Chapter Five

Seto was surprised and more than a little annoyed when Lector abruptly tore past him and flew down the corridor of the mall. But he quickly adapted. He turned, chasing after the man. "Lector! Come back here!"

Of course, Lector did not heed.

Dr. Portman or whoever definitely helped him a great deal, Seto thought. He's running as though he's been doing it for months, instead of being in a coma all that time!

Shoppers were startled and stunned when Lector pushed through them and weaved around potted plants and chairs. When Seto came running through seconds later, the patrons simply stepped aside for him.

"What on Earth is going on?!" one woman exclaimed with wide eyes.

"With Seto Kaiba, who can tell?" a man grunted.

Lector was hardly watching where he was running. But when swerving to avoid more customers, he found himself running into a particular store . . . and tripping over something in the doorway. He yelped as he went down.

"There! You see?!" an excitable voice cried. "There was a good reason not to have that animatronic corpse in the doorway!" A man rushed over. "Are you hurt, Sir?!"

Lector dazedly started to push himself up. "No. Wait, what was that about an animatronic corpse?!"

"It's for Halloween, of course," the man said. He shuddered. "Oh, such a terrifying holiday! I much prefer Christmas. Or even Thanksgiving!"

Lector scowled. "Then why do you even sell Halloween merchandise?" He knelt on the floor, listening to the gears and squeaks of the machine crawling in the doorway behind him.

"Because it sells, of course," was the retort.

Lector got to his feet. He could relate to that. The Big Five had had no choice but to go along with Seto Kaiba changing the purpose of KaibaCorp if they wanted to stay working there. And he had to admit that the changes had been monetarily successful for the company. Games sold. But he was still bitter about it.

Now Téa ran over to the scene, followed closely by the Bakuras. "You really did come back!" she exclaimed, staring at Lector.

Lector froze. He hadn't meant to run into the store where she was working! "And I'm leaving again," he insisted.

But Seto Kaiba was right there to grab him. "I don't think so, Lector. You're going to give us some answers, and you're going to do it now!" He seized his ex-employee's arms, wrenching them behind his back.

In desperation Lector struggled against him. "No! . . ."

"You might as well give in," Yami Bakura grunted as he approached. "If Seto Kaiba can't hold onto you, I will exercise my power."

"What is this?!" Mr. Thorton burst out. "Are you going to fight right here in the store?!"

"Not if we can help it," Seto said.

Yami Bakura came to stand in front of Lector and placed a hand on his chest in an attempt to quell the struggling. "You know what I am capable of," he said darkly. "Do you really want to incur my wrath?"

"Would you really take out your feelings on me?" Lector retorted. "I tried to stop Johnson from hurting your friend when we took over the city."

"Yes, that is true," Yami Bakura acknowledged, "but I must wonder what it is you're up to now."

"I'm not up to anything," Lector insisted.

"Oh please," Seto grunted. "Do you really expect any of us to believe that? You look at Téa, then run off. Now you saw me and ran off, ending up back here again!" His eyes narrowed. "Not to mention whatever connection you have with Dr. Portman."

Fear flashed through Lector's eyes. "I don't know who you're talking about, Mr. Kaiba."

Seto gripped the man's arms tighter. "Don't test me!" His eyes flashed with anger. "Dr. Portman worked at KaibaCorp when Gozaburo ran it. She was the top scientist in the human factors section! She must have reported to at least one member of the Big Five."

"And what if she did?" Lector spat. "It doesn't mean I've heard anything from her now!"

"I know a nurse's assistant who used to work for Portman was working at my infirmary," Seto insisted.

"That doesn't mean anything," Lector objected.

"No, but I'm pretty sure it does," Seto retorted. "Especially after receiving a call from Roland that said nurse's assistant has simply vanished without a trace. Now, where do you think he went? Back to his master, no doubt."

"I have no idea," Lector said. "There could be a lot of reasons why he wasn't home."

"Alright, nevermind that for now." Seto started to twist Lector's right arm. "Just tell me what you're up to, Lector!"

Lector grimaced, biting back a cry for as long as he could. When he finally couldn't stand it and yelled in pain, Téa and Bakura both flinched.

"Kaiba - !" Téa exclaimed.

Seto stopped twisting but still tightly gripped the arm. "Mokuba thinks he can trust you," he said darkly. "He had better not be wrong."

Lector let out a gasp of pain. "I . . . I wouldn't hurt Mokuba," he insisted.

"But you'd still hurt me?" Seto countered.

"I . . ." Lector scowled. "I don't know."

"Of course you know that hurting me would hurt Mokuba," Seto said.

"Yes," Lector agreed.

"Does Dr. Portman want you to hurt me?" Seto persisted.

