Hannes woke up slower this time. He needed a moment to be fully there. One look at the left side of the bed, Ibby had already got up, so he got up. He went into the bathroom, fiddled off the band aid and threw it in the trash can. He thoughtfully looked at his arm. The wound was barely visible. The area of the former wound was covered with a kind of transparent film, like dried glue. He tried to nibble this film off, but it didn't work. He got in the shower and took his time. He remembered the police officer from last night. She was confused, maybe scared. He remembered that Ibby had kissed her and that she had fainted afterward. He decided to discuss it with Ibby, if at all possible. When he was done, he got out of the shower and dried himself off. Then he scraped the stubble from his face, put on his clothes and went into the kitchen.
Ibby was sitting at the table, there was a cup of coffee on the table. First, he wanted to sit down, but then he went to Ibby, made it clear to her with gestures that she should get up. When she had gotten herself up, Hannes stepped up to her and hugged her. Carefully, because he didn't know how she would react. But Ibby returned the hug. Hannes found that the elevations on Ibby's back didn't really bother him, was happy that he could hug her without her clawing him in the back. He also noticed that he did not feel like letting go, and apparently neither did she.
After a while, he let go and sat down and blushed at the table. Ibby also sat down and asked him to show him the arm. Her face showed no emotion as she looked at the remains of the wound, held her arm and extended her claw by the index finger of her other hand. Hannes shrugged back, but she grabbed the arm and put the tip of the claw on the film on his arm. It didn't take her long to solve one end, then she grabbed the loose end and pulled the film off. Hannes had been wrong, the red line was not on the skin, but on the film, His arm was like new again, unhurt, intact. Ibby rolled the film up to a ball and put the ball into her mouth. Hannes watched confused. She pointed to the coffee. Hannes drank a sip.
"Ibby, we need to talk about the cop you kissed at the cafe." He accompanied this with a lot of gestures and actions, sometimes he played Ibby, sometimes the officer, at the end he raised his shoulder and gestured that he had no idea what to do. But she had understood. She stood up, mimed a secret agent with a coat and a hat pulled deep into her face, then played a scene in which the secret agent talks to someone over a collar microphone, Ibby mumbled something into an invisible collar, then photographed something invisible.
Hannes knew what she wanted to say. Then Ibby played herself as she saw the agent, or rather the agent because Ibby stroked her chest, then a short frown, a gesture of reflection, then concentrated looking, then the kiss.
Ibby looked at Hannes. "Why did you kiss her?" He repeated the gesture of kissing and then raised his shoulders. What's the matter with you? Ibby's eyes sparkled, but she also shrugged her shoulders. Hannes didn't believe that. "Ibby, come on," he said with an urgent undertone. Ibby thought she was straightening up. "Shh!" she did and played the scene of the kiss again. Then she played the cop who had slumped down and woke up. Finally, Ibby had her index finger circle on her temple. Hannes understood immediately. He repeated the gesture and asked, "She's crazy?" Ibby repeated the gesture as confirmation. Hannes had to let this fact sink first of all. He felt angry and then even a form of rage. "You can't do this! She was just watching us! You can't let someone go crazy!" Hannes got into his feelings and got loud. "I don't think that's funny! You're destroying a life! You can't do that!"
He got up and started walking around the kitchen restlessly. He looked at Ibby angrily. "So, what do we do now?" he snorted. Ibby watched him motionless, then she grabbed him by the arm, braked him. Hannes looked angrily at her face. She held her hands in front of her face, made the gesture of gossip with both hands, then pointed at him, at herself and out the window.
Hannes was thinking. Maybe not a bad idea. Cop meets alien. But not in the café. In the brewery. Where there's a lot of people. You can't let yourself go like that, he thought, and if a panic broke out because an alien was in the room, you could heat up the panic even more and disappear in this turmoil as well.
