by Orren Merton
“Here comes the boring stuff,” Jake grinned as he opened the laptop and plugged it into both the power adapter and the living room Ethernet connection. “I’m going to run a UNIX kernel and use a lot of command line TCP/IP instructions to get inside the servers I need to, one at a time. I’m happy to explain everything I’m doing if you’re interested, but your eyes will glaze over and you’ll start drooling uncontrollably if you’re not.”
“That’s okay, you can do the hacking,” I said.
“Probably best,” he said, as the computer was booting up.
“Just please don’t get caught,” I pleaded.
“I haven’t yet,” he reassured me. “Besides, I’m not stealing any money, I’m doing it to rescue my almost-mom from my mother’s killer…even if I was caught, I’m pretty sure I’d get a sweet plea deal from the Orange County DA.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that. So my turn…” I said. “Can you do your computer wizardry even if there are distractions?”
“Well,” Jake said, staring at the screen and typing away. “I think so. What kind of distractions?”
I pulled out my Sedu blade and changed it from a pen into a dagger. “The kind that involve chatting with beings from another dimension.”
Jake stared at the blade, then raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “That sounds pretty distracting. But it’s fine. I know what I’m doing. I’ll get it done fast. Do whatever you’re thinking of doing.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I knew she wouldn’t like being left outside again, but I didn’t want Bonnie to get hurt. I placed my dagger on the coffee table. I picked Bonnie up from the large green pillow that was her bed in the corner of the living room and deposited her in the backyard.
Then I returned to the middle of the living room, grabbed my Sedu blade, and made a slash in front of me. It made the familiar wide tear in the air. I looked through it, and this time I could tell that I was looking through the mirror in the House of Keroz. The door was closed, but the portal room had torches lit on each side of the mirror, and two small Ruhin that looked like humanoid-shaped rabbits with bird beaks and monkey feet were dancing around with each other. Since time in Sediin moved much faster than time on Earth, it looked like they were dancing on fast forward, with arms and legs flailing around like a video playing back at triple speed. It was actually pretty funny. As soon as one of them saw me, it tapped the other, and they both turned to me and bowed low.
I quickly turned around to look at Jake. He was alternating between staring in slack-jawed bewilderment and paying attention to his screen.
“I need to speak to a Mazzik,” I said.
There was no response.
“Rise,” I said louder. “I need to speak to someone right now!”
I was frustrated but not with them. I didn’t think they were being insolent, just that they couldn’t hear me.
“Can you go through?” Jake asked.
“Yeah, but it’s really exhausting,” I said. “I would rather keep all my strength and have them come through.”
He nodded and went back to his screen.
After a moment, one of the Ruhin realized that I wasn’t walking through and looked up. “I need to speak with someone right now,” I said, pointing at my chest and my open mouth, then pointing at the ground.
The Ruhin nodded. He talked to the other Ruhin, who also nodded and ran out of the room. He held up his finger as if to signal ‘one moment.’”
I sighed in relief.
A moment later, Vetis and Zaebos walked up to the mirror. I held out my hand to stop them. Vetis nodded. He understood. He turned around and I could see him speaking, but I couldn’t hear anything. After a moment a Mazzik with a four-foot-tall humanoid body but the head of a lizard walked up to the portal. I saw him begin to walk through, and then a blinding light shot forth from the portal, so bright I had to turn away. When I turned back the Mazzik was in front of me.
“My lady,” it said, bowing while panting from the exertion of coming through the portal. “You need to speak to us?”
“I do. There is no way to speak across the portal?”
“None, my lady. I am sorry.”
“It’s fine. I’ll just give you my messages,” I said. “Tell the Lords of the House that Linda Kelley has been kidnapped by the Seduman who has been murdering humans. The Seduman is from the House of Raum. Jake—”
I turned around to see him staring at his laptop, but his widened eyes and shaking head indicated that he had seen the Mazzik.
“—and I are trying to locate them now. If you can find out his whereabouts on Earth, let me know immediately.”
“Yes, my lady. Is there more?” it asked.
“There is. This house may be being watched by humans, who will murder Linda Kelley as soon as we walk out the door. There may also be humans inside a car, a moving vehicle that is now stationary and watching this house, who will chase us.”
“Cameras,” Jake added, looking up from his laptop. “They might also be spying on us remotely with cameras.”
I frowned. How could I explain that to the Mazzik?
“There might be machine boxes pointed at the house. Maybe near other homes. Maybe on poles. If you see any machine boxes, destroy them.”
“Understood. Is that all?”
“Tell the Lords that I don’t want them to come through now because I want to save their visit for when we find this Seduman. Then…I’ll need everyone.”
“Very good, my lady.” It bowed, turned around, and went through the portal. I remembered how tough it was for me. It must be that tough for them, too, because the Mazzik needed to be practically carried away from the mirror.
It stopped in front of Vetis and Zaebos, and I could see it relating my message. After a moment Vetis turned to me and tipped his head. I exhaled in relief. He understood.
“So we’ve got help coming?” Jake asked.
“We’ve got an army coming.”
