder and bouncing back out at her. He made another move to grab her and she kicked him in the side effectively knocking the wind out of him. Without a second thought, she ran directly at the fence planting her foot firmly in the center of its mass. Using the chain link as a springboard she launched herself into a roundhouse kick and caught Toshi directly in the temple. He crumpled to the ground as she ran out of the playground.
***
Ed heard the insistent barking at the door, she flung the door open to welcome back Ein and Obsidian, only to find Ein alone with his leash still attached. Instead of coming in, Ein simply ran in circles and barked. Ed grabbed his leash and ran off following as quickly as she could. She may be crazy, but she knew trouble when she saw it.
***
Ian followed the tracking device that Toshi wore on his key ring. He was worried, his friend hadn't answered when Ian had called, and that signaled trouble to him. It's a good thing Toshi kept losing his keys constantly or Ian would have had a hell of a time finding him. Ian vowed to get a locator for his keys as well, this could really come in handy. He followed the signal down to the old park on Third and Sequoia. Terrified, he saw his friend and partner laying face down in the sand. Panicked, Ian ran to his fallen comrade. He had flipped Toshi over into his arms and began to check for a pulse when Toshi groaned.
"What the hell happened Toshi?" Ian asked, relieved that his friend appeared to be all right.
"That kid has a hell of a kick." Toshi moaned painfully.
"You mean to tell me that you got your ass handed to you by a twelve year old?" Ian dropped Toshi back into the sand. "Oh my god this is sad."
"Ow... I know! Don't rub it in!" Toshi whined good naturedly as he got to his feet.
***
Obsidian was lost. All of the little houses looked exactly the same and the streets seemed to blend one into the other. She sat on the curb, her face in her hands. It was going to take forever to find that stupid barge. Sid stood and sighed before walking down the road and taking a left onto another suburban street. She was now officially tired and hungry. She had been planning on running away and finding a way back to Mars and Vicious, but now, she'd be happy just to see Spike, Jet, and the rest of that screwed up group. She sighed again and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Maybe they weren't so bad after all. If only she could get a hold of Vicious and tell him she was ok. Then she wouldn't feel so bad about kinda liking it there on the Bebop.
A car screeched to a halt next to her on the curb and a bunch of stupid Mexican looking guys jumped out. Obsidian didn't give a second thought; she turned and ran into the backyards of the houses behind her. The three men followed her screaming about their bounty and where she went. The tall wooden privacy fences that seemed to surround every backyard in this cookie-cutter neighborhood seemed to be her best bet. She scaled the fence easily with a good running start and a tree for leverage. Once on the other side, she ran along the length of the fence back out to the street.
The wiry one was tossed over the fence a few moments after she landed and yelled a warning of her direction to the rest of the group. Obsidian booked past the edge of the fence with two of them hot on her tail and the third one trailing. She dashed across the street with out even looking to see if there was a car coming. The one who had gone over the fence followed with out looking, but the second one stopped to let a car zip though before resuming pursuit. Sid knew she couldn't keep this up for long and began to look around as she ran. That's when she saw it, and the plan formed in her mind as the smile formed on her lips.
She ran straight at the fire hydrant on the opposite corner, crossing the street again with out so much as looking. Placing her foot squarely on the top she launched herself like a cat into the waiting oak tree. After scrambling up a couple of branches, she looked down to see the trio of would be bounty punks hoisting the smallest of their number up into the branches after her. Obsidian knew her timing had to be perfect or she'd end up facing certain death, either at the hands of the hunters or the ground itself.
The skinny hunter on the ground actually screamed as she began her running start down the branch and leapt for the roof of the house. Every muscle in her body strained to reach the edge of the roof, time slowed to a crawl and as if in a movie, she watched her fingertips grab the edge. The two bounty hunters on the ground ran to catch her if she fell and the one in the tree began to climb down. Obsidian slowly pulled herself upward and collapsed onto the roof exhausted.
***
Ed followed Ein to the park, where she found Sid's discarded coat. Ein didn't give her too long to contemplate what that meant. When she had picked up the coat, he began to run again.
***
Spike returned to the Bebop only to find it's halls empty and quiet. It was rather disturbing to hear his footsteps echo in the hallways, and he shuddered inwardly as the feeling of someone walking over his grave crawled up his spine.
"Ed? Obsidian?" Spike called out when he had reached the lounge. "Where are you guys?"
