"Hey..." is all Zero can think of saying.
Ada grabs his wrist and pulls him into the karaoke section, storming pass the service counter and its stunned staff, into one of the empty soundproof rooms. Locking the door behind them she grabs both of Zero's shoulders hard, tip-toes and whispers into his ear, "I want to leave this fucking hell hole. Now."
Zero edges his head back to stare down at Ada. The look on her face says it all - she is determined to do it.
"Alright... I have a plan," Zero utters in reply.
"When do we leave and how?" Ada continues to gaze into his eyes firmly. After discovering that he has feelings for her, Zero has somehow started to feel embarrass to stare at her straight in the eyes which is weird as he has never felt like that towards any woman before. Zero awkwardly breaks the stare by gingerly backing away.
"There is a way," Zero clears his throat saying as he circles the tiny room, "The maintenance space behind these walls leads right out into the sub's tunnel. All we have to do is to get rid of these." Zero raises his palm at Ada and she understands immediately. The chip - it's going tracking them and once they take it out, the Hive will fail to locate them but they will be notified that they have gone default. By then, a full scale search will be launched to hunt them down. So they must be fully prepared in order to make this escape a success.
"When?" Ada asks.
"I -" Zero says and there is a rap on the glass door. They turn to look at the door and see the waitress trying to come in to get some order for drinks. Ada immediately waves her hand to dismiss her. Seeing the cue, the waitress promptly leaves.
Ada then turns her focus back to Zero, "When?"
"The faster the better," Zero answers, swallowing the lump of saliva in his throat, "Before anyone can suspect anything."
"What do we do once we reach the maintenance tunnel of he sub? We are thirty miles from civilization," Ada continues to ask.
"We blend into the rest of the group. Take the sub out and board the shuttle. Once in the city, we leave India immediately," Zero tells, "You have your passport with you right?"
Ada nods and under those arched brows, her cold stare melts away into a warm and thankful one. She is truly grateful that Zero has everything thought out and this is the first time Zero actually impresses her. Usually he gives her the impression that he has a less than serious and irresponsible attitude.
"Time is the essence here. I will set the mainframe to freeze but that will only give us a fifteen minutes interval before the team gets it back online. In that fifteen minutes we will need to remove these things," Zero says, raising his palm again to indicate the chip, "then we meet at level 05 and escape from the maintenance room. But we only have exactly fifteen minutes to get behind these walls or we're dead."
"Without the chips, we can't get past the doors," Ada shakes her head.
"I've got that covered. When I freeze the mainframe, it automatically triggers an emergency response in the security system. When that happens, all doors will open, just in case it's a fire or something. We don't need the chips. We just have to get there before it closes again. Once we get behind these walls, there will be no surveillance," Zach reassures Ada, putting his hand over her shoulder gently.
"Why are you doing these for me?" Ada suddenly asks, her almond eyes turning teary again.
"I said I'd be the one who saves you didn't I?" Zero answers with a half smile. Ada lets out a smile of comfort, knowing she still has someone to depend on.
"When do we do it?" Ada asks.
Zero takes a look at his leech. The time is 2:36 a.m. Zero does a mental calculation of how much time he will need in order to hack into the mainframe.
"4:30 a.m. You've got two hours to get ready. By 4:30 sharp, remove this chip in your room, get your passport and stuff and wait for me at Level 05," Zero decides.
"Okay," Ada nods, a worried look clouding her face.
"Hey, everything's gonna be okay," Zero reassures her, grabbing her arms firmly to which she nods again.
"And no high heels," Zero jokes as he opens the karaoke door and ushers Ada back out. Two hours is an extremely short amount of time.
As they hurry back to the pods, Zero turns to say, "Don't use these things to contact me anymore. All the messages we send through them are archived."
Ada nods and quietly, they part ways.
Chapter 42
Malaysia: Thursday, 20th November 4:53 a.m.
Chin reaches the highway and his super-bike screeches to a halt onto the emergency lane. Alighting from it, he jumps over the metal barrier and hurriedly climbs down the rusty ladder. Reaching the opened trapdoor, he knows his nightmare has begun. Chin runs down the cement staircase and with the light from his leech he storms his way through the tunnel into the holding cell. The sight of the empty chair makes him a choke for air. He has just lost his hostage. Chin, frustrated and angry, kicks his boot at the metal door as he roars like a lion.
Reluctantly, Chin raises the leech to his lips, preparing to report the loss to the Hive but then common sense got the better of him and even overruled protocol. This is a mistake beyond repair. If the Hive finds out about this, not only will he be relieved of duty but they will also exterminate him for his mistake. Chin lowers the leech from his lips. He might as well keep the Hive in the dark about the breach at Safehouse 1 and the loss of the hostage. Chin will just pretend that nothing has happened as he tries to recapture Nikki before she makes contact with her husband.
Chin starts to look around the room for clues but there is absolutely nothing for him to trace. With no proof of who has taken the hostage, Chin has only two suspects in mind - Lee Yu Na and Kaew Saowaluk.
