"Yes, Alice. I have recorded the profile of the anomalies here, and I can now scan for echoes of them. Small echoes in space-time will occur at our target's position for the next few hours. As I locate them, we can track his movements."
Alice was pleased. "He may have a home on the station, but I doubt it based on the fact that he has been on the run for so long. He may have fled to a ship, but he wouldn't have had time to leave before we initiated the lockdown."
"I agree," Idi replied.
"Either way, we need to get moving and find your supposed echoes, so let's go," Alice declared.
The chase was on.
Chapter 9
Annabelle watched in horror as Leo collapsed on the floor of the service corridor.
She had cloaked herself while Leo had hacked the door controls and had planned on revealing herself when everything was safe. Instead, she had noticed three people begin to tail Leo and had elected to stay hidden.
She had trailed behind Leo and the trio that pursued him. She had hoped to be able to warn him of the danger or surprise the trio if they made an aggressive move, but it had happened too fast.
The people who had shot the darts could not be Council operatives, whom Leo had feared so much. The Council would have used a high-tech device to capture Leo, not a gas-grenade.
Her suspicions were confirmed when the trio of ambushers walked up to his fallen body and pulled up their shirts. Annabelle couldn't see what they were showing him as he lost consciousness, but she did see them kneel by his unconscious body and lick his face. Each of them, in turn, slithered their tongues grossly along his cheeks before roughly tying him up with zip-ties.
Annabelle wished she had a weapon, but she didn't. The only person she knew that could get weapons onto the station was her father, but he would never agree to give her one, not when the penalty of getting caught with one was death.
Feelings of helplessness consumed Annabelle as one of the men grabbed Leo and carried him to the service entrance to the business nearest to them.
The woman sauntered cockily to the control panel next to the door and pushed three buttons on it. When the door opened, the man carrying Leo lurched awkwardly through the door, followed quickly by his two co-abductors. Then, the door immediately closed.
Annabelle stood still for a few seconds and tried to figure out her next move. She could have left Leo there, and returned to the safety of her father's compound, but it just didn't seem right.
She had told Leo that she would help him, and he needed help at that moment more than ever. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she gave up that easily. She had her cloak, and she could at least find out where they were taking him.
So, with a feeling of determination, she hurried forward to see if she could follow them.
As she reached the door, she saw the name listed beside it was "TOB." She had no idea what type of business it was. She had never heard of it or seen a sign with that name lit up on the Grand Promenade.
After ensuring she was alone in the corridor, Annabelle took a close look at the control panel next to the door. It was an old analog keypad, and none of the keys were numbered.
Annabelle took a deep breath. She could move down the service passage until she reached an access conduit to get back to the Grand Promenade, then search until she found wherever TOB was and try to enter through the front. That would take too much time, however, and she would probably lose any chance of seeing where they were taking Leo.
She could try to hack the keypad, but an analog keypad wouldn't be hackable with implants, because it would have no CPU to interface with. She could scan the keypad and see if there was anything that would help her get in, but what would her scans detect besides the solid metal and plastic that comprised the analog controls?
Annabelle quickly realized the futility of what she was doing and began to feel hopeless. Her father always told her to keep her nose out of other people's business, and at that moment, she had to admit that he was usually right. Her father was far from a good man, but when it came to saving one's skin, he was an expert.
As she stood and stared at the blank keypad, Annabelle's hope receded. There was nothing she could do.
With a feeling of helplessness, she sat down on the floor and wiped the sweat from her brow. It was very hot back there...
"Thanks, Dad," Annabelle whined to herself. "Thanks for all your helpful advice... Fucking hot as hell back here, anyways..."
Suddenly, a feeling akin to electric shock shot through her. The word 'hot' had triggered a thought within her, and a crazy idea was quickly forming in her mind.
Revitalized, she sprang back to her feet and began to scan the analog keypad. She had been outfitted with a top-notch ocular implant by her father a few months before. She could use the thermal imaging feature of the implant to scan for the residual heat where the woman had pressed the keys.
As she scanned, the thermal imaging overlayed her vision, and she saw that only three keys showed the slight brightening of being warmer than the others.
She scanned again, this time mentally querying her implant to display a narrower thermal range. As she completed the second scan, she could differentiate the levels of heat on each key well enough to determine the order they had been pressed.
"Bottom-right, left, top-left," she happily whispered as she pushed the keys.
After she finished her input, she expected the door to open, but it didn't. Instead, she heard a low hiss and tasted something sour as a wet mist sprayed onto her face. She felt its moisture coat her left cheek and enter her mouth as she stumbled away.
Then, Annabelle screamed in horror and clutched her face as she felt intense and debilitating pain. As the agony immediately overcame her, she fell backward and collapsed on the floor.
"Gahhh!" she retched as she tried to spit the sour liquid from her mouth.
The sour taste of the acid slowly disappeared as her taste buds were quickly numbed. She could feel her face burning under her hands. Then, she screamed louder as the pain spread to her fingers.
