CHAPTER 14 - CONFRONTATION

Suddenly, Lai got another message from Oliver. "Mmmm, Kayten, I got a message bhor you. It’s our inbhormant again. Basically, he got intel that says the Sharkteeth smugglers, assuming they got off the ship, are somewhere in the east of town… there are lots obh abandoned buildings that haven’t been demolished there, and id’s something of a hotspot bhor crime. If I was to look I’d go there. But I’m not looking! Ya and Nheka can go. I don’t wanna get killed."

"Alright. Well then. I kinda expected this. Let’s go?"

Nheka was the only one who agreed to go with him; Tiik, of course, elected to stay in the room. "Just be carebhul," Lai stood up and pulled his human friend into a brief, warm hug.

"I will, don’t worry about us… Hmmm, the shop Ray was talking about is in that area I think… I'ma ask them," Kayden said.

A conversation followed, confirming that the cyborg was indeed there. And indeed, they pointed out seeing two people walk into one of the abandoned buildings, though at the time they didn’t pay any attention to them.

***

As Kayden and Nheka were about to step out of the motel room, Lai chimed in. "Ya are gonna look reaaaaal weird just walking into it like that. Try to be discrete orrrrr… I have an idea! Look like ya are supposed to be there," he quickly typed something on his datapad. "There’s a shop selling various construction worker apparel near that building. Ya know what to do."

"Thank you!" Kayden said as he waved goodbye and left the motel, quite nervous.

Said equipment was quickly procured, conveniently having been at a discount: vests were donned over winter coats and hard hats placed on top of hoods. Indeed, the two rabbit-genemod cops eating donuts outside of the police car parked across the street didn't bat an eye at Kayden and Nheka entering the building, which looked like any other, but had a dilapidated roof and windows covered in opaque plastic.

The inside of the lobby was dark, with glass shards and various other debris on the bare floor, as the furniture was long stripped. Ray made their eyes flash for a split second to attract the two’s attention. They were, too, wearing construction gear.

"Be quiet. Now listen. Someone downstairs. Go with me, but sneak." Ray pointed to their robotic digitigrade feet, which had rags tied to them to dampen the clanking sound.

Kayden shook his head and decided to take something from his pocket that he carried around but never deemed useful before: a collapsible selfie stick. He just didn’t find an use for it when taking photos around Alacrity.

But now, he found one. After miming what he intended to do and mounting his datapad on its end, he walked towards the trapdoor that concealed the stairs down to the basement… and noticed the hinges looked rusty, and would likely creak.

"Um, Ray, can you pass me the oil you use for your joints?" Kayden whispered.

Ray opened a small, previously invisible hatch on their chest, revealing a small drawer with some supplies, including a grease spray.

After applying it to the hinges and silently opening the trapdoor, Kayden reached down with the selfie stick, having turned on a video recording app with the exposure turned way up. Ten seconds passed, and he pulled it out, revealing a small lobby with a closed door within it, and facepalmed.

"We need to go down, nevermind my plan, sorry Ray."

Nheka hissed softly and grabbed a large pipe that was lying around in the lobby with all four of her hands. It was twice longer than Kayden’s arm and as wide, while a thick L-shaped pipe fitting adorned the end of the pipe, like the orb of a scepter. Kayden took a short, narrow length of pipe, while Ray just extended their claws with a clicking sound.

The lower lobby was indeed a very bare room, with not one but three doors going in different directions. It was very quiet. Kayden carefully opened the door straight ahead from the staircase, holding the doorknob the whole time, so as to not make a sound. In the back of his mind, a thought wandered, nagging him if it was really a good idea to storm this basement with makeshift weapons…

Nheka led the way down the pitch-dark corridor. Kayden turned on the flashlight on his datapad, on the lowest setting possible. Ray did the same with their eyes. The walls were gray and had the paint chip off in places, revealing bare concrete. The floor was bare linoleum, peeled off in large chunks. There were several faux-wooden doors located on the sides, and a larger metal one at the end. Upon reaching the final door, Kayden put his ear to its surface…

Silence. Kayden very slowly pulled the door open with his fingertips. A very dim light became apparent as it shone out of the gap, and then–

WHAM!

Kayden let out a brief cry of pain as someone slammed the door open, hitting him right in the face and knocking him backwards onto the ground. Ray’s eye-lights now provided the only illumination.

