*****
Jen hadn’t been back to Stag Corp since the battle with Titania, although she had stayed in contact with Doctor Jana Sarkis to help those affected by the corporation’s, and in particular Alvin Stag’s, irresponsible experiment in synthetic biology. He had used technology that could have been used to feed millions of people, or clear up waste and pollution made by human beings, and instead created what he considered to be humankind perfected, redesigning the species from scratch. But thanks to how she was treated, Titania grew bitter and broke free changing the lives of many others, such as Tenley.
But Stag Corp was in fact a subsidiary of a far larger organization – Meridiem - that Jen had so far been unable to penetrate far into. She could find no information of any of their activities in Antarctica or why they had sent her parents there, never to return. But now her mind swirled with the possibility that Sir Baker might have, by accident most likely, stumbled upon something that might finally lead to answers.
“I have travelled all over this world,” Lionel explained as the van juddered along the road, “seen many things. Things that cannot be explained by science.”
Up front, Kaya leant over and whispered in her friend’s ear, “yeah, Jen. Science doesn’t have answers to everything.”
The blonde sighed and groaned, sitting back as the van was driving itself. She held her tongue, hoping this man’s stories would actually lead to something interesting eventually.
“I came to this town, finding it to be a focal point for all manner of paranormal events and other activity,” Sir Baker carried on in the back, Sayuri listening very politely while Tenley crossed her arms and watched suspiciously from the opposite bench.
“Other activity?” The drummer asked.
“When I was a boy, growing up in a sleepy English village,” he said, eyes and finger drifting to the roof and the sky beyond, “I was taken... by them… I expect they’ve been drawn to this place for the same reasons I have.”
“Them?” Ten raised a brow as she asked. “You mean, you were kidnapped by pirate pigeons?”
Kaya remarked facetiously, “Bet they thought that was a coup.”
Then Sayuri grinned and suggested, “I suppose they made their demands in Pigeon-English.”
Jen rolled her eyes. She was beginning to suspect that behind his ramblings, Lionel didn’t know anything at all that would help her. Even his story about being driven off the road might have been woven by him to avoid admitting to simply falling asleep at the wheel. “This whole conversation is driving me coo-coo,” she muttered.
“I understand your skepticism, ladies,” Lionel said, shaking his jowls. “But I assure you, the paranormal is real. Once you have seen the things that I have seen, heard the testimony of thousands, there can be no more doubt.”
Jennifer however did have doubts, being that eyewitness testimony was the least reliable form of evidence. She believed that most people were truthful when they reported seeing things, although she might question their interpretation of what they saw. And human senses could be deceived in so many ways, so doubt was generally a very positive thing to have. And then there were people who preyed on those who lacked answers, encouraged them to devote themselves to just one belief and close their minds off to all other possibilities because it profited that individual to do so. What she wasn’t sure of yet was whether Lionel was a true believer or a predator. She supposed she didn’t care at this point - she just wanted to know if he actually had learned anything about Stag Corp, but was unsure how to bring up the subject. So she waited, hoping he would get around to it himself, while tapping the dashboard impatiently.
“You know what though,” Sayuri said, “I remember when I was little girl staying at a hotel that they said was haunted by the ghost of an old maid. Didn’t believe at first, but then, when we about to leave, my dad lost his keys. We searched all over the hotel room but they were nowhere to be seen. Well, we’d all given up and were heading out to the lobby to check the lost and found, when suddenly we heard a ping and turned and they had just been dropped on the side table.”
Kaya scrunched her face. “A ghost found your dad’s keys?”
“What else could it have been?”
“Truly,” Lionel nodded sagely, “there are more things in heaven and earth than can be dreamed.”
“Maybe,” Kay agreed, “can’t see anyone in Hollywood rushing to buy the rights to that particular tale though. Now, I remember, after my hamster died, all kinds of weird crap started happening. I would be woken up by scratching in middle of the night, my schoolbooks all started disappearing, and one night I was listening to music on our old cassette player and it started to play backwards. You remember, Jen?”
She did, and she sighed. “You had mice. The tape played backward because it got twisted in the machine, and your schoolbooks didn’t disappear – you left them out where you knew the bin men would take them.”
“It wasn’t twisted in the machine – my dad checked!” Kaya adamantly protested. “I told you Jen – science can’t explain everything.”
“If science could explain everything, there wouldn’t be any more science,” Jen reminded everyone. “But if there’s something we don’t know the answer to, it doesn’t mean that therefore the spirit of your dead hamster must be behind it.”
