"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE?!" Jessica immediately ran to the lab as she heard the loud electrical discharge and the explosion and was confronted with a field of rubble that looked like it was taken out of a science fiction movie.
Burning circuit boards, sharps of test tubes and the stench of burnt plastic filled the room´s air. In the middle of all of this stood a small, burnt but apart from that unhurt looking figure. With the face full of soot and the eyes full of hate the burnt dwarf began to raise his voice.
"What happened?!" he asked spitting out a mouthful dirt. "We were attacked!"
"Attacked?! When, how and who?" Jessica was completely confused. That didn´t make sense. Who should do that and why?
"When, a minute ago. How, a hacker attack over the internet. Who… that´s an interesting question. That I´ll answer you when I have cleaned up myself." Furiously tramped past Jessica and felt her alone in the destroyed lab.
Still confused she grabbed a fire extinguisher and began to put out the little fires. "This can´t be true." She mumbled as she released the foam out of the red cylinder. "How long am I chief? Seven hours maybe? And already shit hit the fan. This can´t be true. And this can´t be my fault. I mean I never screw things up like this. I´m better. That is definitely the fault of someone else."
She threw the extinguisher into the corner as she has put the last fire out and walked back to her office. While she muttered angrily on the whole way. "Someone will bleed for that."
With a bang she shut the door and sat down behind the table which was still packed with Kitty´s stuff.
Jessica hadn´t the time yet to redecorate the desk, what she mostly did until now was gathering information about Scratch. This turned out to be a waste of time. Her sources knew nothing about the guy. Actually she heard most of the time the sentence "What?! He´s really existing?" from her sources.
It frustrated her that he she was stuck. And what frustrated her more that the only information she had was collected by Kitty. All this frustration mixed with the anger in her and created just more anger. Not much longer and she would have a fit of rage.
That could sometimes happen, especially when things didn´t go like they should. Jessica wasn´t someone with a balanced personality.
She had to have some kind of catharsis before she would destroy the whole office. The empty picture frame on her desk hit her eye just in the right time.
She threw the frame at the wall and felt the release as the glass cracked quietly. Immediately she felt much better. The only thing that was annoying that she had to pick up the sharps of the broken frame now.
Sighing she stood up from her desk and began to clean up. Cautiously she picked up the pieces of broken glass and collected them in her hand. As they were all gathered she picked up the frame and carried everything back to her desk. But something was strange about that frame and that wasn´t just the fact that it was empty.
Jessica wondered all the time why there was an empty picture frame on Kitty´s desk. No, what was really strange was that this thing really had photo in it. But the photo was turned around so everyone could just see the white backside of it and would think that the frame was empty.
Jessica turned the photo around. It was a snapshot of Kitty while capturing Snaptrap. Also a white dog with blue eyes and a black shirt was on it.
"I had never thought that Kitty kept this." A voice suddenly said from the other side of the table. Jessica was so startled from that, that she almost fell from her chair. It was Keswick. The little guy somehow managed it to sneak into her office without making a sound.
"Geez Keswick!" She cursed. "Don´t you knock?"
"Sorry chief." Meant Keswick scratching the back of his head. "I usually n..n..never knock when Kitty is here."
"Yeah but she isn´t here! So knock!" angry about the fact that Keswick startled her so much she let her gaze wander back to the picture. "Who is that guy? Do I have to know him?" She asked with strict tone and poked with her finger at the white dog in the photo.
"That is agent D..D..Dudley Puppy. Well, ex-agent to be correctly." Keswick´s expression darkened a lot as he said Dudley´s name.
"Ex-agent? What happened? He got fired?" Jessica now averted her gaze from the picture and looked at Keswick.
"Nope. W..W..Worse." He said shaking his head. "For us he´s dead."
"Oh… sorry to hear that. What happened?"
"He got stabbed in Moscow. His mortal remains were then burnt in the fire of an old forge. After the ash was cold nothing was born out of the ash that was pretty enough that you could call it a phoenix." Again Keswick´s expression darkened.
"What?" Keswick´s last sentence confused Jessica much. Either he tried to hide something behind this cryptic phrase or it was just a gathering meaningless words.
"Nothing… we don´t talk about that usually. For Kitty´s sake. Even if I think she should do something."
"For Kitty´s sake?" Now, Keswick has aroused her interest. She loved to hear everything what was about her rival.
"Yeah, she and Dudley were a c..c..couple until this hell began… I don´t think it´s okay for h..h..her if I tell you her whole story. You can ask her when she´s back."
