The Evolutionite Chronicles Book Two: Dagger and Shadow Ninja in: Welcome to Las Vegas

by Timothy P. Callahan

  “Where was she?”

  Lance shrugged. “Don’t know. After a few weeks she just came back. Her roommate told the cops she was back, but that’s it.”

  “Did you talk to her roommate? Find out what happened?”

  Lance laughed. “Nah, you kidding? I was trying to be quiet. If I talked to the roommate, she’d be on to me. No, I didn’t but you guys might want to.”

  Daniel nodded and opened the file. He scanned the report quickly and got the address of where Nancy lived. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “Yeah, be careful with that girl. She’s trouble. Something’s just not right.”

  Daniel turned without acknowledging the comment and walked out. Grace followed, giving Lance a small wave.

  Outside the room Daniel took a deep, calming breath, releasing some tension he didn’t know he had built up.

  “What’s wrong?” Grace asked.

  “Nothing,” Daniel replied. “He’s right, though. She’s trouble, I always knew she was. Come on, we have to visit this Kate person, find out all she knows.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  David Lee gently lowered his massive frame into the cheap plastic chair next to Nancy’s hospital bed. It creaked, groaned, and bent as he relaxed into it. It didn’t break, and he suspected that was more luck than the quality of the chair. It was nice to get off his feet, even if it was for just a few minutes.

  The doctors, reluctant to talk to someone who wasn’t immediate family until he persuaded them otherwise, told him Nancy was lucky. The arrow had punctured her sternum but not her lungs or heart. She was in shock but should make a full recovery. She was asleep now and would be for a while. He blinked away tears, thinking about how close he came to losing her.

  He pulled his phone out and dialed Tanaka. When Tanaka answered, the first thing he asked was, “How is she?”

  “She’ll live. Going to be out of it for a while, but she’ll live.”

  “Thank God,” Tanaka said, relief in his voice. “You stay there. Daniel called me. We’re going to discuss our next move and follow up on some new leads. You okay?”

  “Yeah. It’s quiet here. Might take a nap while Nancy’s asleep. When she wakes up, I’ll let you guys know. Maybe we’ll get some answers from her when she wakes.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Tanaka replied, before hanging the phone up.

  David chuckled. Dagger always did have a good sense of humor. Even when they fought a part of David looked forward to hearing some of Dagger’s quips. They were working together now, they might even become friends. David shook his head, knowing this was just a partnership of convenience. Both of them cared too much for Nancy to fight. She had told him about their complicated history.

  Now she lay next to him, hurt, asleep, vulnerable. She wouldn’t want him there to protect her but how could he not? Looking at her pensive face, her eyes closed, her chest slowly moving up and down as she breathed, he couldn’t help but feel the same love he did every time he saw her.

  “How is she?” asked a voice from the doorway.

  David looked up to see a man standing there. He wore a black hoodie with the hood over the man’s head, covering his face in a shadow. David said as he rose to his feet, “Whoever you are go away. We don’t want any visitors.”

  “I just want to know if she is still alive.”

  “What’s it to you?” David asked standing from the chair. “Who are you?”

  “I am... a friend,” the man replied. He looked up and David saw a pair of red eyes looking back at him. He stepped back from the sight, unsure what it meant.

  The man took a step into the room and removed his hood. The red eyes faded back to a normal human eyes. The man looked older, maybe in his fifties, with dark gray hair. He gave David a stern look. “Move and let me have the girl.”

  David knew a challenge when he saw one. He’d been in more fights than most. He sized this situation up quickly and decided a more direct answer was needed. He activated his powers and charged forward, his head low, his shoulders back. It was a short distance, no more than a few feet, but his powers allowed him to reach close to his top speed within that distance. The man moved faster than David thought possible and punched David in his head. Nothing had ever hit him that hard before, and David fell to his side and skidded into the opposite wall, landing in an empty room. He lay on the ground, his head throbbing like a hangover.

  The man stepped into the room. David stood, his legs weak, and charged again.