As she writhed around on the floor, she moaned in agony, stunned by what had just occurred. Her pain became eclipsed by fear, however, as the thought of the acid eating away her face until nothing remained painted a clear picture in her mind. Where was the closest medical facility? What would her father tell her to do?
Annabelle writhed on the ground for a few more seconds, but she was slowly able to push her scrambled thoughts through the pain and horror of her injury. She needed to get medical treatment as fast as possible. Where could she go?
Then, with a quiet clunk, the door to TOB opened.
With sheer force of will, Annabelle silenced herself. She watched the open door fearfully and huddled into a small ball. Her cloaking device would hide her presence as long as she remained silent.
Two men cautiously emerged through the doorway. Annabelle recognized one as the hulking brute who had carried Leo away. The other man was smaller and carried a look of deep suspicion. The two men looked around carefully as they stepped out into the service corridor.
"What's the deal, bro?" the larger man whispered.
The smaller man's eyes darted around wildly. "I'm telling you, I heard someone! It was a woman, and she screamed. She must have been right here a second ago..."
The larger one looked down the passage, then turned and checked the other way. "You're probably just hearing things, Yon. You're always so suspicious of everything..."
Yon curled his lips in irritation. "You're a fucking imbecile, Kern, you know that? The keypad displayed an access alert. I saw it with my own eyes. Someone entered the code and was trying to get in. They can't have gotten away that fast. They're here somewhere, probably cloaked."
Kern was unconvinced. "Cloaked? I doubt it. No one saw us and we scanned the whole passage. We were alone... Who could know the code? Yeah, who could even know the code? You're fucking crazy, man..."
Yon gave Kern an evil look, then reache
d into his right pocket and pulled out a huge knife. "Watch, moron, and learn..."
Yon began walking purposefully around the narrow corridor and slashed the air methodically as he went. With each strike that failed to slice into his cloaked target, he became angrier.
As he neared Annabelle, she carefully wormed away, hoping that she could move quickly and silently enough to avoid avoid feeling the sharp edge of Yon's blade.
As she crawled, she maintained her forced silence, in spite of the continuing agony of the acid upon her face and hands.
"C'mon, bitch! Let me cut you! I know you're here somewhere!" Yon spat as he continued his maniacal slashing.
Fortunately, after six more vicious swipes of the knife, he paused and took a few deep breaths, apparently winded from his effort.
"How does my acid taste you scared little bitch?" He shouted after he recovered.
Kern, who had been standing silently as his partner had slashed the air, perked up at that statement. "Acid? What do you mean, acid?"
With a flash of motion, Yon wheeled around and brandished the knife at Kern. "Acid, idiot! Look above the door. I installed a little security device while you dolts were out stuffing your stupid faces a few weeks ago."
Kern slowly turned and looked skeptically above the door. "I don't see anything," he grunted as he reached up and felt above the door with his hand.
Then, he suddenly screamed and snatched his hand back from where it had been.
"Yon, it got on me! Oh my god, it burns!" Kern screamed as he clenched his fist and looked at it with horror. "Oh fuck, it's eating my hand. Why are you always doing this crazy shit? Help me, you fucking psycho!"
Yon shrieked like an animal and pocketed his knife as he walked back towards his now injured comrade.
"I said, look, not touch! Like I also said, you're a fucking imbecile!" Yon hissed. "Go inside; I have an antidote. I'll give it to you if you promise to shut your stupid mouth for the rest of your useless life!"
Annabelle could barely hear Yon's words as he spoke them, but they immediately snatched her complete attention. He had an antidote. She had to follow them.
"Whatever man, I'll do whatever you want! Just get this shit off me!" Kern pleaded as they scrambled back towards the door.
As quickly and quietly as she could, Annabelle mustered her remaining fortitude. With a roar in her mind, she stood up and lightly jogged towards Yon and Kern as they stepped through the service entrance from which they had emerged.
In spite of her injury, she was able to move quickly and quietly. Neither of the men gave a backward look as she neared them. She reached the door just a few seconds after they had stepped through it. As she reached it, she didn't stop moving, but still managed to quickly look inside. She saw that she had very little space to occupy in the greenly lit corridor within.
As silently as she could, she slid her body through the door and glued herself to the right side of the corridor, just a few inches from Yon.
She stood there, became utterly still, and did her best to control her breathing as she watched Kern rush farther inside as he whimpered in pain. Instead of following Kern, Yon stopped near the entrance to close the door. Annabelle held her breath and tried to make herself as small as possible.
Yon didn't immediately shut the door. Instead, he leaned out of it, coming within inches of touching her, and shouted out into the service corridor.
"I know you're out there, you sneaky girl, and I know you're in agony. It feels so good to know that I hurt you. I'll feel even better when I cut you into ribbons while you sleep!"
He watched the corridor for a few agonizing seconds, then he pressed a few buttons on the interior keypad and watched the door shut with a soft clunk. He then turned, barely missed brushing against Annabelle, and sauntered down the corridor.
Annabelle fought her tears. The pain within her face was clouding her thoughts...
Why was she even there? How could she have been so reckless? Her father had warned her too many times to count about the dangers of the Osiris Underworld. He had warned her of the killings, the rapes, and the kidnappings.
