Chapter 43

Getting Closer

The Eclipse took us to the east side of Xenobia in less than half a hour. Ares had given me a more specific location and detailed observation of the people we were looking for: two black haired male humans from off planet, one working with a brothel and bar owner, and the other working with a pair of corrupt gang leaders named Crimson and the Director. Of which all three of the local humans were suspects.

We searched quickly and found the bar we were looking for. We parked infront and slightly down the street looking for any of the five humans. It might have been easier to use the city cameras, but we have business and interests in coming here personally.

Bandera spotted the older suspect first, walking with a man in a cowboy hat and a baby blue button up shirt and dark blue jeans. Both of them looked fairly expensive, makes sense when you’re in the mafia.

We listened in on the conversation, “So I told Alex, that he needs to be a little more like a tiger and a little less kiss-ass to everyone that walks through the door, especially when they don’t pay. I mean, it’s like shop lifting, but we ain’t no shop.” The two of them laughed. “By the way, I gave him my gun. scared. him. shitless. Won’t even touch it.”

The bar owner put his hand around the other man’s shoulder. “Jack, I’m glad I have a friend like you running the show down there at the Jungle. People used to tell me, ‘Freddy, I can’t believe what you let happen down there at the Jungle. People ripping you off and all that.’ Now I can’t tell them it doesn’t happen any more, I’ve got it under control now.” They laughed again as the bouncer opened a side door and let them in.

I looked to Bandera, “So what did you learn from all that?”

“We’ve got their names and another location. And that the guy named Alex at the Jungle has a gun, but probably would even use it to put a dying animal out of it’s misery.”

“Exactly. Jack, Freddy, and the Jungle.” I said, keeping a mental note of it more than anything. “Why don’t we go in and eavesdrop some more. They aren’t that secret with all their business it seems.”

She gave me a questioning look, but I pulled her along.

We got in without any questions, just a statement. “Nice outfit,” the bouncer said as he opened the door for us.

We sat down at a booth and ordered some food and drinks, something not intoxicating. We looked around casually, talking quietly about nonsense and keeping our profile low, but not too low, we know how these things work, attracting attention by being too quiet and observant.

I watched Freddy and Jack as they went up a small set of stairs and sat down at a table in the corner of the room. They sat and chatted.

Bandera watched the rest of the room, a strip club with a bar in the middle, tables around the bar, booths at the front and on the walls and a decent sized stage in the back.

“Let me see if I can go talk to some people,” I told Bandera, “and you try to get something out of those two. Your goggles can magnify sounds from a distance, so just stay here and enjoy the food.”

I walked to the back casually enough that I didn’t catch anyone’s unnecessary attention. It was late afternoon so the girls were already trickling in and getting prepared for the night time shows.

A human girl dressed in a bathrobe and doing herself some exotic makeup glanced in my direction, “Oh look. We’ve got a newcomer. Girls, welcome her.”

“I’m not here for the show.” I said.

“No? What a shame, you look fit and cuddly all at the same time.”

“No. I just snooping around.”

“No harm in that. What’re you snooping around for?”

I had to go along with that. I was just surprised they would fall for that. Gossip, they’re just looking to gossip. “I’m checking out Freddy and his friend Jack. I have some business with them and want to make sure it’s… worth it.”

“I can’t blame you. There’s a lot of frauds and weird people, but Freddy’s a good guy, really. A good strong man, if you know what I mean.

“What’s Jack doing with him? They seem to get along pretty well. Almost too well.”

“I don’t know, you’d have to ask him.”

Another girl piped up, “Jack’s come to get revenge on Caine.”

“Really? Caine?”

“Yeah, don’t ask my why. I just heard he’s from another planet like Murid di Falcon or something like that.”

“Listen to her,” another girl said. “Trix’s gone to school and majored as an astronaut. She knows all the planet’s names.”

“You’re just saying that because I’ve got a big ass.”

The rest of the girls snickered as Trix slapped her backside and said, “Nobody’s complaining. That’s were all the money come from.”

They giggled even harder.

“Well girls,” I said, “have a good night.”

“You too, and I hope you land one of those handsome men.”

I left as they were all in good spirits and I went back to see what Bandera had picked up from the two. I’m not sure if I could get much more out of these girls, a bit air headed.

“They’re just chatting.” Bandera told me as I slid into the booth.

“But they have to have said something. We just need data, what they’re doing, plans for Caine, why Jack’s here. You know, we need to figure out how these guys will get us closer to finding the Nightmare.”

“Alright, so they’ve been talking a lot about girls, good food, what kind of sports they like. Right now Jack is explaining some game they had on another planet, the usual ball game, different rules, Freddy seemed interested.”

