Chapter 14. Missing in Action
After his hilarious romp through Japan, Jack took some time to sit back and watch his SMART bots sweep up city after city, country after country. He and Meg were in the Caribbean, trying to dethrone Castro. Jack was lying on the head of a SMART, reclining in the sun with a bottle of SPF 5,000.
"Just think," he commented to Meg, who couldn't wait to get to the beach and name it after herself, "I will have taken over the world before I'm twenty-one! That's just…!" He sighed happily.
"How much more do we have left?" Meg asked, trying to choose a pair of sunglasses from the broad selection a Jack Bot held up for her.
"Um…We still have to do the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, the Philippines, India, we still have to find the government in the Congo… Hey, I know! We should just go after the UN! We can take out all the counties in the world at once!"
Meg shrugged and put on a pair of round sunglasses with big X's etched lightly over the lenses.
"You should ask Patience first, I think," she told him, picking up a beach towel.
"I called her the other day, but she wasn't around," Jack explained.
"Well, call her again!"
There was a flash in the distance, followed shortly by the screeching rumble of a massive explosion.
"I think the SMARTs just blew up another one of Fidel's mansions," Meg observed, shading her eyes with her hand. "Well, I'll be at the beach! I'll call a Mini SMART if I need any help."
She jumped right off the bot's head and landed on its lower leg halfway down. She slid the remaining 15-story height to the ground, where she pushed off and bounced away towards the sea.
Jack took the time alone to his advantage. A Jack Bot came up to him with one of those fancy fruit/alcohol drinks with the little citrus slice on the rim of the glass.
"Phone," Jack ordered as he took the drink. Another Jack Bot hovered up and displayed Jack Spicer's Evil Cell Phone on a little shelf in its torso.
Jack waited for about seventeen rings before he gave up trying to reach Patience by her cell number. He called her office, but only got the same old answering machine. He called her on her private home number, too, which she warned him never to call her with ever again. The phone didn't even ring by that number.
"Aw, whatever. I'll do whatever the heck I want," Jack shrugged. He put the phone away and sat back on the SMART, sipping his drink. Several miles behind him, another villa was blown to Cuban smithereens.
Half the world away, the Xiaolin monks were trying to adjust to the newly instated Spicerist Government in China. It had barely been a month or so since Jack won the last Showdown, so his progress was truly impressive. Mini SMARTs were omnipresent in the skies and on the mountainsides, and, according to Kimiko's news report, it was even worse in the cities.
"Have you seen Jack's new decree of laws?" Kimiko exclaimed, holding up a paper she had just printed out. She held it out to Raimundo.
"Citizens of China may say whatever they want and engage in peaceful protest,' he read. 'All complaints and protests, however, will be completely ignored. Violent protesters or rebels will be annihilated on sight.' Well, that's nice of him!"
"Jack Spicer is a most confusing villain," Omi said, peering up at the pages of laws in Rai's hands.
"And, unfortunately, he ain't shy to flex his muscles," Clay pointed out as a Mini SMART peered in the Temple window before continuing on its way.
A unanimous sigh swept through the group, ending with Dojo.
"I still can't believe this is real," Kimiko muttered. "Jack Spicer…halfway done with taking over the world."
A news bulletin popped up on her laptop screen. 'Cuba surrenders' was all it needed to read.
"I share in your bewilderment," Omi muttered. He climbed up on the table beside the laptop and gazed at it hopelessly. "I feel like I should wake up any second and realize it is all just a horrible dream."
"It's like Jack put the Shadow of Fear under a magnifying glass," said Dojo.
"'Cept that no one in the world ever feared Jack Spicer takin' over the world," Clay pointed out.
Raimundo moved to the doorway slowly and slammed his fist against the doorframe. One of the lanterns over the porch shuddered slightly.
"This is all that Patience lady's fault!" he exclaimed. "She's the one who gave Jack all the ass-kicking robots!"
An idea seemed to come to Kimiko, but she ignored it for the time.
"Do you think Jack hired her?" she wondered out loud.
"Even the Spicer family doesn't have enough money for this many SMART bots," said Dojo.
"Perhaps it was something other than money?" Omi suggested.
"What else does Jack have?" said Kim.
They all pondered this for a moment, but could think of nothing. Clay passed Raimundo and sat on the porch, while Omi poked innocently at laptop keys.
"Well, I had an idea," Kimiko began tentatively, "but, I don't think it will work."
"Anything is better than nothing," Rai sighed, frustrated.
"I was thinking: What if we went straight to the source of the problem? Why don't we go to Patience and see if we can't make her an offer better than Jack's?"
Omi jumped up in excitement.
"That is perfect!" he exclaimed. "Quick! Let's go find her right now!" He jumped down from the table and ran outside. "Every moment we spend dawdling here only gives Jack Spicer more time to enact his evil deeds!"
Kimiko stared at him flatly for a moment, and then flipped open her cell phone.
"I'll call her first and find out where she is."