  This time, the enemy had no time to react and David hit him as hard as he could. His attacker’s heavy body smashed through the wall with a tremendous thud, landing on a row of oxygen tanks, crushing them as if they were tin cans.

  Compressed oxygen whistled out from the tanks with a loud screech. The man struggled to get up, but the tanks prevented him from getting good footing.

  With shocked awe David saw half of the man’s skin had fallen off his face, exposing a chrome-like skull that gleamed in the harsh hospital light. The robot reached up with his hand and pulled at the skin, ripping the rest of it off. Its skull was now fully exposed, and a pile of pink skin with gray hair lay piled on the hospital floor.

  David pulled out his cell phone, thankful it hadn’t broken, then pressed and held the home button. After a confirmation beep he said, “Send Tanaka a text. Need help, under attack. I think it’s a robot.”

  The phone confirmed the text was sent. The robot, finally able to get some footing, stood. Its red eyes seemed to glow with even more intensity. “Human fool,” the robot said then tilted its head, pulled its shoulders back, and charged David, moving at a speed that didn’t seem possible.

  David placed his right foot back to get some leverage just as the robot slammed into his chest. The blow took the wind out of him but didn’t send him flying. The robot seemed stunned as it stumbled back. Its head was dented and a few sharp teeth had fallen out.

  “Not as easy as it looks,” David said, punching the stunned robot in the face. More razor teeth fell to the ground with a loud clang.

  David heard a pop and when he turned he saw Tanaka and Daniel standing there. Daniel, dressed in his ninja outfit, Tanaka dressed in a very nice business suit. Daniel stepped forward, “What’s going on?”

  “Robot attacking,” David replied. “I think I have-”

  David felt a wave of nausea forcing him to close his eyes. When opened them again he found himself standing outside, in the dark, the surface below him at an impossibly steep angle. He started to slide almost right away down the black surface toward the ground. He tried to get some footing but fell on his back and continued to gain speed. What happened? Did Tanaka teleport me? No, he couldn’t have, he wasn’t close enough to touch me.

  The ground came to him fast. He heard the surface breaking as he fell and saw the shards of glass pass by him, tumbling toward the same destination. He saw massive statues of Egyptian Gods and hieroglyphic writing on brown obliques. It dawned on him, a few seconds before he cratered into the parking lot, that he was sliding down the surface of the Luxor pyramid.

  Did he just teleport Charger?” Tanaka asked in a stunned voice.

  “I’ve seen you teleport enough people to know that’s exactly what he did,” Daniel replied grabbing his buckler shield from his belt.

  “I thought I was the only one on the planet who could do that.”

  “Only human, it seems.” Daniel replied taking his katana out of its sheath. “You might want to go home and get your weapons.”

  “Can you handle him for a few minutes?”

  “Yeah,” Daniel replied, placing the shield in front of him and his sword over his head. “Go.”

  Tanaka popped out, leaving Daniel alone with the robot. It looked oddly familiar to him, like someone he knew as a child then met again as they got older. The list of robots, both controlled by someone and those who gained sentience, was very small. “I’m going to guess you’re a version of Destructo.”

  The robot
tilted its head, its eyes blinked red for a second. “Ah, Shadow Ninja. Honored you remembered me.”

  “Hard to forget fighting a robot. That was, what? Five years ago?”

  “Yes, about right. I could tell you the exact time to the second but that’s such a robot cliché thing to do.”

  “Why are you here?”

  He turned and pointed to Nancy. “Her. I need her.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you really expect me to tell you that?”

  “Would be nice,” Daniel said. He searched his feelings trying to find his danger sense. It was so odd not to feel any danger when he was looking danger right in the face. A thought occurred to him that he may have lost the power. That Whitebeard did something to take it away.

  Tanaka teleported into the room with his katana in the ready position. Without another word he held it above his head and charged forward. Daniel followed.

  Destructo didn’t fight but instead turned and ran toward Nancy. He arrived in a few steps, picked her up, and the two teleported out with a loud pop. Both Daniel and Tanaka came to a halt, jaws open in surprised. “He’s never been able to do that,” Daniel said.

