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10.6: Shakedown
As a businessman needs to be aware of what's going on in the business world, Thailog always started his evening by reading the Wall Street Journal. But he also read the New York Sun and New York Times, as the stock market was often affected by seemingly non-business-related matters.
That evening, the articles appearing in all three newspapers gave him several chuckles. His ransom demand for the head of a gargoyle was having marvelous results! The gargoyles had obviously heard of it, and assumed that the gargoyle-hating Quarrymen were behind the kidnapping; they'd not only invaded and destroyed the Quarrymen's base of operations, but done home invasions as well! All the public relations efforts that had been made by the clan and that foolishly idealistic group the People of Interspecies Tolerance, were being washed from the public mind in a flood of terror and hatred as a result of their actions. The NY Times editor was screaming louder than ever for the governor to send the National Guard in against the gargoyles, in the interests of public safety.
The New York Sun, on the other hand, had done a bit more investigating than the Times and the Journal, or at least decided more facts were relevant in their reporting. The Sun's articles noted that all the home invasions had occurred in the homes of high-ranking Quarrymen, and that the gargoyles had been searching for and demanding information about victims of a kidnapping. The editorial article on the gargoyles expressed disapproval of 'vigilante action', stating that the public was better served by leaving such matters to official law enforcement… but did not make it clear whether they were referring to the Quarrymen as vigilantes, or the gargoyles.
Thailog frowned and made note of the editor's name, as a target for eliminating soon. And that body would be left out for discovery by the neighbors, instead of being disposed in the river. Anti-gargoyle hysteria suited his purposes more than an atmosphere of cautious semi-tolerance; better that the clan spend all their time fighting the public for sheer survival, than nosing into his business.
Then he set the newspapers aside and got to work. He switched the shock delivery system for Owen Burnett's cell from 'automatic' to 'manual', noting the timer's readout that only three minutes had passed since the last electrical shock. And he said into the microphone, "Ready to swear your oath to me, Puck? Ready to begin that one year of service?"
Seen on the monitor, Owen Burnett shook his head. The man sat in a yoga position, with his hands on his thighs and his bare feet crossed and tucked above his knees, in an attempt to keep any bare flesh from contacting the metal floor. An ultimately futile effort; Thailog had already determined that the clothes he was wearing were insufficient to insulate him from the shocks, or he would have been left naked in the cell. Or perhaps he was meditating in an attempt to ignore and withstand the torture… Thailog pressed the button, and chuckled as Owen jerked in obvious reaction to the shock coursing through him. No, some things just couldn't be ignored.
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David Xanatos watched from the battlements as the gargoyles left the castle in teams of three or four, gliding in different directions. And he once more suppressed the impulse to put on his power armor and go out with them, actively searching for his family.
It was so damn frustrating, to just stand and wait! But a good businessman learned early on that he couldn't do everything himself. In order to succeed, one found the people who were best suited for doing the job, ensured they were properly motivated, and delegated the work to them.
The FBI was best suited for the official investigation, and the gargoyles and Renard's cybots were best suited for the vigilante investigating. All he could do was provide them with all the support they needed, in terms of equipment and contacts, and wait for results.
But once he had those results, he would go into action. When one set of investigators came up with a definite location for where Fox and Alexander were being held against their will, he'd go there himself and do whatever was necessary to get them back… from showering the place with 100-dollar bills, to vaporizing anything or anyone who stood in his way. And when they came up with a name for the kidnapper or kidnappers…
There would be no trial. He couldn't afford for the kidnap case to go to trial; couldn't take a chance on the kidnappers stating in court that they'd taken precautions against Fey interference from Puck, and why the precautions had been necessary. As a 'severely distraught' father, he probably wouldn't get more than a slap on the wrist from the authorities, if he killed the kidnappers while rescuing his family. And if someone else arrested them beforehand… he had his moles in the police department, and he had the names of several hardened criminals that he'd met during his six months in prison, who would do many unsavory things in return for creature comforts that would make their life sentences more tolerable. Every criminal involved in the kidnapping would die before trial, one way or another.