A nagging sense of fear curled deep in the pit of his stomach as he realized that he was completely alone in the ship. He cursed softly, hoping he was wrong as he began to search.
***
Obsidian calmly practiced her meditative breathing in an attempt to calm her racing heart. The three hunters on the ground stupidly cheered thinking they had her trapped on the roof of the two-story house. Obsidian wasn't ready to throw in the towel just quite yet, and got up to explore her options. Belatedly she worried that she may have taken a wrong move and actually gotten herself stranded there. She looked over all the edges of the roof and couldn't see a way down. She let out a stream of curses that only made the hunters laugh in victory.
She turned to what she knew now was going to be her only hope. She pulled the protective cover off the chimney top and grinned in victory. Obsidian took off her scarf and tied it around her face to protect herself from the soot before slowly beginning to inch her way down the chimney with her back braced against the walls and her feet out in front of her as far as she could get them. The hunters befuddled looks were the last thing she saw of the outside before she descended toward freedom.
Obsidian wiggled her way down the chimney what seemed like eternity before reaching the last obstacle to her smokey escape. The flue was directly beneath her and she tentatively dropped a foot down to press on it. One foot braced her against the wall she began stomping on the edges of the flue to knock it out. With a crash and flood of soot, she tumbled into the living room of a nice family house. When Sid found her feet, she left a trail of little girl's size six sneaker prints across the floor and down the basement steps. She didn't know how she knew where the basement door would be, but for some odd reason she did. Once there, she pulled off the scarf that she had used to cover her face, and began to climb up to the basement window.
Those dopey jerks would have the doors covered while she went out the window. Obsidian smiled as she climbed out the tiny window and over the side fence. She heard them get impatient as she collected her thoughts and breath on the other side of the fence. The door crashed open to the house as one of them kicked it and the sounds of them cursing their luck was clearly heard over the sounds of police sirens heading closer. Obsidian ran across the backyard of the neighbor's house before ducking around, not over the fence on the other side.
***
Bob was an hour late going home from his shift, busy digging through old case files on his computer instead. He had run through the timeframe that Jet had given him, put in the other details that Jet had known and hit search. It took twenty minutes for the results to finish loading. Bob just sighed, and knew it would be a long night. He couldn't see his buddy rot in jail, and if this helped then he'd do it.
Two hours later, Bob was starting to regret his vow to help. He had gone through so many files his mind spun trying to figure a number. Too many of them were simple domestic dispute calls, most of them to the same houses over and over. He didn't know how many reports of battered single mothers lying that 'the boyfriend didn't hit them even though the neighbors saw it' that he had actually gone through, but he was starting to recognize names and delete them automatically. He was calmly drinking his coffee when Donelly came in to see why he was in so late.
"Hey Bob, don't normally see you around this late. What's going on?"
Bob looked up, eyes red from staring at the screen too long, and sighed. "Jet's downstairs in lockup."
Donelly looked shocked, "What? What for?"
"Kidnapping." At Donnelly's puzzled look, Bob continued. "He supposedly kidnapped this kid, said that there was an old case in August of '62 that would explain it. He didn't kidnap the kid, but the syndicate is involved. For all the times he's had my back, I owe him."
Donelly nodded, "Scoot over kid, I owe Jet too."
They both looked over the reports, each offering their own opinion on the events, Donelly sometimes remembering some such officer and piping up with a comment on the men themselves. It didn't take too long before both of them spotted the file they were looking for. Divorced mother, living alone, shots fired, they looked to each other hopefully. The file was a work of pure fiction as far as they could tell. The woman, Trisha Winters, found in a house with two dead men and a knife wound on her face. The cops, Donelly remembered them both as being syndicops as they were called, ruled the whole thing a crime of passion. According to them, the two men, who were both registered bodyguards, were fighting over the woman and shot each other to death. A side note on the report stated that the mother had committed suicide a few weeks later.
After checking the ballistics reports, Bob and Donelly knew this was the case they had been looking for, there was no way that two men with handguns had shot each other to death with automatic weapons. The child, Huyen Winters, a young girl of three years old, was an only child, and the mother told the cops that she was with her father, Michael Winters. There was never a follow up as to if the kid was really with the father. Not willing to leave anything to chance, Bob and Donelly checked the Father's files to find several DUI's and a burglary report on file from four years ago. After checking the report, the officers on that call had not noted any child on the report. Bob quickly pulled up the crime scene photos and there was no evidence a child had ever lived at the house, no toys, no pictures drawn on the fridge, nothing. They then pulled up the crime scene photos from the double homicide, and found a picture of the mother attached, holding onto a two year old girl with long black hair and the most startling blue eyes they had ever seen.