Kaya frowned, perhaps sensing the growing impatience in Jennifer’s voice. Sayuri meanwhile rolled her eyes and insisted, “well, my story might not have been exciting, but at least it was true.”
“Not all poltergeists are malign,” Sir Baker nodded again, “but, if thrills are what you seek, then I can relate to you the tale of an exorcism I once attended in South Africa…”
“Actually, you know what bud,” Kay interrupted, “as fun as this has been, you said something earlier about Stag Corp. I think we want to know about that.”
“Very well,” Lionel said with a deep sigh. He looked like the kind of person who should have held a pipe as he spoke, but the others wouldn’t have allowed that in the van. “As you may be aware, the premises were sealed off some time ago. The official explanation has been some gas or chemical leak… but I have reason to believe there was far more to it.”
The others were all well aware of that, but Kaya said anyway, “really?”
“I have it on good authority that twenty-five years ago, Alvin Stag acquired a piece of alien bio-technology. They have since been conducting all manner of unholy experiment, including the engineering of extra-terrestrial and human hybrids and it is that which caused all the ruckus they’ve been covering up.”
There was a moments silence as the women all exchanged nervous stares. Disregarding the aliens and the hybrids, it sounded close enough to what they already knew to be true. They needed more. “How do you know all that?” Kaya was the first to ask.
“I have a source. A former employee of the company. I was on my way to meet them, when… well, you know the rest. And then I met you lovely ladies.”
“Do I look like a lady to you?” Kaya asked, also growing impatient. “Like someone who’s never had to work for a living?”
Jen peered at her and started to say quietly, “You never have worked…” and then yelped as the punk’s fist hit her arm.
The stargazer smirked, then yelped again as suddenly the van shuddered and lurched. There was a sickly screeching and squealing as the seats and everything else inside rattled. The confusion stopped just as suddenly as it had begun, the van having veered a little and stopped at the side of the road, the computer shutting down the engine.
Kaya pulled herself straight, pinching the bridge of her nose. “What happened?”
The blonde stirred next to her, shaking her face and looking across the dashboard. “Tires are all gone. Like we ran over some spikes…”
“It’s a trap!” Lionel roared.
Through the glass they saw beams of torchlight bouncing under the trees outside, getting closer. Jen squinted, and for
an instant caught a silhouette of a man raising a stick toward them. “Shhh…” Jen began urgently pressing buttons which caused shutters to close over all the windows just before a heavy, leaden, rain began to fall on the van.
“Shit,” Kaya finished, unbuckling and clambering into the back along with Jen to join the others. “Guess the old windbag’s not just full of hot air after all. What do we do now?”
The blonde was on her pad, scrolling and bringing up camera views of outside. About half a dozen men and women clad all in black were closing in a semi-circle around the van. Probably there were more hanging back under cover of the trees, as from that direction a tall man marched forward.
“Hold your fire, you berks!” He barked. “I want that fat lazy pug alive.”
Alive? Jen thought, if these people were working for Stag Corp to prevent information leaking out, why would they want Lionel alive? Perhaps they wanted to know who he’d been in contact with… but something didn’t feel right. They were organized, but they didn’t look like typical corporate mercenaries. There was a woman among them with spiky blue hair and silver eye shadow, and a man whose face was covered in tattoos. They looked like a well-armed gang.
“You in there,” the gang leader called, “I know you might be thinking about calling the cops. They won’t get out here in time. I’m giving you thirty seconds to open the doors, and if you don’t, we blast.”
“Ladies,” Lionel lips juddered as he wiped sweat from his brow, “I strongly urge not to acquiesce to this man’s demands. The moment we step outside we will all be gunned down.”
Jen peered across, asking, “Why does he want you?”
“I believe I already explained.”
Kaya shook her head. “The guy out there is no shady corporate agent. He wants you… sounded kind of personal.”
“He’s a liar!” Tenley glared at Sir Baker indignantly. “A bald-faced chubby liar.”
Lionel meekly held up his hands, “steady on, dear…”
“I say we gut him and throw him out there.”
"Um, guys?” Sayuri urgently drew everyone’s attention back to the screen. “They’re very close now…”
Sure enough, they were already at the door, getting ready to place charges. Jen considered gassing them, or launching the smoke grenades while they all escaped through the other door. But she suspected there were others hidden out there, and they might not all be able to outrun them. Plus they were likely to hurt themselves running blindly through the forest at night. The best option seemed to be to go along, for now, and hope for a better opportunity to present itself.
Kaya evidently reached the same conclusion, saying, “I don’t think we’ve got a choice.” Jennifer grimly nodded, opening the doors. As the others filed out, hands over their heads, she turned to the more reluctant and very grumpy Tenley.