But in the meantime, all he could do was wait. He went back inside, to see if the FBI had uncovered any new leads in the two hours since he'd last checked on them. Then he'd contact the Grandmaster again, to see if the Illuminati would be useful to him after all.
David had already been refused access to the Illuminati's All-Seeing Eye, which would have found him his wife and child within minutes if he'd been able to master it (instead of being instantly driven insane by it, as had happened to the last twelve users.) And with Mace Malone still in a catatonic state after being pulled out of the Hotel Cabal last year, they'd lost their liaison for the criminal underworld of New York. But in their last conversation, the Grandmaster had said he would contact some members of the Veritas sect, those members of the Illuminati who embraced the truth of mankind's base nature and delighted in 'dirty work'. After John Gabriel's untimely demise back in 1989 and Malloy Davidson moving his operations to California in 1992, there were no Veritas sect members living in New York, but Malloy was sure to have some old contacts in his address books…
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"Is everyone in position? Broadway?"
"Ready and waiting!"
"Lexington?"
"Almost there, two more blocks; ETA another minute."
"Talon?"
"Ready when you are, Brooklyn."
"Adam?"
"We'll be above the address right… now. In position, and ready."
"Martin?"
"We're ready to rock-n-roll!"
"Wait just a bit more… Lex?"
"We're here. And we're ready; give the word, Brooklyn…"
"The word is GO!"
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Paulie had been with Dracon's gang for over six weeks now, having passed his initiation by breaking the legs of a guy who hadn't paid back all the money he'd borrowed. Paulie still thought it was odd that John 'Glasses' Brown insisted that Anthony Dracon was in charge of the gang, when Dracon had been in the stir for over a year and Glasses was the one to give all the orders. But hey, so long as he was accepted by the organization and getting in on the action, and they kept making money hand over fist with the drugs and weapons sales, Glasses could say that Jimmy Hoffa was the boss for all Paulie cared.
Paulie smoothed the sleeve of his new leather jacket, bought just yesterday, reflecting that crime really did pay if you were with the right people. Then he got back to work, mentally adding that while it paid, crime was sure tedious sometimes. They'd gotten a big coke shipment in that morning, fifty pounds smuggled into the city, and now they were breaking it down into 'units for sale', as Paulie's buddy Reuben had put it. Carefully measuring out doses of cocaine on the gram scales and bagging them in itty-bitty bags; it was all Paulie, Reuben and Nate had been doing for the last four hours. Boooorrrring…
Reuben had turned the TV on for entertainment, but this close to Christmas most of the channels were showing nothing but stale old Christmas specials, or new Christmas specials that were just as saccharine-sweet and boring as the old stuff. And they still had nearly twenty pounds of cocaine to process, and their lieutenant Harry said they had to have it all done by tomorrow... Paulie hoped that Harry would come back from his meeting soon and give them a break, or that another member would walk through the door with a movie to watch on the VCR. He just wanted something to happen soon, to break up the monotony; he was bored right out of his skull.
-crash-
"What the hell?!" Paulie whipped around in his chair at the sound of breaking glass. The window in the living room had just been broken inwards—and something was being tossed inside! Landing on the carpet; it was small and round and—
"Grenade!" Reuben shrieked as he jumped up and started running, while Nate dove under the table.
Shit! Paulie jumped up and started running too—
And there was a massive BANG! that felt like someone had shoved Paulie's ears in clear through his skull, and the world went blinding white. He felt himself falling over, his ears ringing…
And then he woke up. His head hurt, like he'd been clubbed a few times, but he was alive! He'd survived a freaking grenade going off! Even while he tried to withstand the crushing headache long enough to open his eyes, he mumbled in awe, "I'm alive!"
"So you are," someone said, and finally Paulie got his eyes open… to see a monster staring him in the face. A big purple monster with ears like a bat, that added, "For now, anyway." And then the monster grinned at him, showing long sharp fangs.
Someone was screaming. It took Paulie a second to realize it was himself.