Thoughtfully, he looked out the window. Ibby stepped next to him. "And how do we find her?" he asked quietly, more to himself. She plucked at his clothes, pointed at them, then pointed at herself, and drove her hands along her body. I'm getting dressed now. She pointed to herself, then to the chair, then to the empty cup. I'll wait here. She pointed to Hannes, then she pointed to the cafe, made the gesture of drinking. You wait for her in the cafe. Hannes nodded thoughtfully.
"Let's see," he said, dressed, made sure he had enough money in his wallet, he knew the prices were a little higher there, put on his jacket and left the apartment. Ibby stopped motionless.
Hannes sat in the café by the window, ordered a coffee and waited.
Sabine von Hansenwerder decided that now would be the right time to leave. She stood up, walked into the hall, dressed and left the apartment, impatiently waiting for the elevator. She stopped in front of the house for a moment, at first, she was not sure where to go, but she knew that she had to go to Gingerbread-Street.
Arriving there, doubts came up as to whether what she was doing was right. Maybe she missed something, maybe she'd walk into a trap. Slowly she walked down the street, wondering if she should walk on the street side of the house entrance or on the other side of the street, where the entrance to the café was. She chose the café. Slowly she walked past the window. She wasn't really surprised to see Hannes Rachmiel sitting there in the café.
Hannes also looked at her, outside, in the gloomy day, in the slush, winter shoes, a tight jeans, a dark blue quilted winter jacket, hands in the jacket pockets, a Norwegian cap on, from which the blonde hair impudently rose, a red frozen nose, a defiant facial expression, in which a trace of fear could be read. The gaze from her blue eyes, however, was directed at him without winking or restless eye movements, waiting, scaling.
Hannes smiled friendly and waved her in, pointing to the empty place at the table. She stopped for a moment, then moved hesitantly at first, then with firm steps towards the entrance.
She came to his table. He asked her to sit down. "But you can take your jacket off. They're heating like crazy in here!" Sabine sat down, opened the jacket, but did not take it off, just like the cap, remained sitting on the edge of the chair, ready to run away.
"Relax," Hannes said, "she's not here." He looked at her. "I think we'll talk sometime. To introduce ourselves, maybe. To build trust?"
She snorted.
Hannes shrugged his shoulders. "I'm serious. I'm fine with the situation."
Sabine relaxed a little.
"You, on the other hand, aren’t, I suppose!" Something was cramping in Sabine's stomach. She was uncomfortable.
Hannes bent over a little. "I want to talk to you, that's why I'm here. And you," he pointed to Sabine, "also want to talk to someone. Unfortunately, I'm the only one here. Maybe we'll introduce ourselves. My name is Hannes Rachmiel. I was born in Mönchengladbach 54 years ago, studied German and then lost my Ph.D. position here in Cologne because I had to take care of private things, which did not bring the desired result. I still had a forklift license from my youth, so I found work as a forklift driver, that's a safe job, but I can't make big jumps. I moved to Cologne, here at Gingerbread-Street and found a small 2-room apartment, in which I feel very comfortable. It's your turn."
Hannes leaned back and waited. Sabine also ordered a coffee as the waitress stepped up to the table, waited until she left, then took a deep breath, took off her jacket and cap and sat down comfortably.
"Emma Sabine Walburga Freifrau von Hansenwerder."
Hannes pulled an eyebrow up, nodded.
"What brought you to the police? As a noble?"
Sabine smiled briefly. "I myself. I wanted to go to the police. I didn't want to breed horses, give receptions, make stupid speeches at charity events or grin stupidly into the camera. I wanted to help, do something, help my fellow c
itizens, make the roads safer and so on."
"And what did your parents and your friends say?"
Sabine crossed her legs. The waitress came and dropped off the coffee. Sabine continued: "My parents didn't care, I wasn't the baby of the family, they cared more about my younger sister".
She looked at him. "Shall we talk about the important things now?"
Hannes looked back. "We can do that now. But I don't want to tell you, ask questions and I'll answer."
Sabine thought that was okay, she could ask questions. But Hannes leaned forward, grinned, asked: "Do you want to know how I know you’re watching me?"
