by Krister Persson
>"You two all right," Martin asked.
>"I think so," Leo said, while Zenya just nodded. They disentangled >themselves and got to their feet, and only then did Zenya realize she was >still holding on to Leo's hand, though she didn't remember grabbing it in >the first place.
Martin looked at them and smiled to himself. It only took a small explosion,
for them to stop fighting.
"Looks like we're walking back to the hotel," he said. For a moment, he
contemplated the idea of
throwing a match at the car, to put it out of it's misery. He disposed of the
idea, when he realized how
many forms in quadruplicate they would have to fill out anyway. A fire would
only make matters even
worse.
"You two are not going to the hotel," Zenya said with a stern expression.
"You're going back to the
hospital, right now!"
Martin's eyes sparkled. "Aw, Mum, can't I stay out just a little while longer?"
Zenya and Leo looked
at each other, then at Martin, before all three started laughing hysterically.
This was exactly what they
needed to break the tension that had been growing for a while. They only
stopped laughing, when
Leo began moaning from the pain.
"I'd better call Jordan to see if they can pick us up," Leo said. "They should
be back from school by
now." Jordan must have had the phone ready, because he answered on the first
ring. Leo told him
what had happened and that they needed a ride back to the hospital. Jordan was
sort of mad they
had snuck out of the hospital, but at the same time, he realized they we're
both grown men with wills
of their own. Besides, Zenya could have found herself in real jeopardy, had she
gone to the Colquitt
house by herself.
Ten minutes later Jordan, Jim and Vanessa showed up in the other Suzuki. Martin
scratched his
neck. "How are we all gonna fit?" he asked retorically.
"I actually think there's a joke in there somewhere," Leo said with a grin."
How do you fit six FBI-
agents in a Suzuki Swift?"
"I have no idea, but I guess we'll have to try."
"Don't worry," Jordan said, "we're dropping Jim and Vanessa off at the hotel.
It's only a five minute
ride. I think we'll manage."
------------
Half an hour later, Martin and Leo were back at the hospital, getting their
asses chewed by the
attending. He was furious with them for sneaking out like that. "Do you have
any idea...blah, blah,
blah...insurance...blah, blah, blah." Martin felt like he was nine years old
again, getting caught for
stealing apples off Old Man Henderson's tree. When the attending was finished,
they went back to
their rooms.
Martin, who had picked up his laptop at the hotel, plugged it in and started
downloading his e-mail.
He saved the program attachment on a secure partition, he only used for
high-risk programs. There
it would be safe, until they could get a chance to analyze it. He also made a
search for Crucifix
Games on the Internet. Whoever was running the game had removed all references
to both the
company and RPG Universe from all major search engines. The few links he found
all ended in a
'404 - File not found".
As a last resort, Martin sent a mail to one of his Conspiracy mailing lists,
asking for information on
Crucifix Games and RPG Universe. Five minutes later, he got his first reply
from someone calling
himself The Dark One. He wrote:
"Crucifix Games is run by an organization called The Group. You have already
encountered one of
their operatives, a man called Docker. Check with Special Agent Calloway for
more info. PS. Docker
has a powerful enemy by the name of Paul Keller."
[Tag Sydnie]
Martin froze when he saw the name Docker. If he was involved, there was no
telling what would
happen next. Martin felt a sudden urge to call Emily, to see if she was OK.
Twenty minutes he felt a lot
calmer, knowing that she was safe and at a restaurant in Pullman, Oregon. He
wrote a quick 'Thank
you' note to The Dark One before switching off the computer. He wondered to
himself who The Dark
One was. It had to been someone with connections to the Bureau.