“Fine, we’ll have to keep listening and following. Keep an ear on them as we eat and see about a lead to the other guys. Maybe we can find out what he’s up to as well.”

We ate dinner quietly, Bandera listened to all the boring stuff they were talking about.

About an hour later I had been watching the show. Seeing the girls go up and down, round and round. They had some muscles and could move quite well. I watched most of the people that came in, mostly men, ordering drinks, talking with friends, dancing, drugs, all the usual things you’d find at a bar like this.

We were about to leave and give it up for the night when a younger man walked in and sat down next to Jack. He was a bit nervous looking.

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I listened in with Bandera. “So how’d go with Crimson and the Director.”

“They’re idiots. I learned they need a lesson in finances and then one in manners. Finally I got up to leave and Crimson tried to give me some lousy deal. Said he’d pay me in a good favor if I helped with a job. I wouldn’t have minded it much if I didn’t sound like a joke. He has at least ten other people around there, not to mention his jacked up doorman who could go out and do the job himself. Said if I was the one who killed this guy he’d repay me in so many ways. None of it financially.”

“I guess you should give him a lesson in finances.”

“Crimson and the Director!” Freddy laughed. “I’m sorry you got mixed up with those two.”

“They don’t seem to take anything seriously. I don’t know what they do the whole day, seriously.”

“Don’t worry kid, we’ll find Caine soon enough. I’m working on something in case you need it.”

“What’s that?” Jack asked.

“A surprise. But it’ll be worth it. Don’t you worry,” Freddy said.

“Alright,” Jack replied, “but you promised. I’m helping you out for a reason.”

“I know, I know. You do a great job down there at the Jungle, I haven’t forgotten that.” Freddy said taking a swig of his whiskey. “And don’t you forget who I am.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

Gerome looked up and nervously asked, “So how do you think we’re going to find him, where is this guy anyways?”

“Don’t worry,” Jack said, like he was talking to a child. “Eat up and don’t worry yet.”

Bandera and I had enough, not really any data bedsides that the younger one was talking to Crimson and the Director, whoever they are. So we left and sat in the Eclipse until they came outside again.

It wasn’t until another hour later that they went home. We followed them to an apartment a few blocks away. I tried to use stealth while following but I had too many near accidents in the first two minutes that I just kept a bit higher altitude as they lead. They got to their apartment, had a smoke first, and went inside.

At last, I found where they live. But I need to know their room number. Then we’ll put some bugs inside and be able to listen to everything they find. I made a mental note to pick up some bugs for tomorrow.

Bandera and I stayed there, partially to revel in our success, and secondly see if we could find a clue to their room, seeing if the lights turned on or blinds were closed time coincidentally.

That didn’t happen, not according to what we managed to see, so we took off to get some sleep for tomorrow’s day of stalking.

I met with the Talpas the following morning, the chief Talpa had actually been waiting for me to wake up and was talking to John until I had walked out of my room. They had finished the arena and the lights we had ordered had arrived in boxes outside.

I bid them farewell, seeing them on their way when they left, accompanying them halfway under the city.

They led, following their tunnel they made getting here. I walked behind them encouraging friendly conversation as I occasionally crawled. It wasn’t until I had started to feel lightheaded that I had finally told them I had to get some air.

“Farewell, Huntress.”

“Farewell, Talpas.” I replied. It was getting pretty bad, my spine shivered and my eyes closed.

“I hope you win all your fights, battles and wars.” He said. “And victory to truth. Victory to the righteous. And victory to our land.”

“Xenobia.” I muttered, trying to pump up my adrenaline to run back up.

I had gotten back nearly crawling from exhaustion. The tunnels were already bad enough being so claustrophobic. It wasn’t until I had managed to get outside to the fresh air and sunlight that I started to feel better.

Just as I had caught my breath Clyde sent me a message to see him, now.

It took me a second to walk to the ship and jump inside.

In the screen there was a rendering of the city, a little blue dot to show my position and a faint red circle beneath the Xenobia tower. It was strange, but only because there was nothing else on the screens.

“What’s up?” I asked, opening the door to the cockpit.

“You’ve seen the screens?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“That’s where the Nightmare is.”

“What?! You need to explain.”

“I’ve been tracking you, that’s how I’ve found that he lives there.”

“I know that you always track me, but it doesn’t explain… I only got lightheaded being down in the tunnels for so long without any air.”

“Right. But the wavelengths that I picked up are the same as those when you’re around the suspects. Just this is stronger, tens times stronger.”

“Really?”

“11.68 times stronger to be roughly precise.”

“Okay. I guess that explains it. Are you saying that’s why I was so lightheaded?”

