I called Julie to ask where the best place to refuel in Raleigh was and she suggested using the Signature Services FBO at the Raleigh-Durhman International Airport. Heli-services had an account with them, and Julie told me that I should have them put the fuel on the account. The FBO was to the northwest of Raleigh, almost exactly in between Eva’s dorm and Edgar’s house, and I planned to start searching the city using a grid pattern, starting in the south and working my way up. That way, I’d be near the refueling station by the time I as done and if I didn’t find anything, I would either expand the grid or pick a direction to go in from there. I’d probably need to take a short rest by that point. I could already feel the draining effects of my constant multi-scanning.

Chopper zigzagged the city, moving up northward with every pass, as I sent out scan after scan and making sure that each scan overlapped with the last so that nothing was missed. Before long, I was hovering above Edgar’s house and my fuel gauge was emptier that full. From there, I headed west to the FBO, shifted Chopper to reality and radioed in my need to refuel. I was directed the appropriate place and I made my way to the pilot’s lounge while the tank was topped off.

The lounge chairs were very relaxing and I set my alarm to wake me in half an hour. Feeling well rested upon waking, I freshened up and had a snack before signing for the bill and heading out again. Where to go from here? I’d come by way of Charlotte and found nothing on the way. Raleigh had been cleared. I could head south to check out Fayetteville, southeast for Jacksonville and Wilmington, or west to Greensboro and Salem. There wasn’t any reason to go to one over the others, but I needed to go somewhere and start looking.

Where would I go if I were a scumbag kidnapper? Would I hide in the city or find a hidey-hole somewhere in the middle of nowhere? I’d just hide in the layers and keep my captive in L2. The kidnapper wasn’t as skilled as I was, though, and may not have found L2. If he was only at the sublayer stage, then he would need somewhere to keep his prize and not be noticed by nosy neighbors. A secluded house, like Edgar's, would be the perfect spot for that; hidden from prying neighbors yet still close enough for groceries and other comforts.

Thinking of Edgar’s house, I thought back to Edgar's co-conspirator Phil and the safehouse that I’d found him in. There had been four other safehouses that I had never checked out. Could the kidnapper be using one of those? I didn’t have Edgar’s go-bag with the list in its pocket with me, but had taken a picture of the list and it was still on my phone somewhere. I flipped through my picture album until I found the list and then I entered the four remaining addresses into Waze. Two of them were along the northern limits of the city, in an area that I’d already covered. Another was twenty-five miles further north from Edgar’s house and the fourth was out past the city of Oxford, not too far from the state line shared with Virginia.

I decided to fly further north and check them out. If the girl wasn’t there, I would start expanding my search grid from there, effectively expanding my prior search grid out by forty or fifty miles in every direction. It only took a few minutes to get back to Edgar’s house and turn north. From there, my first few scans were enough to show me that the kidnapper wasn’t in the closer of the two safehouses and I kept going, flying farther and sending out more multi-scans. Ten minutes later, I was hovering in R1 over the last safehouse with nothing to show for my efforts. Feeling disheartened that my guess had been wrong and dreading the long hours of searching that I saw in my future, I turned east towards Henderson and then south to continue my grid search.

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Within three multi-scans after turning south, I picked up a diamuby. I had found her! My heart soared and I sent out another scan. She was moving back the way I’d just come and I turned around to follow her. Subsequent scans led me to her and within three minutes, I had the Chopper keeping pace with the white van she was in, as it slowly made its way back to towards the Oxford area and the last safehouse. I had guessed right, but my timing had been off. It seemed that the kidnapper had taken his time and tried to confuse his trail before making his way to his hideout. I had come so close to missing them entirely. I knew that I’d gotten extremely lucky. I definitely needed to up my scanning strength in the future.

Now that I had the van in my sights, I had enough time to give it a full scan and saw that I wasn’t dealing with one kidnapper. There were three men in the van. Two up front and one in the back. The man in the back was sitting on the second-row bench, keeping an eye on the tied-up girl fastened horizontally on the third-row bench. The girl’s heart rate showed me that she was awake and scared. I gave some serious thought to shifting her to L2 and flying in to pick her up, but I didn’t know the capabilities of the kidnapper and I wanted the element of surprise on my side. Also, if I rescued the girl and failed to stop the kidnappers, there was no way to keep the girl from being kidnapped again.

The kidnappers reached the safehouse and the one from the back seat carried the girl into the house, while the other two carried their bags inside and made themselves comfortable on the couch. I let out a breath that I didn’t realize I’d been holding when the third man joined the others. I’d been worried that I would have to move-in right away if he stayed to bother the girl.

Shifting the Chopper to L3, I landed it fifty yards away from the house. In reality, my landing area was densely packed with trees and you couldn’t see it from the house. In L3, it was a clearing. I spend some time getting dressed up as Roger and donning my exosuit. This time I added the Glock that I’d taken from Edgar’s go-back and my trusty baseball bat. The bat was strapped on my back in an oversized sword sheath and the gun was tucked into my pants at the base of my back. By connecting the gun to my base field and shifting it to L1, there was no chance of accidentally shooting myself. These precautions probably wouldn’t be necessary, but I felt badass wearing them.

Of the three kidnappers, the one from the backseat was the only one with a base field surrounding him. At six feet, four inches in height, he towered over the other men. This was the dragon that I had come to slay. Yet his scrawny build, stooped posture and youth made him seem smaller, almost fragile. He couldn’t have been any older than Mark. After watching him interact with his fellow kidnappers, he looked more like a rabbit among wolves than a dragon. He clearly wasn’t the one in charge and I couldn’t understand why. With his abilities, I’d have thought that he’d be a powerhouse, not a mouse.

From my vantage point in R1 at the window overlooking the den where the three men were watching TV, I wrapped the two without my ability in an inactive field and watched to see if the mouse would notice. I gave him five minutes and when he didn’t bat an eye, I wrapped the girl in a field and shifted her to L2. Her safety was my first priority. Tall, dark and mousy didn’t notice that either and I went over to the girl’s room and carried her back to the Chopper. She wasn’t back with her parents yet, but she was safe. I was halfway done. Now I just had to go back into the safehouse, incapacitate the thugs and kill the dragon. Except that the dragon wasn’t a dragon. He wasn’t even wolf or a husky.