It really was Mal, in the flesh. He stares at me as if I’m a ghost, and I stare at him probably in the same manner. This is the last place I expected to see Mal of all people because I had been under the impression that he lived in Empire City. And he was a business major. I had no idea that the man was talented in the ICT field, because he never gave the impression, much less said it out loud.And him having connections with Rick Erikkson of all people? What kind of a twilight zone had my life fallen into lately?!Erikkson was the one who breaks the silence at last.“I’m sorry, do you know each other?” Erikkson asks us, his own expression sporting surprise.“Um yeah,” Mal replies, actually blushing under the scrutiny, “we go to the same school.”“Oh!” Lemon cries out, “You’re the Mal that called Jace to ask him if he’s alive just two days ago, aren’t you?”Mal’s attention focuses on Lemon, at who he raises a brow, “um yes, that’s me,” he looks at all of us, flitting from face to face
Mal said that he could tweak the voice modulation in the recording we had in order to make it more natural, so we could see if the voice belonged to someone I knew in real life.And so, he uploaded the video into a program and waited for it to increase the pitch to something natural. In the meantime, he asks us, “So, would you guys like some tea or anything while you wait? I’d offer you coffee, but you agitated enough already that I’m afraid you might start bouncing off the walls even without it.”“No thanks, I don’t think I can stomach anything at the moment,” I inform him, staring at the sound modulation program as it slowly loads. “How long will this take?”“A several minutes.” Mal says before turning to Lemon, “What do you say, citrus? Would you like some beverage?”“Okay, Citrus sounds way looker than Lemon does,” Lemon muses, “maybe I’ll start using that instead.”“That would be a good choice. Where I come from, I’m considered somewhat of an expert in nicknaming people,” Mal bra
“Okay, okay, everyone stay calm,” Mal orders as the phone starts to shiver in my hand. I clutch at it tightly staring at the new email on the dashboard. I know what it must contain. It has to be another video of my lower being tortured because the sadistic fuck who kidnapped her wanted to hurt us both in the worse way possible for some diabolical reason. It had to be something that would rattle me as well as anyone looking to the core. “Jace, buddy, what are we going to do about this?”“I…I should click on this,” I tell them, although my hand does not move to accomplish that action. My rational thinking, which seemed to have escaped me as soon as the email came, seems to return to me because I add in a steadier voice, “But what would the police say?”“You said that the email was rigged to self-delete after the very first click, right?” Mal asks, and I nod.“Yeah, that’s what happened to the last one, I think this one is the same as well.”“It would be stupid to let it slip,” Erikkson
“Yep, it’s a link,” Mal confirms what we’re all seeing, huddled around his computer with bated breath, clicking away on his keyboard. His screen was divided into two parts, and one had a complex program that I guessed was opened for the purpose of tracing the video. I knew basically nothing about coding despite taking one computer science class in my first year, so I couldn't say what exactly he was doing. Also, I am more interested in the video.As before, it takes about two redirects before fully loading, and as before the black-clad figure in a mask sits in front of the camera. And just like before, seeing that makes a chill run down my spine.“Well, hello,” the modulated voice says, sounding oddly polite, “We meet again.”“Crap, this is so creepy,” Mal mutters, fingers flying over his keyboard.“I hope you enjoyed my last performance. Coraline was not, of course, thrilled with the way things continued, but you and I both know that she’s so hard to manage at times, don’t you Jace?”
I see red. The only thoughts running through my mind are ‘get out, get out, get out, and go find her!” and that’s all I want to do. But there are two people holding on to me, two men keeping me away from helping my lover who is being tortured in the cruelest ways! He’s breaking her goddamned fingers for fuck’s sake and God knew what he’s done to her when he was not recording, and the contents of the video had been done already, the harm had been done, we were too late already!“Let go of me!” I roar at Erikkson and Lemon, pulling on my own arms to dislodge them as Coraline screams on screen, her voice warbled as if she’d been drugged like she is in so much pain, but her own body is betraying her in trying to get the noise out. And the sadistic bastard doing this to her does not stop there, instead, he takes the hammer and brings it down on the middle of her hand again, right on the phalanges and my lover cries out, and I roared from the bottom of my throat. It’s an animalistic sound t
“Where the hell were you?” I demand the detective, with the words of the kidnapper ringing in my mind. Could it be true? Were all the officers of the law in Clandestine City bribed and taken care of to the point that none of them would do their jobs in the way they should? “I tried to call you multiple times, trying to get to you to ask what I should do with the email, and you didn’t take a phone call!”“I left the phone at my desk, that’s my mistake, but that doesn’t give you the right to intervene with an ongoing investigation!” The detective says.“Ongoing investigation my ass!” I burst out, feeling anger completely overtaking me again. The words from the earlier ring in my head, “You never told me to not click on an email in the first place. You instead told me to contact you as soon as I got anything, and that’s what I did! All I wanted was to notify you of the email, but you weren't there to take it. And then I called the front desk so I could pass you the message, but do you kn
I don't know how exactly he does it, but Gerald appears right in front of Mal's apartment as soon as I give him a call. When I called him and verbalized my request, he was understandably distraught. But something in my voice must've convinced him that I was not fucking around or trying to play a prank on someone God forbid, he tentatively agreed to meet the request. That was about half an hour ago.It's dark in the night now and when I find him, he's shooting glances at the dubious characters who seem to be sizing him up. And Gerald has had the sense to not use a flashy vehicle to come, instead, there is a very beat-up Honda right behind him. The kind of Honda that looks like it's two steps from breaking down. "Where the heck did you find this thing?" I question him, boggling at a car, and Gerald shrugs. He's even dressed in a way that's in total opposition to what he usually wears. I could count the times Gerald dressed in casual clothes with the fingers in my hand, and it has alwa
The thing about internet cafes is a lot of people who want to be either edgy or unrecognizable visit them for various reasons. I had been under the impression that the business itself was on a decline because almost everyone had some sort of computing device with them, so why waste money and time getting to an internet café if you could do it right at their homes? Back when I was young, there were many of them around, but now I don’t think there were even five cafes littered around the city. After all, aesthetically built coffee shops were proving to be a good replacement for them, because as I mentioned before, people had their own devices and liked to work with them.So, what brought many customers to internet cafes now? Aside from, of course, those who could not afford to have a PC device.Clandestine City had another facet in internet cafes, and that was gaming. In the particular café we were spying on, there was a separate aisle for gaming purposes and that was where a lot of peo