The grinning purple monster was joined by two others that came into view, a big blue one and a green one with black hair and a beak, and some part of Paulie's brain finally started working enough for him to realize that they were gargoyles. And that he wasn't inside the hangout anymore; instead he was on a rooftop. Alone on a rooftop with three gargoyles, and the big fat blue one snarled at him, "And if you want to stay alive, instead of becoming our dinner, you'll tell us everything we want to know…"
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Fox's agony from her magic blast imploding on her had faded over the hours, leaving only a low-level headache. Their captor hadn't spoken to them at all for several hours, not even to ask what had happened earlier. Which Fox had found significant; even if the green magical energy bolt hadn't appeared on the security cameras, they must have recorded how Fox had gone from sitting in front of the featureless door to being flung by an unseen force clear across the room.
"Either he already knows our secret… or he's not keeping an eye on us at all now," Fox had whispered into Anne's ear after three hours had passed without a word from their unseen captor. "If we're lucky, it's the latter."
"You mean, if we're not lucky," Anne had whispered back, her expression grim. "Alexander's almost out of formula."
So they'd taken to periodically shouting at the ceiling, trying to get their captor's attention. And after a few hours and several shouting episodes, they finally got a response; the electronically distorted voice said testily, "What is it now?"
"We need baby formula for Alexander! And more diapers!" Anne shouted upwards.
Fox chimed in, "You want Alexander to stay healthy and well-fed until the ransom is paid, don't you?"
"I'll see about getting more for you later," the voice said after a brief pause. "Tomorrow, perhaps. Now be good little hostages and stay quiet."
"Tomorrow?! My son is hungry now!" Fox shouted angrily.
"And he's getting a really bad case of diaper rash!" Anne added, while Alexander wailed in agreement.
Fox switched to a wheedling tone as she said, "Come on, how hard can it be to just walk into a grocery store somewhere and buy some baby formula and diapers? People do it all the time!"
"For your continuing to bother me, the shopping trip has now been pushed back to the day after tomorrow," the voice retorted. "And if you keep it up, no new supplies will be brought to you at all." And the intercom audibly clicked off, leaving the two ladies looking at each other in dismay.
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Thailog turned irritably away from the microphone after switching it off. He greatly disliked it when any flaw in his plans was pointed out to him, whether the person talking realized it or not.
He'd put a great deal of thought and effort into the construction of the two steel cells for containing his prisoners; making them escape-proof by both conventional and magical means, and rigging Owen Burnett's cell for electrical torture and more. But he hadn't put a great deal of thought into furnishing them, or seeing to his prisoners' comfort. And he hadn't put any thought at all into taking care of an infant's special needs, beyond leaving the diaper bag in with them. In retrospect, it was easy to see why he'd neglected that aspect of the operation; he had no intention of letting the brat live to see his father again, so why would he care about its well-being while captive? But it was still an oversight, one that he'd have to amend.
If Fox deduced from his neglect that he had not planned on Alexander surviving the kidnapping, then it would do no good to let her go and then hold onto the brat while asking for another hundred million from Xanatos. She'd know that even the nanny's best efforts wouldn't be able to keep the baby alive for the additional ransom, and tell her husband too. Thailog might have to go back to his original plan, of simply killing the lot of them as soon as the first hundred million was paid. Still a viable plan, but it would be a pity to miss out on the opportunity to prolong Xanatos' agony, not to mention the added millions. And it would give him a few extra nights to break Puck to his will; the Fey in human guise had proven remarkably resistant to torture so far, and he might end up needing even more time than the week he'd originally planned on.
Well, perhaps a shopping trip was in order. He could hardly just walk into a grocery store and buy the baby supplies as Fox had suggested, but not every grocery store in Manhattan was open 24 hours a day. He'd wait until three a.m., then go out to find a store that was closed, break in and get what the brat needed. Though he would wait until tomorrow night before gassing the cell's occupants unconscious, so he could open their door and set the supplies inside. Yes, he'd make them wait and worry at least one more day before showing them even the slightest mercy; that would be a lesson not to bother their captor when he was busy.