"Oh come on." Begged Jessica. "Please."
"No." meant Keswick sternly. "And I´m not here to talk with you about Kitty´s p..p..private life. I´m here because of the attack. So to the f..f..facts." He sat down on the chair on the other side of the desk and began his explanations. "Okay, you have to know that I was i..i..involved in some… let´s call it barely legal actions…"
"Barely legal actions?" interrupted Jessica raising her eyebrow.
"The less you know… Anyway. I just try to bypass the f..f..firewall of a server as I received a counterattack. However, this c..c..counterattack didn´t come from this server… that´s at least what I could recognize before my hardware was blown up."
"So if it didn´t come from the administration of the server… who was it then?"
"Really good question." Nodded Keswick. "I have no idea… but I t..t..think this is all related to him…"
"Him?" probed Jessica interested and moved a bit closer to the scientist who began to writhe.
He seemed to be in some kind of dilemma. As if he was knew something but didn´t trust her enough to tell it even if it lay heavily on his mind.
"Yes… h..h..him." Keswick stammered Keswick slowly.
"Who is 'him'?"
"Ah… no… you wouldn´t b..b..believe that."
"Mr. Keswick, spit it out!" The anger in Jessica´s voice began to increase what brought Keswick to a decision.
"Okay, okay. I think it was Scratch." Meant Keswick trying to pacify her.
"What? Scratch? Really?" That was interesting, the little guy seemed to know something about Scratch, her way out of here. And now she wanted to know that, too.
"Yes, Scratch. You can call him my… p..p..personal project. I´m collecting information about him to get enough information for an indictment and also to uncover his real identity." And then he added in his mind. "…or to at least prove that he is Dudley."
"And do you already got something?" Jessica tried not to sound too excited about that even if it was hard for her.
"Nope… But a pal from the FBI said he got something for me. Something with that we could really use against him. And by the sound of his voice the last time I talked to him, it´s something big. Something with what we could get him on the chair… But why are you asking?"
Jessica opened the drawer and handed Kitty´s file about Scratch. "Because I found this."
"I s..s..see… And what do you expect from that, chief?"
"A promotion." She meant baldly.
"Hm… I think our goals are c..c..convergent. May I make a suggestion? Let´s work t..t..together to put this bastards behind bars."
"And why? What do you expect from that?"
"I have some personal reason to h..h..hunt him. And you should work with me because I have a few more i..i..information about him. So…" Keswick offered her his little hand to shake it. "Deal?"
Even if she believed if she could trust this little guy and even if she knew that he didn´t really trust her she shook his hand. "Deal. So what do you know?"
"I don´t know if it is i..i..important but… Scratch travels through the country and s..s..searches for a guy called Mathew Richards. And now guess the name of prisoner 1739 who is sitting in Petropolis prison."
"Mathew Richards?"
"Ding ding ding…" called Keswick loudly. "The candidate g..g..gets 100 points."
"So you want to use Richards as a bail for Scratch?"
"And the c..c..candidate gets 100 points more. Exactly. What I´m planning is that we transfer Richards to T.U.F.F. and then we leave the door open for Scratch and wait."
"That sounds good." Admitted Jessica. "But what if he senses danger?"
"Don´t worry, this guy is s..s..so keen on getting this guy that he would risk anything." Keswick stood up from the chair and stretched. "Okay, I will go now and clean up my l..l..lab." Then he left without saying anything more the office.
Jessica didn´t know why but this new partnership somehow left a bad taste in her mouth, like this plan Keswick suggested. She didn´t know much about Scratch but she didn´t believe that it would be so easy to lure him into this trap. But she had no other choice than trying it.
Meanwhile on the other side of the globe in the waiting hall of the Frankfurt airport Kitty Katswell fought against sleep. She had a six hour long stopover here from 11pm to 5am. Now it was 3am and she was really tired.
Desperately she tried to keep her eyes open until she finally decided to give in and take a little nap. Just a short one so she could think straightforward again. This damn tiredness lay like a stone on her. So she leaned back on the hard iron bench she sat and pushed the weight off.
Her eyes closed and opened immediately again. She suddenly felt more tired and the weight on her at least doubled. And to make matters worse she felt how here head began to hurt. With her through the tiredness shrank eyes she gazed at her watch. 4am. That couldn´t be the truth.
Did she really sleep for an hour? Sighing "I should have stayed awake" she leaned back forward and rubbed her eyes.