Sabine shook her head. "That's what we're going to discuss. So, what were you doing in the Palatinate?"
Hannes leaned back in the armchair and held her hands in the Chancellor's gesture in front of her. "I used to work there."
"Why in the Palatinate?"
"My boss told me to work in the store for a week because some of my colleagues got sick."
"And?"
"Nothing and. I worked there for a week. We had been paid a room in a pension by the company, small and unpleasant, but there was a lot of work to be done. After work I went out to eat with my colleagues in the pub, we also had a few bottles of wine or a few beers and then I went to bed."
Sabine bent forward slightly, fixed Hannes. "I'm interested in the last evening and the night."
"There's basically little to tell, you know. I think they already know almost everything anyway."
"I'd like to hear it from you, though!"
"I had received the order to hand over various delivery papers and an account from the accounting department in Lamprecht to the manager. I was not finished when my colleagues left work, so I finished the rest of the work until shortly after eleven pm. I then took the envelope with the papers, went to the car, threw the key to the room into the landlord's mailbox as agreed, and then took off."
"And then what?"
"Then, officer, at the crossroad Breitenstein I drove a different route than planned. Two cars crashed into each other behind the intersection. I was sent over the alternate route by one of your colleagues. Behind the summit, the accident happened."
"Just like that?
"Just like that. The car shot through the guardrail and disappeared on the slope."
"Mr. Rachmiel, you're hiding something."
"No, I don't." He had a sip of coffee. Sabine had the impression that Rachmiel secretly enjoyed himself.
"Never mind. Proceed."
"I climbed down the slope, discovered the car, discovered someone was in the trunk, decided to help the person and took her with me."
"Mr. Rachmiel, are you aware that you have made yourself liable to prosecution for failure to provide assistance and for causing a serious accident?" Sabine's tone had become sharp, but Hannes was unimpressed.
"Officer, are you aware that when I find a blood-stained role in a car driven by a woman in uniform, with a person still alive, this is the far bigger crime because there was obviously tortured and the person in the blanket was obviously supposed to be killed."
Hannes' tone was quiet.
"When I opened the blanket, clear signs of torture were visible on arms and the upper body. Cuts, bruises, spot burns from cigarettes, I guess. Do you want more details? Oh, you know what? I'll just tell." Hannes leaned forward; his voice had become louder. "Officer, when I opened the trousers, I saw on the one hand that this person had to empty her bowels and her bladder into the trousers. Shall I tell you in detail what else I found? Oh, come on, you want to know!"
Sabine became pale, but to keep Hannes from screaming, she bent far over the table, and Hannes also bent over to her.
"The vagina was sewn with wire. Everything was full of blood and pus. I had to soak them in the tub to loosen the crusts so that I could cut the wire."
Sabine became nauseas and took a deep breath.
"When I turned her around, I saw that her anus was torn, bloody and also suppurated. It took her 10 days to sit and walk again." The officer didn't need to know that Ibby had already regenerated somewhat the next day.
He leaned back. "Please do not tell me that I should have called the ambulance so that the people who had the injured in the trunk could have completed their work. And you know the cargo was, I say, tricky. Tell me how I would've gotten out of this without losing my life. And the cargo would also have lost its life."
Sabine was frozen.
"Officer, my life has become much more complicated and is now much better! I made the right decision. If you disagree, please. But just think of the consequences if I called the police and emergency services. Even if I had done it anonymously, I would have been found and executed very quickly."
Sabine got her act together.
"Why do you think you haven't been executed yet?"
"I can't tell you that. I guess they haven't agreed on the right method yet. "Besides, using you as a secret agent has also gone down the drain, if I may say so."
Sabine shot blood in the face.
"You know, I wouldn't have noticed that you were tailing me, I was just tired and full of sorrows in the last few weeks. But you were sniffing as I passed by. When I left the Palatinate so late, I smelled like a dog rolling in wild boar shit. The policeman back then sniffed just like you did. You wanted to smell if I smelled just as bad as the report said. I noticed then that they knew about it and that they were shadowing me, or rather us."