Meanwhile back in their hideout, Kaew is grabbing and packing up all of their belongings as Yuna waits in the car with Nikki. With one nylon duffel bag on each of her shoulders, she takes everything and races down the stairs. They have to leave immediately. It won’t be long before the killer finds out about how they have tracked him and once he starts to back track, it will all lead back to the cyber cafe located just one block away from where they stay. Their hideout will be exposed and with the SIM card of the phone registered to Kaew's newly attained fake identity, they will expose yet another part of their secrets to him.
Kaew dashes towards their car, pulls the bonnet open and throws the bags into the trunk before slamming it close. She then runs back to the front passenger seat and hops in.
"Veli tia-ling," Kaew mumbles as Yuna steers the vehicle back onto the road. Kaew then reaches her twiggy fingers to adjust the air conditioner to blow at her sweat covered face.
"I thought dancers don't get tired easily," Yuna teases as she speeds away from the little town.
"I dancer, not labou-leh. Dancing is sexy," Kaew snaps back.
"Okay, okay," Yuna entertains her cranky partner as she drives them to safety. Having successfully obtained a living lead from the killer, they have just made a leap towards finding out what H-7842 is. Now it is their priority to protect this woman no matter what it takes.
"She still sleeping? Not die oledi right?" Kaew turns to check on Nikki, who has been asleep since they rescued her.
"I think she's just exhausted and dehydrated. We'll get her some isotonics and sugar loaded food and she should be fine," Yuna answers looking through her rear view mirror at the woman lying on the backseat almost in a comatose.
TWO HOURS LATER
The women have reached a cheap motel. It is situated in one of the cheapest areas near the city. Upon entering the dim, noisy, cigarette smoke filled front desk area, one can tell that it is basically a whore hole crawling with the lowest grade of prostitution possible. Rooms here can be rented at an hourly rate or overnight rate, depending how quick or long your ordeal will be. Three rattan chairs line each of the two side walls and waiting on the sofas for customers are several old and sad looking prostitutes, smoking and flipping through old, torn magazines that can be found strewn across the small wooden coffee table with an overl
oaded ashtray.
The fat Chinese man at the dirty front desk is sitting with his arms folded across his chest and legs crossed on top of the front desk as he watches the television mounted to the corner of the ceiling. Ferociously staring out the main entrance from the altar behind the front desk is a two feet tall statue of the deity Guan Yu with a large dragon crescent blade in his hand.
Yuna walks in and her eyes immediately confirms that there are no CCTVs. She hurriedly walks over to the counter and requests, "I need a room for one night."
The man puts his legs down from the table, sits upright and eyes Yuna like a strange animal. She is not the kind of patron he usually expects but who cares?
"Fifty-six per night. No towels, no shampoo, no tissue. You use your own. Buy two nights and I will throw in a free toilet roll," the fat man grumbles his offer.
"One night," Yuna says and slips him exact change for the room's charges and the man sweeps them off his counter top immediately.
He then pulls his drawer open and takes a key from it before sliding it back to Yuna.
"Second floor, 215. Check out 10:00 a.m. sharp," the man mumbles and returns to watching the noisy television show blasting away above them.
Yuna takes a glance at the television screen and ironically, it is airing a television series about three women on the run from the police. She takes the key and goes back out front to the car.
The moment Kaew's eyes meet Yuna's, Yuna nods at her and Kaew springs into action. She gets out of the car and opens the bonnet. Removing the bags from the trunk, she unzips one of the bags and takes a jacket from inside it. She slips it on, puts the puppy inside the jacket and pulls the zipper back up to her neck. Yuna takes a bag onto her shoulder and moves over to help Nikki out of the car while Kaew carries the rest of their belongings.
Yuna leads the way into the motel, dragging Nikki alongside her as the half conscious woman struggles on her feet with Kaew tailing after them. They enter through the smudged glass doors and the moment the fat man sees Nikki, he shouts a warning at them, "Don't die here!"
They ignore him and continue up the tiled staircase. With Nikki's weight and a bag of artillery on her shoulders, hiking up to the second floor seems like trying to roll a boulder over a slope.
Finally, after an exhausting climb, they reach their room - an ugly brown door with just a normal silver knob and golden plastic number plates glued onto it.
Yuna opens the door and inside is a tiny room filled with an old double bed with white sheets. The beige paint coat on the walls of the room has turned yellowish, watermarks appearing over the ceiling with the air smelling stuffy. Once in the room, Yuna places Nikki to sit by the edge of the bed and lowers the bag onto the floor by the door. Kaew lowers her bags as well and lets the puppy out from inside her jacket.
"Who are you people? Why are we in a motel? I need to save my husband. I need to go to the police station," Nikki says, feeling better after some rest.
"I bath with Tucker. Yu tell her," Kaew says and takes little Tucker with her into the small attached bathroom.