Kimiko found Dr. Patience's office number on-line, but the secretary who answered said Patience had been out for a few days.
"Can I have her cell number?" Kimiko half pleaded. "This is urgent." There was a pause as Kimiko typed the number onto a notepad on her laptop. "Okay, let's try this one." She dialed the second number. The others could hear the line ringing, but after the tenth and eleventh rings, even Omi accepted that she wasn't picking up.
"Ooh, just when we had a plan, too!" he moaned.
"I'm not done yet!" Kimiko said with a smirk. "Watch this!"
The others gathered around to observe Kimiko flex her hacking skills. She entered Patience's number into her computer, dialed it on her phone again, and then hooked the phone to her computer. After a number of maps and scrolling codes, the icon of a satellite bouncing a waved back and forth from earth appeared. Searching repeatedly spelled out one letter at a time next to it.
"If this works, which it always does, I should be able to pinpoint Patience's phone in no time!"
This seemed like a grand idea- at first.
"Uh, Kimiko," Raimundo began, "Patience probably isn't answering her phone because she's NO WHERE NEAR IT!"
"Hey, I didn't hear you coming up with any good ideas!" Kim snapped back.
The computer made a beeping noise and a map up the earth appeared. The window quickly zoomed in until it narrowed to an image of a house taken from space.
"There!" Kimiko pointed to screen. "No one strays far from their cell phone."
"At the very least, it's a start," said Dojo.
The dragon was out the door in an instant and changing into his traveling size, but the monks had other plans. In their Dragon forms, they flew off with Kimiko's GPS to guide them.
"Sorry, Dojo," Clay said before taking off. "But, we can get there faster this way. Nothin' personal. We'll give ya call to tell ya how it turns out, okay?"
As Clay shot off after the others, Dojo reduced back down. His whole frame sagged in mild depression.
"Obsolete!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands out and then letting them drop to the ground. "Like the eight-track! I can't believe how they treat me! No respect, whatsoever! It's like I'm Chinese take-out and they're…they're…"
"A hired chef?"
"Yeah! Exactly- wait, who said that?"
Dojo turned around sharply and glanced around the Temple, but saw no one.
"Up here," said the voice.
Dojo recognized the voice this time. He slowly looked up with shivers running down his spine until his tail shook.
He was sitting on the Temple roof quite casually.
"Boo," said Chase.
The Xiaolin Dragons were much too far away by then to hear the glass-shattering scream, but half of rural China was not. The monks left a streamline behind them as they zipped over Asia and Europe, closing in on their destination in about an hour or so.
They descended into an expansive, remote field at the base of a mountain range and lined up about twenty feet from Patience's front door.
The home of Seek Patience was simply not what the four had expected.
"I thought it would be more like another Chase-Young-country place," said Omi.
"I was expecting a giant mansion by a river and botanical garden," said Raimundo.
"I was thinking of an evil layer built into a mountain," said Kimiko.
"The White House," Clay said flatly and frankly.
The others gave him a sideways glance, a bit befuddled, but quickly forgot it.
"Hey, just because I love Texas, don't mean I hafta' love the government!"
They were standing in a massive field, green around the house and golden with wildflowers lost in tall grass beyond. Snowcapped mountains reached up in the distance, and fairy-tale forest encompassed the whole thing about a mile away.
The house itself was, more accurately, a cottage. It couldn't possible have more than four rooms and maybe an attic. There were flat little stone steps leading up to the door, with tiny purple and yellow flowers blooming along the rim of the house. A blooming vine reached up and around one window, and the roof had a pair of solar panels built into it. The paint job was pale yellow with a light blue door and shutters. They could see a potted plant sitting in the sun though a window.
"I think this is the wrong place," Raimundo decided. "But, if we were looking for Little Bo-Peep, we've definitely found the spot!"
They approached the house, glancing around for SMART bots or some kind of motion-censor turret system, but nothing jumped out to destroy them. When they were at the front door, Omi reached for the doorbell. There was a metal 'No Solicitors' sign nailed just above it.
"I think you're right, Rai," Kim muttered. "This can't be her house."
"Perhaps Miss Patience isn't really evil?" he suggested, ringing the bell. "Maybe she's just…" He paused as Clay pointed to the doormat.
'GO TO HELL' it read.
Omi stared at it for a second and backed away from the door. "Hmm…"
They waited outside for a moment, but there was no answer.
"What the heck are we doin'?" Clay burst out abruptly. "We didn't fly all the way here just so she could not answer the door on us! She's the enemy- I don't need t'be invited in!"
The others took a sharp step back as Clay clenched his fists and went for the door. Driving into it with his shoulder, he discovered that the door wasn't even locked. There was no lock. The door flew open easily and Clay just about fell in to the darkened house, expecting more resistance.
"Helloooo?" Omi called out, peeking in around Clay. "Miss Patience?"
"Where're the lights?" Rai thought out loud. He groped around on the wall until his hand fell on the light switch. But, the light revealed an unexpected scene.