Lector quickly, mentally ran through his options. There was little sense in continuing to deny that he knew the woman; she had reported directly to him when they had worked at KaibaCorp. He could continue denying that he had anything to do with her now. She was probably watching everything from her monitors in the van. What if she really had implanted something inside him? If she had any reason to believe that he had betrayed her, she would no doubt retaliate by activating whatever it was. But it was unlikely that Seto and his friends would believe he was telling the truth if he denied knowing her.

"You know, Kaiba has every right to have you arrested," Téa broke into his thoughts. "After everything you did to him or tried to do to him!"

"That's true," Seto agreed. "Maybe I should just call the police here and now."

"Weren't you going to do that anyway?" Lector frowned.

"I could," Seto said. "Maybe I should. But the last thing KaibaCorp needs right now is bad publicity. The public arrest of a former member of the Big Five would only drag the company into the mud again, just when things have started to improve." He glowered. "I would really rather you just get out of my life and never come back into it. But regardless, I have to know about Dr. Portman, whether or not you're the one who tells me."

"Hmm." Yami Bakura looked to Seto. "What if we bring Lector to Mokuba and see whether Mokuba can get him to reveal his secrets? If they have some sort of connection, Mokuba likely has a better chance of getting through to this man than you do."

Seto clenched his teeth. "I've thought of that. I'd rather not resort to it, especially when I don't know where that woman is or if I'd be playing right into her hands." He gave Lector a hard look. "But do you want to take that chance?"

Lector gave him a hard look right back. "You haven't changed one bit, Mr. Kaiba. You're still using your little brother whenever it suits you."

Fire flickered in Seto's eyes again. "I don't have to explain myself to you, Lector. But I have never used Mokuba!"

Téa blinked in some surprise. Seto had looked more towards her and the Bakuras when he had said that. He didn't want to explain himself to Lector, but did he want to explain himself to them? Did he want them to know that information? Why? In the past, he hadn't wanted to explain himself to them either.

"So you say," Lector broke into her thoughts. "I didn't believe you then and I don't believe you now. I'll never forget the way Mokuba looked when you accused him of telling Gozaburo about our plan to take over KaibaCorp!"

"This is getting us nowhere," Yami Bakura growled.

"You're right." Seto held Lector's arms tighter again. "I'm just going to quietly take you out of here, hopefully in a way that Dr. Portman will never know about." He looked to the stunned Mr. Thorton. "Is there a back way out of here?"

"Through the storage room, of course," Thorton stammered. "It comes out in an alley where deliveries are made."

"Fine." Seto looked down at his commlink. "Bring the limo around to the back of Thorton's Holiday Shoppe," he directed.

"Right away, Mr. Kaiba," came his chauffeur's voice.

Téa looked to him. "What are you going to do, Kaiba?"

"I'm going to spirit Lector away for some private questioning," Seto growled.

Bakura stared with wide eyes. "You're not going to torture him?!"

Seto sneered a bit. "Well, let's just see." He prodded Lector forward.

"Torture?!" Mr. Thorton shrieked. "What?!"

Lector cooperated. "You don't intimidate me, Mr. Kaiba."

"I did when you first walked inside and saw me," Seto pointed out.

"I wasn't expecting to see you," Lector replied. "You took me by surprise."

Bakura watched them make their way through the store. "Should we do something?" he asked in concern.

"Kaiba won't really torture Lector," Téa retorted. ". . . I don't think."

"And if he did, could we really blame him?" Yami Bakura grunted.

". . . Well," Bakura thought on reflection, "since Lector helped Mokuba, I'm sure Kaiba will take that into account, just as he did with you, Yami."

Yami Bakura fell silent. "Probably," he conceded at last.

". . . And now I'm wondering if this is an act to try to draw this Dr. Portman out," Bakura continued.

Téa looked at him in surprise. "What do you mean, Bakura?"

"Maybe he thinks she's watching from somewhere and she'll come out to try to stop him from taking Lector away," Bakura said.

"Hmm. It's not an impossible theory, I suppose," Yami Bakura mused.

"Well, if that happens, we should be there," Téa determined. "Kaiba might need help!" She started after Seto and Lector in determination.

"She's awfully insistent on being around for Kaiba's problems," Yami Bakura observed.

"She does think of him as a friend," Bakura said. "And she would want to help regardless."

"Heh. I know," Yami Bakura said with a bit of a smirk.

"And we should help too," Bakura continued. He started after Téa.

Yami Bakura growled as he followed the boy. "Be careful, you dolt," he scolded. "You don't know what might come out at you."

"Neither do they," Bakura returned.

"Well, I can't argue with that," Yami Bakura muttered. And whether he would admit it or not, by this point he didn't want Téa or even Seto hurt either.

It was a surprise when they stepped outside and absolutely nothing happened. Seto frowned, looking up and down each end of the alley before ushering Lector into the limousine. "It looks like she's not coming, Lector," he said. "Tell me, is that good or bad?"