  “Was that Destructo?” Tanaka asked.

  “Yeah. When did he get those powers? He’s never had those powers before. He’s never had any powers before.”

  From one of his pouches Daniel’s cell phone rang. He saw it was from David and he answered it. “Daniel, you guys need to get to the Luxor right now.”

  “Where are you?” Daniel asked.

  “The Luxor!” David yelled. “I just slid down a huge pyramid. Started at the top, ended at the bottom.”

  “Take a picture with your phone and send it to us. Make sure it’s a well-lit open area, we’ll teleport there.” Daniel hung the phone up then turned to Tanaka. “You know, it’s odd, he could have teleported her out of here at any time but he waited until you showed up.”

  “So?”

  “What if he’s a mimic now?”

  “Don’t say that,” Tanaka said with grave seriousness. “Last thing we need is a crazy robot mimic.”

  Daniel’s phone buzzed and he looked at it. It was a picture of a parking lot. He showed it to Tanaka, “Take us here.”

  Tanaka touched Daniel’s shoulder and the two teleported out of the hospital, appearing a second later in front of David, who sat on the ground, his face contorted in pain. Daniel walked up to him, “You need Tanaka to teleport you back to the get checked out?”

  “I’ll be fine,” David replied. “I’ve been hurt worse.”

  “I thought you were pretty much indestructible,” Tanaka said.

  “Only when I’m moving fast. When I’m still, I’m tough, sure, but not indestructible. Turn my powers on, get me moving, and nothing can hurt me. Not that it did me any good.”

  Tanaka managed a smile. “You did the best you could. I don’t think anyone expected him to have teleportation powers.”

  “Odd thing is, he had my powers too.” David replied. “He lowered his head and hit me just like I hit other people.”

  “And he turned to run before our charge as if he sensed it was coming. No wonder my danger sense never went off, he was waiting for Tanaka to come back so he could use his teleportation power to get out of there. Here I was stalling waiting for Tanaka and here he was stalling me.” Daniel said. “He can probably only mimic the powers of Evos close to him.

  “A mimic, damn it.” Tanaka said. “Must have been one hell of an upgrade.”

  “You guys know who he... it... is?”

  “His name is Destructo,” Daniel said. “He was built by an engineer named Johnny Dessero. Johnny actually worked for the Protectors for a while. He had the power to build just about anything he could think up. Hyper-engineering is what they called it. Him and Hi-Tech were good friends. Both of them built the Protector’s computer system.”

  “Yeah,” Tanaka continued. “But there was some sort of fight between the two of them.”

  “From what I heard,” Daniel said, “Johnny was developing a form of AI. Hi-Tech didn’t like where it was going and told Peter, who then fired Johnny when he refused to stop his experiments. Peter was afraid. He didn’t want to fight something whose mind he couldn’t read. Fighting an intelligent robot was not something he’d agreed too. About a year later, this human-like robot shows up, just flies toward Protectors’ Lair and hovers there. Says he wants to talk to Peter. Peter goes out there, and the robot, who called himself Dessero 1, wants to join the Protectors. Tells him that his father, Johnny, programmed him to do nothing but good and to protect. Said he doesn’t need sleep, doesn’t need food, and isn’t scared, since it lacked emotion.”

  “I wanted him on my softball team,” Tanaka joked.

  Daniel looked at Tanaka with a frown, then continued. “Peter said no, and the robot went away. A few days later it shows up again, calls itself the Dessero 2, says it’s better than 1 and wants to join. Peter says no. Then, another one—”

  Tanaka said, “This goes on for a while. We were up to, what? 15 before Destructo 1 arrived?”

  “Sounds right. He was not a happy robot, and he brought the other versions with him. Said if he couldn’t join the Protectors, he would become them. Then, he and his army attacked us.”

  “Yeah, that was a fun fight.” Tanaka said. “I teleported at least three versions in front of High-Tech who took them out with his own electronic magic.”

