Tisane: The King Of Mutants And The God Of Monsters

CHAPTER 2 - The Package

"Where is the little girl?" Gabe asked glancing around.

"What little girl?" Abe replied casually, sifting through his tools.

Gabe had to stare at Abe, as if looking at an idiot.

Abe got the message and stared back at Gabe scratching his head "guess she ran away".

"Really?"

Then they both froze. "Shit!!"

Moving left and right, they both began a frantic search. "Damn! Can't believe we were so stupid!"

Gabe kicked a lamp stand in rage while coming out of the bathroom. In their line of work, one thing that was scary to them was making mistakes, which could result to an early grave or worse; behind bars. And now, they just made a huge mistake by forgetting about the little girl.

"You don't think she ran away right?" Abe asked.

"I hope not, for both our sakes!" Gabe gnashed his teeth. "We still haven't opened the safe yet, we need all the time we can get".

"Well it's not as if she can call the police or anything, I mean she's just a little kid".

"Oh really?" Gabe glared at Abe in disdain wondering if he had a brain at all. "Then what happens when someone notices a little girl wandering the streets and crying her eyes out. What do you think is gonna happen then huh?!"

"Uh.... "

"You know what? Get working on the safe while I keep a lookout".

"Oh.... okay got it".

Due to the information they got from a reliable source, the 'package' they were after was stored in a 'safe' that Bob recently installed to secure 'important stuff's as he rightly said.

Hacking a safe was easy, as far as Abe was concerned, it was no harder than picking the locks on a door or hot wiring a car.

~Clich~kpin~

Came the sound from the safe, 'a sound of success' as Abe would call it.

"You done?" Gabe couldn't help but ask.

"Yep, piece of cake" Abe replied with a smug smile as he opened the safe to reveal it's contents.

"OK, so what do we got?" Gabe left his look out position to move closer as Abe was sifting through the contents of the safe.

Searching through the safe, they came across various files, letters, postcards and some cash.....

"Well, it seems we just got paid before getting paid, catch my drift?" Abe said winking smilingly at Gabe.

Making sure not to encourage his ridiculous partner, Gabe rolled his eyes and pointed to the contents on the floor. "Is that everything?"

"Yeah I guess so"

"But what of the package?" Gabe had a look of disbelief.

"Isn't here I guess" Abe replied staring blankly at the empty safe.

"Isn't here?" anger welling up in Gabe's eyes. "I thought you said the package was in the safe!"

"I never said so, our source did!"

"Oh for Pete's sake!" Gabe was about to throw a tantrum.

"Hey calm down" Abe knows when Gabe gets like this, he becomes as scary as an erupting volcano.

"Don't tell me to calm down dammit!"

"Okay okay maybe we are looking in the wrong place, maybe it's somewhere in the house-----"

"Oh yeah?" Gabe retorted, still seething with anger "so should we then check the basement or the garage? Oh I know sweep through all the rooms in the house!"

"....." Abe decided to remain silent, for he was not looking forward to provoking Gabe's anger any further.

Gabe's thoughts were a mess and his body was a ball full of nerves. 'Dammit, how can we make so many mistakes in one day?!'

"Uh... Gabe"

'We don't know where the little girl is, we don't know where the package is and there is no time!'

"Gabe"

'Those guys who hired us ain't your average crime bosses, one wrong move and it will be our necks!'

"Gabe!" Abe had to raise his voice.

"Am standing right here dammit!!" Gabe was on the verge of losing his mind. Hearing no further reply from Abe he turned around to unleash his anger, only to see Abe tinkering with the empty safe.

"What the heck are you doing?" Gabe asked with a confused look.

"I think I found something" Abe replied, still busy tinkering with a serious look on his face.

"Found what?" Gabe moved closer.

"A hidden compartment in the safe" Abe replied with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"A hidden compart------" Gabe mumbled thoughtfully until his eyes grew wide 'could it be?'. Bending down to take a closer look, Gabe saw Abe removing a panel from the empty safe to reveal a hollow space which was neatly cut through the safe into the wall. His heart thumped loudly when Abe brought out a square shaped object wrapped in a small box.