“Probably.”

“But then why wasn’t I affected and controlled like the suspects? I know he can talk to me, but he’s never been able to control me.”

“That’s between you and your Ancestors.”

That made me wonder.

“Don’t worry, I can make you something to block the waves. But you’ll have to go to the Temple to pick up some things.”

He gave me a short list via my goggles.

“I’m going back to the east side today. We have some bugs to place.”

“Fine, but don’t wait too long. I don’t want you stumbling into a situation without proper protection.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t stumble.”

I felt much better now that I knew the cause of my spell of being lightheaded. So I went back inside to pick up the bugs and anything else we might need, rounded up Bandera and headed off to the east side of Xenobia to catch up with Jack and Gerome.

Planting the bugs wasn’t too hard. First was finding their car, finding that the window was open a finger width and managing to place the bug on the inside roof making it look like a button holding the roof together.

Next was the trickier party of trying to get a bug inside their room. But I had devised a plan while having our luxurious time waiting and watching.

Heading back to the bar we found the older one walking down the street. I had Bandera go out and slide two bugs into his pocket. One bug would record audio and the other was a tracker. This killed two birds with one stone, helping us use our time listening in until we could find out where he lived. Hopefully he didn’t find them in his pockets until he got home.

You might ask why we didn’t just use the cameras like we did with the other suspects. Well, one reason was that I wanted to train Bandera, thinking that I can’t let her rely on Clyde for everything. Secondly we had the time, maybe not, but if they’re working to find Caine, we don’t want to dispatch them so fast. They do their work while we do ours.

The recordings we got weren’t that good, first of all it was so quiet we had to turn the volume up so high that the most we could hear was scratchy white noise. Then what we heard wasn’t that exciting. A lot more of chatting than plotting, then when they were plotting it was so vague and indecisive that we were utterly lost.

Next, during that same day Jack went to the Jungle and started harassing customers for money. The day ended abruptly as we heard the younger guy, who we found was named Gerome, come in and took Jack home.

This is when we looked at the tracker. We followed them on the map to their apartment and found their room, listening to Gerome’s complaints about Crimson and the Director the whole way. We made a note of where they stayed and left for the night.

We found, after a long day of doing mostly nothing, we both had a lot of energy left. So I took Bandera, grabbed the shipment of lights from outside and we started to string them up inside our new arena.

It didn’t look so big with all the lights. But we still had some energy left unspent that day.

“How about a quick spar?” I asked.

“Of course.” She said with a sly grin. She’s been through the training room now. I was eager to give it my all and see what she does. I have a worthy opponent now.

We stood our ground in the center, looking at each other with growing intensity, both of us curious of the outcome.

She lunged first, I jumped sideways and batted her head down, but she sprang back managing to swipe my arm.

The details were many, fast and a bit hazy in memory. Some of it was fun, other bits infuriating. We didn’t give up even if we were in a pretty good hold. Either of us could wriggle our way out of nearly anything.

In the end we weren’t close to exhaustion, more of a feeling that the fight had gone on too long, neither of us surrendering or landing a real knockout. There was even blood, but as she looked down to see her arm bleeding she just laughed a little and sprang forward for another attack.

Finally she had gotten me, holding me flat on the ground, my legs held apart, my arm pinned and she was biting my neck.

Here I was infuriated, I tried rolling, curling and doing anything to get out from under her, she was lighter than I was but had me good.

I finally yelled out for her to stop. She did, slowly. Carefully releasing her bite, keeping my arms pinned yet letting my legs free and rolling off to let me free for good.

She still held her ground, but I stood up in an unthreatening stance and said, “You won,” in a semi-sincere way.

She stood back and smiled.

We didn’t clock it, but I figured we could find the recording on the goggles, it’d be interesting to watch.

“I’ve been doing some research,” Bandera said. “On fighting. You know there’s quite a few secret fight clubs around the city. Even one has a line, ‘let out your ancestral instincts, fight like yourself.’ I though it was cool, I watched a match. The ‘good’ ones aren’t too bad, but still nothing compared to us.”

“Good, then you don’t need it. Stay out of the fight clubs, they’re dangerous.”

“How do you know,” she said. “I’m sure you haven’t seen one.”

“I haven’t, but it’s a risk and a waste of time. We both know you can fight. By the way. How are they so secret if you know about them?”

“Ask the internet.”

“I won’t. But I really don’t think it’s a good idea.”

She gave me a look that said she doesn’t care and that she’s old enough to make her own decisions. She made another face, meaning: not to mention that it won’t be a risk or a waste of time because she can fight and should brush up on her fighting, keeping good practice.

We left and went to bed.