The Trinity Sitch – Book 1: They Say Everyone Has a Twin
Chapter 7
The man pulled his keys from the clip on his belt the same we he did every day. A twist of one key turned off the alarm, then he opened the side door. Once inside he locked it behind him and made his way to the back of the building. He passed rows of mountain bikes, comfort bikes, road bikes and even beach cruisers. He passed racks of clothing and a counter dividing the sales area from the workshop. Finally he opened a door leading into the storage area and put his meager lunch in the mini-refrigerator.
That done he closed the back room door and flipped the lights on in the small office. A large, battered wooden desk dominated one wall of the room, but most of the space was taken up with not one, but two computers. It wasn't a futuristic computer lab with multiple screens, they were both actually old machines. One was a dilapidated old 486 that was only kept around because the ancient bookkeeping software wouldn't run on the newer machine.
He pulled a small object from his pocket, pulled off the cover and jammed the jump-drive into a USB port. Calling up 'explorer' on the desktop he transferred the previous night's writing into his private folder and returned the device to his pocket. Finally he clicked the Outlook Express icon, waited for the dial-up modem to connect, then made his way to the back room to turn on the lights. He checked his watch, a scratched up Timex with an out-dated optical data link. Twenty minutes before the store was to open.
He took a moment to check himself in the bathroom mirror. Small blue eyes stood out on his slightly pudgy face. He stood an even six feet tall and he packed two hundred fifty pounds onto that frame. It had been a couple days since he shaved and he took a moment to consider what he might look like with a mustache. Nope, gonna have to shave tomorrow morning. No sense looking like a booger, he told himself.
The phone started ringing. Darn it, that will knock the joke-cheap modem off-line for sure, he mentally grumbled as he stumbled back to the office, limping slightly on his left ankle. He picked up the handset and put on his 'SMILE' voice. "Good morning, Independence Bicycles, Neil speaking."
Nothing. "Um, hello." Finally he hung up. "Well, that was nice."
Fortunately the call didn't affect the computer. He was never quite sure why a call coming in on line two would knock out the internet connection that went through line one. He was good enough with computers to make the old garbage Windows 98 unit (not second edition) work for the store, but he did not have the deeper technical knowledge to fix the rather vexing problem of the internet connection. At least he could manage the store's website from home. There he had a simple, but much more up-to-date system to work with.
A short wave-file indicated all of his email had been downloaded. The Spam filters were working well for the time being, so almost all of it was the usual jabber of other shops on a dealer's only online group. While he wasn't the owner of the store, as its 'webmaster' and computer guru (a title held only because he was the only computer knowledgeable person on the staff) he was the one to communicate with the group.
There was a secured email from his bank. That in itself was nothing unusual. He opened the file and scanned the totals. Yep, there was his last gas purchase, there was the automatic payment to his ISP. There was his rent check (oh the pain) and there was a withdrawal from an ATM for two hundred dollars.
Huh? Middleton Colorado? Who the heck would be withdrawing his money there? He didn't know anyone who lived there and only knew of one specific person who actually called the place home, though he had never met her. No, it can't be her! It's just a coincidence! Some glitch in the bank's software. He picked up the phone, dialing his bank's one eight hundred number.
He rattled off the account number by heart, despite having it in front of him on the computer screen. "Uh, mother's maiden? Ban Mannoc…Yeah, two word maiden name…Well, string it together…Yeah, Charlotte, North Carolina… yes, I'll hold."
The line clicked, then went dead. Dratnabbit! Stupid computer modem! He looked down at the corner of the screen, but the two little 'screens' were still both lit, meaning the computer was still sending and/or receiving data. That was strange, the phone usually knocked out the computer, not the other way around.
Without warning a small window opened on his computer screen. For a moment he thought another popup had gotten past the free blocker software, but it spoke…
"Neil Argus, I'm Wade Load. I know you don't have a microphone pickup attached to…wow, that operating system is downright Jurassic! Anyway, pick your phone back up on line two. I need to talk to you about something."
Hesitantly he picked the handset back up "How on Earth?"
"Oh, it's easy, just hacked into the Southern Ringtone network. Too bad you don't have a webcam or something set up. You can see me, but I can't see you. Anyway, this might have something to do with Shego."
That Wade fellow had his sudden and rapt attention.
Kim was relieved that Ron had finally quit screaming. The two of them were along for the ride with the tall ex-military man known to them as Murky. He was piloting a three-wheeled vehicle he called a "Crazyhopper." It was a modified version of a three-wheeled military off-road vehicle the trio had used to travel from their landing site to Middleton. He explained the normal layout had seats for two, with a weapon of some sort mounted behind the rear seat. Two large wheels mounted on arms containing potent electric motors drove the vehicle.
On the pavement the dark green and gray 'hopper' tucked it's rear wheels behind the main body, allowing it to travel faster by leaning into turns, almost like a large, bucket seat motorcycle for three. The only problem, either Murky was quite insane or the futuristic ATV was designed for extremely high speed. It wasn't as easy to tell in the dark, but it seemed they were going over a hundred miles an hour. The drive was so quiet it was almost creepy.
Kim wasn't about to mention that she'd had Ron's motorcycle up to those kinds of speeds. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him. He loved that old, beat up bike his parent got him for his recent birthday, it wouldn't do for him to know she had tested the limits of her skill while out joyriding with it.
It didn't take them long to get to the landing site, but it was exactly as they had feared. There was nothing there save for the ripped-up camouflage netting and the depressions the Valkyrie's landing skids had made.
Back at the Possible's house, Dona had been getting more and more frantic as the evening went on. She had tried calling the ship after much discussion with her friends, but even before that the worry was starting to show. Somehow she knew something was wrong, terribly wrong.
"This is really whacked." Ron said, tugging on a scrap of netting. "When Drakken 'outsources' he usually just grabs the stuff and tries to go. He doesn't grab hostages unless they need them for something."
"That's operating on the assumption that's actually what he did." Kim said, sweeping the area with her Kimmunicator's sensors.
"Well, that worries me. If this Drakken guy stole our ship, then he's going to need one of us to get into it, and that means one of us cooperating to do it. Plus, Jimmy's old-school by-the-book. If he went after this Dragon fellow…"
"Drakken." Kim corrected.
"Yeah, him. He would have called us, pure and simple. Our communicators work on a completely different band than your, uh, well, less developed systems, so we wouldn't have to worry about radio silence. No, I think he grabbed them and if he got past two people like Jimmy and Gary…" he left the rest to their imaginations.
"So he needs a hostage to get past a biometric interlock?" Kim asked?
"Yeah. The external locks are all palm print readers. None of the internal systems will fire up without it, save the main computer itself.
"They couldn't just take impressions of their hands like they do on Crimelab:LA?" Ron asked. Kim was proud that he realized what a biometric interlock would be.
"No, it doesn't work like that. To unlock the ship you have to be not only alive, but conscious. They figured out a long time ago that it was safer that way, you know, not wanting folks lopping off hands to fool the scanner."
"Ewwww! That's just sick and wrong." Ron said, obviously turning green by the notion of somebody losing a hand just to defeat a lock.
Kim bent down near the center of the hiding place. There were several burn marks in the ground, one of them still glowing slightly with the remnants of green plasma. "It's Shego, alright."
Murky reported their findings back to the rest at the Possible house. This was going to be one of those missions, he thought. "Hey, Tinker…yeah, it's gone. Looks like these folks hauled it off somehow…no, wait till I get back…
…Let me tell Dona."
Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney. All Intergalax Characters © Nelson Binch
A/N Revised 2-25-06