"Yes, that´s true." Kitty whirled startled around as she heard the voice from beside of her. And she was almost fallen from the bench as she saw who sat there.
"Dudley?! What the heck?!" She shouted.
"Calm down." Laughed the dog with the baldhead and the square glasses. "Don´t behave like I´m trying to kill you."
"Well, I´m not sure about that."
"Kitty…" Replied Scratch shocked. "I would never do something like that."
"So, what then?"
With shivering legs and almost just with the help of his cane Scratch heaved himself from the bench. "Let´s have a little lunch, I´ll tell you there."
"Dudley, what happened?!" gasped Kitty as she saw her former partner walking with a stick.
"I had an argue with a few bullets… and… let´s say they had pretty good arguments." He explained while he limped down the hallway. "But it´s just temporarily. Soon I can walk without that."
For a short moment Kitty thought about not following him, but even if she felt this indifference rising up there was another part in her. It was her curious side. And this side couldn´t resist following him.
So she stood up and followed Scratch down the hallway until they sat down in a tiny fast food restaurant. While he shuffled to the counter he pointed at a table in the darkest corner. A nice remote place where they could discuss everything in private.
Kitty gave a short laugh as she sat down on one of the chairs. This place was like Dudley´s new personality, this Scratch. Dark, dirty and with an angst-inducing aura. Kitty had to admit that he even scares her a bit. But not because of this just mentioned aura, it was more fact how the childish, friendly dog that she once loved became a vindictive malicious monster.
Balancing a blue tray on one hand Scratch brought a pile of in paper wrapped burgers to the table.
"I know you love these disgusting burgers from snap in the box but… these are pretty bad too." He laughed and sat down on the opposite side of the table.
"So?"
"That reminds me somehow of the last conversation we had. In the interrogation room."
"I remember." Replied Kitty coldly.
"I suppose you don´t want to talk about old times…" Scratch giggled but immediately chocked on his laughter as he saw the cold and emotionless stare that she gave him.
"Old times? I´m just trying to forget them. You know… the time before you returned I tried to keep these times in a good memory. But after you showed your true colors… I try to forget. And you know what." Kitty leaned forward and put an evil grin on her lips. "That was the best thing I could do." The curiosity she felt before turned into hope that she could give it to him straight.
"Ouch" meant Scratch trying to sound as unimpressed as possible. Kitty just tried to hurt him and he wouldn´t show any sign that her attempts bore fruits. "Quit this polemic."
"Oh, okay." Kitty leaned back again and added sarcastically "But just because you used the word polemic."
"Kitty I´m not your enemy!"
"So?" she called out with an angry voice. "Because you hurt me more than all of our so called enemies together. More than Snaptrap, more than Birdbrain, more than the Chameleon, more than…"
"I got your point!" intervened Scratch tensed.
"YOU DIDN´T EVEN ROUGHLY GET MY POINT!" she shouted and rolled up the sleeve of her pullover. A thin long scar extended over her slender sleeve. Scratch backed off from the healed wound like he saw a ghost. He understood immediately what happened and just imagining that made him sick.
"Kitty… I…"
"Ha…" she laughed bitterly out. "Finally I got the chance to see the famous Scratch speechless. I think I´ve seen everything now."
Scratch didn´t answer, he just continued staring at her wrists until Kitty got rid of that and changed sighing the topic. "Dudley, you wanted to tell me something? Then do it. I want to spend the following hours until the boarding without you around."
"It´s just… I…" Scratch couldn´t form a clear sentence.
"Something about your revenge right? You want to tell me now that you gathered new information and that you continue your revenge? I suppose in Petropolis?"
"Uh…Uhm…yes."
"You know what?" Kitty stood up and got ready to leave. "I don´t give a damn. I know that I can´t stop you. I know that you won´t hurt anyone else then your target. And I know that there is someone in charge who will deal with you. You´re Jessica´s problem now."
Scratch´s jaw dropped as he heard that. The Kitty he remembered had never said something like that.
"Kitty, I can´t believe what you´re saying! You´ve been an idealist! What happened?"
"Easy." Shrugged Kitty. "I took you as an example. You changed your ideals… so why can´t I?" Then she turned around and left the little restaurant.
Scratch stayed back and just stared. Every meeting with Kitty made him realize more what he had destroyed. And it was always hard to digest that.
-Well, Scratch knows now that Kitty had a really hard time too... finally. Well, hope you enjoyed that chapter. Next chapter soon, see you ;D-