35
“Okay,” Jake breathed, after he’d been busy for some time. “I’ve got a list of about two dozen phone numbers that called from the parking lot about thirty to forty-five minutes before you were called from the gas station. Now I need to find out who they called that was in the radius we’re looking at.”
“How do you get that?” I asked. “More hacking?”
“I think that is more complicated than I know how to do,” Jake shrugged. “Luckily, I don’t have to. There are sites out there that for a hundred and fifty bucks or so will sell you a stack of calling records. If I can find some of them, maybe I can get what I need that way.”
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.
“Tell me what an awesome computer genius I am, and how you couldn’t do this without me,” he said with a wry grin.
I sat down next to him while he was surfing from site to site with multiple browsers open at the same time. I leaned over so that I was behind him and ran my arms underneath his and hugged his chest from behind. “We’re going to find Linda. We’re going to save her. We’re going to stop this guy. All because you’re an awesome computer genius.”
Without stopping what he was doing, his feigned confident smirk faded into a bashful grin. “I wasn’t serious…”
“But I am, Jake,” I said.
Another blinding light shot forth from the tear in the air I’d left in the middle of the living room. Jake held his hand in front of the light so he could see his laptop screen. With my hand covering my eyes to block the light, I stood up and walked over. When the light subsided, a different Mazzik, this one with the body of fox and the head of a raccoon stood on all four paws before me, wobbling and breathing hard.
“My lady,” it panted, “our search is done. From a portal outside, both flying and slithering Mazzikim scoured the neighborhood. We found no people watching this residence, either in vehicles or not. Reddik, a flying Mazzik, found one machine box on a light pole that might be able to see this place, so he destroyed it to
be safe.”
“Excellent work,” I said. “Thank you. And tell the others, we are close. The next time I open a portal…be ready.”
“Yes, my lady.”
The Mazzik turned to leave, but just before he stepped through, he turned around one last time. “Good luck,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said, and he stepped through.
I turned back to Jake. “You could understand him, right? Since I don’t speak Seduin and they don’t speak English, I’m assuming the portal is translating for us.”
“I could,” Jake nodded without lifting his eyes from the screen. “We’re almost there. I was able to buy the records. God bless the shady underbelly of the Internet. I found that eight men called numbers within the radius we need during the time frame we need. Now I need to find out who’s at the other end of those numbers.”
“How do we do that?” I asked.
“We have someone call them,” he said, his voice dejected. “Someone I can trust…someone involved…”
He sighed heavily. He swiped his phone and started typing. I walked over, sat next to him, and saw that he was texting Jillian:
Jill I need you to do something for me right now. It’s life or death. I have eight phone numbers and I need you to call them and find out who is at the other end. We’re trying to find a killer and the killer has our numbers.
Not a moment later, the response came.
Jake you know I’ll do anything for you but I’m in class now. Can it wait about an hour?
Jake inhaled deeply and replied.
I am so sorry Jill but the killer has your mom. We can get her back but every second matters.
I turned to Jake. “How will this hit her?” I asked.
“Harder than a ton of bricks,” Jake lowered his head.
This time, she didn’t answer quickly.
“May I text her?” I asked.
Jake nodded and handed me his phone. I started typing:
Alex here. This is the guy who killed Jake’s mom. Who attacked Rachel and me. I can stop him. I swear to you we’ll bring your mother home alive. I’ll tell you everything later. But now we need you.
I handed Jake back his phone. He tipped his head to let me know he thought it was good. I breathed a sigh of relief.
And we waited.
“Do you think she flipped out?” I said. “If she doesn’t get back to us, who can we—”
Just then, an answer came in:
Left my class. Now in Sproul Plaza. Give me the numbers.
Jake texted all eight numbers.
“Now we wait?” I asked.
“Now we wait,” Jake confirmed. He put his phone on the coffee table, leaned back on the couch, and took my hand.
We both sat back and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
We sat in silence for about half an hour, too anxious and preoccupied to speak. Then we heard Jake’s phone chirp. We both sat up to see that Jake had an email come in from Jillian. He grabbed his phone and swiped to his email. He quickly scrolled through, and he sighed with relief.
“This is it,” he declared. “She got some form of answer from everyone. This is all I need.” Jake texted:
You are an angel.
After a second Jillian responded:
Do you need me for anything else? Can I have my hysterical crying fit and nervous breakdown now?
“Is she serious?” I asked.
Jake nodded, then answered her:
I love your mother like my own. We’re going to bring her home. And we’re going to do it thanks to you.
She responded:
You better buster. You and Alex stay safe.
“So what’s in the email?” I asked.
“Jill called everyone, pretending to be a wrong number or something—she’s done this for me before, when we were just playing around,” Jake explained. He scrolled through the list. “So five of these were women’s personal phones, one is the number of a beauty supply store, and another in a hair salon. But this one—” Jake showed me the number, “is a warehouse in Torrance. That’s worth looking into.”
“Okay,” I said.
In no time flat Jake had looked up the address of the warehouse and had it on his phone.
“Ready to take a drive?” he asked.