He had warned her not to frequent the dive bars and shady clubs she loved so much. He had told her she wouldn't be safe there, and he had even spent a fortune on a black market cloaking device to protect her when she had inevitably ignored his dire warnings.
All she had wanted was a little something to break the monotony of station life. She had seen Leo and what he had done in the bar and knew that he would provide some excitement, but she hadn't anticipated that her talking to him would lead to acid covering her face as she tried to rescue him from kidnappers.
The severity and absurdity of her situation began to sink in as fear and regret began to dominate her thoughts. She had never been in a position of real danger before, and the shock of it threatened to break her.
She wanted to go home and tell her father that he was right and that she would never disobey him again. She wanted him to hold her as he took her to a medical facility to heal her wounds. She didn't want to be there, in that place, with those people.
Annabelle finally succumbed to her pain and began to cry hysterically. She couldn't help it, even though she knew it might mean her death. Tears flowed freely from her eyes as she whimpered and leaned despondently against the wall..
"What the hell am I doing here?" Annabelle sobbed to herself.
In spite of her enterprising imaginations of being a tech-wizard and a dashing heroine, she was not. She was now being revealed for the pathetic little girl her father had always told her she was.
"Oh, hell, quit lying to yourself, girl... Go home..." Annabelle whispered.
But then, a strain of resolve cut through her mind. She was sitting there, blubbering, thinking about how helpless she was, and that wouldn't get her anywhere. She needed to pull herself together if she had any chance of making it out.
"No... I can do this... I've seen worse...' Annabelle whispered as memories of her father's angry face swam in her mind.
"Fuck you, Dad. I can get out of this. Wa..."
Annabelle silenced her whispered monologue when Yon suddenly appeared at the end of the corridor. He smiled with glee as he walked toward her, his eyes wild as he laughed to himself. For a moment, she thought she had been discovered, and her fate was sealed. She breathed a sigh of relief, however, when he stopped, turned to his left, and opened a storage compartment a few meters away from her.
"Maybe the idiot will look before he touches next time, hee heee..." Yon laughed to himself as he rummaged around in the storage compartment.
After half a minute of searching, he emerged, clutching a small metal bottle in his hands.
"Ah, there you are, my sweet girl..." he whispered. Then, he turned and walked back down the corridor.
It was the antidote, Annabelle realized, as excitement coursed through her. She needed the antidote. The acid's effects had slowed, and her pain had dulled somewhat, but if she didn't treat her wounds immediately, the acid might continue its progression and wreck her face. At least, that was what she assumed. She honestly had no idea what the exact effects of the acid would be, or if she was already beyond saving.
A wave of nausea suddenly flowed into her stomach, and she had to double over to avoid vomiting.
Then, she suddenly felt very confused. How did she get there? Where should she go next? The world was full of pain, and she just wanted to lie down and forget the terrible nightmare that had become her reality.
"Oh, daddy... Why me? Why us? Why mommy?" she whispered deliriously.
As she floundered in her rapidly intensifying confusion, somewhere from deep in her mind, she remembered something important.
The antidote. She needed it. She needed to move.
Annabelle tried to gather her scattered thoughts and checked her cloaking device to ensure it was still working correctly.
Then, she rose and walked as quickly down the corridor as she could without making a noise. As she re
ached the end of the hallway, a large windowless room lit with dim green light emerged before her.
She scanned the room and saw that five people occupied it.
Yon stood above Kern as he laboriously opened the metal bottle. Kern whimpered and sat on a well-worn couch in the middle of the room as he clutched his hand and eyed the bottle fearfully. The other people who had abducted Leo - a man, and a woman - stood in the far right corner.
When Annabelle looked down, she spotted Leo. He was on the floor next to them, bound at the wrists and ankles with white zip-ties. He wasn't moving.
When Annabelle finished inspecting the room, her eyes lingered on Yon, and she watched with sick hunger as he dripped a white milky liquid from the metal bottle onto Kern's red and blistered hand.
As the liquid coated his wound, Kern leaned back on the couch, rested his hands on his thighs, and closed his eyes.
"Oh my god... That feels so good... Thank you, brother," he moaned.
"Your idiocy will kill you soon, brother..." Yon creepily replied.
Annabelle flashed her eyes back to the bottle and watched as Yon put the cap back on it and placed it in his right pocket. She hoped he would return it to the storage compartment and give her a chance to retrieve it, but instead, she watched in dismay as he sniffed the air around him and spoke.
"We need to go! Bag him up, now!"
The duo who stood above Leo hurried to obey. The man quickly scooped Leo off the ground while the woman walked into an adjacent room, then returned a few seconds later, pulling a large garbage cart behind her.
Annabelle recognized the cart because she had seen others like it many times. It was a device used by many businesses on the station.
The woman quickly opened the lid of the garbage cart, then the man dumped Leo into it before slamming the lid shut.
Yon watched closely as the duo went about their work and spoke when they were finished. "Okay, idiots, let's review our plan."
The Ganymede Legacy Page 9