"What the fuck!" he shouted as the door fully opened. Standing inside the very dimly-lit room was a short human man with pale skin, short hair, and a stubble. His build was quite broad, muscular, and robust. He wore a dark gray winter coat and similarly-colored pants, boots, and gloves, his face framed by a white faux-fur hood. Over his left eye was a half-visor, and his right arm was one of metal.

It was clear that he was as startled as Kayden was. "Freeze!" The shadowed man shouted in a medium-pitched voice, then glanced over the doorway. Kayden, on the floor and thus not an immediate threat. Ray, with sharp-looking claws now extending from their robotic fingers, a moderate threat. And finally Nheka, the size and shape of an alligator and wielding a huge makeshift mace to boot… an extreme threat!

With a click and a slide, a large, nasty-looking blade extended from the man’s robotic forearm, mounted below his palm. It was essentially a sword. Kayden hastily scrambled away backwards in a panic. Ray turned their eye-lights to the maximum in an attempt to blind him, but to little apparent effect.

Nheka finally reached the doorway and as she saw him extend the blade, her muscles tensed up and she hissed loudly, her unblinking W-pupiled eyes staring him in his gray ones as she raised her mace, while her ear frills flared outwards. Together with Ray, after a moment of hesitation, starting to run towards the man, he seemed outnumbered… but then he reached into his pocket with his unaugmented hand to pull a small electrolaser. It looked like a small, stubby blaster pistol with yellow stripes on its tall rectangular barrel.

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The attacker quickly pulled the trigger, aiming at Ray’s center of mass, while charging at Nheka, aiming at her head.

ZAP!!!

The blinding and deafening miniature straight lightning bolt hit Ray, who was about to rake the man’s torso with a clawed hand, and the feline cyborg stumbled and collapsed onto the floor as sparks rained from their torso. Kayden, enraged, reached up and tried to wrest the electrolaser from his hand, only to get kicked in the shoulder. He yelped and rolled over from the strength of the kick. Now, it was up to Nheka. The corridor was once again very dimly lit, only by the light scattered from the fallen Ray’s eye-beams hitting the wall.

Although her pipe-mace would have been too large for a human to control, in the hands of a being with utterly superhuman strength, it danced with precision and levity… as much levity as a decidedly improvised weapon could have in the hands of an inexperienced fighter, anyway. A clang was heard as the stab at her beaked face was deftly parried, deflecting the blade into the wall. The man lost balance for a brief moment, allowing Nheka to take a swing, but it was too well-telegraphed. The man ducked under the pipe-mace, assisted by his low stature, and with a loud crash, several large chunks of paint chipped from the wall, which was now marked with a spiderweb of cracks.

The attacker then recovered and turned around, agile like a cat, and quickly took aim with his electrolaser, then with a similar clap of thunder, Nheka was tased, her whole body twitching. He was now going in for the kill with his blade. Kayden yelled, "NO WAIT STOP!"

"Fuses: burned out. Rest of body: operational," was heard in a chilling monotone. The man turned around to see Ray running right at him, as if nothing had happened. He took aim… and then felt someone yank his leg upwards, causing him to lose balance and fire the third shot at one of the ‘wooden’ doors instead of Ray. Droplets of smoldering plastic went flying everywhere, revealing the bare metal underneath as the pungent odor of a faint cloud of acrid smoke filled the corridor. That someone was Kayden, holding on to the man’s shin with both hands. The electrolaser slipped from his hand and tumbled onto the linoleum.

Ray grabbed the man in a bearhug, and he writhed as he tried to free himself. Perhaps he would have succeeded, but... The sound of the pipe-mace clanging onto the floor was heard, and then the enraged, recovered Nheka tackled him to the ground from behind, alongside Ray.

It was over– the man was subdued. Nheka used her hands to forcibly turn his head to look towards her, and once again stared him in the eyes as she held him down. The man stared back, stoically.

"Who the hell are you guys anyway?! You aren't the cops. Or the Syndicate," he said.

Ray, meanwhile, climbed out from under this pile-up. "Diagnostics double-check: no internal damage from shock or fall," they intoned as they stood up, and Kayden breathed a sigh of relief.

Nheka loosened her grip a bit, while Kayden sat up and asked "Who are you? Are you one of the smugglers?"

The man, still on the ground held down by Nheka, grimaced angrily, but gave no answer.

"Let us talk. We are not cops. Or smugglers. We just want to see what is happening here", Kayden continued, gesturing down to the room. Ray meanwhile picked up the electro-laser. "Nheka, let him go please. Let us talk, okay? No need for further violence."