"That's it, that's the girl." Bob smiled.
"Wow, bet she's gonna be a little heartbreaker when she grows up." Donelly grinned.
"You mean if, the syndicate grabbed her remember?"
Donelly nodded. "Well let's see if Jet can do anything for her." They both turned and walked down to the lock up with all the information they had found.
***
Obsidian was filthy, covered in soot, and rolling around on the grass only took care of some of it. Her face and hands were smudged beyond all recognition and her clothes were stained with it. If she ever made it back to that damned ship, Jet was going to have a fit. She smiled at that thought. Truth be told she kinda liked him mothering her, at that her face fell a little. She wanted to go back, she missed them, she shouldn't be happy there, she should want to escape and go home to Vicious. It was dark, she was lost, and she was hungry. Being alone in the dark and hungry wasn't anything new to her, but she didn't like this lost thing one bit. Obsidian spotted a small tree house in a side yard and quietly climbed the ladder into the childish playhouse. She curled into a ball with her scarf and hat as a pillow and promptly fell asleep. She had gone through a lot that day, a little rest was deserved.
***
Jet let out the breath he didn't know he was holding and stood up to pace the cell. Bob and Donelly were both standing outside after telling him all that they had found. Jet stopped his pacing in front of them.
"So that's her real name, Huyen Winters." Jet looked puzzled, like something was nagging at the back of his mind.
"Yeah, we think it's a little weird too." Donelly shook his head, "I mean, what's with the Asian name, both of her parents are white."
Jet nodded, but that wasn't what was bugging him. He just couldn't put his finger on what it was. He sighed, it would come to him, it always did and he'd just have to wait until it did.
"I'd like to make that phone call now." He told Bob.
"That'd be my department Jet." Donelly laughed, "Bob's been off duty for around four hours now."
Jet grinned sheepishly and Donelly lead him out the door and down the hall to the vid-phone. The number was almost automatic as Jet punched it in. The screen rang a few times when Spike picked up looking frantic.
"What's wrong Spike?" Jet was instantly worried.
"What's wrong? You're asking me what's wrong?" Spike looked like he was about to snap. "Ok, first off, you're in jail! Secondly, I've searched this tub from top to bottom and the girls are both gone."
"What? Where the hell could they have gone?" Jet stopped for a moment and thought. "Use the dog to trace them."
"Can't, the dog is gone too." Spike looked off screen for a moment relief plain on his face. "Wait, hold on, Ed's back with Ein."
"Spike! Sid-girl is all gone-gone!" Ed wailed. "Ein lost her scent!"
"Shit, Obsidian is gone."
"Her name isn't Obsidian Spike, it's Huyen Winters. I want you to fly over to this address and talk to her father, maybe he can help. He probably doesn't know, but her mother committed suicide shortly after the event." Jet looked hopeful. "She'll find her way back, she's a smart girl. I have faith in her."
"I hope you're right. I'll go track down her father before it gets too late. Is there anything else I can do?" Spike asked.
"No, everything will work itself out. We just have to wait." Jet said calmly, "Oh, and Spike, take care of Ed for me ok?"
Spike nodded as the transmission ended.
Obsidian jumped and looked the guy over. Her eyes narrowed perceptively. "You're too young to be a truancy officer, what do you want?" She did not feel like being friendly right now.
Toshi put his hands up in a mock form of surrender and laughed. "You got me there, I'm not a cop at all. I have been looking all over for you though."
Sid glared hard. "Try your lines on someone else freak-o."
Toshi blushed. "No, you misunderstand. I'm not like that, I'm a bounty hunter and your guardian would very much like you back. I don't know how you escaped, but we'll get you home safe and sound. You are Obsidian Sikes, right?"
Obsidian immediately got the wrong idea, thinking it was a bounty that Joseph had put out on her. "You guys never quit do you?" She tried to run, but Toshi was quick on the uptake and grabbed her arm.
"Hey kiddo, I don't mean to burst your bubble, but you're going home. This isn't a vacation here, you can't live off the street yah know."