Busy with the most important part of this operation, he thought as he switched the monitor over to Owen Burnett's cell once more. Shaking his head as he saw the man lying down with his eyes closed, as if he'd collapsed unconscious the moment Thailog had stopped to pay attention to the ladies. "Tsk, tsk; sleeping on the job, Burnett?" he said as he administered another shock, watching with satisfaction as the man's eyes flew wide open again. "That won't do at all…"
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Martin watched with satisfaction as the man he'd just punched rolled his eyes back in his head, then toppled over like a tree that had been cut down. He could have knocked the man across the room, but sometimes it was fun to play a little, hitting with just enough force to knock them unconscious and see how long it took for them to fall over. Having just taken out her own thug, Cecelia looked over at him and the falling gangster just in time to call out "Timberrrrr!"
"Huh? Who is Timberrr?" Burbank asked, looking up from the criminal he'd knocked out.
"It's an old joke, Burbank; I'll explain it to you later," Cecelia said. "C'mon, let's get moving!"
And the four gargoyles—three gargoyles and a mutate, Martin corrected himself; Claw might look like a gargoyle but sure didn't smell like one—rapidly went over every square foot of the gang hideout; opening every door, searching every nook and cranny, even ripping the rugs aside to see if trapdoors had been hidden beneath them. They found enough guns to arm a small militia, all of which were wrecked in short order by bending the barrels or crushing the chambers or simply pulling them apart. But there was no sign or smell of the kidnapped humans anywhere.
So they picked one of the unconscious criminals and took him outside and up onto the roof, and waited for him to wake up, which didn't take long. Soon enough the thug was glaring at them—which bothered Martin more than he wanted to admit; he wasn't used to strange humans showing anything but fear at first sight of a gargoyle—and cursing them in a long string of profanity, but not telling them what they wanted to know.
Martin figured it was time to take the gangster for a glide, and play drop-and-catch with him until he softened up. But then Claw growled, and signed something to Burbank. Burbank nodded to Claw and snarled at the criminal, "If you don't tell us where our friends are, he's going to hurt you bad!"
"Go fuck yourselves," the gangster sneered. "I still don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but even if I did, I ain't afraid of nothing!" But his eyes were nervous as Claw extended one clawed finger towards his face—and then he gave a yelp of pain as a spark of electricity arced from the fingertip to the gangster's nose.
After sparking him, Claw growled at the gangster. Burbank didn't have to interpret that one: Talk, or else!
But after an all-over shudder, the crook got his nerve back and just sneered again. "Ooooh, the big kitty can make sparks! Comes from all that nice soft fur, doesn't it? You probably like to be petted, don't you, pussycat?"
At the crook's sneering words, Claw jerked as if he'd been stung. Martin wondered if one of those jibes had hit a little too close to home. Then the mutate seemed to swell even larger, as all his fur stood on end with a static charge that had him almost glowing and the air around him crackling. He picked up a loose piece of roofing tile, tossed it into the air, then aimed and fired; a bolt of lightning in miniature, that hit the tile and exploded it into burning chunks.
After the debris finished falling, Claw turned back to the gangster, with his fangs bared. And he reached down with one glowing, crackling hand towards the man's crotch…
"I'll talk, I'll talk! For Chrissake, please, I'll talk!"
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"When I was a kid, I used to wish for wings like an angel," Anne said with forlorn irony as she poured some bottled water into a baby bottle for Alexander, while Bethany disconsolately chewed on a strip of jerky. "But right now, if I had them I'd trade 'em in a heartbeat for claws like a gargoyle, to claw our way out of here…"
"Amen to that," Fox muttered, then paused.
She'd never had wings, but she'd had claws once…
When she'd been wearing the Eye of Odin, as David's engagement gift. The Eye was supposed to bring to the fore, and amplify to the nth degree, the wearer's 'true self'. And it had transformed Fox into a huge Werefox, a bestial creature as strong as the average gargoyle and with claws nearly as deadly.
She barely remembered most of her time as the Werefox; her normal thoughts had been submerged under the bestial need to survive and feed… especially feed, as her massively accelerated metabolism demanded food almost constantly. Particularly meat; she had a brief flash of memory, of encountering David inside a meat packing plant. Encountering him, and nearly killing and eating him, she reminded herself with a shudder.