Sabine regained her composure. "Mr. Rachmiel, according to my information, the cargo, you..." she hesitated, "took from the accident scene, is extremely delicate. It's supposed to be a strange creature." She hesitated again.
Hannes laughed out loud. "A creature that has a very long way home?" He bent over a grin on his face. "A creature that does not come from this planet?" He leaned back, raised his voice. "An alien?" Sabine looked around hectically to see if anyone had been listening. Then she looked at Hannes again, who had leaned back comfortably into the armchair again, her hands in front of her chest with the Chancellor's gesture.
"That's right. That's correct. She wants to see you. In a minute."
Sabine rolled her eyes upwards and lost consciousness.
Appointment
This time it was Hannes who patted Sabine's cheek until she was conscious again. It didn't take long for Sabine to open her eyes either. She saw Hannes leaning over her, smiling friendly, but Sabine had the impression that he was worried, his eyes were not smiling. This closeness was unpleasant for her, maybe he had an unknown virus in him, caused by the closeness to ... Her.
She bent further back to increase the distance to him and slid deeper into the chair. He laughed. She guessed he guessed her thoughts. "Don't worry, I'm neither infected nor sick. But they have come much closer to her, haven't they?"
He sat down again. "If any of us have been infected with anything, it's you, right?"
Sabine was unwell. "Why does she want to see me?"
"See less. She wants to talk to you. As far as possible. She doesn't speak. So", he looked for words, "I don't know. Either she can't talk, or she won't. But we understand each other. We talk with a mixture of gestures and actions. But between you and me," he grinned, "I think she understands me very well. Maybe some kind of telepathy? I don't know. So, when we meet, if there's a problem, I'll play the interpreter. Agreed?"
Sabine felt something rising within herself that she could not classify. She looked past Hannes into the void. "I don't know. I'm scared."
Hannes nodded. "I understand that. "Afraid of the unknown ?"
Sabine shook her head, looked to the ground. "Not really. You know, I've always thought of myself as brave and cosmopolitan. But only for this world. I'm doing fine in this world, you know?"
Hannes nodded confirming waved the waitress and pointed to his cup. "To make it easier, I just suggest we call each other by name. Okay? Agreed?"
Sabine closed her eyes, thought for a moment. Then she nodded. "Agreed. We're in th
e same boat. Maybe it'll really make it easier. My name is Sabine."
Hannes stretched out her rights, held them out to her. "I'm Hannes. We're in the same boat." They shook hands, Hannes delighted, Sabine suspicious.
The waitress came, dropped off the coffee. "Well", Hannes said, "to be honest, I had been thinking all along whether I could trust you as an officer when it came to my ...", he thought, "... roommate. I can't tell you what she thinks, what she's up to, I can only say that living together works well." He concealed the hug and the fact that he had slept in a bed with Ibby and that he had enjoyed the closeness. "But we avoided each other in my apartment for a long time; I slept on the couch in the living room ..." Sabine had to laugh. Hannes laughed too. "I know how that sounds. Well, I slept in the living room and I went to work. I barely saw her for the first two weeks. I heard her, toilet flush, rattling in the kitchen, but we avoided each other. It's only in the last few days that we've been talking, yes, how shall I put it?"
"And do you know where she came from?"
Hannes shook his head. "I don't know anything about her."
Sabine looked at him skeptically. "Please don't tell me you didn't do any research. The Internet is full of these stories."
Hannes waved off. "That's right. But I had the feeling that a search on the Internet immediately triggers an alarm. That's why I didn't do anything. To be honest, I didn't know what to look for either. I wanted to live down this, not move. Besides, I know she was captured, tortured, and somebody wanted to dispose her."
Sabine put her head at an angle. "And if she is now an intergalactic terrorist? What if the invasion of Earth threatens? If she's the vanguard of anything?"
E.B.E. 21- the Hunt Page 13