"Watch me buddy." Sid hissed as her foot connected with his shin. Toshi refused to let go, and Sid was forced once again to ditch her coat and take off. Ein ran off in the direction of the pier as if to get help. There was no way that Obsidian was going to clear the four-foot fence surrounding that corner of the playground with that little of a take off and him so close, so she made a quick turn and changed direction. Toshi dropped the coat in his hurry to follow her.
"Wait kid, I'm not gonna hurt you!" Toshi yelled as he followed two feet behind her.
Obsidian spun and dropped into a stance. "I'll give you thirty seconds to get the hell out of here, or I won't be able to say the same."
Toshi smirked mistaking her loose stance for her trying to find a way around him. He had size and strength on his side, plus if she ran, he probably had stamina on her too. He stepped forward, arms out in a non-threatening position. He reached out for her, and at the last moment saw her small smile of satisfaction. That smile promised a lot, mostly blood and pain. Toshi was now certain he had made a terrible mistake.
Obsidian grabbed his wrist and flung him backward into the fence. Toshi was used to being bullied in school and reflexively curled, hitting the fence with his shoulder and bouncing back out at her. He made another move to grab her and she kicked him in the side effectively knocking the wind out of him. Without a second thought, she ran directly at the fence planting her foot firmly in the center of its mass. Using the chain link as a springboard she launched herself into a roundhouse kick and caught Toshi directly in the temple. He crumpled to the ground as she ran out of the playground.
***
Ed heard the insistent barking at the door, she flung the door open to welcome back Ein and Obsidian, only to find Ein alone with his leash still attached. Instead of coming in, Ein simply ran in circles and barked. Ed grabbed his leash and ran off following as quickly as she could. She may be crazy, but she knew trouble when she saw it.
***
Ian followed the tracking device that Toshi wore on his key ring. He was worried, his friend hadn't answered when Ian had called, and that signaled trouble to him. It's a good thing Toshi kept losing his keys constantly or Ian would have had a hell of a time finding him. Ian vowed to get a locator for his keys as well, this could really come in handy. He followed the signal down to the old park on Third and Sequoia. Terrified, he saw his friend and partner laying face down in the sand. Panicked, Ian ran to his fallen comrade. He had flipped Toshi over into his arms and began to check for a pulse when Toshi groaned.
"What the hell happened Toshi?" Ian asked, relieved that his friend appeared to be all right.
"That kid has a hell of a kick." Toshi moaned painfully.
"You mean to tell me that you got your ass handed to you by a twelve year old?" Ian dropped Toshi back into the sand. "Oh my god this is sad."
"Ow... I know! Don't rub it in!" Toshi whined good naturedly as he got to his feet.
***
Obsidian was lost. All of the little houses looked exactly the same and the streets seemed to blend one into the other. She sat on the curb, her face in her hands. It was going to take forever to find that stupid barge. Sid stood and sighed before walking down the road and taking a left onto another suburban street. She was now officially tired and hungry. She had been planning on running away and finding a way back to Mars and Vicious, but now, she'd be happy just to see Spike, Jet, and the rest of that screwed up group. She sighed again and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Maybe they weren't so bad after all. If only she could get a hold of Vicious and tell him she was ok. Then she wouldn't feel so bad about kinda liking it there on the Bebop.
A car screeched to a halt next to her on the curb and a bunch of stupid Mexican looking guys jumped out. Obsidian didn't give a second thought; she turned and ran into the backyards of the houses behind her. The three men followed her screaming about their bounty and where she went. The tall wooden privacy fences that seemed to surround every backyard in this cookie-cutter neighborhood seemed to be her best bet. She scaled the fence easily with a good running start and a tree for leverage. Once on the other side, she ran along the length of the fence back out to the street.
The wiry one was tossed over the fence a few moments after she landed and yelled a warning of her direction to the rest of the group. Obsidian booked past the edge of the fence with two of them hot on her tail and the third one trailing. She dashed across the street with out even looking to see if there was a car coming. The one who had gone over the fence followed with out looking, but the second one stopped to let a car zip though before resuming pursuit. Sid knew she couldn't keep this up for long and began to look around as she ran. That's when she saw it, and the plan formed in her mind as the smile formed on her lips.
She ran straight at the fire hydrant on the opposite corner, crossing the street again with out so much as looking. Placing her foot squarely on the top she launched herself like a cat into the waiting oak tree. After scrambling up a couple of branches, she looked down to see the trio of would be bounty punks hoisting the smallest of their number up into the branches after her. Obsidian knew her timing had to be perfect or she'd end up facing certain death, either at the hands of the hunters or the ground itself.