The Werefox was dangerous… But if the legend Owen had related was right, as much as she hated to admit it, the Werefox was a part of herself, magically enhanced. Enhanced enough that she'd reportedly ripped apart a pair of elevator doors while fleeing the castle; steel-reinforced elevator doors, too.
And if that part of herself had been enhanced once by magic, perhaps it could be enhanced again. Odin was actually a Fey, and Fey magic was Fey magic, right? Some of them just specialized, like humans often specialized in their own talents and skills, but theoretically they were all capable of doing the same things. At least, she assumed that was how Fey magic worked… dammit, why hadn't she sat in on those magic lessons?!
Maybe there was a way to use the magic inside her, to transform into the Were-Fox again. She just had to figure out how… but more importantly, how to do it without turning completely bestial, and turning on Anne and the children as the nearest available prey. Could she do that? Was it worth the risk of finding out?
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"YAAAAAAAAAHHHH--"
Joey's scream abruptly stopped when he lost all the remaining air in his lungs, as a gargoyle that looked like a big winged cat swooped in and caught him around the torso with a hard whumph!
The impact was hard enough to crack a rib or two, but just then Joey didn't care about that. The cat-gargoyle carried him back upwards into the sky, while Joey screamed at the red beaked gargoyle circling up high, "You dropped me! You motherfuckers nearly killed me!"
The beaked gargoyle said something to the other gargoyle up high, a big orange bastard with tusks like a boar, then shouted downwards with a twisted grin, "Why so surprised, Joey? Didn't I tell you I'd drop you if you didn't talk?"
"Yeah, but you gargoyles don't kill anyone! You've been fucking with our business for two years now, and you've never killed anyone!"
"Always a first time, eh?" said the cat-gargoyle carrying him, She had an odd accent, but what bothered Joey more were the really sharp fangs showing in her smile. Joey had never liked even regular cats, let alone gargoyle-cats…
But he hadn't survived so long in Dracon's gang, survived more shootouts and territory wars between rival gangs than he could count, by being an easy nut to crack. Joey had been cool as cucumber at the first clue that some bad shit was going down, when a window had been broken and something round like a grenade had been tossed into the hangout. He hadn't panicked, just run for the nearest cover like any smart guy would. But the damn thing had exploded before he could get through the door to the bathroom, blinding and deafening him, and somebody had knocked him out before he could get his sight and hearing back.
Even so, when he'd woken up to find himself being carried into the sky by gargoyles, he hadn't lost his cool. He'd told the gargoyles demanding information to go fuck themselves, and matched them insult for insult and threat for threat—until they'd actually dropped him. But he'd been caught again, which meant they hadn't been intending to kill him, so now he sneered back at the gargoyle carrying him, "Ain't gonna be no first time tonight, bitch. You gargoyles are too much like cops; you got rules to follow."
"You're right, there are rules…" and then the gargoyle bitch let go of him! He screamed again as he grabbed desperately for her but missed, but then she caught him again by one wrist; caught him and swung him around like a toy on a string, nearly yanking his arm out of its socket. Through the blaze of agony from his shoulder, he heard her say, "And rules are made to be broken!"
"Nice one, hon," the beaked gargoyle said as Joey was taken, still dangling by his wrist, up higher to his level. "See, Joey, before tonight we really were playing by rules, like the police. But now, some of our friends are missing… and now we play hardball. Tonight, the only rule is that we get our people back, now matter what it takes! Understand?! …Say, your arm's looking kind-of odd there, Joey. Dislocated it, didn't you? Hurts pretty bad, doesn't it? Tell you what, we won't do the same to your other arm… if you tell us everything you know about the kidnapping. But if you still say you know nothing, then we're just going to have to hurt you even more… before we drop you again. Hollywood, you want to play catch this time?"
The big orange tusker looked worried as he said, "Um… I never played catch using people before."
"It's just like playing catch with tomatoes… except if you drop them, they make a much bigger splat."
