"What do you mean you don't know where they are?" Macca asked, as I tried explaining what had happened.
"Meat told me to run, so I did…" I said.
"Where's Meat?" someone asked that I didn't know.
"I left them on the edge of the Outlands," I said, "she told me to run… so I ran…"
"And you left them there?" he said.
"Prince, this is the girl I was telling you about…" Macca said.
"Right, the one my sister has taken a shine to." Prince said.
"She's your sister?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, "and the only one I've got so I'd like her back in one piece…"
"I only did…" I started.
"What she told you to do, I know." He said, "what were the odds?"
"Well, Meat, Brit, Galileo, Scaramouche and Cliff against 3 Police officers…" I said.
"4 and a half against 3…" he said.
"When did you leave them?" he asked.
"45 minutes ago, give or take…" I said.
He nodded.
"Give it another hour or so and if they aren't back we'll go out looking for them." Prince said.
"Okay…" I said.
"Not you," he replied, "you're not going anywhere… There's a reason that Meat wanted you to get back here, so you're going to stay here."
"I see that being demanding runs in the family." I said.
"Its one of the more pleasant family traits." He replied with a smile.
After an hour and a half of sitting around, nothing. They weren't back. I couldn't help but think if anything had happened to them it was my fault. Of course it was my fault, if I hadn't come to the Heartbreak this wouldn't have happened, because they wouldn't have known about the factory and there wouldn't be any Police interest. Police interest, that was it. I got my laptop out and again hacked into the mainframe.
I could see that a call for back-up had been made to the factory where we had been, but by the time backup had arrived it was too late. 3 police officers had been left unconscious, and bleeding, and the factory was empty. It had been logged as a robbery gone bad. No mention of me, or the Bohemians. No mention of them being there had to be good news.
I was sitting away from the main doorway when I heard voices.
"I'm fine," I heard Meat say, "he split my lip so I knocked his teeth out of the back of his head… did Phoenix make it back?"
I looked up from the laptop to see her walking towards me, looking a little worse for wear.
"You okay?" I asked, closing the laptop and standing up.
"It's nothing…" she said, "Brit got it worse…"
I looked over her shoulder to see Brit dragging the cart with him, with a black eye, and a bloody nose.
"And the others?" I asked.
"Ran for cover at the first spilling of blood, Galileo said something about not being able to be a rock star without a pretty face, but it was mainly me and Brit." She said with a laugh.
"Leaving 3 Police officers unconscious from the looks of the report…" I said.
"Any mention of us?" she asked.
"Nope." I said.
"Only unconscious?" Brit asked, "I'm sure I heard something crack when Meat hit that first one with the bar."
"Got blood all over my outfit too the bastard," she said, "I'm going to have to go change, blood is so not a good look for me…"
She smiled.
"Meat…" I said, before she got to the door.
"Yeah?" she said, turning back.
"Thank you…" I replied.
She just smiled, and went to get changed. I walked over to Brit.
"Thank you as well…" I said.
"Don't mention it," he said, "you'd better be able to get this thing working, I'm starving."
I laughed a little.
"I'll see what I can do…" I said.
He smiled at me and walked away.
It took me a good two hours but I finally got the replicator in working order. Meat had spent most of the two hours watching me in utter amusement. Apparently she liked a girl who was good with her hands. Brit volunteered to go first, and only once the machine hadn't blown up, and the food hadn't killed him, did everyone else decide to eat.
While everyone was enjoying the food I decided to check again on what was going on with Globalsoft. I managed to get the news on my laptop, and watched as the Gaga girl on the screen talked about how a huge manhunt was now underway for Killer Queen's niece, who had last been seen heading south from the main city, apparently. I hadn't at all, the Heartbreak was north. So either they had no idea where I was and were really looking in the south, or they knew where I was but didn't want me to find out.
My aunt knew what I could do, so she would have known I'd want to know if they knew where I was, but I wasn't sure if she knew I would have joined the Bohemians.
I checked my email, I had one from her that was timed just after the Police incident. I knew the security on my laptop was enough to block the tracker, and I was interested in what she had to say.
I opened it up, and as usual it was a hologram message. She loved the sound of her own voice far too much to send a text based email.
"Do you seriously think you can defy me," she bellowed out of the message, causing the entire Heartbreak to turn around and take notice, "you think you can pass on all my secrets to those Bohemians. I will crush the resistance, destroy every stronghold, and arrest every last one of them, sending them to the Seven Seas until I find you. Your mother thinks I'm worried because you're my darling niece. Don't be fooled child, you're important to me for completely different reasons."
That was it, end of message.
"What got up her ass…" Cliff said when I closed the laptop.
"So she knows you're with us…" Meat said, choosing to ignore what Cliff had said.
"I honestly figured she would know…" I said, "she knows I've read too much…"
"But from that message it didn't sound like she knew which group you were with…" Brit said.
"I'm thinking about just going back home…" I said.
"What?" Meat asked, looking at me.
"It'll be easier…" I said.
"I got a split lip and blood on my boots for you, not so you could go running off home at the first sign of things getting tough." She said.
"You heard what she said, she said she's going to destroy every stronghold… it's not worth the risk…" I said.
"We're at risk anyway," Cliff said, "with you here or not. What's a bit more added risk… at least we can have a full breakfast at the start of the day, makes the risk worth it if you ask me."
"And that's the first sensible thing he's said in about 3 years…" Meat said.
"I don't want you guys to have to risk anything for me…" I said, "I'm just me, I'm not worth it."
"We're going to have to disagree on that," she said, "you are worth it. For some reason, I'm not sure what yet, you are worth it."