The skinny hunter on the ground actually screamed as she began her running start down the branch and leapt for the roof of the house. Every muscle in her body strained to reach the edge of the roof, time slowed to a crawl and as if in a movie, she watched her fingertips grab the edge. The two bounty hunters on the ground ran to catch her if she fell and the one in the tree began to climb down. Obsidian slowly pulled herself upward and collapsed onto the roof exhausted.
***
Ed followed Ein to the park, where she found Sid's discarded coat. Ein didn't give her too long to contemplate what that meant. When she had picked up the coat, he began to run again.
***
Spike returned to the Bebop only to find it's halls empty and quiet. It was rather disturbing to hear his footsteps echo in the hallways, and he shuddered inwardly as the feeling of someone walking over his grave crawled up his spine.
"Ed? Obsidian?" Spike called out when he had reached the lounge. "Where are you guys?"
A nagging sense of fear curled deep in the pit of his stomach as he realized that he was completely alone in the ship. He cursed softly, hoping he was wrong as he began to search.
***
Obsidian calmly practiced her meditative breathing in an attempt to calm her racing heart. The three hunters on the ground stupidly cheered thinking they had her trapped on the roof of the two-story house. Obsidian wasn't ready to throw in the towel just quite yet, and got up to explore her options. Belatedly she worried that she may have taken a wrong move and actually gotten herself stranded there. She looked over all the edges of the roof and couldn't see a way down. She let out a stream of curses that only made the hunters laugh in victory.
She turned to what she knew now was going to be her only hope. She pulled the protective cover off the chimney top and grinned in victory. Obsidian took off her scarf and tied it around her face to protect herself from the soot before slowly beginning to inch her way down the chimney with her back braced against the walls and her feet out in front of her as far as she could get them. The hunters befuddled looks were the last thing she saw of the outside before she descended toward freedom.
Obsidian wiggled her way down the chimney what seemed like eternity before reaching the last obstacle to her smokey escape. The flue was directly beneath her and she tentatively dropped a foot down to press on it. One foot braced her against the wall she began stomping on the edges of the flue to knock it out. With a crash and flood of soot, she tumbled into the living room of a nice family house. When Sid found her feet, she left a trail of little girl's size six sneaker prints across the floor and down the basement steps. She didn't know how she knew where the basement door would be, but for some odd reason she did. Once there, she pulled off the scarf that she had used to cover her face, and began to climb up to the basement window.
Those dopey jerks would have the doors covered while she went out the window. Obsidian smiled as she climbed out the tiny window and over the side fence. She heard them get impatient as she collected her thoughts and breath on the other side of the fence. The door crashed open to the house as one of them kicked it and the sounds of them cursing their luck was clearly heard over the sounds of police sirens heading closer. Obsidian ran across the backyard of the neighbor's house before ducking around, not over the fence on the other side.
***
Bob was an hour late going home from his shift, busy digging through old case files on his computer instead. He had run through the timeframe that Jet had given him, put in the other details that Jet had known and hit search. It took twenty minutes for the results to finish loading. Bob just sighed, and knew it would be a long night. He couldn't see his buddy rot in jail, and if this helped then he'd do it.
Two hours later, Bob was starting to regret his vow to help. He had gone through so many files his mind spun trying to figure a number. Too many of them were simple domestic dispute calls, most of them to the same houses over and over. He didn't know how many reports of battered single mothers lying that 'the boyfriend didn't hit them even though the neighbors saw it' that he had actually gone through, but he was starting to recognize names and delete them automatically. He was calmly drinking his coffee when Donelly came in to see why he was in so late.
"Hey Bob, don't normally see you around this late. What's going on?"
Bob looked up, eyes red from staring at the screen too long, and sighed. "Jet's downstairs in lockup."
Donelly looked shocked, "What? What for?"
"Kidnapping." At Donnelly's puzzled look, Bob continued. "He supposedly kidnapped this kid, said that there was an old case in August of '62 that would explain it. He didn't kidnap the kid, but the syndicate is involved. For all the times he's had my back, I owe him."
Donelly nodded, "Scoot over kid, I owe Jet too."