Joey was glad no other gang member was there to see him sobbing; the agony from his dislocated shoulder on top of the fear of ending up 'street pizza' were just too much to handle. "No, please! Please! Fuck it, I'll talk! I'll talk! Just please put me down without dropping me…"
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Halfway across town, patrol officers Minetti and Poulsbo were responding to an anonymous tip that had been phoned in just minutes ago: a woman was being held hostage in room 615 of Hotel Danvers. The anonymous caller had said they'd glimpsed a woman with her hands tied behind her back and a hood on her head, being led out of the bathroom by one man while two more were in another room of the hotel suite. But the caller had hung up before the dispatcher could ask how they had seen all that, or get any more information out of her.
Minetti and Poulsbo had been only a few blocks away from the hotel when the call had come in. They'd pulled up outside the hotel and gotten out, reflexively glancing upwards at the sixth floor, even though they knew they wouldn't be able to see anything from the street. Then Poulsbo stopped on the sidewalk and said, "Do you see that?"
Minetti had been about to head inside the hotel, but he stopped and looked up again. "See what?"
"I thought I saw… saw something moving, up in the sky over the hotel," Poulsbo said, still peering upwards.
"A gargoyle?"
"Not unless they're made of metal. Whatever it was seemed to gleam for a second…" Poulsbo strained his eyes peering as hard as he could, but he couldn't see the moving thing anymore. Whatever light had been reflecting off it, wasn't doing so anymore. Assuming his eyes weren't playing tricks on him and there really had been something there.
"Maybe you saw a plane from LaGuardia, passing higher overhead than you thought it was. Whatever; c'mon, let's check this out," as Minetti headed inside, and Poulsbo followed him.
They flashed their badges to the hotel manager, and after checking his guest register he willingly escorted them up to room 615, hanging back as they approached the door. Since they still didn't know for sure if the call had been a real tip or just a crank caller having fun with cops, they started out by being semi-polite and knocking. Minetti pounded on the door and said loudly, "This is the police! We have the building surrounded; come out with your hands up!"
From behind the door, the officers heard muffled cursing and running feet, and something heavy toppling to the floor. Sounds they understood instantly; the sounds of people who were very unhappy that the cops were outside their door. Not happy at all, and fixing to do something about it.
That was the signal to stop being nice. Minetti lifted up one of his size 10's and kicked hard, and the lock gave way as the door crashed inwards. Poulsbo was right next to his partner, his gun aimed and ready to fire. Which is why he was able to shoot the man standing across the room with his weapon aimed right at the door, before the perp could squeeze off a shot.
One down, and as they stampeded inside the room with their weapons ready, they didn't see anyone else in the suite's living room or the nearby kitchenette. But they'd definitely heard multiple voices, the tip had said three men with a hostage, and the bedroom door was open...
"Police! Freeze!" as they barged in, ready to fire. And of the three people in the room, one man abruptly dropped his weapon and raised his hands over his head. But the second man had reached the bed, and dragged someone off it; a woman in a pantsuit with a hood over her head, and her hands tied behind her back. The hostage! And the bastard was holding her in front of him as he shouted, "No, you freeze! You make a move and I'll kill her right now!" as he jammed his handgun against the hooded head.
The officers froze, inwardly cursing. Why, oh Why hadn't Dispatch sent the SWAT team instead of just a patrol unit?! They'd only had minimal training for hostage situations! These were what every cop feared most; too damn many hostage situations ended with the hostage being killed! What should they do now?
"Put your goddamn guns down right now!!" the kidnapper holding the hostage screamed, jamming his gun even harder against the woman's head. And the other kidnapper in the room slowly smiled as he bent down and picked up his gun again.
Muffled sounds emerged from beneath the hood; the woman was alive, and pleading… probably begging for the officers to save her. Save her from kidnappers who, right that moment, held all the cards.
With quick glances at each other, Minetti and Poulsbo both began to back away, while very slowly lowering their weapons, a few degrees at a time. "No need for anyone to die today, okay? No need to die either now or later, keeping in mind that New York State has a death penalty," Minetti added as the other kidnapper began to train his gun on them.
"Look, we're lowering our weapons, see?" Poulsbo said soothingly as they slowly stepped back another pace and lowered their weapons another few degrees. "So, no need for anyone to do anything rash--"
But Poulsbo's uttered "rash" coincided with a crash, a crash of glass breaking as the window behind the kidnappers shattered.