“Let’s go,” I said. I grabbed my Sedu blade and swiped it again over the portal to close up the rip in the air. I turned it back into a pen, put it in my pocket, and we walked out the door.
In afternoon traffic, it took about an hour to drive to Torrance. We drove in complete silence. Both of us were too nervous to know what to say. Both of us hoped this was the right place…but what if it wasn’t? What if we were caught looking for them before we got to them and they killed Linda? Was I really strong enough to fight off the Seduman and all his accomplices, however many there might be? What if I got there, and there were Mazzikim all over the place? My brain was racing a million miles a second. I was sure Jake’s was too.
“Okay, here we are,” he said. “We get off at Crenshaw and then drive south into the middle of nowhere.”
I nodded. We drove past dirty, empty lots, oil and storage drums, and some industrial warehouse lots.
“You know, you should probably duck or something—just in case they know what you look like.”
“Oh…right,” I said, and slid down the seat so that only my back was on the seat. It was extremely uncomfortable, and I could only see up out the window, not anything on the streets.
We turned down Del Amo Boulevard, drove a ways, and then Jake pulled over.
“Okay,” he exhaled. “It should be that industrial strip about fifty feet in front of us and across the street. Maybe try to poke your head up? I’ll let you know if anyone seems to be looking at us.”
I nodded and very slowly pulled myself back up the seat until I could see over the dashboard. I saw the back of the industrial strip that Jake was talking about. From behind, it just looked like a series of small blue doors, some open, some closed, with some large trash bins and parked cars and trucks. As I scanned the lot, suddenly my heart leapt into my throat.
“Oh my God—that’s it, Jake,” I exclaimed, almost trembling.
“What’s what?” he asked, trying to look at what I was talking about.
“That huge truck parked behind the warehouse three doors in,” I pointed out. “That’s the one that tried to run Rachel and me down. It was dark, but I remember the cab shell over the truck bed, the size of the truck, and the shape of the headlights.”
Jake nodded, trying hard not to hyperventilate. “Okay, let me just check something.” He pulled his phone off his dashboard and started swiping around. “Great,” he swallowed, looking sick to his stomach. “That warehouse is for ‘DR Bladesmithing.’ Nice to know there’s tons of sharp stuff in there.”
“‘DR’ could be Dirk Raum,” I said.
He sighed and nodded.
“Do we call Detective Godinez now?” he asked.
I swallowed hard. I closed my eyes. And inhaled slowly. I knew what I had to do.
“Call him,” I said. “But I’m going in.”
“So the plan is I call him, and then we go in,” Jake said.
“No…the plan is that you stay in the car and call Detective Godinez. I go in alone.”
“Alex…I know you’re a Seduman. I know you have an army in your pocket. You’re a trained fighter and I’m a geekazoid. But I can’t let you face this alone.”
“Oh Jake,” I said, taking his hands in my own. “I know you want to help me, and you’re the best, you really are. But the best help you can be is to be here when I need you. If you’re in there, I’m going to be worried sick about you, and that won’t help either of us.”
“I know but—”
“Remember, if I’m near death, my Sedu family can pull me into their House to save me. If you’re near death…” I swallowed the end of the sentence. It was too horrible to think about.
“T
here might be a lot of people in there, let alone Sediin things,” Jake said. “Even if you can fight them off, it will be easy for one of them to kill Linda while you’re busy. So how about you worry about facing the Seduman and his merry men, and I’ll rescue Linda.”
I really didn’t want Jake to risk his life in there with me…but I couldn’t deny that was a pretty good idea.
“But when you get Linda out of there, you’ll both wait for the police. Please?”
“I’ll rescue her and run out,” he nodded. “I used to run track in middle school. I’m pretty fast. And Linda’s a Pilates instructor. She might be worse for wear, but she’s pretty strong.”
“Okay,” I nodded. “Let’s go.”
36
“I’ll be peeking around the back door, looking for Linda and listening for the mayhem,” Jake said.
“And Jake…please…”
“I’ll be careful,” he promised.
“No—I mean, yeah, but…” I swallowed hard and closed my eyes.
I opened them again. The seriousness on his face told me he noticed the worry in my expression. “If it comes down to it…we both want to save Linda…but if you have to save yourself…”
“Alex—”
“Jake,” I insisted, “Please…I couldn’t bear to lose both of you.”
“You won’t,” Jake said. “Scout’s honor.”
“You were a boy scout?”
“Well…no…but still…” he quipped.
“Just…”
“I will,” he said. He inhaled deeply.
“I’m a little scared,” he admitted.
I nodded.
“Okay,” he exhaled. “Let’s do this.”
I gave him a quick affectionate rub on his arm. He nodded and we split up. I ran across the street and took cover behind the side of the industrial park. I peeked around the corner and tried to see into the windows but they were tinted too dark. I saw a small wooden sign hanging over the glass door that was my target but I couldn’t read it from the side.
I turned back and caught my breath. This is it, I reminded myself. This is what Garz trained me for. And I’m well trained. I can beat Mazzikim bigger than me. I can beat a Seduman. And even if Raum himself comes at me, my Sedu blade can burn him. I am ready.