The chohjozra backed away, hissed, and went into the dark room after picking the mace back up. The man looked slightly surprised, but stood up, slowly. Keenly aware of Nheka eyeing him and Ray holding the electrolaser. He retracted his blade with a ‘shwing’ sound not unlike that of a tape measure.

Kayden nodded. "You work for the smugglers? The "syndicate"? Who are they? And what is your name?"

"Name is Roni. Roni Väisanen. I worked in security on the spaceport…" he broke off. "I… nevermind. But what matters is– I made a mistake– I don’t feel comfortable saying what exactly, and they, the anonymous group identifying themselves as the Sharkteeth Syndicate– I don’t know if that’s even the real name– blackmailed me and forced me to work for them. They made me guard crates with their pilfered artifacts."

Kayden also got onto his feet. He decided to not press the matter immediately. "Well that proves the suspicions I had correct, huh… I’m Kayden Reynolds, the chohjozra is Nheka and the cyborg is Ray," Kayden said, pointing to himself then to his friends, "While we are really on a tourist trip we, erm, got embroiled in a mystery that for hard-to-explain reasons only we can solve. To track down those same artifacts and their thieves. Nice to meet you! Can you show us the artifacts, Roni?"

The man walked into the room and flicked on the switch of a spherical desk lamp placed on a small table, lighting up the room with a warm orange glow, revealing there to be six regularly-shaped crates, as well as the aforementioned table with one chair. There were also three smallish flat screens mounted above the table in a row, displaying the corridor, lobby, and ground floor via what were presumably hidden cameras– Kayden figured that that’s how Roni saw him approach. For food and drink, there were only a bag of potato chips and a can of soda on the table. He then opened a crate… revealing that it was empty. He did it with all of the crates except the last one.

Roni sighed. "Over the past few hours, a series of different hooded people scooped out everything. They didn’t fully empty the last crate, there are a few baubles left there," he opened the lid, revealing a few patina-covered, dented artifacts with many buttons and deactivated screens. "I… I have an idea. Please get me out of here, whoever you are, if you can. I don’t know, somewhere where they can’t follow me."

"Well, fuck." Kayden said, scratching his head. "Sure, we–"

Ray suddenly interrupted. "If your captors came in so often, we unhave much time. Roni, take remaining artifacts and follow us. We are on journey to Earth and you will be able to evade them on populated coreworld Kāmohoaliʻi, our next stop. A friend of ours has a friend who can procure ticket to get off Cocytus."

"Yeah, that," Kayden said, "And with all the noise we made I feel someone might go down soon and we do not want that. Dunno how’s the sound insulation here."

"Thank you! Thank you so much… Ray was it? Thank you. Please get me out of this hellhole," Roni glanced into the crate. "...take them into what? I don’t have a backpack or the like. I don’t think we can fit them all into our pockets. If we go outside with them in hand we’ll look very shifty," he paused. "I… I think I trust you. I’ll spill the beans after we’re not under time pressure. Let’s get out."

After taking photos of everything in the room, Kayden sat down on the chair to think, then looked at Nheka, who was pacing around the room and inspecting various objects. "Hmm… So if I hide them under my coat, they’ll likely fall out. But Nheka has a different posture…" the human waved his hand to her, beckoning her closer.

"What iss it…?" She was still in a bit of a (figurative) shock.

"There’s nowhere to put the artifacts, mind if you just kinda… carry them between your belly and your jacket?"

Nheka tilted her head. "What…?"

"We don’t have time to waste, unzip it."

"...Ssure then…"

Nheka flopped onto her side and half-opened her coat, reaching down with her short limbs. The zipper was on the underside, and Kayden proceeded to stuff around a dozen baubles of various size and shape under the jacket, then zipped it back up himself.

"Thiss… iss uncomfortable," Nheka muttered as she took a few steps, the contraband clattering under her clothes. "Are you ssure they won’t get damaged…?"

"Nah don’t worry about it… also speaking of your coat, did it get shorted out when you got zapped? Like the heating elements? Because that would majorly suck. Also, who is currently switched in?"

Nheka glanced at the little control panel between her left shoulders and fiddled with it a bit. "No… I sstill feel warm and can get colder if I want… And I am Takhghari…"

"Alright, wonderful. I guess luck is on our side again."

The group exited the abandoned building after turning off the lamp, Roni in tow. Nheka threw her mace into a pile of rubble with a resounding thud, and Ray tucked the electrolaser into their chest compartment.