Shattered inwards, as a metallic tentacle whipped into the room, instantly snaked itself around the wrist of the hand holding the gun against the woman's head, and yanked hard back and upwards—
Just as the gun went off.
And that kidnapper died with a very surprised look on his face.
Poulsbo couldn't blame him for being surprised. Nobody ever expected to blow their own neck apart.
Blood spattered the room as the kidnapper toppled and fell sideways to the floor, taking the hostage with him. The head grotesquely flopped onto the carpet behind the shoulders, still attached by a flap of skin at the back of the neck. The neck-stump spurted blood in pulses for a few more seconds, before slowing to a drip onto the carpet as the heart finally stopped.
The other kidnapper just stood frozen for a moment, gaping at what remained of his partner. Then he remember that there were two cops in the room with him, and turned back to face them as he lifted his gun again--
But Minetti fired first. A big bloody spot appeared on the kidnapper's chest, as he screamed and fell backwards.
By the time Poulsbo got over his sheer astonishment at what had happened and started to move again, Minetti had already holstered his gun and started heading towards the downed hostage. Then froze, backed up and started moving for his gun again, as the thing Poulsbo had glimpsed outside the window slowly pushed aside the shards remaining in the pane, and came inside…
A flying golden robot, draped all over with red and green tinsel garlands and sporting a sign saying "Merry Christmas!"
Poulsbo blinked furiously, four times in a row, then opened his eyes wide again. Yep, it was still there.
Minetti trained his gun on the robot, but all it did was settle to the ground next to the downed hostage and her very dead kidnapper. Then the metal tentacles came out again and Minetti tensed, but Poulsbo said hurriedly, "Don't fire! I think… I think it's friendly."
"What the fuck is that thing?" Minetti said in awe as the robot used its tentacles to gently separate the hostage from the kidnapper's cooling grip, then tug the hood off of her head. A blonde woman with a tear-stained face stared wide-eyed up at the robot, then started trying to scream past the gag still in her mouth.
"Uh, here, let me do the rest, okay?" Poulsbo said, having already holstered his weapon, as he knelt carefully down next to the woman and robot. "Uh, we appreciate the help, but you're freaking her out now."
He had no idea if the robot was listening or if it was even capable of receiving audio, but it pulled its tentacles back in. Keeping an eye on it just in case, Poulsbo hurriedly rolled the woman over enough to untie the gag, while saying, "It's all right, miss, you're safe now… what's your name, miss?"
"C-Caroline Dickens," the woman said after she spat the gag out of her mouth, still staring at the robot.
"Well, Caroline, your kidnappers aren't going to trouble you any more… can you tell us why you were being held hostage?" as Poulsbo began untying her hands as well.
"W-we won the lottery last year, and they said they wanted a million dollars from my husband, or…" the woman's voice trailed off and everyone stared at the robot rose up into the air again, then slowly backed out the window. Then she asked what Minetti had asked earlier: "W-what is that thing?"
Poulsbo shrugged as he took a wild guess. "Spirit of Christmas Future?"
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Back at Cyberbiotics, Phil Mandelay the cybot operator turned apologetically to the man parked beside his station. "It's not your daughter, sir; I'm sorry."
A heavy sigh, as the age-spotted hands that had been tensely holding the armrests of the computerized wheelchair slowly relaxed their clawlike grip. His air of disappointment was almost palpable, but Halcyon Renard mused aloud, "Well, some good was still done. That woman no doubt appreciates being free of her own kidnappers. Even if she's not who we're searching for, no action that saves lives can be considered wasted."
The other operators who had been clustered around the station watching the monitor nodded and voiced their agreement, and a couple of them gave Mandelay congratulatory slaps on the back. But before they got too enthusiastic in their cheering, their supervisor Swanson said loudly, "All right, everyone back to work; we've got a lot more city to search!"
All the operators reluctantly nodded agreement and went back to their own stations, as Swanson told Mandelay, "Run a quick diagnostic on #314; make sure it's still fully functional. If it got damaged by a bullet ricochet, better to know now than later."
"Running the diagnostic now, sir," Mandelay replied as his fingers danced across his keyboard.