They both stared at each other before Abe put the box down and proceeded to open it, revealing a metallic object which glowed with blue light. The most eye catching thing about this strange object was that it's blue glow was not stagnant but seem to be pulsating, giving the impression of a mechanical heartbeat.

Abe and Gabe were entranced by such an object.

"What do you think it is?" Abe asked still staring at the object.

"No idea" Gabe replied also staring.

"Do you think it's the package?" Abe still couldn't take his eyes away.

"Uh... lemme check" Gabe finally tore his eyes away with much effort in other to take out his phone and check his pictures. Scanning his photos, he then came across the photo their source gave them to confirm the package's identity. He almost couldn't believe his eyes and cried out "Yeah it is!"

"Really?!" Abe asked equally shocked.

"Yeah" Gabe affirmed moving his eyes from the photo to the object and back to the photo.

"Lemme see" Abe quickly collected the phone to make his own confirmation. "Gabe it really is the package!"

"Uh..... that's what I just said"

"What do you think they wanna do with it?"

"Don't know, don't care, all I know is that we gonna be paid be real good for this" Gabe's eyes seem to be glowing with excitement.

"Really?" Abe seemed to be catching on.

"Yeah, we're talking big bucks my man!" Gabe couldn't seem to constrain himself "Come on, let's wrap it up and go"

"Yeah okay"

Putting the object back into its box, they were ready to leave.

"Hold on" Abe said all of a sudden.

"What?" Gabe replied, turning back. "What is it?"

"Don't you think that we should clean up a little, you to know to cover up the fact that there was actually a break in?" Abe replied while returning the previous files, letters and postcards back into the safe and closing up the hollow compartment.

"Are you nuts?!" Gabe's eyes were twitching in anger while he just remembered that his partner could be quite an idiot. "Who cares about that? We got the package, now let's go!"

"You are not going anywhere" a strange but clear voice interjected.

---------------------------------

"Did you hear that?" Gabe asked glancing around, while Abe had a confused look on his face.

"Hear what?"

"You didn't hear it?" Gabe stared at Abe.

"Uh..... "

"Forget it, let's go" Gabe made a move towards the door, only to set his eyes on a little girl standing in the door way. "What the....?"

"Wait... isn't she the little girl we have been looking for?" Abe pointed at little Tina after setting his eyes on her.

'Were was she all this time' Gabe was a bit shocked.

"Hey little girl we have been looking all over for you. We are good friends of your dad" Abe pulled out a crumpled bar from his pocket and held it out towards Tina "You want some chocolate?"

"What are you doing?" Gabe stared at him.

"Uh... trying to be nice?"

Gabe rolled his eyes and slowly moved forward, 'Well, we got all we came for, all we need to do is secure her and be on our jolly good way'.

"Who sent you?" Little Tina questioned immediately with a serious look on her face.

Gabe froze on his tracks.

"Dude, did you hear that? She just spoke!" Abe exclaimed with wide eyes, pulling Gabe's arm.

"What is she, an ape? Of course she spoke!" Gabe retorted, freeing his arm from Abe's grip.

'But something is wrong with this picture' Gabe thought, 'Aren't little girls always scared cry babies' Gabe stared at little Tina and frowned deeply 'Her mother just collapsed before her eyes and two strangers just broke into her house, even I would have been quite shaken, but she looks so calm and...and, what is that look in her eyes....?'

"Hey Gabe quit dawdling, you gonna handle the kid or not?" Abe came forward impatiently.

"Uh....." For the first time in a long time, Gabe hesitated.

"Look, children are as easy as pie, no need to look so serious, watch me. Abe came and squatted in front of Tina, waving the chocolate bar.

Gabe kept staring at Tina's eyes. As a professional thug, he has seen and experienced various kind of people and he has also come to develop a 'sixth sense' to people's intentions just by watching their facial features and most importantly, 'their eyes' and staring into Tina's eyes, he couldn't help but shudder. "Abe wait..." was all he could say.

Abe turned to look at him with a smug smile "Told you, as easy as pie".

And then it happened.

~Duuu!~

All Gabe could see was Abe being thrown backwards and knocking the sofa over with a loud thud.

Time seemed to freeze.