  “We outclassed and outmatched them,” Daniel said. “It only took about ten minutes. Once he saw what was happening, Destructo flew off. High-Tech followed him back to his base where he found Johnny dead, his neck broken. Tech and Destructo had a fight, and Tech won.”

  “We thought it was the end of the story,” Tanaka said. “Guess we were wrong.”

  “And it looks like he’s upgraded.” Daniel replied. “How can he mimic our powers? He’s a robot!”

  “Before I crush him, I’ll ask.” David said. “Where could he have taken Nancy?”

  “Dealers with red eyes,” Daniel said. “Bunkers, the desert.”

  “Bills, flat soda, money.” Tanaka said. “I can say random things too.”

  “No, no. Something Grace said she saw in her vision.”

  “Grace? That the girl you went off with?”

  “Yeah.” Daniel placed his hand under his chin to think. “She said she saw bunkers in the desert, dealers with red eyes, and Vegas burning. She said it’s the same vision Turing saw when we were connected.”

  “What does he have to do with this?” Tanaka asked.

  “I don’t know. But, it’s odd.”

  “You should talk to her again,” David replied.

  “I need to talk to the nightclub owner and you need to talk to the roommate,” Tanaka said.

  “What about me?” David asked.

  “You go with Tanaka,” Daniel said.

  “Hey, why does he come with me?”

  “Never mind,” David replied, walking away. “You guys do what you have to do, I’ll use my own methods for find Nancy.”

  “Nothing illegal,” Daniel yelled.

  “Like you could stop me if I did,” David replied, pushing through a crowd of people.

  “We still have his number,” Tanaka said. “So, if we find something we’ll let him know.”

  “Yeah.” Daniel replied, his voice low and unsure. “You go find the owner, I’ll talk to the roommate.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The strip club sat alone surrounded by a much too large parking lot. Tanaka, who teleported across the street a few moments ago, figured the lots were once other buildings attached to the club that had been torn down and paved over.

  The large security guard in the front stared at him. Tanaka nodded then walked down the street until he was pretty sure he was out of sight of the guard. He then darted through the lot toward the back of the building where he found two women in bikinis smoking cigarettes. Tanaka froze, fearful he had been caught doing something wrong.r />
  One of the woman looked at him. “Hey, you have to pay to get in, go to the front.”

  “I’m here to see your boss. Is he in?”

  The other girl flicked her cigarette away and replied, “Nah, haven’t seen him in ages.”

  “Know when he’ll be back?”

  “Wouldn’t count on him coming back,” the first one said, taking another drag. “Now, either go up front and get in or get out of here. The free show is over.”

  Tanaka grinned, he liked the sass in that girl. “I’ll give you fifty bucks if you just answer a few more questions for me.”

  Both woman gave him a dubious look. The tough one said, “Go, I’ll talk to him.”

  The other girl nodded and walked back inside the club. Tough girl looked Tanaka up and down and asked, “You one of those street guys from the strip? I think I’ve seen you before.”

  “No, I’m the real deal. My name’s Tanaka, used to be known as Dagger.”

  “Tanaka? Are you Sparkle’s friend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Candy told us what happened. Is she going to be okay?”

  Tanaka shrugged. “That’s why I’m here. She was just kidnapped from the hospital. We’re trying to figure out what’s going on, and we think your boss might have something to do with it.”

  “Don’t know. I haven’t talked to him in weeks, none of us has. We would worry but we get paid on time and so far, we haven’t heard about a body showing up. You might want to go to his office. It’s upstairs. Maybe you can find something. The password to his computer is Stripper01 with a capital S.”

  “Thanks.” Tanaka reached into his wallet and pulled out fifty bucks. He handed it over to the woman.

  “Once piece of advice. If you’re going into the club, you might want to change. They won’t let you in with that sword on your back.”

  “Oh, right, forgot I was in uniform. Thanks.” He pictured his hotel room and teleported away.

  He appeared in his room to find a woman sitting on the couch watching television. At the sound of his ‘pop’ she turned quickly and faced him. “Hey, you’re that girl from the hospital.”