Swanson glanced questioningly at Renard, while gesturing with his thumb at Mandelay. When Renard nodded, Swanson grinned and said to Mandelay, "And for the record: congratulations, Cybot Operator III. That was fast work, and some pretty fine control of your unit."
"Actually, I'm a Level II, sir," Mandelay said absently. Then he looked up from the keyboard with his eyes wide. "Or maybe I should say I was a Level II…?"
Swanson grinned wider. "Like I said, congratulations. And Merry Christmas. Now get back to work!"
"Yes, sir!"
But Renard had already turned away, to send his wheelchair cruising back to the manager's station at the back of the room. Preston Vogel fell into step alongside the chair as he said quietly, "The search has only begun, sir; we've covered less than ten percent of Manhattan so far."
"And we'll keep it up until we've covered 100% of the island," Renard said brusquely, still rolling. "And if no one has found my daughter and grandson by then, we'll start on Staten Island and Brooklyn!"
"Of course, sir. But may I point out that there is no need for you to stay awake all that time?"
"You're not my nurse, Vogel," Renard growled back, giving his aide a fierce glare.
"Indeed not, sir. Your nurse is currently stationed outside the door. But she saw fit to inform me that you were up most of last night, unable to sleep due to your ailment. And that before we'd learned of the kidnapping, you had agreed to retire to your quarters early tonight and let her increase your medicinal dosage enough to ensure a good night's rest."
Renard harrumphed and started to respond, but that harrumph turned into a coughing fit. When the fit finally passed, he took with a trembling hand the handkerchief Vogel was holding out to him, wiped the flecks of darkly discolored spittle from his lips, then growled, "You'll wake me up the moment anything develops!"
"Of course, sir."
"The very moment, Vogel!"
"Absolutely, sir."
00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00
*crackle* "Psst, Elisa?"
Elisa hissed "Wait" at her jacket collar, as she stood up from her chair and hurried into the women's bathroom of the precinct. Once she was sure she was alone in there, she said into the microphone embedded in her jacket collar, "Go ahead, Brooklyn; what news do you have?"
"Not good news, sorry, but it's something your fellow police officers need to know about. We finally shook down a Dracon gang member who knew something about a kidnapping, but it's not any of our people. Instead, it's some lottery-winner's wife who's been kidnapped; Dracon's people didn't do the kidnapping, but they supplied the weapons and gadgetry for the scum who did, in return for a cut of the take. The kidnapped woman's name is Caroline Dickens, and Joey was pretty sure that she's being held in a room in the Hotel Danvers. We don't have time to go there and rescue her right now, not with so many Dracon hangouts left to cover, so the police need to do it instead."
Elisa smiled wryly as she replied, "You're about fifteen minutes too late, Brook. Word's going through the precinct right now about how two officers just rescued Caroline Dickens... with some help from a robot they're calling the Spirit of Christmas Future. Matt and I think it's one of Renard's cybots and that Renard's the one who phoned in the anonymous tip, but we haven't said anything to the captain yet."
"Oh. Well, that's good news for somebody, anyway. Wish we had good news for us tonight, but we've hit twelve of Dracon's bases of operations so far with still no sign of our people, and no one who's talked has known anything about them. Are you sure Brod's gang is out of business?"
Elisa nodded, though Brooklyn couldn't see it. "Brod and all his lieutenants are behind bars, awaiting trial and conviction before being deported back to Czechoslovakia, and Brod wasn't in the country long enough to build up a lasting power base with local gang members. Brod's gang really did die when the head was chopped off, but the same can't be said for Dracon's gang. Keep looking, Brooklyn… and if you happen to see any drug stashes or weapons caches while you're raiding their bases…"
Brooklyn responded, "We've been wrecking all the guns we see while searching, just like we agreed on when we planned this whole operation. Hollywood dropped two big bagfuls of heroin in the river from this raid, and I think Etienne set fire to a big coke stash on their first raid, from what Broadway said about Etienne getting creative with gasoline. But finding our people has to come first, even over putting an end to Dracon's gang for good!"
00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00
To be continued in: Desperate Measures