The room was in complete shambles. It seemed to have once functioned as the living room, but now it was a disaster. A tipped bookshelf had dumped books all over the floor, the coffee table was snapped right in half, the couch had frightening slashes torn into it, the throw rug was bunched up against the wall, there was broken glass everywhere, a broken lamp, picture frames smashed, more slashes torn into the walls, and a shellacked prize bass on a plaque was knocked to the floor.
"Whoa…" Rai muttered. The others nodded slowly.
Carefully, they stepped around the devastation towards the next room. The walkway had no door, and the kitchen connected to the front room by an open counter. The kitchen was destroyed, too, with the long windows over the counters smashed out, tiles smashed right up from the floor, and the microwave door broken clean off.
"This is too weird," said Kimiko. "What happened?"
Clay noticed the narrow hallway to his side. He entered, noticing more long slashes ripped into the pale walls. A door halfway down the hall had a sign on it that read, 'My goal is to keep the bathroom clean: your aim would help!' right below a sign reading, simply, 'Genius at work.'
Clay peeked inside, but the bathroom was spotless and untouched. The faucet was running, oddly enough, so he turned it off and continued down the hall.
The others were looking through Patience's mail and books, and Kimiko discovered her laptop, only to find it locked down by a password.
"Ah, another riddle to unlock," Kimiko said with a sly grin, cracking her knuckles.
"Seek M. Patience," Raimundo read, picking up a framed certificate off the floor, "Ph.D. Seek M. Patience, MD. Seek M. Patience, Honorary Masters in Mechanics. Jeez, she sure has quite the résumé."
Omi was in the kitchen, diligently cleaning up what he could with skills learned after years of chores in the Temple. He even took a few moments to water the many infantile potted plants.
Clay, meanwhile, reached the end of the short hall. The long claw marks went straight to the edge of the wall, which is the only way he noticed the secret door. With a few test pushes and shoves, he soon found out it was a sliding door that retracted right into the wall.
It was Seek's bedroom, and it was completely untouched. The bed, with dark blue bedspread patterned with tiny fish, was carefully made. The nightstand had a few books, some pens and pencils in a jar, some paper, and a glass of iced tea, minus the ice. There, too, was her cell phone.
Clay frowned and glanced around for the light switch, mildly afraid that this was the room where her assailant finally got her and that any second he would see her body. But, the room was empty- and certainly didn't smell like anything had died in it- aside from a wardrobe, bookshelf, and some of the other usual furniture in a bedroom.
Before leaving, Clay went to the nightstand to take Seek's cell phone, just in case she got a call from someone who might knows where she is.
Back out in the narrow hall, Clay made a note that the slash in the wall did enter Seek's room, but there was no further damage.
"Must've come lookin' for her in her room first," he concluded. He shut off the light, slid the door shut, and returned to the kitchen and living room.
"Anything back there?" Raimundo asked.
"Just the bathroom and a closet," Clay lied, "but it don't look like whoever did all this ever got back there. But, I did find this," he added, holding up the phone. "In the bathroom."
Omi scooted into the living room wiping his washed hands off on his tunic.
"I think I know what happened," he said with a forefinger in the air. "Miss Patience was at home when the intruders burst through the kitchen window. There was a huge fight, but Patience is only one woman and couldn't fight them off on her own. And then…well, I don't see any blood, so I don't think they killed her…"
"Outstanding deduction, Sherlock," Raimundo said impassively as he returned a small set of drawers to its upright position.
"Now, wait a second," Clay said abruptly. "I think Patience could have held them off…" He went to the nightstand Raimundo just righted and pulled an ajar drawer open the rest of the way. He carefully picked up a powerful looking handgun with his index finger and thumb. "I sort'a expected Patience was insured by Kel-Tec…" he muttered as he unloaded the gun and replaced it carefully in the drawer.
Kimiko, still unable to break into Patience's computer, sighed and sat back on the couch.
"Well, so much for this plan! We sure can't break a deal with a face on the milk carton!"
"Why would there be a face on the milk?" Omi asked innocently.
"Check her contacts on her phone," Rai suggested. "Maybe someone she knows has…a clue."
Clay flipped the phone open and waited while it woke up.
"She's got three days of unanswered calls and messages," Clay stated. He clicked along to her contacts, but found a dishearteningly scant list. "The office," he read, "the Mother SMART, somebody named Bastardo, and…Poison Control."
"Who's Bastardo?" Kimiko asked, giggling a little.
"Let's find out," Clay said with a half shake of his head. He clicked the name. "Nope, sorry, fellas, no luck. There's no number, it's just…whoa Nelly…Wait a minute! Take a look at this!"
Clay turned the phone around and held it out, and down a little, for the others to see. He was pushing down the scroll button, and for a good five or six seconds the same three-word sentence flashed over and over again:
Kill Chase Young
Kill Chase Young
Kill Chase Young