Yuna bends down to remove a bottle of isotonic drink, opens it and hands it to Nikki before taking a seat onto the other corner of the bed. Nikki gladly accepts the drink and gulps down.
"I have a sister. She killed herself a few days ago because she couldn't bring herself to murder someone for this... syndicate," Yuna starts telling with a sigh.
Nikki can only bawl out her eyes as she listens, dumbstruck.
"That Thai woman is Kaew. Her brother used to work for them and when he tried to leave the syndicate, they killed him," Yuna continues to explain, "but he left her a pattern."
"Pattern?" Nikki utters, so stunned at what she is hearing she forgets her hand is still hanging in the air with the drink in her grip.
"The pattern is the list of victims. My sister is one of them but your husband is not on that list. So we think he is a replacement for my sister," Yuna continues to explain.
"If you already know all these why the heck did you not report it to the police??" Nikki gasps, thinking how irresponsible these two women are.
"It is not that simple. We have no proof. Plus they’re everywhere. They might even have somebody working for them in the police force," Yuna answers.
"But we can't just sit here and watch Zach die!" Nikki protests.
"No. We need to tell him that you're okay. So that he can stop whatever they're trying to make him do," Yuna explains.
"Call him. Let me talk to him," Nikki immediately suggests but Yuna shakes her head regretfully.
"Why are you shaking your head?" Nikki asks, feeling uneasy.
"They sent the killer after me just because I searched three names on the pattern using the internet. If you make a call, you will not live pass tomorrow morning. They are more advance then you can imagine. They can track us by the electronic devices around us through digital facial detection and most possibly even through voice recognition," Yuna tries to make Nikki understand.
"Then how the hell are we going to contact Zach??" Nikki cries.
"We need to go to him. Do you know where he is right now?" Yuna asks, trying to calm her down by putting a hand onto her shoulder.
"No," Nikki cries as she lowers her head and shakes it.
"Don't worry. We will think of something, I promise. Kaew is good at this. She has been doing it for years," Yuna reassures.
"Doing what for years?" Nikki asks, looking back up at Yuna again.
"Warning the victims on the pattern. That's how I found her. She tried to warn my sister… but she didn't listen," Yuna tells, taking a deep breath to curb her own sadness.
"How did you find me?" Nikki finally asks, clearing her throat.
"We tracked the killer to the gorge but we couldn't find anything. The puppy is the one who saved you. It dug out the entrance's sensor from the ground. We never thought we'd find a hostage," Yuna tells.
"Who do they want my husband to kill?" Nikki asks.
"We don't know. All we know is that the pattern is coming to an end. Code named H-7842. We are trying to sabotage that. Do you know what it stands for," Yuna answers.
“Sorry, I don’t,” Nikki shakes her head.
“It’s okay,” Yuna smiles back.
"There's only the two of you?" Nikki continues to ask.
"Yes. They're gonna kill us anyway. So we decided to join forces and fight them till the very end," Yuna admits.
"You two are like the vigilante," Nikki says, feeling thankful that they saved her as Yuna lets out a chuckle.
"I mean it. If it wasn't for you two, I'll be dead pretty soon," Nikki admits thankfully.
Click!
The bathroom door clicks open and out comes Kaew, wrapped in only her towel and her hair slightly toweled dry. The puppy trots out after her, shaking itself dry as it comes through the door.
"Come Tucker, ma-mi Kaew help yu put medi-sin," Kaew coos for the puppy as she bends down to remove a bottle of yellow lotion and cotton wool from the plastic bag of goods they had bought at the convenience store just before coming to the motel.
"Kaew, have any idea how we can contact her husband?" Yuna calls out to Kaew while the puppy lets out a whine from Kaew trying clean its wound.
Kaew looks up at them in her towel, smiling cockily, "Sun Tzu always has a way."
Back at Chin's place, he has just alighted from his motorcycle and is about to march upstairs when he hears a beep coming from his motorcycle. The killer halts his heavy footsteps. He turns around and standing still, he looks for the source of the beep. After a few seconds, another beep comes from his bike and Chin sees it. Shadows of a white light are coming from under the back mudguard. Chin strides over and upon bending down, he sees the source of the light and immediately he understands everything. They stalked him. Chin tears the cheap phone off from under his mudguard and the device lets out another beep. It is running low on battery and is signaling for a recharge.
Chin lets out a roar before kicking
at the ground to vent his frustrations. The women are smarter than he thinks and to think that he has fallen prey to them is more than an insult.
Chapter 43
India: Thursday, 20th November 4:11 a.m.
Zero sits at his desk, watching through the corners of his eyes for spies as he inserts a red, nail size thumbdrive into his supercomputer. He then pulls his drawer ajar and takes a universal access card from it, gingerly slipping it into his pocket. Each programmer has one to trial test the programs they update onto the door's security system. Set to the right frequency, the card can access a specific set of doors utilizing the same frequency. When the doors open later, they can escape into maintenance space without their chips but once inside, they will use this card to open the exit doorway to the sub.
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