“I think its best you play along as well,” Jen said, “j-just for now…”
“Fine,” the girl huffed, “but if they do anything weird, I’m killing all of them,” she warned before jumping through the doors and obediently stepping to one side. Jen didn’t see any problem with that, under the circumstances, and followed.
Outside the women and girl were shepherded together away from Lionel, the muscular leader coolly inspecting each of them. "Here now, what's this? You girl’s his groupies or something? And one’s a kid too. I’m shocked, Lionel, shocked,” he turned about, thrusting his scarred and taut face into the quivering jelly of the radio personality. “Well, not that shocked to be honest.”
Tenley sidled up to Jennifer, glaring up as she hissed, “He’s being weird…” but Jen shook her head.
The leader didn’t hear, or didn’t want to, as he just carried on, “did he tell you all some crap about the government chasing after him, or the evil corporations?”
Lionel composed and drew himself up to his full height, closing and turning his sweat trenched eyes away from the man’s neck. “Whoever you work for, sir,” he said, “you will get nothing from me.”
The thug leader expired the word, “really?” Then, standing back, said, “Well, that’s a pity. Guess I’ve no use for you if that’s the case. So, shall I start by blowing the kid’s brains out? Maybe while you watch with a big smile on your face, eh?” He suddenly unsheathed a knife, pressing the tip on Lionel’s cheek to draw a tiny trickle of blood before he swiped it just above the frightened man’s skin. “Ear, to ear?”
As Jen instinctively put her arm over Tenley, the other’s all turned their eyes to Lionel as his body quaked. Then their eyes were drawn to his feet, and in particular the puddle forming around them as everyone’s nose wrinkled. Tenley smirked, thinking it at least slightly funny, although no one else did.
“It’s… n-not here,” the gentleman adventurer murmured.
Kaya coughed, and still with her hands raised asked, “Er, can anyone explain what this is all actually about?”
“Suppose I can,” the leader snorted. “See, Lionel here has been telling tales so long I doubt he even remembers which bits are true and which are bullshit. He’s too gutless to be a real hero, so he makes up all these fantasies about ghosts and aliens and conspiracies so in his mind he can be. But all he really is, is a thief and conman.”
“Yeah, I get you don’t like him. But what is it you want him for?”
The leader turned to face her, the punk lowering her hands to her hips. “You’re a cocky bint ain’t ya?” He astutely observed. “All right. Alvin Stag, ex-CEO of Stag Corp, was a filthy rich paranoid bastard. Before his untimely demise, he had a vault built in secret to house his… I don’t know. Gold, inventions, money, blueprints. I mean, whatever it is, it’s gotta be valuable, right?”
“If it was a secret then how do you know about it?”
“Well, that’s where Lionel comes in. Usually he’s full of piss, but on this occasion his prying actually managed to turn up something good. Got the plans, location, codes, even photos of the thing being built. Photos I’ve seen, but I’m still waiting on the rest. Guess he figured he could just take our hard earned cash and do a runner.”
“As I a-alluded to,” Lionel uttered furtively, “I do not have it here. But I’ve hidden it close by. I can lead you there… naturally easier if all my organs are still intact.”
“Don’t worry, Li – we’ll be keeping a very close eye on you,” although the thug leader then turned away to address his followers. “Kill the girls,” he snorted.
Barrels all turned on the group, Sayuri standing in stunned silence as Jen put herself between the guns and Ten. The girl didn’t appreciate that one bit, her body tensing as she readied herself to pounce, but she couldn’t possibly stop all those bullets. It was left to Kaya to think quickly, suddenly yelling, “Wait! You don’t want to kill us. We can help you!”
“Yeah? How?”
“My friend here,” she said, nodding to Jennifer, “her dad once worked for Alvin Stag. She’s a hacker and she knows how to get past all their security systems.”
“That,” Jen swallowed and quietly confirmed, “that is true.”
“Lionel bumping into us is kind of lucky for you, really.”
“Really?” The leader wore a lopsided, crooked grin as he spun at the punk, head bent forward as he stepped into her. “Suppose she might be useful. But then, why do I need you?”
Kaya stood her ground, arms folding over her chest as she answered. “Well, she’s not gonna help if you kill us now, is she?”
“That is also true,” Jen nodded affirmatively.
The leader continued to leer over Kaya, who continued to hold her ground, meeting his gaze until he finally broke, snorting, “Heh. I like her. All right, bring them along and let’s see how useful. If not, we can always kill them later.”