"I don't know!" Lector finally snapped.

Seto stared at him with narrowed eyes. "I'll tell you what I think. Either she's lost interest in you . . . or this is exactly what she wants. If it's the latter, why does she want me to cart you away?"

"Ask her yourself, Mr. Kaiba," Lector retorted, sullenly glaring at the floor of the car.

"Tell me where she is and I will," Seto said.

"Then you'd probably be doing exactly what she wants, Kaiba!" Téa cried. "She'd probably cart you off!"

"She could try it, but I wouldn't go easily," Seto said.

Lector just continued to silently glower at the floor while not really looking at it at all. He could tell about the van, but did he want to? He didn't trust Dr. Portman and didn't want to risk doing anything that could cause her to activate whatever she could have surgically implanted inside him. And now that he was struggling with such confusing thoughts about himself, he didn't even know if it was right to do something that could get Seto in trouble. He still hated what he perceived as Seto using Mokuba and betraying the Big Five, but Dr. Portman had unfortunately made logical points about his own behavior regarding Gozaburo. He had betrayed the man just as Seto had. He had known that until the truth had driven him to lock it away. Being forced to acknowledge it again had badly shaken him.

"Well?" Seto was still standing over him in the doorway, one hand on the roof of the limo. "My patience won't last much longer, Lector."

Lector gave him a dark glare. "I can wait it out, Mr. Kaiba."

"Fine." Seto went around to the other side and got in. "Then we'll just go somewhere private, like I said."

Téa bent down to look in the open doorway, her eyes filled with concern. "But Kaiba, if you really are playing into Dr. Portman's hands by taking Lector away, who knows what might go wrong!"

"At least if something does, it's better than sitting and wondering about it," Seto retorted. "If I force it into happening, I can work on fixing it."

Bakura bent down too. "But where will you go?"

"I haven't decided yet." Seto folded his arms.

"Maybe we should come with you," Bakura said in concern.

"I can handle it," Seto immediately retorted. "You three have done your part. Now you should get back to the mall. I'll let you know what happens."

Téa scowled. "If I didn't still need to work, I'd insist on coming along anyway."

Seto reached across Lector and pulled the door shut. "Don't worry about it." He nodded to the chauffeur. "Let's go."

Téa stepped back, watching with still-worried eyes as the limousine slowly began to move towards the opposite end of the alley. "I don't like this," she told the Bakuras. "Kaiba is just going off all alone with a creep who's hated him for years!"

"I'm sure his chauffeur knows martial arts," Yami Bakura grunted.

"Perhaps, but I'm worried too," Bakura said. "Téa can't leave, but maybe you and I should, Yami. We could follow in the van."

Yami Bakura didn't look pleased, but he also didn't look surprised. "I'm sure it's not necessary."

"It would make me feel better if someone followed him anyway," Téa insisted. "We all know Kaiba is always underestimating the bad guys and overestimating how well he can fight them off."

"I've never known you to be so concerned about Seto Kaiba," Yami Bakura grunted.

Téa flushed. "You know I'm always worried about my friends. That's not unusual at all!"

"Heh. If you say so." Yami Bakura turned to head back inside. "Alright. Bakura and I will follow him, at least for a while."

"Thanks," Téa said in relief. "If you saw anything here you'd like to buy, I'll set it aside for you."

"Hmm." Yami Bakura pondered the offer as they walked through the store. "I did like those tombstones that were designed to look several centuries old, the ones with the death's heads on them."

"That figures," Téa sighed. "But sure."

"Thank you, Téa," Bakura smiled. "Hopefully we'll be back soon!"

"You guys stay safe too," Téa pleaded.

"We'll do our best," Bakura said, and silently prayed they would be able to.

xxxx

Dr. Portman leaned back, smirking to herself as she continued to observe on the monitors.

"You always were astute, Seto Kaiba," she mused. "Yes, it plays perfectly into my plans for you to take Mr. Lector with you. I won't interfere, but I will continue to monitor the both of you to see how you deal with this situation.

"The Thief King made an interesting observation about you, Téa Gardner." She watched Téa walk through the store and pick up the tombstones in question. "I wonder how deep your feelings for Seto Kaiba go, and more interestingly, his for you. In any case, I noticed that he wanted to keep all of you out of this situation, no doubt trying to protect you. Who would think that he would be so worried about any of you?" Her smirk turned even crueller. "Seto Kaiba has a bigger heart than one might initially believe. And before I'm done with him, I will push it to its breaking point."

She stood and walked to the front of the van. "But first, it's time to see how far I can advance the next part of my project—reviving the rest of the Big Five. I don't think they'll be very happy with Mr. Lector for making it back when they didn't, even if he didn't do it on purpose. And of course, they'll all be eager for revenge on Seto Kaiba any way they can get it."

Starting the engine, she quietly drove out of the mall's parking lot.