They both looked over the reports, each offering their own opinion on the events, Donelly sometimes remembering some such officer and piping up with a comment on the men themselves. It didn't take too long before both of them spotted the file they were looking for. Divorced mother, living alone, shots fired, they looked to each other hopefully. The file was a work of pure fiction as far as they could tell. The woman, Trisha Winters, found in a house with two dead men and a knife wound on her face. The cops, Donelly remembered them both as being syndicops as they were called, ruled the whole thing a crime of passion. According to them, the two men, who were both registered bodyguards, were fighting over the woman and shot each other to death. A side note on the report stated that the mother had committed suicide a few weeks later.
After checking the ballistics reports, Bob and Donelly knew this was the case they had been looking for, there was no way that two men with handguns had shot each other to death with automatic weapons. The child, Huyen Winters, a young girl of three years old, was an only child, and the mother told the cops that she was with her father, Michael Winters. There was never a follow up as to if the kid was really with the father. Not willing to leave anything to chance, Bob and Donelly checked the Father's files to find several DUI's and a burglary report on file from four years ago. After checking the report, the officers on that call had not noted any child on the report. Bob quickly pulled up the crime scene photos and there was no evidence a child had ever lived at the house, no toys, no pictures drawn on the fridge, nothing. They then pulled up the crime scene photos from the double homicide, and found a picture of the mother attached, holding onto a two year old girl with long black hair and the most startling blue eyes they had ever seen.
"That's it, that's the girl." Bob smiled.
"Wow, bet she's gonna be a little heartbreaker when she grows up." Donelly grinned.
"You mean if, the syndicate grabbed her remember?"
Donelly nodded. "Well let's see if Jet can do anything for her." They both turned and walked down to the lock up with all the information they had found.
***
Obsidian was filthy, covered in soot, and rolling around on the grass only took care of some of it. Her face and hands were smudged beyond all recognition and her clothes were stained with it. If she ever made it back to that damned ship, Jet was going to have a fit. She smiled at that thought. Truth be told she kinda liked him mothering her, at that her face fell a little. She wanted to go back, she missed them, she shouldn't be happy there, she should want to escape and go home to Vicious. It was dark, she was lost, and she was hungry. Being alone in the dark and hungry wasn't anything new to her, but she didn't like this lost thing one bit. Obsidian spotted a small tree house in a side yard and quietly climbed the ladder into the childish playhouse. She curled into a ball with her scarf and hat as a pillow and promptly fell asleep. She had gone through a lot that day, a little rest was deserved.
***
Jet let out the breath he didn't know he was holding and stood up to pace the cell. Bob and Donelly were both standing outside after telling him all that they had found. Jet stopped his pacing in front of them.
"So that's her real name, Huyen Winters." Jet looked puzzled, like something was nagging at the back of his mind.
"Yeah, we think it's a little weird too." Donelly shook his head, "I mean, what's with the Asian name, both of her parents are white."
Jet nodded, but that wasn't what was bugging him. He just couldn't put his finger on what it was. He sighed, it would come to him, it always did and he'd just have to wait until it did.
"I'd like to make that phone call now." He told Bob.
"That'd be my department Jet." Donelly laughed, "Bob's been off duty for around four hours now."
Jet grinned sheepishly and Donelly lead him out the door and down the hall to the vid-phone. The number was almost automatic as Jet punched it in. The screen rang a few times when Spike picked up looking frantic.
"What's wrong Spike?" Jet was instantly worried.
"What's wrong? You're asking me what's wrong?" Spike looked like he was about to snap. "Ok, first off, you're in jail! Secondly, I've searched this tub from top to bottom and the girls are both gone."
"What? Where the hell could they have gone?" Jet stopped for a moment and thought. "Use the dog to trace them."
"Can't, the dog is gone too." Spike looked off screen for a moment relief plain on his face. "Wait, hold on, Ed's back with Ein."
"Spike! Sid-girl is all gone-gone!" Ed wailed. "Ein lost her scent!"
"Shit, Obsidian is gone."
"Her name isn't Obsidian Spike, it's Huyen Winters. I want you to fly over to this address and talk to her father, maybe he can help. He probably doesn't know, but her mother committed suicide shortly after the event." Jet looked hopeful. "She'll find her way back, she's a smart girl. I have faith in her."
"I hope you're right. I'll go track down her father before it gets too late. Is there anything else I can do?" Spike asked.
"No, everything will work itself out. We just have to wait." Jet said calmly, "Oh, and Spike, take care of Ed for me ok?"
Spike nodded as the transmission ended.
